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Ivan G Thompson
a book bubble about
The Making of a Great America Where the Church and the Founding Fathers Fell Short
Religion & Spirituality
Author Insight
Foreign Influence and America
This is a reverse book bubble. The quote below is from my book, bubble quotes are from George Washington on foreign influence: “We know that the Russians tampered with our elections as if we were a third-world country. Who knew before it happened that it was possible for a foreign country to affect the election results of the most powerful nation on Earth? Remember the "hanging chads" in Florida? Do you remember the questions of unfairness that seemed to linger over the Bush-Gore results, when President Bush's brother, Jeb Bush, governor of Florida, appeared to have some possible impact on the outcome of how chads were dealt with? There are still some Democrats talking about how Bush "stole the election." On a scale galactically greater in magnitude, the Russians tampered with US election results, and Republican leaders have helped downplay it's impact because it helped the "any Republican will do" candidate win and further discussion of it might diminish his chance of winning again in the future. Since the election, we know that the President joked publicly with Vladimir Putin about not tampering with the next election. And far more gravely, we understand that the President and members of his staff have sought the aid of a foreign government (Ukraine) to affect the outcome of the 2020 elections.”
Book Excerpt
The Making of a Great America Where the Church and the Founding Fathers Fell Short
The quotes below are George Washington quotes on foreign influence.
(Source:
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp)
These quotes are not in the book but support a point I made in the book. I found them after I published the book. This quote prophetically warns of the problems America will experience when it develops what Washington calls "passionate attachments." In an example of how visionary the Founding Fathers truly were, Washington predicts the problems we are having with Russia today: meddling in our elections, a US president delaying arms to Ukraine while they are fighting Russia, the president's reluctance to pursue intelligence related to Russia placing bounties on American soldiers while simultaneously urging for Russia's reentry into the Group of Eight industrialized nations.
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils. Such an attachment of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter.
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