What I saw on display was the opposite in lots of cases of what we as Republicans and Libertarians claim to be 'for'. We claim to be for a lot of things, freedom of speech, freedom to conduct your lives with personal responsibility, free markets, etc. However, freedom of speech was the biggest bit of hypocrisy I saw within the convention and attitudes of convention goers. When candidates and office holders were on stage, they were at times met with boos and jeers from the audience. Some of them were shouted down and not even given a chance to speak their mind. Just because we don't agree with someone one hundred percent of the time doesn't mean that they should be shouted down.
Another problem I have is with the idea of censure. To censure someone means to express severe disapproval of someone or something, typically in a formal statement. Apparently, that's what the Texas GOP is all about. The idea that we need to censure elected officials because we don't like a bill that they voted for or against. Or the idea that they're not conservative enough. There was an effort underway at Convention to offer up censure of several different Republican office holders; one of which was John Cornyn. Now, while I don't agree 100% with Senator Cornyn, do I think he needs to be censured? NO. In my opinion, censure is a dangerous habit to start. Here's why, plain and simple; when do you stop?
Here's something else to think about; just like when Margaret Thatcher famously said, "The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.", you could change it to read something like this, "The problem with censure is that you eventually run out of allies in the Republican/Conservative movement." If you censure EVERY office holder and precinct chair or county chair, for that matter, you run out of people to actually work with. Some will disagree with me and say that we need checks and balances. To which I would AGREE. Here's the 'but'; we already have checks and balances in the form of...ELECTIONS!
It's easy for all of us as activists to focus on the echo chambers of our lives, but unless you actually get out and knock some doors or do some phone banking to help elect Republicans, we'll never win, no matter who censured who. And remember, "If you can't sell freedom or liberty, you suck."
ReplyDeleteKelly, I absolutely agree that block walking is king for any activist. I have continued to block walk since I ran for City Council District K. I even agree that the silent treatment is a better response to a problem speaker like George P Bush of Alamo infamy than booing. However, as a member of the 2016 and 2018 State Rules Committees I have fought for censure and will continue to fight for censure. The problems of inappropriate censure are due to people not following the rules. We need something more than elections to rein in problems like Joe Straus, Byron Cook, and George P Bush. My take on the 2018 convention is very different than yours. However, my duties on the Rules Committee caused me to miss a lot speakers, fun stuff, and even one vote in my first caucus meeting. I was pleased at the transparency of this convention, the way in which we went overboard to allow minority positions to be heard, and the expanded time for platform debate. So, I will continue to support censure as a valid and appropriate check in addition to elections. An election might be a check and it might be a balance but an election all by itself it cannot be both.
All politics is retail, and Republicans adore circular firing squads.
ReplyDeleteI, too, was on the State Rules Committee in both 2016 and 2018, and I also fought for censure and will continue to do so. As our County Chair is fond of saying, "A party that has no principles is meaningless. A party that cannot win elections is irrelevent." Censure is about ensuring that the party actually has principles, and that the party platform is more than just a piece of paper. Abuse of censure will lead to loss of elections.
ReplyDeleteCensure is just a tool. Like most tools, it can be abused. I don't think that John Cornyn is a particularly good Republican, but I do not support and did not support attempts to censure him. Byron Cook, on the other hand, had a Republican literally dragged out of one of his meetings, arrested for trespassing, and held naked for hours in the Travis County Jail for daring to assert her rights under Texas law to record that meeting, a law he broke by denying her that right. That goes well beyond just being a bad Republican; for me, it calls into question whether he really supports a Republican form of government as described in the US Constitution at all.
Where does it stop? It stopped with Byron Cook, as it should have. The whole body of delegates expressed its will first through a committee, and then through the body as a whole, and it decided to not censure John Cornyn...or Joe Straus, or anyone other than Byron Cook. Sanity prevailed, and Larry SECEDE Kilgore does not call the shots in the Texas Republican Party.