Do you think political party loyalty is a net good or a net bad for the Commonwealth of Virginia?

While the Democratic Party primary came and went without much fanfare on June 11th, the issue of partisanship and party loyalty has become over the past few years the sine qua non of political life in Virginia. With politicians on the right like Ken Cuccinelli and Robert Marshall, many Virginians in the liberal camp in particular have felt compelled to ‘stick to their guys’.

But the idea of uncritically following one political party or another has almost always been an illogical one. No single political party represents the full range of my political views and I suspect that many Virginians feel the same way too. 

While I would like nothing more than the Ken Cuccinelli’s of Virginia and the country to be denied any possibility for the great honor and responsibility of public service, I cannot and won’t defend an opposing politician when he or she espouses views I am fundamentally opposed to. For instance, any Democrat who proposes that Virginia begin drilling for offshore sources of energy, you have my undying opposition.

What stands above party or partisanship is what each individual thinks is right. If I strongly believe that candidate X is wrong about an issue, should I remain silent and “go with the flow?” Would you?

If we choose to self-censor ourselves, that’s our own prerogative. But in so doing, we do a disservice to the liberties that we have won as Americans, the liberty to individual freedom of thought, speech, and action. 

And if we decline to use these liberties for the sake of what we perceive as protecting candidate X, what’s to stop this from occurring again and again? Where does it end and who and what are we really harming?

The point is this, while I identify more so with politicians of the Democratic Party, I won’t defend them when they commit to policies which undermine strongly held beliefs of my own. And in the long run, it’s this kind of ‘internal’ opposition that is necessary to move the party back in the direction that we desire. Uncritical political loyalty is no different than putting a band-aid over a gaping hole in a ship. Sooner or later, the ship will sink because we failed to take proper action.