It’s too serious around here lately, let’s have some fun along the lines of this pointless diary from last year.
Consider that archaic vestige of ye olde loyaly oath to the crown that we still practice: Vermont’s Voter Oath (formerly entitled the Freeman’s Oath, a name replete with offensive subtext). Remember it or not, this is the oath we all had to take when we first registered to vote in the state. It reads:
“You solemnly swear (or affirm) that whenever you give your vote or suffrage, touching any matter that concerns the State of Vermont, you will do it so as in your conscience you shall judge will most conduce to the best good of the same, as established by the Constitution, without fear or favor of any person.”
So to be allowed the privilege of voting (hrumph. As if we should have to jump through an utterly pointless hoop to exercise our fundamental rights as citizens in a Democracy…but I digress…), you offer a legal oath promising that you will only vote in a way you “judge (in the) best good of (Vermont).” Now to be clear, that’s not Vermont the geographic position on a map, but Vermont as defined in the state Constitution – that document which tells us what Vermont is as a political entity.
Consider: a secessionist candidate runs on the premise that Vermont as defined in that Constitution as one of 50 states in the USA is a bad thing and should be eliminated, to be reconstituted as an entirely different entity with more-or-less the same name. In other words, the secessionist goal is to destroy Vermont as we (constitutionally) know it.
Now it seems to me that it is a naked contradiction to suggest that destroying something is conducive to its best good.
Remember – this is an official document. Vermont means something specific in its context. You don’t get to make up your own definitions of specific, legal terms in legal documents. So, does voting for a secessionist candidate by definition, therefore, break that legal oath? Would it thereby be an illegal act?
And to be clear – I’m not advocating this as a cause, just I wasn’t really concerned when I asked if the statue of the ancient greek goddess Ceres atop the State House was a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution. This is just a mindgame, and if nothing else, makes the point that anything smacking of a “loyalty oath” should be consigned to history’s dustbin, just out of principle. Frankly, if somebody wants to use their own vote to vote in a way they judge to be the worst interest of Vermont, that’s their own business.
I enjoyed taking the Freeman’s Oath, I enjoy giving it.
It doesn’t hurt to have to state remind you to take voting seriously.
I’m re-reading a fave book, America’s Constitution: A Biography. I highly recommend it for history/politics/constitution geeks…
this is one of those “If a tree falls in the woods when no one is around, does it make any noise” kind of questions.
If you are taking that oath with secessionist intentions, you no doubt think you are doing so in the best interests of Vermont, the place (as opposed to Vermont, the state) and do not recognize the legitimacy of the Vermont constitution in any case.
My head hurts!
I’m glad they adopted the gender neutral language, but the clauses in that thing just kill me:
“You solemnly swear (or affirm) that whenever you give your vote or suffrage, touching any matter that concerns the state of Vermont, you will do it so as in your conscience you shall judge will most conduce to the best good of the same, as established by the Constitution, without fear or favor of any man.”
My paraphrase:
“By signing this you agree, whenever you vote on State issues, that you will always vote in the best interests of Vermont, according to the Constitution, and that you will always vote YOUR mind.”
It is just ridiculous to read this to people, and half the time I don’t even read it right myself, and much less do the listeners understand it.
…is the idea that to secede would be to destroy the Constitutional legitimacy/structure of Vermont. Vermont’s Constitution was drafted and adopted before it joined the United States, and through that process it retained institutional continuity; why would the inverted process not follow the same logic?
A point I think shouldn’t be overlooked or down-played, as we do not need permission from the State (not “The State of Vermont” mind you, but “the State” as in a political abstraction that governs society through self-perpetuation played out in the insistence of its own import and existence) to interact socially, and therefore politically, as we may choose. However we may choose. That “The State” requires me to take a loyalty Oath to it (or to certain ideas it deems I should be loyal to) does not justify the validity of such an Oath, nor the very premise that the State has the rightful authority to do so. The State, its authority, legitimacy, and powers to make me take any kind of Oath are all useful fictions made real merely by our collective insistence that it’s all so. By way of my very existence in the here and now I have whatever rights and powers I can forge for myself, in so far as I can wield such rights and powers effectively and rationally within the context of the society around me (I can claim the power to take another’s life, but society will condemn that and I will quickly find there are repercussions; I can claim that I am an independent nation-state my very self, and as long as following that declaration doesn’t cause me to lose my ability to procure the necessary means of survival society will by and large ignore me, thus, in a limited way, “allowing me” to do so).
The State has no control in the abstract or in reality to limit me or my actions- the community around me, however, does to the degree that we (or they) collectively agree upon certain rules by which we all agree to cooperate with for the health and survival of the community as a whole (that said community actively chooses to abdicate both its freedom and authority to the State to carry out such tasks is unfortunate, but real nonetheless).
I statement I absolutely disagree with. Not that in instances or moments the above it’s true- but as a rule of thumb I strongly disagree. Here I’ll go as far as to offer Bakunin’s most famous line, and I do so knowing that there is not the time nor the space here to fully expand upon his actual meaning, rather than the popular (propagandistic) interpretation of it:
Here I’ll let Bakunin biographer Mark Leier expand upon this incredibly important observation of Bakunin’s:
I’ll only expand upon that by noting Nietzsche’s famous declarations welcoming “all wars” as the singular most important ingredient in a society’s ability to destroy that which is superfluous, fictitious, and regressive/oppressive in order to be “born anew” and collectively progress through some of the most difficult of social evolutions.