Parochial Political Purity Police, Resort Town Dept. 4
My Congressperson has been booted from his local party.
Rigell, who opposes party nominee Donald Trump, announced in a New York Times story Friday that he would vote for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, a former governor of New Mexico.
(snip)
The Republican Party of Virginia Beach’s bylaws say any member who endorses or gives a donation to a candidate who isn’t the Republican nominee is considered to have resigned from the local chapter.
I have voted against Mr. Rigell every chance I’ve had since moving to these parts; had I had more opportunities, I’d have voted against him more times. Nevertheless, despite disagreeing with him on almost every issue, I will concede freely that he has conducted himself like a grown-up in office.
He is still a member of the national Republican Party, who experience shows us will let almost any loon into the door so long as he or she repeats the loyalty oath to St. Ronnie of Reagan.
August 11, 2016 at 12:53 am
I have a lot of books, personal histories, of WWII. Quite many loyal members of the Wehrmacht didn’t seem like bad guys. The majority of those in the Reich weren’t the ranting carpet-chewers like the Fuhrer, or Goebbels, or the Butcher of Prague in the new movie no one will give a crap about (nor should they). Even Jochen Piper, who was responsible for machine-gunning Americans POWs at Malmedy even though he wasn’t there or directkt ordered it, lived a comfortable life until a few people who couldn’t stand it anymore took matters into their own hands way post WWII. Otto Skorzeny, lived to be a great businessman in cement in South America, or something.
This is not to say they’re Nazis. It’s to say something about the human capacity for complicity. How much do you forgive? Well, it depends not just on the historical crcumstances and result, but also on the context of what you could or couldn’t do and chose to do in the timeline of your society? Where you a member of the Bund, so to speak?
August 11, 2016 at 12:57 am
Apologies for the typos and synonym-like word screw ups. I’ve discovered it’s a brain trait when I write fast and can’t copy edit.
August 11, 2016 at 8:33 pm
I’ve installed a comment editor plugin. Let me know how it works.
Here’s what my local rag had to say about the Rigell situation: http://pilotonline.com/opinion/editorial/virginian-pilot-editorial-rigell-remains-independent-to-the-last/article_a2840ffc-a18f-503c-83bd-5c1c91052d7e.html
August 11, 2016 at 8:37 pm
Testing comment editor plugin.
Here is the edit.
It seems to work.