In 1711 the great English essayist Joseph Addison wrote:
“There cannot a greater judgment befall a country than such a dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct people, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to one another, than if they were actually two different nations. The effects of such a division are pernicious to the last degree …, fatal both to men’s morals and their understandings; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but destroys even common sense.
A furious party-spirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts itself in civil war and bloodshed; and when it is under its greatest restraints, naturally breaks out in falsehood, detraction, calumny, and a partial administration of justice. In a word, it fills a nation with spleen and rancour, and extinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion and humanity.”
Observing the GOP’s conduct on Capitol Hill one fair imagines old Addison walking the halls, his facial veins blue in the manner of the dead who are forced to see history morph from tragedy to farce to tragedy again. We are now two different nations and the division is pernicious to the last degree…fatal to both morals and understandings; our virtue sinking; common sense all but embalmed.
Addison wrote: “A man should not allow himself to hate even his enemies.” There’s an allowance industry at play—calumny and acrimonious party spirit depend now on nearly universal detestation.
Is it reassuring to know it was always “thus”? Yes. I say yes. Democracy has thankfully always represented the ugliest form of government. It eagerly supports invective and blame. George Washington would easily recognize our current hideous politics.
Addison’s ghost would see other things though. He wrote: “A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.”
It’s difficult not to hate Lindsey Graham. Tonight I’m breaking out my Ouija board to see what Addison would say about the Senator from South Carolina. Here is what I think he might say:
“Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.”
Or, perhaps more to the point: “select your crew wisely.”
Planet of the Blind 
And so the last paragraph you meant to everybody but I need to watch our temperment.. Because you just called Sen Graham a fool… Nice
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