The Danger of Factions to Freedom

This week…it seems like a good time, for obvious reasons, to recall some of James Madison’s renowned Federalist #10 warnings about the danger to freedom of factions:

“The friend of popular governments never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice…

“Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends…of public and personal liberty…that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.

“It will be found…that prevailing and increasing distrust of public engagements, and alarm for private rights…must be chiefly, if not wholly, effects of the unsteadiness and injustice with which a factious spirit has tainted our public administrations”

“A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points…an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

“The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, [by factions] have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished…”

Fair warning.

When reading these examples, check the above list and ask yourself: regardless of whether you agree or disagree, is this really advancing an intelligent resolution through the persuasive, rational arguments of advocacy…or simply fueling the fire of conflict through the divisive, emotional manipulations of polarization?

Here are just a few of the blue and red polarizing headlines from the past week.