Use the Force, Luke

August 28, 2012

Today’s actual start to the Republican National Convention just may get very interesting. Over the past couple of days, the Rules Committee has been meeting to discuss and hammer out any new proposed rule changes. Although there are 7 different rule changes that are bad, there are two in particular that have raised national attention and much delegate and grassroots ire. The first is Rule 12 which allows the RNC central committee the ability to change rules any time they want without the approval of all of the national delegates at the national convention. This is being promoted as good, normal business for any corporation that has to react to what is happening in the world around it. The two problems with this argument is that the RNC does not have to react to anything new and unexpected outside of grassroots supporters who learn the RNC’s rules better than any member of the RNC knows them. The fix to this problem is simple; the RNC could simply read and learn their rules and follow them. The other problem with this argument is that the rules could be changed at any time, thus allowing the adoption of bad rules, the same ones that are being fought right now, to be adopted in secret and without recourse. This is just bad business. The RNC is not a corporation that has to respond to market forces on a daily level, but is a public, political and, should be, open organization designed to represent the people of this great nation, not just some stockholders.

The second bad rule being fought is Rule 15 (renamed Rule 16) which allows any presidential candidate to “disavow” any duly elected delegate and to have them removed and replaced by cronies/ large donors. Ultimately, what they are wanting here is the ability to shut down the grassroots and to make the party of the “big tent” to be the party of the wealthy and elite who live in the big tent and are served by us peons who grovel at their feet and lick their boots. For some reason, this is not sitting well with many.

You may have heard about the compromise reached last night where they stripped the bad language out of Rule 15 in an effort to avoid a floor fight on the opening of the coronation, I mean convention. This will likely not do anything to divert this floor fight, so today may get interesting.

On another note, I was approached, as was my roommate, Luke Kirk, by the establishment in an attempt to strong arm us into voting for Mitt Romney instead of abstaining. I told them that if they wanted party unity, that they would simply need to allow a true convention, time to share and discuss ideas, Ron Paul a chance to speak for 15 minutes, and they would achieve party unity. Instead, by silencing Ron Paul, stifling all debate, and trying to force everyone to appear unified, they are actually causing greater division within the party. Unfortunately, they are not smart enough to understand this elementary concept. It makes one wonder what they are so afraid of that they will not even allow discussion of ideas and issues.

Today we are going up against the dark side. “Use the force, Luke.”