United we stand, divided we fall

The Virginia governor election results in the New York Times show Terry McAuliffe (D) with 48 percent of the vote, Ken Cuccinelli (R) with 45.5 percent and Robert Sarvis (L) with 6.6 percent.

If you add up the vote for the two conservative candidates, Cuccinelli and Sarvis, you get 52.1 percent, which could have been a resounding conservative victory. Instead, the conservative vote was split. This is why Ron Paul said it was insane to vote for Sarvis, the Libertarian candidate. Like it or not, a third party splits the vote of the most ideologically similar party and hands the election to the other. This has happened several times in our nation’s history with the third party acting as the spoiler (i.e. Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party, Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, etc.).

Many people are arguing for a third party, and I must admit I feel that way from time to time when exposed to the moral weakness in my own party.

However, a third party does as much damage to a two-party electoral system as a third party does in marriage.

The call for a third party to stand up for limited government and the Constitution rings dear to my heart when exposed to people like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), who recently sold out his country for 30 pieces of silver (or more exactly a $2.9 billion pork project to build a Kentucky dam and the McConnell rule to procedurally raise the debt ceiling to infinity next year).

As a conservative Republican, I see the splintering off of the liberty elements of the GOP into numerous Libertarian groups as the death knell to our party. They take with them the heart and soul of the party. While they are not big enough to defeat a socialist candidate outright, they are certainly big enough to ensure the election of a liberal candidate outright.

The fracturing of the right must cease immediately and the liberty elements must reunite if liberty is to survive at all in this country. In Alaska, this effort is being spearheaded by Michael Chambers of United for Liberty. The first priority is to vote out the career spoils politicians who will no longer defend freedom, privacy and the Constitution itself. If we refuse to get rid of these moral stains through term limits and grassroots voter initiatives, we will continue to splinter and will be defeated down to the last man.

Many people are aware of the Bible verse that says in Matthew 12:25: “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

How do we expect to stand up to the greatest challenge to our freedom and privacy we have ever faced in a nation if we don’t hang together? At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock said, “There must be no pulling different ways” because “we must all hang together.” Benjamin Franklin added: “Yes, we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Daniel Hamm lives in Palmer and is an international Boeing 747 freight pilot.