Tyranny lives in Virginia

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				THE
Column Archive				VIRGINIA GAZETTE
				WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Tyranny lives in Virginia				January 25, 2006

At a Constitutional Convention in 1776, legislators approved the design of George Wythe for what would eventually become the official state seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia. On the seal stands the Roman goddess Virtus (Virtue), dressed in Amazonian style with one breast exposed and holding a spear and a sheathed sword. At her feet lies a defeated opponent. Along the rim at the bottom of the seal are inscribed the words “Sic Semper Tyrannis,” or “Thus Always to Tyrants.” Supposedly the goddess Virtus was chosen because she represents the virtues of righteousness, freedom and valor.

Whether Wythe was possessed of an intense sense of irony before he designed the seal we’ll never know. What we do know is that Virginia and its legislators have always conflated, confused and condoned the commingling of tyranny and virtue to the extent that the two are embarrassingly entwined.

By 1776 the slave trade was in full swing in Virginia, and the tyranny of the wealthy white landowner over his bonded black slaves was firmly entrenched in the Virginia code of ethics. Rather than a tyrant at the feet of Virtus, the indentured servant lay beneath the boots of a feckless tyrant-possessor.

So virtuous was slavery considered to be that Virginia, along with her sister states in the Confederacy, left the Union, fought a bloody war and lost. Yet, though slavery was ended, the virtue-tyranny network survived.

For nearly a century, the tyranny represented by the legalization of segregation found its ethical roots in the alleged virtue of separation of the races and the ugly notion of race purity. To perpetuate this most non-virtuous of virtues Virginia waged another ignominious war and lost again.

Now, having lost the battle against Afro-Americans, our legislative tyrants have loosed their venom of purity and virtue upon yet another segment of the populace. The first order of legislative business in this session of the General Assembly was to pass an amendment to the state Constitution to disallow marriage privileges, civil unions, and contracts that hint of marriage benefits to any non-married couple, gay or straight.

In short, the history of Virginia is replete with attempts by purity control freaks and their tyrannical legislation to marginalize and repress whatever social or racial groups pique or offend their ignorantly limited sense of virtue.

Perhaps most troubling is the petit-powered official who, given some small degree of authority, asserts his own brand of political purity to deprive targeted groups of their rights as citizens.

Such was the case last year when Williamsburg’s registrar refused to allow some students at the College of William & Mary to register to vote on the basis of non-residency.

At the very least, Virginia’s residency code is foggier than London. According to the website of the Virginia State Electoral Board, “You are the one to determine and declare the city, county and state in which you claim your legal residence. This may be the residence where your family lives or the city or county and state where your school is located.” Even more to the point is the fact that the site encourages graduating seniors to use their college address as their legal residence if they intend to work in the community after graduation.

As for the Virginia code itself (sect. 24:2-400), it declares that “residence” or “resident” for the purposes of qualification to register and vote “means and requires both domicile and place of abode. In determining domicile, consideration MAY be given to a person’s expressed intent, conduct and all attendant circumstances.” It then goes on to list the circumstances that may be considered, such as financial independence, marital status, residence of parents, property ownership or residence for income tax purposes.

That last is of no little importance, since the code (sect. 58-1-541) relative to residency for the purposes of income tax liability states that “ an individual shall be deemed to be a resident of any county or city in which the individual is domiciled at any time during the taxable year or has maintained his place of abode for an aggregate of more than 183 days of the taxable year.”

In both sections of the code, then, the emphasis is on domicile or place of abode, and in the section on income taxes a definite period of residency is stated. Both out-of-state and in-state students are domiciled at the college for more than 183 days each year. Yet, while they might well be subject to pay state income tax, too many students are forbidden to register to vote in Williamsburg.

While registrars in other university cities, such as Charlottesville, allow even out-of-state students to vote in the cities in which their universities are located, Williamsburg student-residents are denied that right for the City Council election in May.

Though the refusal of the registrar for political or other reasons to allow students to vote is certainly not as egregious an example of tyranny as the legislative assaults on minorities, the point is that a minor political appointee may take it upon himself to thwart a select group of citizens in their efforts to vote in the town in which they reside most of the year.

It is at this point that one wonders whether Virtus and her subjugation of tyranny have taken a hike and returned to Rome, whence they came. Or perhaps Wythe’s irony is simply a feigned metaphor, and it is really the tyrant whose spear has slain a defeated Virtus.