A local mover and shaker businessman in my county’s GOP committee just emailed me late last night with a request that I consider participating again by attending an important meeting tonight where they are going to discuss changes to the Committee bylaws. I am just not interested and that decision has led to me writing this blog entry to share my thoughts on party politics.
I joined my local Republican Committee back in 2007 following the death of Jim Burgett, my local government representative from the York County Board of Supervisors. I was just young and naive and stupid enough to believe I could slither myself onto the vacant seat on the board by jumping head first into the replacement process that was in place and managed by the local Republican Committee with oversight by the local registrar and under the rules of the Virginia Board of elections. Believe me when I share that I had the very best of intentions with regard to wanting to serve my community in that capacity.
Fortunately, the party insiders had already made arrangements for their hand picked successor to assume the seat and all that was needed was a perfunctory committee vote to finalize the appointment. When I was advised that this was the plan, I smartly cancelled my hair-brained and sophomoric plans. So did another identified candidate. So while I did not sneak into my county government, I was nonetheless introduced to and became a member of local GOP party politics.
It was an interesting exercise and activity for a young and at the time ambitious lover of liberty. As a “2008 Ron Paul for President” supporter, I poured much of my energy into trying to infuse the local committee with the concepts and agendas upon which he was campaigning. I recall bombarding them with my unsolicited emails where I pontificated about how Ron Paul was the answer to what ailed our government. I very easily signed up to serve as a delegate at the local and district and state GOP conventions. I was even successful at playing a key role in getting two ardent Ron Paul supporters elected to serve as delegates to the Minneapolis RNC. One was a young 18 year old woman and the other was a 30-something year old mother and wife.
I soon learned that the ills of party politics were likely not going to go away and easily permit my candidate to get elected. My delegate partners to the RNC reported that the Ron Paul contingency who were elected by their districts to serve at the RNC convention that year were almost forcibly detained from vocalizing and expressing their support of his candidacy. Upon learning this and then later in the year seeing how the GOP refused to come out and speak against John McCain’s support of the TARP and initial bank bail outs was all I needed to decide that this was not for me. So I left and sent another one of my patented and somewhat condescending emails. I recall getting very angry feedback from one particular executive member who was incensed at my abandoning my leadership role as an executive member of the committee in charge of a polling precinct in the throws of the election season. I was later vindicated when this same man essentially did the same exact thing that I did later in August 2011.
Anyway, I once again was coaxed into returning to the committee by the local businessman mover and shaker and some of his like minded conservatives in either late 2009 or early 2010. They had rallied some teaparty minded people to partner up with them and they formed The Tuscanny Group (named after a local Coffee Shop) which they headed. The Tuscanny Group was a forum for holding old colonial time styled gatherings where people discussed and debated local politics. Our community is heavily conservative so the majority of participants was a who’s who of the local GOP committee and elected officials.
I soon learned that even this group would fall prey to party-like tendencies. I was not alone in seeing this as I recall one or two prominent members of the original leadership team of the Tuscanny Group having a falling out with his original co-founders over what he seemed to be describing as special interest tendencies rearing their ugly head.
It was through this Tuscany Group that I was blatantly told that the purpose of the GOP committees at local, state, and national levels was to get Republican Candidates elected. This came in the form of a speech delivered by Tom Foley the Chairman of the 1st District of Virginia Republican Committee.
So here is my reply to the local mover and shaker businessman who has asked me to consider attending tonight’s committee meeting to vote on bylaws.
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Hi Greg.
Thanks for reaching out to me. Since my initial foray into local party politics I have come to learn that committees are just another means by which special interests subvert my individual freedom and desires. I left the YCRC after we failed to admonish the GOP and district, state, and national levels when then GOP POTUS candidate John McCain left the campaign trail to run to Washington D.C. in support of TARP and bail out related legislation.
I returned a couple of years at yours and Jim Haas’ recommendation only to be told by District Chairman Tom Foley that the sole purpose of the committee is to elect republican candidates. Apparently, elected GOP office holder accountability to the GOP committee whom does the work to get those people on the ticket and into office is not something that state party bylaws, missions, or goals supports.
After experiencing all of this first hand and upon reflection, the entire enterprise just is not ethically, morally or philosophically aligned with my views on what connects a free man with his government. In fact, the political party process is incredibly problematic and a main source of what is wrong with our government. So I consciously am opposed to the concept.
The protection and sanctity of the individual rights of man and woman is what I am interested in promoting and preserving. For whatever reason, I have been unable to further that ambition through my participation in the YCRC and quite frankly don’t see anything on the horizon that leads me to think that GOP party politics participation is going to help me attain those goals. So thanks, but I will opt out. Better men and women than me have attempted to thwart the negative influence that big government has on their liberties through GOP party participation. Unfortunately, the writing is on the well. The plutocrats and oligarchy are firmly entrenched and run that show and they will not yield their influence to the true principles of liberty upon which the country was founded.
George Washington had similar inclinations regarding the suspect ambitions and problems coming from political parties and warned about such in his farewell address. If such thoughts were good enough for him, then they are good enough for me. I only wish more people would have heard and understood his message and then decided to followed suit. I am providing a link here below to his speech with the pertinent parts of it about the warnings of Party politics.
Thanks and yours in Liberty,
Robert
http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/farewell/transcript.html
Individual to obey the established Government.
All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and Associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, controul counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the Constituted authorities are distructive of this fundamental principle and of fatal tendency. 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 enterprizing 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 modefied by mutual interests. However combinations or Associations of the above description may now & 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, & to usurp for themselves the reins of Government; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
Towards the preservation of your Government and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of Governments, as of other human institutions–that experience is the surest standard, by which to test the real tendency of the existing Constitution of a Country–that facility in changes upon the credit of mere hypotheses & opinion exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypotheses and opinion: and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a Government of as much vigour as is consistent with the perfect security of Liberty is indispensable–Liberty itself will find in such a Government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest Guardian. It is indeed little else than a name, where the Government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the Society within the limits prescribed by the laws & to maintain all in the secure & tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person & property.
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, & warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally.
This Spirit, unfortunately, is inseperable 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, controuled, 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 dissention, which in different ages & countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & 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.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight) the common & continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise People to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill founded Jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot & insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence & corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country, are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the Administration of the Government and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true–and in Governments of a Monarchical cast Patriotism may look with endulgence, if not with favour, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate & assuage it. A fire not to be quenched; it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest instead of warming it should consume.
Living in America 