Arizona's Great Loyalty Oath Crusade

In the novel "Catch-22", set in an American bomber base during World War II, Joseph Heller tells in one chapter the tale of the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade. If I remember correctly, it was started by one officer who wanted to punish another officer by making everyone take a loyalty oath and then not letting the target officer take the oath so it could be proved that he was disloyal.

It quickly spun out of control. The nitwit who started the whole movement kept introducing new loyalty oaths to prove how much loyaler he was than everyone else, which meant that everyone else had to take even more oaths. Soon, the pilots and aircrews couldn't get anything done without taking loyalty oaths, signing loyalty pledges, and even singing loyalty songs. The crusade finally collapsed when one officer refused to participate, stopping with the nonsense with the classic pro-freedom declaration, "Gimme eat."

Some people don't know that "Catch-22" is a novel. They think it's an instruction manual. And now we know where some of them live. Arizona.

I Said I Would Hurl. I Hurled.

According to the Internet, Governor Bobby Jindal said: ""We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year..."
Jindal takes on Obama, challenges Republicans to redefine party

I said I would hurl if I heard another Republican talk about the party as a "brand". I hurled.

Here's what I think happened. Back in 2007, the GOP coalesced around its corporate worship meme. It became almost indistinguishable from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. This meant corporate cash buying political support that helped increase corporate cash in a weird cycle of profit distillation that only a fool would say was the desired outcome of a capitalist economic engine.

That wasn't the problem.

Saving the GOP

Summary: Charles Krauthammer doesn't get it.
How to Save the Republican Party, Charles Krauthammer, FoxNews.com

Krauthammer says that the Republican Party is divided by tactics, not philosophy. In other words, there's nothing wrong with the party platform, they just need a better delivery. This is close to all that nauseating talk about rebranding the GOP, and it misses the point.

Tactics aren't the problem, because the GOP doesn't have a record to support any tactics. The last time Republicans ran America, we got tax cuts, but we also got increased spending, bigger government, and less freedom. The GOP broke its promise. It was anger over this betrayal that drove the early Tea Party movement.

That's why the current GOP fanaticism about fiscal responsibility is a lie. The party wants credit for dedication to ideals that, based on their real-world performance, they neither believe nor follow.