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"Country First?" The Question of Loyalty
By Ernest Partridge (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)
For OpEdNews: Ernest Partridge - Writer
but that I loved Rome more."
(Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare)
"I am an American, first and foremost."
(Colin Powell)
Millions of American citizens who identify themselves as "Republicans" are coping with a daunting question: "What is the primary object of my loyalty? My Party? My Country? My religious faith? My conscience?"
The question is implicit, for few American citizens of whatever political persuasion would openly admit to themselves that loyalty to their party trumps loyalty to the United States. Instead, to the degree that they support their preferred party and its candidates, they routinely convince themselves that they are at the same time exhibiting loyalty to their country.
But when a party, its candidates, and its elected officials, stray from the founding moral and political principles of the American republic and its Constitution, party loyalty compels the adherents to conjure up elaborate rationalizations.
For steadfast Republicans, those rationalizations have been severely strained as the Bush/Cheney regime has relentlessly dismantled the Constitution of the United States, along with the rule of law and international treaties. The list of crimes and misdemeanors is long and woefully familiar: signing statements, ignoring Congressional subpoenas, violation of habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions against torture, launching a "war of choice" against a non-threatening nation (in violation of the Nuremberg Accords), warrantless searches in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, etc.
Throughout all this, most Republicans (including all Congressional Republicans), have remained "on the reservation," at worst publicly supporting the outlaw regime, and at best keeping their misgivings to themselves.
However, as we reach the waning days of this presidential election campaign, the rationalizations are beginning to unravel among many prominent Republicans and conservatives, as they face directly the conflicting answers to these two simple questions:
**Which candidates, McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden, will best serve my Party? The question, as they say, virtually answers itself: the nominees of the Party, McCain and Palin.
**Which of these candidates will best serve my country?
It takes a virtuoso application of self-deception for a thoughtful and informed Republican to arrive at the same answer to both questions. And if the answers diverge, that Republican comes face-to-face with an agonizing conflict of loyalties: my party first or my country first.
On Sunday, Colin Powell announced his decision. He would vote for Barack Obama.
Thus Powell joins a flow of GOP and conservative defections, including:
**Conservative pundits Michael Smerconish, Andrew Sullivan, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Buckley have openly endorsed Obama. Also Ronald Reagan's Director of Arms Control, Ken Adelman.
**Conservative columnists George Will, Peggy Noonan, Kathleen Parker, William Kristol, David Brooks, and Charles Krauthammer have severely criticized the GOP candidates, McCain and Palin, without actually endorsing the Democratic candidates. 
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