Piling On the Texas GOP Platform

There has been a lot of discussion (i.e., well-deserved ridicule) about the 2012 Texas GOP Platform in the past few days. People have been discussing a lot of stupid things in the platform. I'd like to add my 0.02 Loonies.

First, a collection of what I've seen others saying:

• The Texas Freedom Network has a long list of things the Texas GOP supports, organized by category: theocracy; killing education; the war on women and children; no more civil rights; anti-homosexuality; and more.
• JT Eberhard says it is “batshit insane” and discusses a big list of things. Quite understandably, he couldn't cover the whole thing, it was so disgusting. (I think he's being insulting to batshit, which makes wonderful fertilizer, but that's just my opinion.)
• The Young Turks, via Pharyngula, note that they want to repeal the Voter Rights act and they don't want to teach critical thinking skills.
• Orac talks about their support of creationism, denialism, and medical stupidity.

I'm sure there are plenty more people talking about it, but I didn't go looking for them. Instead, I went to the source: 2012 REPUBLICAN PARTY OF TEXAS Report of Platform Committee and Rules Committee.

Here are a few of several things that are obvious from the 2012 Texas GOP Platform:

• They are working to turn the USA into a Christian Theocracy.
• They are racists and oppose human rights and dignity.
• They think women exist for the purpose of producing children.
• They like to beat and abuse those children.
• They reject science (and not just biology and climate science).
• They hate homosexuals.

I'll back up all of those claims below, but first, there's something that the structure of the document reveals.

The entire document has a degree of incoherence and inconsistency similar to that of their favourite book of superstitions (the bible). Here are some examples.

• ‘We oppose any form of reparation.’ Compare with ‘Convicted criminals should be required to make restitution to their victims.’ Restitution is reparation.
• ‘We support equal suffrage for all U.S. Citizens of voting age who are not felons.’ Compare with
  • ‘We support repeal of all Motor Voter laws’ (the entire purpose of which is to make it easier for US citizens to vote)
  • ‘We urge that the Voter Rights Act of 1965 codified and updated in 1973 be repealed and not reauthorized’ (the laws that outlawed discriminatory election practices, and were implemented because various states, including Texas, were practicing discrimation)
  • ‘We strongly oppose making the District of Columbia a state or adding Congressional members [for D.C.].’
  • ‘We support … repeal of the unconstitutional “Help America Vote Act” ’ (the purpose of which is, as it suggests, to help America vote, in response to the numerous ambiguous ballots cast in Florida in 2000)
  • ‘We support … assurance that each polling place has a distinctly marked and if possible separate location for Republican and Democratic primary voting’ (which would make it phenomenally easy to harass, intimidate, stalk, or worse, anyone who votes in the “wrong” primary — just show up to the voting location and take pictures and write down license plates)
• ‘We support abolishing all federal agencies whose activities are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution; including the Departments of Education and Energy.’ Compare with ‘We strongly encourage the federal government and NASA to work with American citizens and American businesses to research and develop a new vehicle to continue human space flight and maintain American's [sic] leadership in space exploration.’ I'm pretty sure NASA's activities aren't anywhere in the USA Constitution, seeing as how, when it was written, nobody had yet invented airplanes, much less seriously considered human space flight or space exploration. (I should perhaps mention out that I think NASA should exist.)
• ‘Health care decisions should be between a patient and health care professional and should be protected from government intrusion.’ Compare with one and a half pages (out of the 22 page document) describing various ways that they want the government to stop abortion, including but not limited to: ‘We commend the Texas Legislature for the passage of the Woman's Right to Know Act, a law requiring abortion providers, prior to an abortion, to provide women full knowledge of the physical and psychological risks of abortion, the characteristics of the unborn child, and abortion alternatives’ and ‘We support legislation that requires doctors, at first opportunity, to provide to a woman who is pregnant, information about the nervous system development of her unborn child’.

There are many more examples like this.

Here's what I think may have happened. When you run a “brainstorming session’, there are typically two stages: first, everyone provides ideas, someone writes them down, and nobody criticizes them or comments on them; second, you go through the whole list, decide which ones to keep, which to modify, and which to discard, and synthesize them into a coherent document. I think they forgot to do the second stage, and the resulting platform is nothing other than a collection of ideas that various people had. (I may be over-stating this somewhat, but it's pretty clear that they didn't put a whole lot of editorial thought into the document.)

What this might mean is that the Texas GOP is a collection of people that have a few things in common: they generally agree on what kind of god to believe in; they like guns; they distrust and/or dislike others who aren't quite like themselves; and they don't want anyone telling them what to do, but they (except for Ron Paul) really enjoy telling others what to do. They are scared of each other, scared that if they say something that another disagrees with, they'll be shunned, exposed, or ridiculed, as they themselves do to others. They aren't very good at logic.

Some Details

I promised I'd back up my claims. I will now do so.

Claim: They are working to turn the USA into a Christian Theocracy. Evidence:

• ‘The Republican Party of Texas supports the historic concept, established by our nations' founders, of limited civil government jurisdiction under the natural laws of God, and repudiates the humanistic doctrine that the state is sovereign over the affairs of men, the family and the church.’ Government jurisdiction under the laws of a god is the definition of theocracy, and is forbidden by the first amendment to the Constitution of the USA, specifically, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion’.
• ‘We urge Congress to adopt the Constitutional Restoration Act’. This act would, among other things, forbid the US Supreme Court and District (Federal) Courts from reviewing or hearing cases against any government entity's ‘acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government’. This would forbid any legal challenge based on the establishment clause of the first amendment, and would quite literally allow the government to say “my god is the source of all laws and you must obey them and here they are”, in other words, to immediately become a theocracy.
• ‘We also urge that the National Motto “In God We Trust” … be protected from legislative and judicial attack.’ What purpose does this serve other than to (falsely) declare that the country is religious and believes in a god?
• ‘We oppose any governmental action to restrict, prohibit, or remove public display of the Decalogue or other religious symbols.’ Public display by private individuals is fine; public display on government property is government endorsement of religion, explicitly forbidden by the first amendment to the USA constitution. (It's worth following that link to the wikipedia article on the decalogue, if for no reason other than to see that they don't even agree on what their ten commandments are.)
• ‘We support the definition of marriage as a God-ordained, legal and moral commitment …’ (I think you know what the rest of this sentence is). If you think “god-ordained” has any relevance to legality, then you are, pretty much by definition, a theocrat.
• ‘We believe in the sanctity of marriage and that the integrity of this institution should be protected at all levels of government. We urge the Legislature to rescind no-fault divorce laws. We support Covenant Marriage.’ This is related to the previous point.
• ‘We support the affirmation of traditional Judeo-Christian family values and oppose the continued assault on those values.’ They support J-C values. They have no problem assaulting other values (including, for example, the value that marriage is, legally, nothing more than a legal contract).
• ‘We support school subjects with emphasis on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America's legal, political and economic systems.’ They want to teach Christianity in schools. They want to teach that the USA is Christian.
• ‘We urge school administrators and officials to inform Texas school students specifically of their First Amendment rights to pray and engage in religious speech, individually or in groups, on school property without government interference.’ They want to teach kids that they can specifically pray in school. Not to ask questions, not to discuss current events, not to play chess, any of which would be productive and perhaps not things they can do outside of school; but to pray.
• ‘We affirm that the public acknowledgement of God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom, prosperity and strength. We pledge our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and toward dispelling the myth of separation of church and state. We urge the Legislature to increase the ability of faith-based institutions and other organizations to assist the needy and to reduce regulation of such organizations.’ One of the original intents of the First Amendment is the separation of church and state. Acknowledgement of a god will do nothing for freedom, prosperity, or strength, but is a hallmark of a theocracy.
• ‘Our policy [on Israel] is based on God's biblical promise to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel and we further invite other nations and organizations to enjoy the benefits of that promise.’ Basing a government policy on anything including the word “god” is, by definition, theocratic.

Claim: They are racists and oppose human rights and dignity. Evidence:

• ‘We urge that the Voter Rights Act of 1965 codified and updated in 1973 be repealed and not reauthorized.’ As I noted previously, the purpose of this act is to prevent racially discriminatory election practices.
• ‘We believe the current teaching of a multicultural curriculum is divisive. We favor strengthening our common American identity and loyalty instead of political correctness that nurtures alienation among racial and ethnic groups.’ Teaching that the USA contains several cultures is not divisive; it is inclusive. Teaching a common identity is alienating to those who do not perfectly conform to that identity.
• ‘Except for non-citizens, we further oppose any national ID program, including the Real ID Act and the use of Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFID) on humans.’ They're fine, apparently, with implanting RFID chips in non-citizens, including permanent residents I suppose. (A little more than 70 years ago, there was a country whose government forced a certain group of people to wear a sort of ID tag; that government is generally not looked upon favourably today.)
• ‘Inasmuch as the Civil Rights Movement argued against using race as a factor in American life, affirmative action reintroduces race as a divisive force in American life. The Republican Party of Texas believes in equal opportunity for all citizens without regard to race or gender. To that end, we oppose affirmative action.” Affirmative action is trying to level the playing field for the disadvantaged; it's not a divisive force, it's a uniting force, trying to bring all people to the same starting point. Right on Page 1 of the platform, they say ‘We believe in … Strict adherence to the original intent of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. and Texas Constitutions.’ One of the intents of the DoI is the “land of opportunity”. Here, right in the beginning: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal … That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men … That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…’. That's from the very beginning of the Declaration of Independence. For a long time, the government was quite destructive of those ends, what with that whole slavery thing, and all the discriminatory laws and practices in the hundred years after slavery was abolished. The effects of that destruction are still quite evident. Affirmative action is an attempt to repair some of that destruction. Here's an analogy: if you beat the shit out of someone but don't actually kill them, they are still bleeding even after you've stopped; your destruction continues even though you aren't still beating them, and if you want to stop the destruction, you should help them get to a hospital or something. (You can legitimately debate things like the appropriate extent of affirmative action, or how exactly to implement it, or even whether it is necessary, but to claim that you oppose it simply because you believe in equal opportunity is ludicrous.)

Claim: They think women exist for the purpose of producing children. Evidence:

• As I already noted, there are one and a half pages in their platform document describing ways to outlaw and/or restrict access to abortions. They even refer to it as ‘Protection of Women's Health’. I won't bother quoting it; you probably already know what it says. (Or you can just read the document.)
• ‘We support the affirmation of traditional Judeo-Christian family values’. Those values are notably anti-woman.
• ‘We strongly support women who choose to devote their lives to their families and raising their children. We recognize their sacrifice and deplore the liberal assault on the family.’ It seems they think that women having paid jobs is a ‘liberal assault on the family’. They support women, as long as they choose the “right choice”.

Claim: They like to beat and abuse those children. Evidence:

• ‘We unequivocally oppose the United States Senate's ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.’
• ‘We recognize the family as a sovereign authority over which the state has no right to intervene, unless a parent or legal guardian has committed criminal abuse. … We oppose actions of social agencies to classify traditional methods of discipline, including corporal punishment, as child abuse.’
• ‘We call on the Legislature to require parental consent for any form of medical care and/or counseling to minors.’ (As a consequence of this, a minor who is being abused by a parent would be effectively unable to get help, unless they called the police, which they are likely too scared to do.)
• ‘We oppose medical clinics on school property except higher education…’ (This doesn't fall under the same category as actually beating the children, but what the fuck do they expect a school to do when a child gets sick or injured or needs an epinephrine injection for an allergy or any of the other things the school nurse does?)
• ‘We recommend that local school boards and classroom teachers be given more authority to deal with disciplinary problems. Corporal punishment is effective and legal in Texas.’
• ‘We support eliminating bureaucratic prohibitions on corporal discipline … in foster homes.’ (The part I omitted is ‘and home schooling’, just in case you thought I'm trying to quote out of context.)
• There are lots of things that I don't think (quite) qualify as child abuse, but are definitely anti-child; here are a few:
  • ‘We urge Congress to repeal government-sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development.’
  • ‘We believe that parents and legal guardians may choose to educate their children in private schools to include, but not limited to, home schools and parochial schools without government interference, through definition, regulation, accreditation, licensing, or testing.’ In other words, kids can be dumped in any “school” that is completely unregulated.
  • ‘We support the parents' right to choose, without penalty, which medications are administered to their minor children.’ and ‘All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves or their minor children without penalty for refusing a vaccine.’
  • ‘Students should pledge allegiance to the American and Texas flags daily to instill patriotism.’ (It's called “brainwashing”.)
  • ‘We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.’ [Update: it seems that including the bit about ‘critical thinking skills’ was an accident, but it's too late now; this just goes to support my idea that they didn't bother editing the thing.]
  • ‘We encourage legislation that prohibits enrollment in free public schools of non-citizens unlawfully present in the United States.”
  • ‘we support reducing taxpayer funding to all levels of education institutions.’
  • ‘We recognize parental responsibility and authority regarding sex education. We believe that parents must be given an opportunity to review the material prior to giving their consent. We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until marriage.’ (Abstinence-only does not work, unless your goal is teen pregnancy. Children should learn basic reproductive biology and human sexuality, not whatever stupid shit their parents try to tell them.)

Claim: They reject science (and not just biology and climate science). Evidence:

• ‘We believe in … “The laws of nature and nature's God” as our Founding Fathers believed.’ [double-quotes in original] They believe in the laws of nature as understood 236 years ago. This means they don't believe in electricity and magnetism, the atomic theory of matter, or plate tectonics, among numerous other things. (Or, of course, evolution, which they're so eager to deny that they're willing to throw out two centuries' worth of scientific understanding and technological advances.)
• ‘We support legislation prohibiting experimentation with human fetal tissue and prohibiting the use of human fetal tissue or organs for experimentation or commercial sale.’
• ‘We oppose any legislation that would allow for the creation and/or killing of human embryos for medical research.’
• ‘We oppose any laws regarding the production, distribution or consumption of food.’ (I'm not sure if this is anti-science, anti-general welfare, or just plain fucking stupid. How many people are alive because they haven't eaten unsafe food?)
• ‘We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.’ We all know what this really means: they support teaching creationism and global-warming denialism. (See also the previous one about opposing ‘challenging the student's fixed beliefs’. I suppose this could also be an example of the inconsistencies in the platform.)
• ‘We oppose the Census Bureau's obtaining data beyond the number of people residing in a dwelling, and we oppose statistical sampling adjustments. We support the actual counting of people and oppose any type of estimation or manipulation of Census data.’

Claim: They hate homosexuals. Evidence:

• ‘We affirm that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country's founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle, in public policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin. Additionally, we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction or belief in traditional values.’
• ‘To protect our serviceman and women and ensure that America's Armed Forces remain the best in the world, we affirm the timelessness of those values, the benefits of traditional military culture and the incompatibility of homosexuality with military service.’
• There's a lot about redefining marriage, including this: ‘We further call on Congress to pass and the state legislatures to ratify a marriage amendment declaring that marriage in the United States shall consist of and be recognized only as the union of a natural man and a natural woman. Neither the United States nor any state shall recognize or grant to any unmarried person the legal rights or status of a spouse. We oppose the recognition of and granting of benefits to people who represent themselves as domestic partners without being legally married.’ I should point out that it's not just homosexuals they hate, it's also anyone who is not a ‘natural man’ or ‘natural woman’; this includes trans-gendered individuals and others.
• Regarding adoptions: ‘We oppose mandates that deny mothers a choice in selecting a traditional home for their children.’ In other words, they want mothers to prevent their children from being adopted into, for example, a family with gay parents.
• ‘We oppose [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act] through which the federal government would coerce religious business owners and employees to violate their own beliefs and principles by affirming what they consider to be sinful and sexually immoral behavior.’
• ‘We urge immediate repeal of the Hate Crimes Law. Until the Hate Crimes Law is totally repealed, we urge the Legislature to immediately remove the education curriculum mandate and the sexual orientation category in said Law.’

There's also the standard crap about taxes, free-market dogma, anti-environment, pro-death penalty, ‘We support the return to the time tested precious metal standard for the U.S. dollar’ (it failed that test, by the way), withdrawal from the U.N. and expulsion of the U.N. headquarters from the USA, and even some birtherism (‘A candidate must submit to the Secretary of State … in the case of a presidential candidate, an original or certified copy of a valid birth certificate’); and there's a lot of stuff that I didn't mention, some of which others have discussed (see links near the beginning of this post).

To be fair, there are some very good positions within the platform:

• ‘We urge review and revision of those portions of the USA Patriot Act, and related executive and military orders and directives that erode constitutional rights and essential liberties of citizens.’
• ‘All content of any bill must be germane to the title of the act.’
• ‘We oppose the government's ability to shut down websites either directly or through intimidation without a warrant or judicial hearing.’
• ‘We believe all law-abiding citizens should be free from government surveillance of their electronic communications except in cases directly involving national security, by court order.’ (This was immediately followed by the bit about ‘Except for non-citizens’ that I discussed previously.)
• ‘We support a free and open internet — free from intrusion, censorship, or control by government or private entities. Due to the inherent benefit of anonymity, the anonymity of users is not to be compromised for any reason, unless consented by the user; or by court order. We also oppose any mandates by the government to collect and retain records of our internet activity.’
• ‘We oppose search and seizure of private property without due process. Neither law enforcement agencies nor their parent organizations should be allowed to benefit from such seizures.’
• ‘The Republican Party of Texas adamantly opposes any form of human trafficking.’

Sadly, though, the Republicans as a whole seem to be doing quite the opposite of all of these except the last (although I find it odd that they choose to refer to themselves in the third person on this position but in the first person on so many other positions).

The Texas GOP deserves scorn and ridicule for adopting this platform. It's difficult to write a thoughtful review of it, because it contains so much stupidity, arrogance, hatred, and ignorance. However, not very much of it is surprising. The big surprise for me was how anti-child the Texas GOP is. It seems there's a movement for a “parental rights” amendment to the USA constitution, which would in effect say that parents can do whatever the fuck they want to do to their children, as long as they don't kill them. (‘The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children is a fundamental right’ and ‘This article shall not be construed to apply to a parental action or decision that would end life.’) If you can stomach reading a criticism of children's rights written by a bunch of ignorant, illiterate, paranoid, child-beating supporters, here.

I don't usually like to repeat myself, but this is sickening enough that it bears repeating:

We [the Texas GOP] unequivocally oppose the United States Senate's ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. … We call on the Legislature to require parental consent for any form of medical care and/or counseling to minors. … We oppose medical clinics on school property except higher education and health care for students without parental consent.

Open season on children. Three nations have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Somalia; South Sudan (in existence only since July 9, 2011, I'm sure they've got quite a bit to do and I hope they'll get to this soon); and the USA.

I'll end with a simple message.

Fuck You, Texas GOP! Move to Fucking Somalia, You Worthless Scum!