Sure, the GOP national platform consists of greed, taking control of women's bodies, greed, tearing out safety rules, greed, encouraging environmental disaster, greed, full time war, and greed. But that's to be expected. If you want to know what's really going on in the minds of the Republican faithful. There's only one place to look, the Necronomicon... er, I mean the Republican Party platforms.
This is the first of a series of spelunking editions into the screaming void that is Republicans left to define the world for themselves.
Triskaidekaphobia
Ah, the number 13. Always a source of fear. That's certainly true for Iowa Republicans who hope to strike fear in the hearts of Democrats by using the 13th amendment. They don't mean the current 13th amendment, the one outlawing slavery. That one they'd just as soon forget. No, says Iowa's GOP, the 13th amendment that the rest of the nation is following is not the real deal.
Instead, it wants to reintroduce the "original 13th Amendment" first offered by senator Phillip Reed of Maryland in 1810. The amendment states that "if any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain any title of nobility or honor” from a "foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen" and "shall be incapable of holding any office of trust."
Why should Iowa Republicans be so interested in passing an amendment that failed 150 years ago? Because Barack Obama won a little thing called the Nobel Prize. That's right, Iowa Republicans want to pass a constitutional amendment that would strip Obama of his citizenship... for winning the Nobel Prize. Take that, birthers! Time to step up your game.
Demon Children
The Maine GOP platform is a source of endless wonder and boundless horror, but their number one foreign policy priority might be a surprise:
Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is so controversial that it has been accepted by 194 countries. As it happens, the world contains 196 countries. Meaning that the two countries remaining to sign are Somalia (where no one can agree on who gets to hold the pen) and... you guessed it, the United States. What does this treaty do? It sets out a list of rights that should be protected for every person under the age of 18. Who wrote the list? Guessed it again: the United States. Why is the United States one of two countries not to sign onto the treaty that it had the largest hand in writing? Because the GOP has taken up the mantle of rejecting any treaty, no matter how well intentioned, so that we are protected from the black helicopters and blue helmets of "international law" (feel free to shiver), plus home schooling associations within the GOP have become terribly worried that provisions insisting that children deserve a good education might force them to, you know, give their children at least one fact a year. What other scary things are in the convention? Well, there's this:
Article 6
- States Parties recognize that every child has the inherent right to life.
Boy, it's a good thing the United States hasn't agreed to anything like that. The Maine GOP has turned the inherent right to life into enemy #1.
Zee Mystery of zee Money
Also in the Maine GOP platform is their #1 goal "to promote the general welfare."
Return to the principles of Austrian Economics
Austrian economics is a school of thought that goes back to the 15th century. There is only one problem with returning to the principles of the Austrian school of economics -- it's hard to return to something that was never believed in the first place. See, this fringe version of economic theory has always been a little suspect because it's:
- Not based on any quantifiable theory
- Is unsupported by math
- Is considered laughable by research economists
- is only supported by a few, fanatic foundations
Which, I suppose, is why it's perfect for today's GOP. As it happens, there is a school of economics that America
could return to. It's called the
American school of economics and it defined US policy from the nation's inception and was designed to help the nation be economically independent and self-sufficient. Sound like something the GOP might like? Here's a description of that economic system knocked together by our founding fathers.
It consisted of these three core policies:
1. protecting industry through selective high tariffs and subsidies
2. government investments in infrastructure creating targeted improvements
3. a national bank with policies that promote growth
that American school? Pretty much kicked to the curb by Reagan. Seems odd that the Maine GOP would want to ditch the system that brought the nation from a standing start to the greatest economy on earth and replace it with an unworkable theory out of Austria. But you know how those Republicans always want America to be more like Europe.
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