Our 250th anniversary serves as a reminder to revisit the ideals and warnings of our Founders in order to step forward into a brighter future.
Two and a half centuries ago, a venturous idea struck a group of patriots in the summer heat. An idea that the common people could govern themselves, and all men could be free and equal. As we gather to meet our 250th year as a nation, it’s time to celebrate the enduring miracle of the American experiment. We have triumphed through civil wars, pandemics, economic turmoil, and global change, all to materialize the vision of liberty our nation was founded upon. Our people have transformed the upheaval around us into an opportunity to form a more perfect union. Through the trials of every age, we have sustained a nation that is united and free.
But true celebration requires honest reflection. Though we can look at this nation we’ve made through rose-tinted glasses, we must admit that the torch of liberty lit in 1776 risks being reduced to a smolder by a new threat to liberty, one much more dangerous to the American experiment.
250 years later, it is time to once again declare our independence from an oligarchy that neither represents nor serves the American people.
The King of Politics
We originally revolted against the British for their unresponsive rule that failed to serve our interests, and part of their failure stems from the distance in which the colonies were governed. This time around, instead of governing across an ocean, they rule from our very own Washington D.C.. In our reclamation of independence today, there is no specter of British rule menacing us from beyond the horizon. Instead, we have only our own reflections staring back at us from the water. Deprived of their ability to crown themselves by divine right, our politicians instead abuse our democratic system to stay in office term after term. This reality of everlasting party elites that have no concept of the average American’s struggle, crafting idle legislation, and indulging in the corrupt circuit of D.C. makes for an oppressive rule not much preferable to a monarchy.
Whether it be the Democratic notion of injecting government into every vein of American life or the slow clotting of our free enterprise as Republican candidates sign off on corporate welfare and shield monopolies, it is abundantly clear that the people’s voice has been diminished. The supposed democratic system is now working against the people’s best interests, and it is about time we noticed.
Wise Words from Washington
Our first President did not have to witness the formation of parties to comprehend the danger they posed. He articulated it beautifully in his farewell address:
“They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force—to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party; often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.”
Washington correctly predicted that the wills of parties could too easily be hijacked by a small, enterprising minority, as well as the risk of the country’s interests being undermined by party politics. Always the pragmatist, Washington warned that because parties will eventually form, “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.”
The Time to Act
Washington’s words sound almost prophetic today. We are living in the reality that Washington warned us about due to our own shortcomings in suppressing the issues arising from the broken system. Our 250th year of this wonderful nation should be filled with celebration, but it should be a celebration with the intent of reaffirming our promise to liberty. To ponder, appreciate, and strive towards our founders’ vision should not be an activity restricted to important anniversaries but rather every election.
Paid for by Todd Achilles for Idaho / J. Patrick Riceci, Treasurer. Copyright (C) 2026 Achilles for Idaho. All rights reserved.
Let’s start with reigning in Citizens United and Congressional stock trading!!!