[NOTE: Posting this to my web site on 06/24/01 seems timely when a U.S. Senator from Vermont has dropped his membership in the G.O.P. and become Independent. TPK]
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A friend invited me to tag along to a local business meeting of one of
America's six top political parties. There an angry party whip commanded his most active and faithful troops to "shape up or ship out." If they did not telephone vastly more voters, then they were unworthy stewards. If they did not quadruple efforts across the board, then they should  resign and re-register with another party. It sounded like a husband accusing his wife of infidelity.

Since then, I am told, no one has resigned and few have done one bit more volunteering than before. But that whip was on to something.

"Shape up or ship out" might be good for our country, and even for our
politics. Rotating our tires makes our cars safer. What good things might flow from rotating our membership in  the Democrats or Libertarians or Natural Law Party or Republicans or Vegetarians or Greens or Reform or any of the others?

If limiting terms for elected office holders  is a good idea, why not have
term limits for party members as well? I am talking of mandatory expulsion or voluntary resignation after four, six or eight years.

Some Americans rate their party membership too highly, as if party
affiliation were as sacred as marriage or as healthy as weight loss. I
remember listening as a teenager in Edna, Texas one hot morning in 1948 to Lyndon Baines Johnson campaigning for the U.S. Senate. LBJ made a point which has stayed with me ever since. In substance,  he said, "I am a free man first, an American second and a Democrat last."  I do not think he was wrong.

There are more important things than being a Republican, Democrat,
Dixiecrat, Vegetarian [or Independent]. I suggest that ranking notably higher than party affiliation are family, religion, profession or job, education, a hobby like beekeeping, staying fit and healthy and being an unsung plugger in a service club like Rotary, Optimists, Pilot, Lions, Kiwanis or National Exchange.

Is there danger in staying forever in the same party? In my experience, the longer some stay Democrats or Republicans, the more ornery, inflexible, judgmental and unfair they grow. To the rabid Democrat all Republicans are unfeeling monsters. To cradle-to-grave Republicans all Democrats are mindless, prodigious spenders. Over-blown, overly long allegiance to such a lesser human good as a political party may not be good for soul or brain.

James Douglas Killough, my father, used to tell me, "Pat, remember this. There is  one difference between someone we call our friend and someone we call our enemy. We work hard at overlooking the faults of our friend and make sure we dwell on the faults of our enemy." We  act that way superabundantly when we think of political parties as war bands. A Naderite might with difficulty stay friends with a Buchananite. But overly passionate partisanship, the lower value, chips away at friendship, the higher value. People are themselves, independently of how we pigeonhole them. When we pigeonhole politically, we distort reality. "En garde!" say I, against political passions which falsify people by either canonizing or demonizing them.

Stereotypes there must needs be. We cannot live without them. But we can be their masters, not their hirelings. There are certain general
characteristics that do leap to mind and are not entirely wrong about our major political  parties. That Charles Taylor and George W. Bush are Republicans probably makes it safe to expect them to demand good value for the taxpayer's dollar. That Sam Neill and Al Gore are Democrats very likely means that they are not slow to demand government solutions to social problems.

"Do nothing to excess," said the wise old Greeks. When November 7th, [2000]  sinks below the western horizon, we will still be living cheek by jowl. If our political membership makes it easy to condone scoundrels and heap scorn on good men and women, then maybe we should "ship out." Friendship has to mean more than political loyalty. At least until the next election.

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Election Day 2000 for INDEPENDENT TORCH