Dear editor:
The articles on the Republican Party convention brought to mind the caution regarding political parties that our greatest President, George Washington, offered in his farewell address:
"Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism....
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."
I have a strong preference for limited government that lives within its means. But, even more, I have a strong preference for electing people who will address issues based on their intellect and ability to work with their fellow leaders to fashion practical, efficient outcomes.
That is representative government.
If I decide that a leader has not been effective and has been a poor steward of our tax dollars, I will likely vote for someone different in the next election.
The Wyoming Republican Party is sending a strong message that it does not trust its members to decide between primary candidates.
Requiring a "loyalty oath" to the Republican Party platform is a new concept for me as an American.
My only familiarity with such a phenomenon is under communist, fascist and Sharia law regimes.
Under those ideologies, to the extent there are "elections," the party chooses the candidates.
I have yet to run across any individuals who served in those systems who stood out as creative, collaborative problem solvers.
While I am a Christian who believes that the resurrection is the best hope there is for us humans, the platform's emphasis on Judeo-Christian "values" seems tailor-made to discourage those of other faiths or no faith at all from joining the Republicans.
Between its express desire to limit the voters to only those candidates willing to swear allegiance to the Party Platform and its implicit desire to thwart "wayward" conservatives from competing for office, Wyoming Republicans may pull off their own modern miracle — the resurrection of the Democratic Party in Wyoming.
Sincerely,
Brad McKim, Beulah
