(Written and
posted 13 May 2003)
In December of 2001, after become alarmed by the rise of right-wing Republican reactionaryism, I decided that I would seek out my fellow freedom-loving Democrats, and attended a meeting of the Dallas County Democratic Party. The next day, I joined the Libertarians. Many Democratic friends of mine were surprised and disappointed at my sudden departure from the party that I have supported my entire adult life.
What I saw that night greatly disturbed me. Instead of hearing Democratic candidates that were strong, had a vision, and were willing to fight for the common man and our freedoms and liberties, I heard wishy-washy Democrats who were campaigning against Ronald Reagan, and, even worse, Democrats who sounded like Republicans. I knew that the Texas Democrats were doomed, and decided that if I was a member of a party that was destined to lose. I’d rather be a member of a party that was destined to lose but still held onto its principles and core beliefs, and one that would welcome me as a candidate. (Little did I know that the Libertarians were as rudderless as the Democrats, but I digress.)
As last year’s campaign progressed, I realized that what I had always suspected about the Texas Republican Party, but what my Republican friends dismissed as Democratic paranoia, was true – the Texas Republican Party is a wicked party that resorts to lies, distortions, dirty tricks, underhandedness, and various other smelly tactics to win elections and preserve its grip on power. The Texas Republican Party has no principles, ethics, or soul. The Republicans did there very best to keep the Libertarians and Greens out of any debate; I was not informed of one debate until three hours before it was scheduled! (The Republicans who controlled the County Clerk’s office failed to inform the organizers that there was a Libertarian candidate.) At another debate, the starting time had to be delayed for 30 minutes because the Republican candidate was running late. Did I mention the nice computer worm that the Republican candidate sent me? How about the use of government employees in their official government uniforms to distribute Republican campaign literature?
At one event, the Republicans managed to get the Libertarians banished from the front to the rear to a choice spot right next to the karaoke machine. (Try talking about political theory next to someone warbling off-key at the top of his lungs!) We came up with a unique solution—we carried our display, in tact, from the rear to the front, and squatted in a vacant spot next to the Republicans. The Republican response? Pack up and go home.
As election day approached, I was hopeful that I could pull enough votes from freedom-loving conservatives to deny the Republican candidate the victory. While I had some strong objections to some of the Democrat’s positions, she is a very nice person, a person whom I would have been proud to have as my County Judge, philosophical differences aside. Unfortunately, the Election Day disaster that I had feared for so long came to pass – the Republicans demolished the Democrats, sweeping all of the statewide offices and 29 of the 30 countywide ones. I failed in my goal, falling 1000 votes short of preventing a Republican victory.
After the election of a totalitarian regime in Texas, I took the opportunity to do what any freedom-loving person with a similar opportunity would do – I moved out of the state, to a small rural state where the general attitude is that as long as you don’t hurt your neighbor, what you do is your own business. In other words, you are free to live your life as long as you don’t hurt anyone else. (Freedom, what a novel concept!) I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a state where a political party can mandate the changing of history books to reflect its own view, or can decide that references to evolutionism that contradict a particular religion’s teaching should be deleted from every classroom in the state, or can indoctrinate students into worshipping the military.
I was heartened to read that the Democrats in Texas have finally caught on and grown a spine. You see, the Democrats were in this sad state of self-denial about how power-mad the Texas Republicans really are and actually believed that the Republicans would actually take minority considerations into account. The Democrats went into the legislative session wanting to address issues such as health care and schools. Instead, what they found was that the majority was more concerned with such pressing issues as rewriting history books and mandating that the “Pledge of Allegiance” be recited twice a day. The final insult for the Texas Democrats was when Tom DeLay, the Majority Leader of the United States House of Representatives, decided that Texas had too many Democratic Congressmen and ordered his cronies in the Texas Legislature to redistrict the Congressional boundaries to correct this “problem.” In a stroke of genius and stealth, the Democrats, knowing that they were powerless to stop this dastardly deed, snuck out of Texas to the freedom loving state of Oklahoma, and denied the Republicans the necessary quorum. Of course, the Republicans, who will stop at nothing to enhance their iron-grip on power, sent the Texas Rangers to Oklahoma to arrest the Democrats and bring them back to the House chamber, claiming that Texas has jurisdiction over its citizens outside of Texas. Fortunately for the Democrats, Oklahoma does not agree. (It was a shrewd move by the Democrats to pick a state with a Democratic governor, attorney general, and legislature.)
The Republicans, naturally, have accused the Democrats of being “childish” and cowards, that it will backfire, and have stated that Republicans would never run from a fight. Or would they? There is a precendent for the Democrats action.
When Abraham Lincoln was in the Illinois legislature, he and his fellow Whigs (the precursor to the Republican Party) grew frustrated at what they perceived to be the tyranny of the Democratic majority. Time and time again the wishes and issues of the Whig minority where ignored by the Democratic majority. Lincoln and his fellow Whigs knew that they could not stop the Democrats from passing bills that were anathema to the Whigs. So, they reasoned, the only option left for the Whigs was to boycott the legislature and deny the Democrats a quorum to conduct business. Somehow, word of the scheme was leaked to the Democrats, who locked the doors of the House of Representatives to prevent any members from leaving and denying them a quorum. Lincoln, industrious as he was, found a solution – he and several of his fellow Whigs jumped out of an open window, thus denying the Democrats of the needed quorum.
The fact that over 50 Democrats in Texas were able to accomplish the same feat without any word of the plan being leaked is what makes this action even more remarkable. It is a valuable lesson to the Republican totalitarianists – the more you push and bully, the more stiff, and united, the resistance becomes, and the harder it becomes to get those things that are really important to you.
As for backfiring? Well, after Abe jumped through that window, he became known throughout the state, and became the leader of the Illinois Whigs. Although he would only hold one other elective office prior to 1860 (as a one-term Congressman), because of his courage and ingenuity and the strength of his convictions his stature and legend grew, and this country lawyer from Sangamon County, Illinois, who never held statewide office, was elected President of the United States, and went on to become arguably the greatest leader this country has ever had.