Republicans Consider ‘Purity’ Test for Candidates – Politics Daily

In Politics Daily tonight we read an article entitled Republicans Consider ‘Purity’ Test for Candidates in which we learn that the Republican National Committee is meeting in Honolulu this week.  Things are not good.

They are considering putting forth a proposal to the floor for a vote  to have a purity test administered to any Republican running for office.  He or she would not recieve GOP money for their campaign if they did not register positive on at least eight out of ten of the proposed criterion for being a solid Republican.

Nazis have purity tests.  Criminal motorcycle gangs have purity tests which normally involved stabbing somebody.  Radical Islamists terrorists have purity tests.  American political parties have not required purity tests since the days of the Nativists also known as the “Know Nothings”.

They were big trouble.  Trust me.

They actually instigated violence against Catholics, mostly the Irish.  In May of 1844 many Irish of the Kensington section of Philadelphia were beaten and many killed by “pure” Americans of the Nativist Party.  The Nativists were vehemently anti-immigrant to the point of murder.

My grandmother lived to be 93 and had an uncle killed by the Nativists on the steps of his parish church  in that riot in Philadlephia. She knew his story very well and could recite it clearly until her last days and she was not born until 1898.  Her family would not let that story die.  I must have heard that story a hundred times.

“Pure” Americans are lots and lots of trouble.  I can vouch for that from my own family history.

The Republican Party, or any American political party, does not need a purity test.  They simply need to honestly represent their constituents.

CWO3 Tom Barnes, USCG (Ret.)