Politics and George Washington

I’ve made it a resolution of my life as an American to read up on our past Presidents and what America was to be. My first selection was a book written by Joseph J. Ellis titled His Excellency George Washington.

This book tries to get you into the head of who George Washington was but it doesn’t get you all the way there. The one thing I get from the book is that Washington never wanted the role he was chosen for but knew that there was no other person able to fill the role. He was much like many of us that just wanted to live his life but could afford to have principals for the greater good.

George Washington was a man of a very much complex mentality for his time. He was never a self proclaimed military guru but he knew what men and heart that he needed to win the battles he was to fight. He knew that he could not match on the open battlefield the British Regulars. He chose the military mentality of attrition against a greater foe. Fight with a vengeance and retreat with hope that you inflicted the most damage you could to fight yet another day.

The war for this great nations independence against the crown of England took its own toll on America because half of the population was for it and the other half against it. That is so true to this day. America hates a one party system but will fight against change because it may be different. Then again it is still America when the lights are shut off to go to bed.

Reality is that you have the rights and voice you do as an individual to vote for your government because one farmer from Virginia that became our first President thought that you should have that right. Government by the people of the people.

If General Washington of the Continental Army wanted to, he would have been the first American King. He didn’t and he couldn’t do it. America and what she had to offer was greater than he. Even King George III of England thought him to be a far greater man than any other before him. George Washington was the glue that kept the young American experiment of government alive because he was just a man with a purpose and that purpose was the birth of our great nation. Without him, it would have failed with disastrous result.

So now you have to ask yourself this. Where are the leaders of the United States like Washington?

I don’t honestly know that answer myself. We can only hope that they are on the horizon and asking us the same question.

Papamoka