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"...and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other."As long as Palestinians and Iraqi's are living under US sponsored terror occupation our union is a false one based on false statements, deceitful military occupations and questionable alliances. Everything else falls under this lie because a lie cannot support its foundation for long. The double-standards our government has applied to the citizens of countries we are occupying is the heart of the fall of our union. George Washington's says in the linked speech, "...It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another." Our government appeases the Zionist mandate on all fronts, both domestically and in our international relations.Our unquestionable alliances with Israel has faciliated the fabrication of an ideology of "pre-emption", as initiated by Isreal's military on Palestinian refugee camps prior to 9/11 and taught to our military lobbyists verbatim. While the current civilian death toll in iraq exceeds 80,000 our media only reports on the 3,000 military deaths of our own troops. While the palestinian death toll far exceeds that of any Israeli numbers, our focus remains on the constantly repeated mantra that we are at war with a religious ideology. This focus, or rather lack of focus, is a by product of Zionist sponsored influence of the United States. George Washington would be rolling in his grave if he saw how much of our own security, especially satellite and telephone communications is owned and operated on Israeli soil.

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To answer the question about whether we are getting dumber in regards to how well letters and speeches were written back then we have to first understand a few things:1. Most leaders were still wealthy, influencial, and well Educated. That said, English as a language was much more advanced grade wise than it is right now for those fortunate to afford schooling back then. Money (affordability) is part of the reason public school system was implemented. Another part was that homeschooling generally educated their children only to the limits of their own education. In other words, if the parents were dumb so was the child. I will man enough to admit that I lack education in certain areas. Science would be my number one worst subject. My best would be Mathematics and English is somewhere in-between the two. If my kids learned science from me, they would be in a world of hurt when it comes to trying to get a job in that field or handle college level sciences (heck, even high school) . Since I can not afford a decent private school that is better than public school (contrary to belief not all private schools are better than public schools and in some cases worse off than public), I'm glad my kids had the opportunity to learn from other teachers more knowledgeable and more interested in subject related sciences than myself. Turns out, one of my children has an aptitude for biology (I shudder at the very thought of biology)2. Mathematically, we are way beyond what was though possible back in those days and even if you don't like math or have trouble with it you probably could still hang with the best of the educated way back when.3. Critical Thinking, This one is tougher to track because it is affected more at a local level than a State or Federal level. You could be in a school district that doesn't put a lot of emphasis on critical thinking but the next school district down or maybe the next county down the schools will do an excellent job at this. Still we could do better. Critical Thinking is often integrated within certain subject. For instance, math or reading but not science or English (speech and writing), however this has it drawbacks as well. I'm not here to get into the details just brief observations and subjects at school that I have to study (yes I'm in college). I often place Reading in this category rather than give Reading its own category as this is where it is mostly taught. As I said before this has it drawbacks if the school does not equally treat other categories that quite different. Math for instance integrates Critical thinking quite nicely in the form of word problems and formulas, however, the type of critical thinking taught is very specific to mathematics and not always compatible with the needs of other subjects like Reading or English.4. I already mention sciences, but I wanted to place it in a category all its own. We are doing quite well when compared to the late 1700s/ early 1800s in education. Yes, we are told that we are lacking in these fields but that is coming from the now and future wants and desires of the Technical Community. Actually, in the areas of Science and Math, we are leaps and bounds better at providing education in these areas than what people had access to overall during the era of our forefathers.So if we were create a score card. one point for each topic, I would give points for English and Critical Thinking to the Forefathers = 2 points and to us currently I would give points for Mathematics, Critical Thinking, and Sciences = 3 points.So to answer your question are we becoming dumber? Well that depends on what emphasis you place on education. If your Emphasis is Technical then we are much smarter, but if your emphasis is more toward social education such as communication which relies heavily on good Reading and Writing skills then yes you could say we are "dumber" for lack of a better word but overall I think we are doing fine. Yes, we need improvements, and yes public schools should still exist and they need more funds to educational curriculum and more qualified teachers. What is sad is how easy it is to pass billions of dollars toward War in this country today but how much of a hassle it is just to pass a few million dollars for real change in our education. We spend less on education than a lot of other countries some of these countries don't have no where near the spending power we have yet they find it important to invest in their people and you know what? Its paying off. If you read the letter, you come to realize that George Washington pretty much reminding us to make sure our government keeps its nose out of other countries affairs unless of course of extraordinary circumstances (balance of power change World War I and II or something involving many countries that could have significant impact on the world such as economic, climate/ecological, whatever). Keep neutral but firm and strong enough to keep free trade alive (strong has more to do economically and not militarily). We really shouldn't be all around the world and we are not the worlds police force. During the World War other countries were begging for us to help them out. Now we just push our way through regardless of what other countries say and we do what we want but that isn't very friendly and affects us in other areas as well (like trade). Why would countries want to trade with a country that forces its ideals on someone regardless of what they say? What should have happen in Iraq is we should have continued with sanctions an continued to voice our concerns over the actions of Saddam. If and when Saddam made his next dumb military move and Nato or U.N. did little to stop it we could have said told you so or at least wash our hands of the incident since we have been voicing our concerns from the beginning. Meantime we could have used that near $500,000,000,000 to built up our defenses here at home and fight with non-lethal tactics. For instance: Take that money and invest it back into America by changing our dependence on oil to something that is plentiful to us but not reliant on other countries that make money off oil (like most Middle Eastern Countries). Even before that our Government could have invested in places closer to home like Canada and Venezuela oil sand deposits and finding new, easier, faster methods to retrieving all that oil in those sand areas and perhaps getting other countries to tag along with investments as well. Sure would make the Canadians happy (and wealthy) combined with sanctions against buying oil products from that region until we see better cooperation and stability in the region we still accomplish our goals without ever stepping a foot in their country - but that was in the pass. We now know that alternative energy is possible and can be done now if it wasn't for that profitability hump. Government decided it was easier to spend money on War than to invest in companies here at home and companies here at home didn't think they could compete with oil at first. Now that war has raised the cost of oil to the point that companies finally started to squeak ... I mean speak out about how feasible it was to switch to alternative energy sources if the country can commit to it rapidly. People got excited and Government finally showed a hint of interest and BOOM! now we got everybody under the sun trying to get their stake at the Alternative Energy Rush (sort of like the Gold Rush). In the last few years we have found that not only is Alternative Energy Possible but with enough invest (like from our own Countries Resources had we used just a portion of the money spent on war what ever alternative energy source we go with (or hybrid with) it would be competitive with todays prices and we become more interdependent rather than a dependent nation. We can still do it. We still have the power for change and all is not lost. But choose wisely and don't be fooled by the political bull crap. Vote for those that tell it like it is and don't side steps the issues and above all pull out end the war..... War doesn't do anybody any good except those in the business of making money off of War.

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Digg needs a corruption of our founders' ideas section.

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polarization is unavoidable. if you have five parties that want five different decisions on an issue, obviously they're going to be sequestered. however, if two of those five parties decide to band together, guess what you've got- a compromise between them + they both win on the decision. it's natural.

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Range voting where each voter rates all of the candidates, the candidate with the highest average acceptability wins. No fear of splitting the vote and having the least liked candidate elected. (Instant Run-off still has this problem, see australia).

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Right on the money, the age of mass democracy had yet to come to be. President Andrew Jackson was the first to speak directly to the masses.

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Replace Zionist + Israeli with what you really mean "Juden" and you made Hitler extremely proud!

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