"Loyalty is a word which has worked vast harm; for it has been made to trick men into being 'loyal' to a thousand iniquities, whereas the true loyalty should have been to themselves - in which case there would have ensured a rebellion, and the throwing off of that deceptive yoke."
- Mark Twain's Notebook

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world - and never will.
- Mark Twain, from his essay and speech on "Consistency"

by Glynn Wilson

Let us please dispense with the need for loyalty to pseudo-monarchs in the socialist-democracy that is the United States of America.

Have we not had enough of loyalty and monarchy? Was it not a demand for loyalty from George W. Bush what gave us a Republican Congress that authorized this disastrous war in Iraq?

"You are either for us, or against us," Bush proclaimed after 9/11. Then, he went on TV, and said to the Muslim extremists who hit us, "Bring it on."

Was it not loyalty that gave us "good job" Brownie, which cost the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast so much grief after Hurricane Katrina hit?

Was it not such a loyalty that gave us Alberto Gonzales, who resigned as Attorney General in August and is now under investigation for turning the Justice Department into a political fiefdom for Bush loyalists who have run roughshod over the Constitution in state after state, including Alabama?

Loyalty to the crown is for peasant subjects in the land of kings and queens.

This is a democracy, by damn, as Benjamin Franklin said, "…if you can keep it."

Loyalty has been creeping back into the lexicon since Bush got himself appointed president by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000.

And loyalty is the concept behind the Alabama Democratic Conference endorsement of Hillary Clinton in Birmingham this weekend.

Clinton Endorsed by Black Wing of Alabama Democratic Party

Alabama's Joe Reed was able to call on the Clinton's when Bill was in the White House, so now he must remain loyal to her because she is leading in the polls this early in a presidential campaign?

What happened to loyalty to one's oppressed race? Barrack Obama, the first African-American who may have a chance to be president in American history, was passed over for the endorsement - because of political loyalty?

Personally, I think Bill Clinton did about as good a job as president as we can expect in these times. I did not agree with the way he compromised with the military, the intelligence community or law enforcement. And I did not agree with his compromise of labor by not only supporting NAFTA, but by using his political capital to push it through.

But the government worked under Clinton. And it is pretty obvious that Al Gore had a role in why it worked as the most powerful vice president in American history before Dick Cheney came upon the scene. Remember the "re-inventing government" program? Moral was good at the IRS and the U.S. Post Office. Lance Armstrong wore the post office jersey in winning the Tour de France a record seven times.

The economy boomed in the 1990s, and as that decade came to a close, the Reagan deficit had been erased and the government had a surplus. Remember the "peace dividend?"

Now we are in debt up to our eyeballs again, this time to the Chinese, who are in a position to pull the rug out from under our economy any time they get ready. And of course, we are in the direct opposite of a state of peace.

I think Hillary Clinton did a good job as first lady, except for getting trounced by the insurance lobby on her attempt to bring national health care to the one industrialized democracy in the world that doesn't guarantee insurance to all its citizens.

But that effort failed, so now she wants to be president - as a compromiser? She compromised on the vote on Iraq. She compromised on a vote that gave Dick Cheney and Bush what they need to potentially attack Iran. It just does not seem the time to elect a compromiser as the Democratic Party standard bearer.

And let's just go ahead and say it, and bet the Yuengling 12-pack on it: Hillary Clinton will not be the next president of the United States. It ain't gonna happen people.

While the early polls show her leading against the other Democrats in the race, and even beating Republican front runner Rudolph Giuliani at this point, it is WAY too early to make predictions on who will survive the onslaught once the people engage in the race as caucus and primary votes begin next year. Hillary's negatives are still way to high for her to be a viable candidate in the general election.

Do Democrats really want to use loyalty as the benchmark they use in determining who their nominee becomes?

John Edwards is a great guy and a fine candidate, but he is just not catching on with the public enough to provide a bullet-proof candidacy against the Republican slime machine.

What about Al Gore? Now that he has won the Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize for working to focus our attention on the key issue of our time, global warming and climate change, doesn't he deserve another look? None of the other Democrats are talking about the environment, which is a bread and butter issue to the vast majority of Americans.

Gore won the popular vote in 2000 and some still say he was the legitimately elected president that year, except for stolen votes in Florida, including thousands of votes from African-Americans who were clearly disenfranchised there.

I think Gore has the credibility and yes the celebrity to beat any Republican candidate, including Senator Fred Thompson from Gore's home state of Tennessee, or even the flip-flopping Mitt Romney from Massachusetts. John Kerry proved that the South will never vote for someone from there, even if he is religious. The polls may not be picking up all the Baptist resentment of Mormonism, but when the race gets close in the final hour, it will matter.

Can any candidate win the presidency of the United States with zero votes from white men or Southerners?

Just ask Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean. The answer is no.

Don't mistake Gore's coyness for a lack of interest in the presidency. He is looking to see if a "draft Al Gore" campaign can emerge with enough support to propel him into front-runner status. If not, he can go on making tons of money in the private sector and have a nice life. But you have to know that deep down, he would like to get back into the White House.

Exploring the subject of monarchy and the divine right of kings in his lifetime, Mark Twain wrote the time-travel satire A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, in which he challenges Sir Walter Scott's romanticized view of the South's decision to fight the Civil War.

It is the story of an American citizen named Henry Morgan who travels back to the Middle Ages and encounters people who have no inkling of what a world might be like where every person gets a vote in who will lead their country, because they have lived under the fealty of kings and queens forever.

Mr. Morgan tries to explain democracy to them this way.

"You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions, or its office holders," Morgan says. "The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.

"To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags - this is loyalty to unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it."

So let us dispense with loyalty and monarchy - and draft Al Gore to run for president.

DraftGore.Com