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GOP needs to put up or shut up on RNC 'Purity Resolution'
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The Republican National Committee is considering a litmus test of party members so they can financially blacklist any candidate who strays too far from their line.
According to the NY Times, some of the committee's 168 members want the party to strive for ideological purity in its platform and choice of candidates. Others want to make it official policy. The committee has put together a list of 10 principles; if you don't agree with eight of the 10 planks, you get no endorsement or campaign money. The ten planks:
We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill
We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare
We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation
We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check
We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants
We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges
We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat
We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act
We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion
We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership
The chief sponsor of the proposal, National Committeeman James Bopp, gained fame earlier this year when he sponsored another resolution, one that would have officially declared President Obama's agenda socialist. The committee didn't go along with that idea.
Conservative and liberal bloggers alike criticized Bopp's proposed resolution. Some pundits remarked that even Ronald Reagan wouldn't pass.
In response, Mr. Bopp defended the use of a 10-point list on key positions like fiscal conservatism, gun rights and abortion. He found it predictable that Democrats would be critical, saying they “relish criticizing the Republican Party for not being true to our conservative principles, which was unfortunately true with regard to support for spending, deficits and bailouts during the Bush administration, which I publicly criticized at the time. They will attack any effort to reassure voters that we are serious about restoring our conservative bona fides."
He called it an "effective way to regain trust with conservative voters that has been undermined” by GOP financial support for "liberal Republican ticket-switchers."
This from a guy who gets his health care from his employer. What'sa matter there, you self-accountability types? Can't get health care on your own? Gotta suckle off the employer's money? Socialist!
--Calling someone a "socialist" means little to those under 40. Draw your own conclusions about political savvy of your average RNC member.
--I like how they want smaller government but they want the government to tell you who you can marry by establishing a government definition. I also like the idea of opposing health care rationing while supporting the revocation of reproductive health services to women. The GOP wants to have it both ways, which is why I suspect that most these people are secretly bisexual.
Other planks for the RNC purity test:
Ability to instill fear in voters
Drill Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for loose change
Insist that President Obama flies coach on Air Force One
Every other Saturday, everyone in America has a yard sale to help raise money for unnecessary wars
Most things seem better after half a bottle of Jim Beam
Donations to Republican Party now declared a charitable contribution
Make Dick Cheney pay for his own medications
Seriously...
It's very illuminating that the Republican litmus test includes a number of items that "good" Republicans should be against. This party continues to define itself in negative terms and by those things it does not like.
I seem to recall a certain German movement in the 1930's that was all about purity, which is especially ironic given that those Republicans who now want "purity" in their party are the same ones who continually accuse our president of being just like the head of that dark period in German history.
Any chance these mini-Stalinists in the People's Republican Party will put on show trials for us?
How can the GOP be against abortion, but for war and executions? How can it be against health care reform, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, et. al., as these programs help those who are least fortunate in our society, as Christ preached in the Sermon on the Mount? It's what Christ put above everything else. Under the "purity test" Jesus Christ would fail it.
How can the "purity test" support war, but at the same time reduce taxes which are needed to pay for it? How does the GOP propose to pay to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and start new ones with Iran and North Korea?
No political party should be judging people on moral or religious principles; that violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Purity of thought? No descent allowed? Does the GOP care whether it's members are afforded the basic rights of all American citizens? Purity of thought doesn't jive too well with the Bill of Rights.
Our founders wrote it to protect citizens from just this sort of behavior. We had smart forefathers who understood the dark side of human impulses. Good riddance purity oaths. They are un-American to the core and exactly the reason why our founders fled to America.
The Republican Party has two choices: Either get rid of the extremists and religious zealots and back to its roots of fiscal conservatism and government efficiency, or cast out its moderates and unabashedly become the marginalist fanatical wing of America.
The moderates, progressives and "Blue Dogs" should form their own party leaving the liberals in the Democratic Party and the conservatives in the Republican Party. Then, the majority in this country will finally get represented, as opposed to being tossed around like baggage between the rhetoric of the two failed parties.
It's time the United States create what already exists in most western democracies: A viable third party. The two party system is an abject failure, because both parties represent the extremes in the United States, and not 70 percent or more of the views of the American population.
We need a vigorous and thoughtful opposition, not one based on the lowest common denominator fueled by self-righteous illogical anger and hate. There are many fiscal conservatives who believe in abortion rights, gay rights and civil rights, and smaller government. They're not extremists; they don't march at tea parties, they don't carry guns to political appearances. Like many of their Democratic counterparts, they are moderate and reasonable individuals just trying to get food on the table and put some money in the bank. This should be the core of the party, not the four million fanatics who believe every misinformed word of their favorite opinion journalists. Let the moderates reign and let the party and kick out the kooks; we'd be much better off as a nation.
If the Republican leadership hasn't the testicular fortitude to do that --and sadly, they don't-- maybe they'll have the guts to form a new party, and let them do it on the wings of intolerance to anything. I hope they succeed in the formation of such a party so they can find out how pathetically unrepresentative they are of moderate Americans, who don't just live in Middle America, they live all over America.
Someone needs to hand Mr. Bopp a copy of John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty." He'd probably burn it.
I seem to recall a certain German movement in the 1930's that was all about purity, which is especially ironic given that those Republicans who now want "purity" in their party are the same ones who continually accuse our president of being just like the head of that dark period in German history.
Any chance these mini-Stalinists in the People's Republican Party will put on show trials for us?
How can the GOP be against abortion, but for war and executions? How can it be against health care reform, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, et. al., as these programs help those who are least fortunate in our society, as Christ preached in the Sermon on the Mount? It's what Christ put above everything else. Under the "purity test" Jesus Christ would fail it.
How can the "purity test" support war, but at the same time reduce taxes which are needed to pay for it? How does the GOP propose to pay to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and start new ones with Iran and North Korea?
No political party should be judging people on moral or religious principles; that violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Purity of thought? No descent allowed? Does the GOP care whether it's members are afforded the basic rights of all American citizens? Purity of thought doesn't jive too well with the Bill of Rights.
Our founders wrote it to protect citizens from just this sort of behavior. We had smart forefathers who understood the dark side of human impulses. Good riddance purity oaths. They are un-American to the core and exactly the reason why our founders fled to America.
The Republican Party has two choices: Either get rid of the extremists and religious zealots and back to its roots of fiscal conservatism and government efficiency, or cast out its moderates and unabashedly become the marginalist fanatical wing of America.
The moderates, progressives and "Blue Dogs" should form their own party leaving the liberals in the Democratic Party and the conservatives in the Republican Party. Then, the majority in this country will finally get represented, as opposed to being tossed around like baggage between the rhetoric of the two failed parties.
It's time the United States create what already exists in most western democracies: A viable third party. The two party system is an abject failure, because both parties represent the extremes in the United States, and not 70 percent or more of the views of the American population.
We need a vigorous and thoughtful opposition, not one based on the lowest common denominator fueled by self-righteous illogical anger and hate. There are many fiscal conservatives who believe in abortion rights, gay rights and civil rights, and smaller government. They're not extremists; they don't march at tea parties, they don't carry guns to political appearances. Like many of their Democratic counterparts, they are moderate and reasonable individuals just trying to get food on the table and put some money in the bank. This should be the core of the party, not the four million fanatics who believe every misinformed word of their favorite opinion journalists. Let the moderates reign and let the party and kick out the kooks; we'd be much better off as a nation.
If the Republican leadership hasn't the testicular fortitude to do that --and sadly, they don't-- maybe they'll have the guts to form a new party, and let them do it on the wings of intolerance to anything. I hope they succeed in the formation of such a party so they can find out how pathetically unrepresentative they are of moderate Americans, who don't just live in Middle America, they live all over America.
Someone needs to hand Mr. Bopp a copy of John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty." He'd probably burn it.
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