Second Vermont Republic Has Now Morphed Into a Political Action Committee

In late June the Magnolia Vermonter and baas of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor, posted yet another of his tedious screeds lambasting "the Empire."

This time, instead of condemning virtually all of Vermont's voters and statewide elected officials, all of the Vermont General Assembly, Vermont's clergy, public institutions, UVM (where a close family member works), as well as pretty much every other educational body, all of Vermont's congressional delegation (Patrick Leahy, who Naylor calls "a world-class prostitute," Peter Welch and, of course, Bernie Sanders, who Naylor got really pissed at for not resigning from Congress to run as Naylor's anointed gubernatorial candidate - Naylor, in language shockingly similar to that used in the Sovereign Citizens Movement, labels all three as "enemies of the state"), and, naturally, Democrats, Republicans and Progressives, Naylor isn't going to hold anything back - he's now compared all Americans to the citizens of Nazi Germany:

"Albert Camus’s insightful description of life in Nazi Germany, which appeared in the clandestine Resistance newspaper Combat a few weeks after the Liberation of Paris, could just as well have been written about life in the United States today. Not unlike the people of Nazi Germany, the American people are also asleep."

Oh, really? When Camus wrote that, the German people were getting their asses handed to them day and night with massive bombings from the East and the West that were leaving them little time for sleep. The comparison probably appealed to Naylor. who at this point hasn't much left in his bag of increasingly ineffectual tricks. You'd think that as a former "academic" he'd have heard of Godwin's Law. Perhaps he has and is subliminally throwing in the secesher towel:

"It is generally perceived that falling foul of Godwin's law tends to end up causing the individual making the comparison to lose their argument and/or credibility."

After having been the primary bankroller for Dennis Steele's embarrassing and utterly failed 2010 gubernatorial bid (normally I'd link to Steele's Wikipedia article but it seems that Wikipedians don't believe that he's so notable as to deserve his own article, so it's gone now - poof!) Naylor has come up with a new plan to separate Vermonters from their money - at $100 dollars a pop.

Here's the deal: send him the bread he's looking for on behalf of secesher legislative candidates, who he doesn't name, to his home mailing address and you get one of his awful books.

Support Us

Please help us save Vermont, America, and the rest of the world from the American Empire by helping tiny Vermont lead the nation into disunion. If SVR is to move to the next level, electing members of the state legislature who are open secessionists, we need your financial support. Those who contribute $100 or more receive a complimentary copy of Thomas H. Naylor’s provocative, 100-page, unpublished monograph Rebél, a philosophy of peaceful rebellion against the human condition and the American Empire.

Complete this form and return it with your check to The Second Vermont Republic, P.O. Box 544, Charlotte, VT 05445.

Source

Frankly, I'd prefer a button, a bumper sticker or maybe a CD of Naylor singing "Dixie."

Although his solicitation has all of the appeal of one of those Nigerian email scams, there's more to it than that. He's not clear about who the "us" is that he refers to in his appeal for "financial support" to "(elect) members of the state legislature who are open secessionists." And we're suppose to believe that after 8 years of accomplishing nothing much in Vermont beyond attracting fringe-ish losers who dabble in Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, racism, wild-eyed conspiracy theories and homophobia, Naylor's now going to pick himself up, dust himself off and save Vermont. All we need to do is send him a C-note.

Ri-i-ght!

These are the facts: Naylor's Second Vermont Republic is a registered trade name since June of 2003 for a "civic club" according to the Vermont Secretary of State's search database (just enter Second Vermont Republic in the search box). SVR's registration won't expire until after the 2012 statewide election cycle.

According to the most recent information available at the VT Sec'y of State's website (searchable PDF file) it's likely that this recent step by Naylor - a solicitation for funds/contributions to finance legislative campaigns to elect seceshers - will trigger his need to register a PAC and make declarations having to do with receipt and expenses of more than $500.

Registration Requirements/Bank Designation & Treasurer Form. (17 V.S.A. §2831)

Each political committee and political party that has accepted contributions and made expenditures of $500.00 or more must register with the Secretary of State within ten days of reaching the $500.00 threshold stating its name and address, treasurer’s name, and the bank in which it maintains its campaign checking account. Any political committee or party that has filed a Bank Designation form in a previous election cycle does not need to file another one, UNLESS the committee/party is changing information on the form. You may also file this form before the $500 threshold has been reached.

Given their aversion to transparency and making the required campaign filings in a timely fashion in the last campaign, I'm not expecting the seceshers to be in a rush to make the legally required declarations and registration. After all, these are the requirements of "the Empire."

Let's see how they do this time around.

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