A few weeks ago the good folks in the Texas GOP decided to drop their horrendously crazy party platform. At the time those who read it were amazed to see the majority party of our second biggest state embrace the fringy ideas of the John Birch Society mixed in with the conspiracy theories of white supremacists groups. However as it turns out, the GOP was saving its prime cut of crazy for the national platform. Get ready America, this may only be a draft, but it is already doozy.
Excellent….
From Think Progress and the Tampa Bay Times (unless otherwise noted):
The 14th Amendment now bestows “personhood” rights on a zygote, but not women:
“We assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize heath care which includes abortion coverage.”
TEH GAYS are targeted as well:
“We reaffirm our support for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”
“We will enforce and defend in court the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), in the armed forces as well as in the civilian world.”
Arizona’s SB 1070 is going national:
….Kobach’s positions on immigration, most notably the idea of “attrition through enforcement” — what Romney called “self-deportation” — laid out by SB 1070, will still be part of the Republican message.
And states can no longer count undocumented immigrants as “people” for the census: “We support changing the way that the decennial census is conducted, so that citizens are distinguished from lawfully present aliens and illegal aliens. In order to preserve the pinciple of one-person, one-vote, the apportionment of representatives among the states should be according to the number of citizens.”
PTSD is not an issue in the Military, rather the GOP has a problem with its inclusiveness:
No women in combat: “We reject the use of the military as a platform for social experimentation and will not accept attempts to undermine military priorities and mission readiness.”
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell comes back: “We affirm the cultural values that encourage selfless service and superiority in battle, and oppose anything that might weaken team cohesion, including intra-military special interest demonstrations.” (This includes the wearing of military uniforms at gay pride parades and activism for same-sex marriages and benefits.)
The Separation of Church and State does not apply to the military: “The spiritual welfare of our troops and retired service members should be a priority of our national leadership….there is an urgent need for the kind of counseling that faith-based institutions can best provide. We support rights of conscience and religious freedom for military chaplains and people of faith. A Republican Commander-in-Chief will protect religious independence of military chaplains and will not tolerate attempts to ban Bibles or religious symbols from military facilities.”
Washington D.C: No voting representative in congress:
The Republican Party’s platform committee spent the day addressing amendments to sections of the platform draft that came up through subcommittees. It seems that the DC delegation had managed to get into the draft platform some vague language supporting improved representation. It didn’t last.
The language said that while the Party is opposed to statehood, there could be constructive alternative means of representation that should be considered. Even that was too much. James Bopp, delegate from Indiana, dripping contempt for DC, called for that to be hacked out, which it was. He said the District already has representation through its delegate and through the “Democrat Party,” which is “of, by, and for the federal government.”
FRC’s Perkins, who recently blamed President Obama and the Southern Poverty Law Center for the shooting at FRC’s Washington headquarters, requested and received a section specifically urging the DC Council to expand gun rights. The same section also opposes DC statehood, which would allow the District to govern itself and put an end to Congressional attempts to impose abortion bans on DC.
And speaking of guns, Stand Your Ground® is now part of the platform:
“We support the fundamental right to self-defense wherever a law-abiding citizen has a legal right to be, and we support federal legislation that would expand the exercise of that right by allowing those with state-issued carry permits to carry firearms in any state that issues such permits to its own residents.
That whole debt ceiling compromise is also now seen as the worst thing ever, and taxes will NEVER be raised unless there are brown people to be killed:
“We call for a Constitutional amendment requiring a super-majority for any tax increase with exceptions for only war and national emergencies, and imposing a cap limiting spending to historical average percentage of GDP so that future Congresses cannot balance the budget by raising taxes.”
The Separation of church and state goes away, except for Muslims:
“We support the public display of the Ten Commandments as a reflection of our history and our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage, and we affirm the right of students to engage in prayer at public school events in public schools and to have equal access to public schools and other public facilities to accommodate religious freedoms in the public square.”
Science can go to hell too by the way:
“We oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.”
Remember though, describing these proposals as something akin to the hallucinations of a syphilitic fascist junta leader poisons the national discourse. I’m sure that both sides are somehow responsible for the Republicans unilaterally embracing this level of crazy shit into their official platform. We are totally screwed.
August 23rd, 2012 at 8:23 pm
How are we all going to live in the same country while having such diametrically opposed priorities? I seriously want to know. I can’t even remotely support anything described above.
August 29th, 2012 at 6:45 am
[...] permit concealed weapons and does not embrace the insane “Stand Your Ground” concept (which is now in the national GOP 2012 platform by the way) as a matter addressing crime in the community. The ideas of deregulation and privatization for [...]