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Skeptimedia

Maine's Tea Party Republic

16 May 2010. If you think Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are aberrations and don't represent the core of the Republican party, take a look at the recently adopted platform of the Maine Republican Party.

The platform has a nice preamble that reminds us of the dangers of tyranny and the need for eternal vigilance to protect liberty and freedom. The Tea Party movement is held up as a model for returning to 1854 when Horace Greeley referred to the newly formed Republicans as “…united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty…." Translation: Democrats are in power and we Tea Partyers have declared war. Everybody knows the first casualty of war is truth. So be it. We must stop at nothing to get Obama and the Democrats out of office.

How are the Republicans going to make the country a better place? Their plan is based on arousing fear that the federal government (when Democrats are in control) and the United Nations are imminent threats to our liberty. Note how anything the state Republicans oppose is described as fraud or a restriction of liberty, even if it isn't. Here are some highlights:

-Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.

-Rescind Maine’s sanctuary State status. No amnesty, no benefits, no citizenship -ever- for anyone in the country illegally. Arrest and detain, for a specified period of time, anyone here illegally, and then deport, period.

-Direct the State of Maine to join with other states in asserting our 10^th amendment sovereignty rights which protect us from unconstitutional federal government intrusions.

-Insist on strict adherence to our 2^nd amendment right to keep and bear arms.

-Reject any [United Nations] agreement which seeks to confiscate our firearms.

-Oppose “Localism and Diversity”, the Fairness Doctrine or whatever else such attempted restrictions are labeled.

-Reject the Employee free-choice Elimination- act, as an unconscionable affront to the right to a secret vote.

-Eliminate motor voter and other voter fraud mechanisms; institute secure voter registration and identification systems.

The platform calls for congressional term limits and no government pension for retired senators or representatives. It calls for "restoring" constitutional law as the basis for the judiciary. One can only guess that the Republican Mainers think judicial decisions they disagree with are based on personal values or some such thing. They want to "reassert" the principle that freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.

This group of patriots says that in order to insure domestic tranquility they must promote family values by declaring that "marriage is an institution between a man and a woman" and that "parents, not government, are responsible for making decisions in the best interest of their children, whether disciplinary, educational, or medical." I wonder if they read the story about the parent who starved her child to death for not saying "amen" at the dinner table.

It would be too obviously hypocritical to call for a federal ban on abortions; hence, the tepid nod to the anti-abortion wing of the party: "We recognize the sanctity of life, which includes the unborn."

We haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet. Guess what these folks want to do to "provide for the common defense"?

-Discard political correctness, make public the declaration of war (Jihad), made against the US on 23 Feb 1998, and fight the war against the United States by radical Islam to win.  (Click here to see this document that needs to be made public but has been kept secret by political correctness.)

-Seal the border and protect US citizens along the border and everywhere, as is the prime directive of the Federal Government. (The federal government always seems more menacing in CAPS.)

To promote the general welfare, the Republican mythmakers of Maine propose to eliminate the Federal Reserve. They want to "defeat Cap and Trade, investigate collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth, and prosecute any illegal collusion." They propose to promote energy independence by "removing the obstacles created by government to allow private development of our resources; natural gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power." I suppose conservation or alternative energy development is considered part of a global conspiracy to do something really bad.

I can only guess that these folks are taking a sideways approach to decry taxes and the welfare state when they remind us that "It is immoral to steal the property rightfully earned by one person, and give it to another who has no claim or right to its benefits."

You can imagine what these folks have to say about health care. First, they have to lie and claim that the federal government has taken over healthcare. It hasn't. Then they must declare that the takeover that never happened was unconstitutional:

...healthcare is not a right. It is a service.  As a compassionate society we will aid those in need. However, the government takeover of healthcare is not only unconstitutional, but detrimental to the entire healthcare system.  Only market based solutions will solve the problems.

The coup de grâce, the final blow that will return our country to freedom and rule by the Constitution (as understood by this group of radical right-wing Republicans), is to call for the end of the Department of Education and to "repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government." As a nice rhetorical flourish, they call for the end of the Department of Education after quoting Jefferson: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Tell that to the folks in Texas.

I guess we should be thankful that the Maine Republicans didn't declare that the Bible is the basis of the Constitution.

The Mainiacs have an economic plan that boggles the mind. First, they want a "return to the principles of Austrian Economics, and redirect the economy back to one of incentives to save and invest." Austrian economics is often criticized for being anti-scientific. (It is worth noting that the Maine Republican platform doesn't even mention science nor does it mention any need to be more watchful over Wall Street.) They want to "cut spending, balance the budget, and institute a plan for paying down debt." They want to do this while waging all-out war against radical Islam. Of course, it goes without saying, they want lower taxes. They simply mention this in their mission statement: "Republicans believe in less government, lower taxes and a responsible fiscal policy...." These notions are known collectively as the myth of Reaganomics. We've seen how well these ideas worked under George W. Bush's rule: taxes were lowered, then the economy started to rebound. Post hoc ergo propter hoc. The Republicans gloated. Now we know that the rebound was due to the housing boom that wasn't.

So, here's the plan: give us incentives to save and invest. If this means don't tax interest and dividends, then I'm all for it. The downside is that if we put our money in savings and investments, then we won't be spending it. If we don't spend our money, the economy will suffer. Businesses will have to close and people will lose jobs. The economy can't keep growing if people don't have the money to keep spending. That's okay, because all we have to do is lower taxes some more and reduce the size of government. Then we can balance the budget, have a few more wars, and pay down the national debt. If that doesn't work, we can lower taxes some more and cut down government some more. We can continue the process until we reach perfection: a state where there is no government and there are no taxes. That should please Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and the rest of these mythmakers.