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“It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.”

- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Number 1

I saw something that really bothered, and actually frightened me this morning. I saw the infamous machine politician Astra Kat, running as a blocker in the Presidential election.

A Blocker. For Woxan. In the meantime, the anticipated Federalist candidate, Kyle321n, is not on the ballot, but an obscure Federalist, Trick246, is listed with no goals and no campaign advertisement. Another blocker ?? I have not a clue what is going on.

Well, actually, I do, but given that I came out for CivilAnarchy two days ago, and so at least in that sense, I am committed to a presidential candidate who is not likely to get my party’s nomination, it behooves me to give other Federalists the opportunity to stake out their ground, without undue pressure on my part. But there are some disturbing trends in play, and that is what this article is all about.

I joined the Federalist Party very early in my life as a citizen in the New World. They didn’t recruit me – the AAP was the only party to bother sending me a message to try and solicit my membership. I joined the Federalist because I have always been a Federalist, and I might even so say to my former protagonist Alexander Hamilton that, ironically, I was a Federalist even when I was a Tory. So on the basis of sentiment as well as the notion of reason that stood so high in Alex’s world view, it gives me no pleasure to criticize the current state of the Federalist Party in eRepublik. And yet, this is what I must do.

Let me begin by saying that I have always been impressed by the party’s organization and the energy of its leadership. If sheer youthful activism were the mark of a political party’s success, the Federalists would be hard to beat. Now, one does understand that there are generational tendencies at work here – if one believes what Strauss and Howe have written over the past two decades:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss_and_Howe

the rising generation of youths in their early twenties and late teens are primed to be the next “Great Generation”. If this is so, then these youngsters have, like the generation that came of age during the American Revolution, are destined to march and fight and not to question why.

I will leave to the reader to guess to which generation Samuel Seabury belongs in real life, but in history, I was born in 1729, which would make me a “Nomad”. You can read about the whole thing in Strauss and Howe’s first book:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_(book)

Now, I suppose it would be ungracious for me to decline the tacit compliment embodied in a tribute to myself as one of these “cunning, hard-to-fool realists, taciturn warriors” – and I cannot help but note that Alex was one of these “Republican generation” lemmings even as Benjamin Franklin (foreshadowing Barack Obama, one gathers) was their “prophet”. But the issues we are concerned with, what concerns the real world United States AFTER the revolution, and what concerns the eUSA, AFTER the great conflict from which it emerged last year is;

“How, then, shall we live ?”

Now, I realize what a daunting task this is, for these action heroes as we now have running the Federalist Party to address – trust me, it was hard for Alex, too. He had to reach deep to write the magnificent words I quoted above, words that transcend the history in which we lived. And it is those words which lead me to ask;

What does the Federalist Party stand for ?

The answer cannot be that the Federalist Party only stands for itself, that it is nothing more than a source of community for its members. Of right, a political party is more than just a club. So as long as Samuel Seabury remains a Federalist, I will oppose any and all attempts to reduce it to just a club, a place with no higher purpose than to make friends and to be a friend. And this is no less true when Federalists abandon their loyalty to each other, on behalf of their friends in other parties.
I have seen Federalists marshal mobile voters to defeat Federalist candidates. Why ? Well, their friends in other parties came first. I have even seen Federalists bow out of running for office. Why ? Oh – their friends were running and they couldn’t run against a friend. And yet, it always seems to be the Federalist candidate who gets blocked out, sniped out, mobile voted out, who backs out. Compare this to Alexander Hamilton, whose sense of honor was so well-developed, that he could never, ever back out – even to back out of the duel that killed him…and so died his son as well.

Of right, the Federalist Party should stand for the nation’s interests. So do I. The Federalist Party should stand for sound money. So do I. The Federalist Party should advance the cause of eAmerican business. I heartily agree. And yet, we never hear our candidates use these terms in their campaign advertisements. Indeed, business and finance appear to have no role at all in the party’s platform. Oh, the tendency to centralize the powers of government, that you do have. But in some sense, Federalists need Antifederalists as a political foil, and such does not exist, except for the very fringes of eAmerican society. If the Federalists are not entirely true to themselves, the Democratic-Republicans are a joke. Who among them stands so strong for the cause of liberty, democracy and the interests of the common man that they are deserving of these among Hamilton’s barbs in the Federalist Number 1:

“An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust.”

Sadly, it has fallen also – to Federalists not within the mainstream of this “Center-Right Authoritarian” party to also stand up for the rights of the people as well as the common weal. It is therefore with great anger and sadness that I note the fate of Desertfalcon in the last election. Here is a man who embodies Federalism in its best sense – devotion to nation, loyal service to the military, common sense and scrupulous honesty in money matters. To see him set aside by and for his inferiors is, well, quite galling.

And so the question remains.

What does the Federalist Party stand for ?