Thursday, May 3, 2012

Don’t right me, I’ll right you: VA’s GOP take on a tea party flavor


In a debate on Saturday between four GOP contenders for the soon-to-be open U.S. Senate seat in Virginia, George Allen, Del. Bob Marshall, Chesapeake Minister E.W. Jackson, and Jamie Radtke vied for the label of “most right” political candidate.

Each candidate, for instance, pledged his or her support for the 1996 federal law[1] (The Defense of Marriage Act) that gives states the right not to recognize same-sex marriages. Furthermore, each candidate showed lukewarm support for one of America’s most popular programs, Social Security, while also noting their support for an alternative outside the scope of government.

No tea party-esche political get-together would be complete however without a bruising of the federal Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in particular, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in general (“larger bureaucracy rather than fixing the problem where it is”). The solution, according to Radtke: an armed populace.[2]

In sum, the “debate” turned into an enunciation of the standard tea party mantra: fewer taxes, more guns, less government.

With each U.S. Senate candidate vying to “out right” the other in the GOP primary, propelling themselves simultaneously outside of the political mainstream, it’s hard to imagine that Virginians will take the eventual winner as a viable candidate for U.S. Senator.

In actuality, the GOP candidates have offered little in the way of actual policies outside of chopping off or eliminating particular parts of government that seem, arbitrarily, intrusive or unnecessary. Can government run on being not run, so to speak?

There are a good many issues I also have with the federal government, but the fact of the matter is you can’t take the wheels off of a moving vehicle without serious consequences. The consequences, however, don’t seem to matter much to this round of GOP candidates for U.S. Senate in Virginia.

Don’t worry about righting me, I’ll be sure to right you may be the title for this chapter in Virginia’s political history.

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