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MESSAGE
FROM THE CHAIR:
If you believe President Bush and his administration have done a great job in Iraq and are to be “commended” for their execution of the war (presumably including Abu Garib and Haditha), you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you think $5.15 per hour is too much to pay workers as a minimum wage and minium wage laws should be repealed altogether, you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you oppose affirmative action and believe that racial profiling is okay, you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you believe that all taxes should be abolished except for the sales tax and that all government should be financed solely by sales taxes, you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you believe the state needs to take “tough” measures to reduce the number of welfare recipients and cut spending on welfare programs, you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you favor “phasing out” the Social Security program (not just privatizing it – eliminating it altogether) and relying instead solely on private pensions and retirement accounts (such as the ones which evaporated overnight in the Enron debacle), without any social safety net if those accounts go broke, you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you believe there should be no separation of church and state, you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you think it’s too easy for people to vote and we need to make it more difficult, you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you think this county needs “protection from labor unions,”you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you oppose embryonic stem cell research, and funding of any institutions which engage in such scientific research, you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. If you believe people, including irreversibly terminally ill persons, should not be permitted to make end-of-life decisions, such as discontinuation of nutrition or hydration, you agree with the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party. Those are just a few of the “values” espoused by the platform of the Texas Republicans, adopted at their convention in San Antonio. Here are some more: Republicans believe that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Department of Education (among a host of other governmental agencies) should all be abolished. The also demand the immediate repeal of all presidential executive orders, which would include (for example) repeal of the executive orders designating Afghanistan and the airspace above it as a combat zone, creating the Office of Faith Based Initiatives, setting up the corporate fraud task force, establishing the national board on safeguarding Americans’ civil liberties, the Presidential task force on safety risks to children, the President’s advisory board on historically black colleges and universities, and the task force to improve health services to veterans. All of those would be eliminated under the Texas Republican Party platform, as would the task force on citizen preparedness in the war on terrorism. The Republican platform also urges that “most” government services be privatized (which would necessarily require privatizing the military, police, firefighters, the Department of Justice, social security, medicare, medicaid, and all public education, among a bunch of other things, since there is no way to privatize “most” government services without privatizing these programs). Of particular interest to members of racial or ethnic minorities or women, planks of the Republican platform express unqualified opposition to affirmative action in any form, insist upon abolition of all bilingual education, call for denying public education to U. S. citizens if either of their parents is unlawfully present in the United States (even if the child himself or herself is a citizen of the United States), demand elimination of the 10% rule for admission to Texas colleges and universities, and urge immediate repeal of all hate crimes laws. The environment doesn’t fare too well under the Republican platform, either. The very first paragraph of the section of the platform about the environment provides, as the key governing principle guiding Republicans’ approach to the environment, “We reaffirm the belief in the fundamental constitutional concept of an individual’s right to own and use property without governmental interference.” Their plan for the environment is, leave it to private landowners, eliminating any governmental “interference” with whatever an individual landowner wants to do from his, her, its land. Of course, they specifically oppose the Endangered Species Act, the Kyoto Agreement (on global warming) and the Biodiversity Treaty, and call for drilling in the ANWAR wildlife preserve and offshore California and the East Coast. Health care, according to the Republican platform, should be left entirely to the private sector. As far as labor unions and working people are concerned, Republicans would require consent of individual union members before union dues could be used for political purposes (but, or course, corporations should not be required to obtain the consent of their shareholders before using corporate money for political purposes). The Davis Bacon Act the Texas Prevailing Wage Law should be repealed, according to the Republicans, and Texas’ right-to-work law should be extended to the entire nation, in order to provide “protection from labor unions.” Republicans also oppose requiring employers to provide workers compensation insurance for workers injured on the job. And while labor unions need to be restricted in their ability to provide campaign contributions to political campaigns (according to Republicans), restrictions on the amount of money that anyone else can be given to a politician or political campaign should be eliminated, according to the platform. On the subject of elections and voting, the Republican platform calls for repeal of all motor voter registration laws, re-registration every four years, requiring a government-issued photo ID be presented at the voting booth, together with both proof of residency and citizenship, repeal of the Help Americans Vote Act, and prohibition of mobile voting. The Party also insists that the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Act be repealed, together with abolition on all campaign finance laws which restrict, in any way, the amount of money a individual or a PAC can contribute to politicians or political campaigns. The platform also calls for term limits for all public offices, state or federal. The Republicans’ hatred – yes, that’s the correct term – of gays and lesbians is palpable in their platform. Not only do they demand passage of an amendment to the United States Constitution to declare that marriage can consist only of “a natural man and a natural woman,” but Republicans (according to their platform) also would prohibit GLBT partners from visiting one another in the hospital on the same terms as heterosexual couples, outlaw health insurance or retirement benefits for GLBT couples (even if paid for), and deny any other legal status to people who dare to hold themselves out as domestic partners. Republicans also demand that GLBTs not be allowed to have custody of children (even if the other natural parent is a child abuser, drug addict, or drunk), not be allowed to adopt children (they’re so torqued about that one they say it three different times in their platform), and not even be permitted visitation with minor children in the event of divorce. Republicans also demand that homosexuals be excluded from the Americans With Disabilities Act (even if the disability is unrelated to being homosexual – like having only one arm or cancer; if you’re a homosexual, you shouldn’t get protection under the ADA, according to the Republicans). And not only the GLBT community is condemned by the Republicans – nobody infected with HIV should be able to claim protection under the ADA in their view – even if they contracted the disease from (say) a heterosexual encounter or a blood transfusion or negligence of a hospital. The platform also calls for immediate discharge of all HIV positive individuals from the military – no matter how they became infected, nor when, and or of whether or not they are GLBT. Disqualification of homosexuals from military service is once again a demand of the Republican platform (“don’t ask, don’t tell” being insufficient to guarantee that some gay or lesbian person won’t slip through the cracks and end up wearing the uniform of, or fighting for, the United States). And the most outrageous and shameful provision of the Republican Party platform (in my opinion) is the one that insists that if someone engages in violent acts directed at homosexuals, but does so because of his or her opposition to the victim’s sexual orientation, that should not be considered a crime, because “we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.” If you beat up or kill a gay person because you believe homosexuality is wrong, you should not be punished for that otherwise illegal conduct, according to the Republican platform. Can anybody explain to me how any sane GLBT individual could be a Log Cabin Republican, vote for candidates aligned with such hateful people, or support a party which not only welcomes and embraces such bigots, but adopts their extreme prejudice and intolerance as a part of the party’s official platform? If you are a Jew or a Muslim or a Hindu or an adherent to any religious sect other than a Christian denomination, you fare little better. In the Republicans’ view, as expressed in their platform, you are a second class citizen: “America is a Christian nation” they once again remind us. They support “Covenant Marriage,” which (according to the website of the Covenant Marriage Movement) is a relationship based on “the centrality of Christ in the home.” What’s more, the idea that our constitution, our national tradition, and our core values call for a separation between church and state is “a myth,” according to the Republican platform. Accordingly, Republicans oppose any government action which would restrict the public display of any religious symbols – a cross on all public buildings, a crucifix in all classrooms, the New Testament at the entryway to every courthouse, a nativity scene year round in all public parks, a statue of the Virgin Mary on every bus, or rosary beads above the entrance to every public building. And to be sure the courts could never decree government promotion of Christianity to be unconstitutional or unlawful, the platform insists that courts be stripped of such the power to decide any cases involving the First Amendment (the prohibition against the establishment of religion by the government). In fact, the Republicans want to outlaw federal courts presiding over any case involving any right protected by the Bill of Rights to the U. S. Constitution – freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, or cases about the Fourth Amendment (search and arrest) or the Fifth Amendment (just compensation for taking of property by the state), for example. None of those rights should any longer be protected by the courts of the United States (specifically including the Supreme Court), Republicans demand in their platform. The Republicans betray a remarkable dishonesty throughout their platform as they try to portray religious fundamentalism as something other than that. For example, the reason, the Republicans say, that the Decalogue should be displayed in school classrooms and courtrooms and other public places is because “the Ten Commandments are the basis of our basic freedoms.” Maybe it would help if the Republicans would ever read the Ten Commandments. While profoundly important theologically, especially to Christians and Jews, there is nothing – not one word – in the Ten Commandments which has anything to do with “freedoms.” On the contrary, the Ten Commandments are essentially a very good list of “thou shalt nots – not “you have the freedoms to . . .” What the Ten Commandments are the basis of – and rightly so, in my view – is fundamental religious conviction (“I am the Lord Thy God;” “do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;” “keep holy the Sabbath”) of Christians and Jews – not “our basic freedoms.” Trying to justify proselytizing by claiming it is non-secular (the “basis of our freedoms,”) when it is really a tenant of divine faith, is a disservice to the sanctity and sacredness of the religious importance of the Decalogue, as well as being dishonest . The Republicans who make this specious claim should read the Seventh Commandment (thou shalt not bear false witness). Consistency is obviously not a value Republicans cherish or respect. On page 9 of their platform, for example, they both “oppose any attempt to introduce direct democracy (initiative and referendum) into our state constitution” and – on the same page – “support legislation . . . guaranteeing . . . binding referenda” (in some cases). Similarly, Republicans in their platform purport to “believe in sound science and not politically correct science,” but later support the teaching of Intelligent Design and demand that evolution be taught as “theory,” not as scientific fact. They also object to any “scientific research” involving embryonic stem cells. While professing to believe that “the family is responsible for its own . . . moral training,” the Republicans demand that they be entitled to impose their moral beliefs on the entire country. For example, their platform insists that homosexuality must be prohibited because “homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God.” In this section of the platform it’s not the family that’s responsible for moral training, it’s the Republicans. Republicans oppose in their platform “any government effort to implement a nation ID program,” but later demand a federal government issued photo ID be required to vote. Another interesting example of the schizophrenia of the Republican platform its declaration that the United States and Israel share a relationship “based on shared values.” News flash to Republicans: Israel is not a Christian nation and does not embrace Christianity as its fundamental source of values. And concerning another of our “shared values,” Israel decriminalized homosexuality in 1988; prohibited discrimination against gays in the workplace and 1992, and has allowed openly gay and lesbian soldiers to serve in all capacities in the Israel military since 1993. In fact, by law, the Israeli Army must afford the same benefits to same sex couples as it provides for heterosexual couples – a trifecta of “shared vaules” – recognition of marriage rights of gays (even common law marriage rights), provision of same sex benefits, and allowing homosexuals in the military. It’s good to know the Republican Party believes that the special relationship between the United States and Israel is based on such “shared values.” Republicans “commend the many excellent teachers” in Texas, but refuse to give them a raise – in fact demand no increase in state taxes for that purpose. They “oppose any medical record computer database or registry which would store personal medical records,” but demand – on the very same page of their platform – that HIV infections be reported to the United States Public Health Service. As far as education is concerned, not only do the Republicans favor school vouchers, they demand a state constitutional amendment prohibiting the state from imposing any rules or regulations about how state money can be spent by private or parochial schools. They insist there be no increase in state taxes to pay for schools (they even call for rescission of the Texas lottery as a source of funds for education), repeatedly demand abolition of the United States Department of Education and getting rid of all of its programs – including, for example, the No Child Left Behind program – and call for elimination of all student aid programs – such as Pell grants and student loans. Republicans would also, according to their platform, eliminate government sponsored pre-school and kindergarten programs – as soon as possible. They do call upon the Governor and the Commissioner of Education to encourage schools to make greater use of corporal punishment. And then, in what strikes me as remarkably ironic, given that command, assert their opposition to having medical clinics on school property. Some of the Republicans’ ideas about crime and punishment are also bizarre. “Faith based rehabilitation programs should replace incarceration” in our criminal justice system, their platform suggests. Even convicted felons should be allowed to purchase firearms, if acquired for the purpose of protecting their homes and communities. The Brady Law should be repealed and juries should be informed that they have a right to disregard a judge’s instructions and the law and acquit a defendant, if that best comports with their conscience. (If you disagree with the country’s drug laws, for example, you should be informed that you can vote “not guilty” in a narcotics trial, even if the defendant did everything he or she is accused of.) Of course the platform contains some provisions one would more or less expect from this bunch (a call for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and numerous provisions to restrict access to abortion, for example). But, in fairness, there are a few planks in which Republicans (perhaps unwittingly) advance some sharp criticism of their elected Republican leaders or promote some ideas with which Democrats could well agree. For example, the Republican platform calls for a prohibition of former legislators and governments employees and officials from acting as lobbyists for any business or foreign government for a period of five years after leaving public service. It also insists that no tax dollars be used to pay lobbyists (actually, I think Democrats understand there are times when some governmental units can appropriately use taxpayer funds to lobby for the interests of their constituents and institutional wellbeing). The platform calls for “sensible consolidation of local school districts” and (though I strongly suspect the Republicans who agreed to this platform neither realize nor agree with this), elimination of funding of so-called faith based initiatives. Texas Republicans’ platform admits that the way the Republicans have been operating the budgetary and appropriations processes has been “unethical.” They condemn promises of financial and other help during reelection campaigns by members of congress in exchange for votes – like Tom DeLay did on the floor of the House and, really, throughout his corrupt career. And they call upon the Department of Homeland Security to quit “violat[ing] the constitutional rights of the citizens of the United States,” and acknowledge that some “portions of the USA Patriot Act . . . erode constitutional rights ane essential liberties of citizens. But, by and large, the 2006 Texas Republican Party platform displays a wackiness and extremism of almost unimaginable proportions. For example, the Republicans urge the president to use “game wardens . . . wherever needed . . . in support of homeland security.” (Here insert your own Dick Cheney quail hunting lawyer shooting joke.) The platform’s provisions, if implemented, would prohibit the government from outlawing contributions to so-called “charities” which funnel money to terrorist organizations, since, according to the Republicans, the government should not impose any restrictions of any kind on contributions to faith based charities. And if parents doesn’t want their child vaccinated for communicable diseases before being admitted to public school, that’s their right, say the Republicans in their platform. And Republicans urge a “re-establish[ment of] states’ rights.” (Remember that phrase from the 1960's and George Wallace, et al. If Republicans have their way, the confederacy will rise again!) As far as foreign policy is concerned, Republicans suggest that the guiding light should be “God’s biblical promise[s]” (like His promise “to bless Israel”), rather than on considerations of vital national interest (though in some cases, like Israel, the result may be the same). The Republican platform also demands elimination of all day labor work centers (because some people getting jobs that way may be undocumented immigrants and despite the fact that such centers do assist unemployed citizens in obtaining jobs). And the Republicans’ solution for the problems created by the outsourcing of American jobs overseas? Congress should “investigate,” the Republican platform recommends. And perhaps the single goofiest proposal of all: not only should the United States “immediately rescind our membership” in the United Nations and renounce (and renege on) our debt to the U.N., but also, the platforms exhorts, we should “evict the United Nations from the United States.” (They’re not in the United States or on our soil; the United Nations sits on its own sovereign territory; to say we could “evict” it is rather like saying we should evict Canada from the U.S.; it’s adjacent to our borders, too). The Republicans’ plan for “strengthening the economy” is also absurd: eliminate the income tax (personal and corporate), inheritance tax, capital gains taxes, payroll (social security, Medicare, and unemployment) taxes, property taxes, and the lottery, and replace them all with a single sales tax (because that is “the most equitable” tax, according to the Republicans.) (Until that can be accomplished, the tax breaks for millionaires should be made permanent and a deduction added for expenses incurred for private, parochial, and home schooling). Then “vote only for balanced budgets,” which Republicans suggest can be accomplished by eliminating most federal agencies and privatizing “most government services.” All of that might be tremendously hard to achieve at the same time you are phasing out Social Security (as the Republicans demand and which would cost trillions of dollars to repay the money the government has already borrowed from the social security trust fund to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, the war in Iraq, and subsidies to giant pharmaceutical companies – by refusing to allow price negotiation in the Medicaid prescription drug program – among other things), spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the war in Iraq, wasting billions more on development of the “Star Wars” strategic defense initiative, which has never worked after all these years, as Republicans call for in their platform, and spend whatever it takes to “stop the flow of illegal aliens across our borders,” as Republicans demand. Indeed, Republicans are suddenly so incensed about immigration issues they make this the top spending priority of their platform. At the same time we should not spend any more money improving education or paying teachers a fair salary, or making college attainable or affordable for young people, or providing health care for children or affordable health insurance available for any of the 45 million Americans who have none, or securing our ports or inspecting incoming cargo, Republicans demand expenditure of “all necessary . . . financial . . . means . . . to stop the flow of illegal aliens . . . across our borders.” Nothing else matters (spendingwise) to these folks as much as this one. The Republican platform advocates construction of a fence “along the entire length of our country’s border with Mexico, locating and deporting all persons within our borders who have entered our country unlawfully, and “immediate deployment of the United States of America’s Military Forces [Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, and National Guard] to secure America’s southern border.” (The Republicans fail to specify where those troops are supposed to come from – Iraq, Afghanistan, the Korean peninsula, hurricane and natural disaster relief efforts, or wherever.) No rational person can really believe it is possible – let alone desirable – to track down and deport 11 million undocumented individuals who may have entered this country illegally. Yet that is what the Republican Party platform calls for. No acknowledgment is made of the fact that we lured them here with promises of jobs and a source of money to provide for their families if they came (and then delivered on that promise), that most have been productive, contributing, law-abiding members of society since arriving here, that they are, by and large, people of deep religious faith and conviction, or that many have children who are (by virtue of the United States Constitution) citizens of the United States or other families members who are citizens of this country. As far as these “family values” folks (hypocrites may be a more accurate term) are concerned, none of that matters – there should be no chance for these people to pay a penalty for their original illegal conduct and then earn the right to stay in this county – by hard work, lawful conduct, language proficiency, other requirements, and waiting in line (starting at the end of the line) until their time to be considered for citizenship comes up. (If we had a similar attitude about other transgressions, nobody who got a ticket for speeding or was found guilty of DWI could ever drive a car again, nobody who committed adultery could ever marry or re-marry, and anybody who ever took, or failed properly to report, a campaign contribution in excess of the legal limits or from a prohibited source could never hold public office.) There are plenty of other provisions in the 2006 Platform of the Texas Republican Party which deserve sharp criticism – even incredulity. That’s why the Harris County Democratic Party posts the 2006 Texas Republican Party Platform on our website (www.hcdp.org): we want folks to know exactly what these people stand for and believe in. Democratic values, expressed by our platform, reflect the belief that our government can be as good as its people, a faith in democracy, and an embrace of all members of our community, recognizing the worth and potential of each and every one of us. That’s where Democrats and Republicans differ most fundamentally – in the core principle that this state and this nation are for all of us. Two years ago I condemned the 2004 Texas Republican Party Platform as “unabashedly homophobic, categorically anti-choice, remarkably anti-education, intransigently anti-worker, undeniably anti-Hispanic, and frighteningly anti-democratic.” I characterized as “stunning” its “self-indulgent disdain for ideals Americans hold dear.” In that regard, nothing has changed. Gerry Birnberg |
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By:
Gerry Birnberg, Chair
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