In short,
Republicans like pledges.
In the past,
Republican leaders have signed pledges saying they won’t raise taxes. One can
pretty much assume they have signed a pledge never to take any action not first
approved by the NRA. They have signed pledges during the current primary
campaign to support the Republican nominee, even if it comes down to the GOP elephant
in the room, no one wishes to talk about. Now in Virginia, they want Republican
primary voters to sign a pledge saying they will only vote for the Republican
candidate in the general election.
I can see
their point.
Nothing is
more disconcerting for a sports team that once commanded tremendous fan support
than to find themselves losing those fans because “things ain’t going well.”
If a sports
team goes from winning to losing, their fair-weather fans are the first one to
leave and are slow to come back. This couldn’t happen if sports fans signed
pledges the way churches make parishioners do every time they want to build a
new wing.
The
same goes for supermarkets and department stores. If a store is, “your friendly
shopping place,” it should always be your friendly shopping place. It shouldn’t
have to keep bribing its customers with deals and promotions to keep them from
taking their business to that brand new store opening across the street. Not
when a single loyalty oath would do the trick.
Look at what
has happened in Hollywood to the great movies of the past. Sure, they didn’t
have the best writing or lighting or special effects, but they were there first
and that should count for something. Shameless remakes shouldn’t replace what
were once good—maybe not great, but certainly good movies.
In 1854, Timex® started making
watches that “took a licking and kept on ticking.” That used to be enough. Not
anymore. Today if a watch doesn’t provide the latest news and weather, send and
deliver Tweets, start warming up the stove while you drive home from work, and
remind you to feed the cat, it will find itself tossed into the trash can like
yesterday’s newspaper, dial phones and skate key.
Looking
back, I can tell you this. Timex® needed a signed pledge guaranteeing
future support more than it needed John Cameron Swayze.
We have a
Pledge of Allegiance to the flag and the United States of America and to the Republic
for which it stands. You would think that would cover everything, but it
doesn’t. Republicans know this.
They have
pledges for everything and everyone should follow their lead. We’d all benefit
from being able to sit down and relax without having worry about the next good
thing awaiting us around the corner. In fact, turning a corner is becoming such
a risky maneuver that we’d all do well to sign a pledge never to change
direction again.
Of course,
pledges of future support can only be made to our sacred institutions and the
values they stand for.
Pledging
your loyalty to an individual is risky because individuals have been known to
break their own pledges.
In the
Republican Party, someone who breaks a pledge is a RINO—Republicans in name
only.
But, RINOs
aren’t the only turncoats.
LeBron James
is a classic example. They loved him in Cleveland. Everyone bought his jersey.
Then he left and everyone burned his jersey. No one had thought to make him
sign a pledge to stay, He was a HTHINO—home town hero in name only, even though
he was still born in Ohio and still the greatest player in the game. Of course,
he returned and became a home town hero again but everyone had to go out and
buy his jersey again. A pledge could have prevented this whole charade.
Anyone who
can’t play along, shouldn’t be allowed to get along—and vice-versa.
“Damn the
torpedoes, full steam ahead,” is good enough as long as full steam ahead means
doing what we always did, doing what we’re told to do, and most importantly,
doing what you pledged to do. If the past was good enough in the past, it’ll be
good enough in the future. The last thing we need is somebody going renegade,
thinking for himself and upsetting the whole apple cart.
That reminds
me. Whatever happened to apple carts?
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