"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

- GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796

Our democracy has evolved into what Washington had prophesied in his farewell address ... a system where diversity of thought and political compromise are rejected in favor of the strength of a unified political party and the power that brings with it.

When political positions consolidate into just two choices, so do the proposed solutions to the world's problems. These solutions are artificially constrained for the sake of political loyalty. Ultimately, party loyalty requires individual politicians to sacrifice their personal beliefs on individual issues ... and once those values have been compromised, the only thing worth clinging to is control.