“Friends and Fellow Citizens:” began President George Washington in his Farewell Address to the American people, continuing in regards to political party:

“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful tyranny. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent tyranny. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

Michele Bachmann, “queen of the Tea Party,” — the Tea Party being the spearhead of the House Republican’s government shutdown — said: “I don’t get upset about brinksmanship, that’s what negotiation is … And in negotiation, you usually don’t get anywhere until the final five minutes, and then everybody realizes OK, we’re going to have to break and actually make this thing happen. That’s how negotiation works.”

Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren recently was quoted as having said, “Hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t otherwise win their fights.”

That’s the spirit.

As Warren puts it, the “[Affordable Care Act] is the law of the land.” The bill was passed by Congress and signed by the president four years ago and was a major tenet to Obama’s reelection. Over a year ago, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality with the exception that states cannot be forced to take part in the expansion of Obamacare — and this is coming from what most consider to be a right-leaning court.

Or for you Jon Stewart fans: “This bill is now a law vetted by the very system all these Republicans profess to love but to hear the Republicans tell it, the whole thing could be avoided if President Obama would just meet them halfway.”

The Republican Party is demanding compromise, negotiate, compromise — for something that has already been approved due process!

Twenty-six Republican-dominated states are not participating in the Obamacare expansion the Supreme Court exempted — most of which are home to a non-marginally large portion of the nation’s most poor and uninsured citizens.

Harvard researchers have shown that 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies filed in 2007 were due to medical problems. At least 78 percent of those who filed had health insurance at the start of their treatment and 60.3 percent were privately covered. Medical-related bankruptcies have been inclining for decades. Most of these people were college graduates and owned their own homes.

From all these facts combined, that’s a majority of America in need of better health coverage.

In the mean time, nearly three million government employees, including military servicemen, will still receive pay, though it might be delayed. And 800,000 other government employees have yet to know if they will be reimbursed due to the government shutdown. Not to mention the fact that hundreds of cancer patients are being turned away from the National Institute of Health, most of whom are undergoing experimental treatment because no other treatment was effective.

The Republican shutdown is on the verge of tanking our economy and ruining lives all because Republicans are afraid the Affordable Care Act will cause abortions and lead to Socialism — though some believe we already are Socialist. Contrary to popular belief, we’re one of the most right wing countries in the world, even under Democrat control.

Nearly all first world nations have long since implemented a successful universal health care system, Canada being a fine example — all of you “I’m moving to Canada” people after Obama was elected. As Michele Bachmann puts it, how will the Affordable Care Act “literally kill Americans”?

Washington must be rolling in his grave right now at the state of our government partisanship.

While both parties are to blame for partisanship, it can be safely stated from Republicans and Democrats alike that the Republican Party has really hit the bottom of their oil barrel and is solely responsible for a meaningless government shutdown that is quickly nosediving any level of respect our country had.

The people, and thus the government, have spoken: The writing of American law has taken place, and the country has again moved toward the happiness and liberty it always seeks.

Congress is playing monkey-in-the-middle with its citizens, and as President Washington put it, “the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.”