Originally posted by MRRiley Virginia GOP Will Require Voters To Sign ‘Loyalty Oath’
VA (where I live) is one of the states that does not require you to be a registered member of a party in order to vote in that parties primary. Some democrats and independents use that loophole to vote for weaker GOP candidates in order to increase the Democratic candidate's chances in the Presidential election. Of course, Republicans and right leaning independents do the reverse but that's not an issue this year. As a countermeasure, the GOP has decided to demand that primary voters sign an oath pledging to support and vote for the winning Republican candidate in the 2012 Presidential election. Naturally, there is no way for them to enforce this and anyone who crashes another parties primary is unlikely to give a rats tushy about keeping their word but regardless of that, this seems rather draconian to me.
I'm tempted to go to vote in the primary, sign the pledge, close my eyes and pick someone to vote for in the booth, then after voting, step back and raise my right hand before me and yell
HEIL at the top of my lungs... then vote for anybody but a Republican in November.
Mike
Considering that Religions Right types don't actually believe people are capable of making oaths in their own right to begin with, and sure don't care about *my* tushie in any good way...
Are you surprised? They've been disavowing the possibility of honor for twenty years, and now want it pledged to people you *know* are lying... Over a really shitty primary field? You know what that is.. It's not about upholding any oaths, it's about trying to force people to break them. To violate our most sacred liberties... obviate even their own will or ability to *make* oaths, thus, to say... 'No.' ..... in the name of Party. Thus be owned.
Toldya so.
(And, you know, Gokenin, part of the point of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is *supposed* to be that parties don't own us. Ever. Being a Green shouldn't disqualify me from having a practical say in my own government, for instance. I'm down here in the South and we go to all effort to elect Democrats and all but three of them turn their coats to Republicans when they *do* get elected. See the other side, yet? As a New Englander, I would consider *this* intolerable if it weren't so familiar to the suckage I knew twenty years ago. (Hey, I try to play to the strengths. I may have lost some memory, but this scenario's kinda fresh to me. And yes, some of this shit is *still* bad. Heh, though. In Massachusetts, there's a priestess that was always on my case for calling things a 'scenario.' Don't make me come back up there.
)