Maine Republicans Adopt Tea Party Platform

[Srelex]

http://www.mainepolitics.net/content/ma ... y-platform

An overwhelming majority of delegates to the Maine Republican convention tonight voted to scrap the the proposed party platform and replace it with a document created by a group of Tea Party activists.

The official platform for the Republican Party of Maine is now a mix of right-wing fringe policies, libertarian buzzwords and outright conspiracy theories.

The document calls for the elimination of the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve, demands an investigation of "collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth," suggests the adoption of "Austrian Economics," declares that "'Freedom of Religion' does not mean 'freedom from religion'" (which I guess makes atheism illegal), insists that "healthcare is not a right," calls for the abrogation of the "UN Treaty on Rights of the Child" and the "Law Of The Sea Treaty" and declares that we must resist "efforts to create a one world government."

It also contains favorable mentions of both the Tea Party and Ron Paul. You can read the whole thing here.

Dan Billings, who has served as an attorney for the Maine GOP, called the new platform "wack job pablum" and "nutcase stuff."

Despite the document's crazy content, Maine Republican Party Chair Charlie Webster insisted to the AP that all of the elements in the platform are things that Republicans support. He claimed to the Press Herald that these issues reflect the values of working-class Mainers.

As you can see in this video of the vote, the document certainly represents the opinion of the vast majority of GOP delegates:


Party platforms often include planks that are outside the mainstream, which are often ignored by candidates and the public, but the extremism this document represents is unique and unsettling.

See also this. http://www.mainepolitics.net/sites/defa ... atform.pdf

[Patrick Degan]

I'm surprised the manifesto didn't call for a return to the gold standard. In any case, this is going to make things... "interesting" for Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.

[Samuel]

National sovereignty shall be preserved and retained as dominant over any attempted unconstitutional usurpations of such by international treaty.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Oppose any and all treaties with the UN or any other organization or country which surrenders US sovereignty.

By definition, any equal treaty involves giving up some of the nations sovernity. For example, agreeing to not use chemical weapons impinges upon the governments soverign right to run its military.

Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.

I seriously don't know how to respond to this.

Reject “LOST” the Law Of The Sea Treaty.

The one that extends the amount of area the US has claim over?

Restore the process of assimilation of immigrants to preserve the benefits of an advanced educated and prosperous society.

The previous process was to pack them in slums and let them sink and swim on their own merits while they were pitted against other members of the underclass.

Term Limits: 12 years only, in any capacity.

Term limits are always stupid. It gives lobbyists more power. It is like these people want to establish a plutocratic state...

Congress can no longer vote themselves a pay raise.

Yes, congressional pay is a problem... given the fact they are mostly independantly wealthy and the extremely small amount it takes up in the budget

Congress is subject to and must abide by all the laws they impose on the general public.

No. It makes them vulnerable to harashment by cops. Aside from major laws like corruption, murder, rape, theft, embezzlement, Congressional repressentatives should be free to jaywalk, speed and park whereever they want to! Drink driving should get their lisences torn up though.

Restore “Constitutional law” as the basis for the Judiciary.

Fuck you common law and precedent!

Reassert the principle that “Freedom of Religion” does not mean “freedom from religion”.

You know, theocracy building. You can be any faith you want, but you have to obey the laws built from our religion. I don't see how anything like that could go wrong... "looks at reason the school prayer laws were tossed" oh yeah, religious people stop beating up on atheists and gays and go after each other. Well, we get to see the 17th all over again- I'm betting on the Catholics this time around.

Parents, not government, are responsible for making decisions in the best interest of their children, whether disciplinary, educational, or medical.

We recognize the sanctity of life, which includes the unborn.

Yes, these two are right next to each other... and are blatantly contradictory.

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.

These people make George W Bush (we are fighting a war on terror) look sensible and moderate. Lets declare war on an idea... and make it vague enough so that we get even more enemies!

to Audit the Federal Reserve, as the first step in Ending the Fed.

Monetary policy is for the weak!

Espouse and follow the principle: 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.

Good bye social security.

Clarify that healthcare is not a right. It is a service.

Like police protection.

Eliminate the Department of Education and restore schools to local control as specified in the constitution.

Yes, it isn't like that would screw over the poorer states. Or lead to a mess where states have varying standards and so companies prefer to higher from California or Texas because they are familiar with what their graduates learn.

Repeal and prohibit any participation in efforts to create a one world government.

Traitors! One day the world will be ruled from the Washington/New York metropolitan area. Or possibly Ottawa.

[UnderAGreySky]

Please let this be from The Onion.....

....damn.

I need to have a word with Poe. His law is understated, I think.

[Crossroads Inc.]

You know WHAT these people stand for, that doesn't surprise me, I've heard this stuff before, yes Even the idiotic "Ban the UN child laws" because its DA EVIL UN!"

But Maine? MAINE?
A state that 'almost' passed gay marriage?
Since when did they drink the koolaide?

[SCRawl]

This is all much ado about not very much. The nutjobs can have all the manifestos they want, but they won't make a lick of difference. For example: they can't impose term limits on congresscritters. That's not within the purview of the states. As for the other stuff, well, they're free to nominate or elect whomever they can, but they can't impose that nonsensical mandate upon their elected officials. If Maine's senators and congresspeople take this stuff seriously -- the rantings of the craziest 10% of their electorate -- then they deserve whatever they get.

[Andrew J.]

Restore the process of assimilation of immigrants to preserve the benefits of an advanced educated and prosperous society.

I just wanted to single this one out a bit. A few years ago on this board some statistics were posted saying that modern immigrants are assimilating more quickly than any previous generation, so if that's right then whatever we're doing now for assimilation is the best thing going.

[Terralthra]

Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.

I seriously don't know how to respond to this.

Hilariously, the USA never ratified said convention in the first place.

The Home School Legal Defense Association asserts that the CRC would threaten homeschoolers, as the government could show that home-schooling isn't in the best interest of the children involved, and thus require parents to send their children to an actual school, since signatories to the CRC are in effect stating that they will act in the best interest of children. source

[Formless]

Reassert the principle that “Freedom of Religion” does not mean “freedom from religion”.

Its like these fuckers have no idea how holy wars start. Which religion? You can't satisfy all of them, not even sticking to just christian sects. Assholes don't even know how freedom of religion works or why we have it.

Parents, not government, are responsible for making decisions in the best interest of their children, whether disciplinary, educational, or medical.

In other words, you want the right to beat your children with plastic hoses, teach indoctrinate them into creationism, and think you know better than medical professionals (you know, the people who ACTUALLY have responsibility for the health of the public, not the government).

Let them blow smoke. The sooner people realize that the teabaggers are bigoted psychopathic theocrats who talk of small government but want to impose all these little tidbits of evil on everyone (because there really is no other way of putting it) the sooner the hammer will come down on them.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I'm surprised the manifesto didn't call for a return to the gold standard.

That probably come under the support for "Austrian Economics".

[Alphawolf55]

Hopefully this doesn't creep into NH, we're still for the most part sane.

[Simplicius]

You know WHAT these people stand for, that doesn't surprise me, I've heard this stuff before, yes Even the idiotic "Ban the UN child laws" because its DA EVIL UN!"

But Maine? MAINE?
A state that 'almost' passed gay marriage?
Since when did they drink the koolaide?

If the breakdown of the Question 1 vote can be taken as representative of the divide between 'left' and 'right' in the state, it actually makes a fair bit of sense. Most of the state (geographically) is filled with tiny backwater towns - former mill towns, agricultural communites, resource extraction camps, and other sparse settlements out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. These places are where the votes against gay rights were in the majority (broken down by town and county), suggesting innate conservativism - and they are in the poorest parts in a state that was poor before the recession and is even poorer now because of it. When people are squeezed like that they'll want to look for 1.) someone to blame, and 2.) a cure - and since they're predominantly conservatives anyway, they'll tend to radicalize to the right and not the left.

[Samuel]

Reject the UN Treaty on Rights of the Child.

I seriously don't know how to respond to this.

Hilariously, the USA never ratified said convention in the first place.

The Home School Legal Defense Association asserts that the CRC would threaten homeschoolers, as the government could show that home-schooling isn't in the best interest of the children involved, and thus require parents to send their children to an actual school, since signatories to the CRC are in effect stating that they will act in the best interest of children. source

So they are arguing they have the right to abuse their children or that evil secular science will disagree with what Godly men and women believe because it is a conspiracy by the men in white coats?

Its like these fuckers have no idea how holy wars start. Which religion? You can't satisfy all of them, not even sticking to just christian sects. Assholes don't even know how freedom of religion works or why we have it.

That was why school prayer was origionally dumped- it pissed of the Catholics and Jews who were excluded.

[Darth Paxis]

Hopefully this doesn't creep into NH, we're still for the most part sane.

Given the recent outbreak of 9/11 nuts, at least in my area of NH, I'm not so sure NH is "mostly sane". That being said, I agree with your sentiment, I really do hope this doesn't migrate into NH.

[Alphawolf55]

Hopefully this doesn't creep into NH, we're still for the most part sane.

Given the recent outbreak of 9/11 nuts, at least in my area of NH, I'm not so sure NH is "mostly sane". That being said, I agree with your sentiment, I really do hope this doesn't migrate into NH.

We still have gay marriage, we still have universal health care for kids under 18. We're the safest state in the country, we're the second least religious.

Which area are you from? I'll admit I'm from the more liberal Dover/Portsmouth area.

[Darth Paxis]

I'm from Hillsborough County, around the Peterborough area. It's really a mix of political thought (or lack of it), but there was a lot of support for that "Vote on Marriage" idea, and the local paper had a lot of government conspiracy letters concerning 9/11 recently.

[Alphawolf55]

Yeah NH will have jump the shark if gay marriage gets repealed but I don't think it will honestly.

[Tanasinn]

Its like these fuckers have no idea how holy wars start.

Not hardly, it's just they think they'll be the ones pressing a boot to your throat and shooting you in the face, not vice-versa.

[Simplicius]

I don't know how the political & prosperity lines are drawn in NH, but if you guys from the south are in the better areas of the state you might want to look at what goes on in the backwaters every now and then. I grew up in a tiny town on the Maine coast, but a relatively progressive + Old Yankee-style one - and until I moved north and saw what the really poor and regressive parts of the state looked like for myself I'd never have known they existed.

There's no real use in saying "NH will likely XYZ" until you've got a reasonable grasp of the state's demographics.

[Simplicius]

Missed my edit window.

Getting back to Maine, the historical preferences for small, local government have been enough to make their way into the Down-Eastern stereotypes, while there has been an anti-tax, small-government current running through the state's conservatives for a while now. It's not as if the Tea Party bullshit came from nowhere; there are places in the thinking of a lot of people where it could creep in and find a toehold. All this does is give the state's Republicans an excuse to be even shittier:

Incident spurs call for school use review
A city School Committee member says she's 'appalled' at how GOP guests treated a classroom.

By Kelley Bouchard kbouchard@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

PORTLAND - One School Committee member, saying she's "appalled" by the behavior of some of the Republicans who used a room at King Middle School last weekend, wants to protect the city's public schools from future harm.

Sarah Thompson said she plans to raise the issue when the committee meets on May 19. She has asked Superintendent Jim Morse to contact City Manager Joe Gray so the committee will have a clear understanding of policies and legalities related to the rental and public use of school buildings.

"We allowed them to use the space and I'm appalled that they would go through a teacher's things, let alone remove something from a classroom," Thompson said Wednesday. "We want the public to use school spaces, but they need to respect that it's a school and understand that they should leave it the way they find it."

The Republican State Convention was held at the Portland Exposition Building, which is on Park Avenue, near the middle school. Party members from Knox County caucused in a classroom used by eighth-grade social studies teacher Paul Clifford.

When Clifford returned to school on Monday, he found that a favorite poster about the U.S. labor movement had been taken and replaced with a bumper sticker that read, "Working People Vote Republican."

Later, Clifford learned that his classroom had been searched. Republicans who had attended the convention called Principal Mike McCarthy to complain about "anti-American" things they saw there, including a closed box containing copies of the U.S. Constitution that were published by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Maine Republican Party leaders have issued a written apology to King students and teachers.

"King Middle School was kind enough to allow the (party) to use their facilities and we are deeply concerned about the lack of respect shown to the faculty," wrote Executive Director Christie-Lee McNally.

McNally said the party doesn't condone the destruction of property or encourage the lack of tolerance that a few convention-goers demonstrated.

"Over 900 other people attended these caucuses without incident and I hope that the actions of few do not tarnish the image of many," she said.

Thompson, whose children have attended King, noted that the middle school follows an Expeditionary Learning curriculum, which encourages students to investigate subjects in depth and from all angles.

She also defended Clifford, saying that he wouldn't promote one political ideology over another or restrict students from expressing their own thoughts, which were reflected in some posters in the classroom that students had made.

If the Republicans who used the room didn't like what they saw, they had every right to complain, by writing a letter or making a phone call, Thompson said. They didn't have the right to search, destroy or take anything in the classroom.

"School is about the exploration of ideas," Thompson said. "People need to respect that, regardless of their political party."

[Setesh]

Every state has its share of looneytoons in government. They yell real loud and get funny looks round here. But did get themselves in the paper.

[Patrick Degan]

Sounds more like King Middle School turned out to be the site of a Bund meeting.

[PainRack]

Term Limits: 12 years only, in any capacity.

Term limits are always stupid. It gives lobbyists more power. It is like these people want to establish a plutocratic state...

The Chinese had a saying that translates to better a permanent warlord than a straying bandit. In the Undercover Economist, Tim Hafford describes how economists has modelled societies to show that a dictator is better than anarcharists as a person expecting to stay in power longer has more incentive to maintain a good powerbase than loot and run.

[Molyneux]

Republicans who had attended the convention called Principal Mike McCarthy to complain about "anti-American" things they saw there, including a closed box containing copies of the U.S. Constitution that were published by the American Civil Liberties Union.

anti-American

U.S. Constitution

I...damn.
What?
I can't even...

...What?

[The Spartan]

anti-American

U.S. Constitution

I...damn.
What?
I can't even...

...What?

As I posted in Sir Nitram's thread on this article:

I wonder if that box of copies of the Constitution were annotated by the ACLU. Describing the meaning of clauses and amendments while, I presume, taking into account case law and/or the position of the ACLU would certainly come across as anti-American to the kind of Republican that would go rifling through a teacher's classroom papers and tear down posters that they don't like.