Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

50 Shockingly Extreme Right Wing Proposals in the 2016 Republican Party Platform

The Republican Party platform  is a wish list for what Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump would like to impose on America.

What’s surprising about it is that it goes further to the right than what’s even been heard on the campaign trail from Trump as he has promised to build a wall along the Mexican border and embrace the religious right’s long-held tenets opposing abortion, LGBT rights, and more.

The GOP 2016 platform would make Christianity the official American religion, English the official American language, replace sex education with abstinence-only advice for teenagers, privatize almost all areas of federal services, cut taxes and regulations for the rich and titans of industry ,and impose a belligerent foreign policy and military build-up.

Here are 50 excerpts from the 2016 GOP platform:    

1. Tax Cuts for the Rich: Wherever tax rates penalize thrift or discourage investment, they must  be  lowered.  Wherever  current  provisions  of  the  code  are  disincentives  for  economic growth,  they  must  be  changed… We propose to level the international playing field by lowering the corporate  tax  rate  to  be  on  a  par  with,  or  below,  the  rates  of  other  industrial  nations.

2. Deregulate The Banks: The  Republican  vision  for  American  banking calls for establishing transparent, efficient markets where consumers can obtain loans they need at reasonable rates based on market conditions. Unfortunately, in response to the financial institutions crisis of 2008-2009, the Democratic-controlled Congress enacted the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, otherwise known as Dodd-Frank.

3. Stop Consumer Protection: The  worst  of  Dodd-Frank  is  the  Consumer  Financial Protection Bureau, deliberately designed to be a rogue agency. It answers to neither Congress nor the executive, has its own guaranteed funding outside  the  appropriations  process… If the Bureau is not abolished, it should be subjected to congressional appropriation.

4. Start Repealing Environmental Laws: We call for a comprehensive review of federal regulations, especially those dealing with the environment,  that  make  it  harder  and  more  costly  for  Americans to rent, buy, or sell homes.

5. Start shrinking unions and union labor: We renew our call for repeal of the Davis-Bacon law, which limits employment and drives up construction and maintenance costs for the benefit of unions… Although  unionization  has  never  been  permitted in any government agency concerned with national  security,  the  current  Administration  has  reversed  that  policy  for  the  Transportation  Security  Administration.  We  will  correct  that  mistake… We  support  the  right  of  states  to  enact  Right-to-Work  laws  and  call  for  a  national law to protect the economic liberty of the modern workforce.

6. Privatize Federal Railway Service: Amtrak  is  an  extremely  expensive   railroad   for   the   American taxpayers, who must subsidize every ticket. The federal  government  should  allow  private ventures to provide passenger service in the northeast corridor.  The  same  holds  true  with  regard  to  high-speed  and  intercity rail across the country.  We reaffirm our intention to end federal  support  for  boondoggles  like  California’s  high-speed train to nowhere.  

7. No Change in Federal Minimum Wage: Minimum wage is an issue that should be handled at the state and local level.

8. Cut Government Salaries and Benefits: The taxpayers spend an average of $35,000 a year per employee on non-cash benefits, triple  the  average  non-cash  compensation  of  the  average  worker  in  the  private  sector.  Federal  employees receive extraordinary pension benefits and vacation  time  wildly  out  of  line  with  those  of  the  private sector.

9. Appoint Anti-Abortion Supreme Court Justices: Only  a  Republican  president  will  appoint  judges  who  respect  the  rule  of  law  expressed within the Constitution and Declaration of  Independence,  including  the  inalienable  right  to life and the laws of nature and nature’s God, as did the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

10. Appoint Anti-LGBT and Anti-Obamacare justices: Only such appointments will enable courts to begin to reverse the  long  line  of  activist  decisions  —  including  Roe, Obergefell, and the Obamacare cases — that have  usurped  Congress’s  and  states’  lawmaking  authority.

11. Legalize Anti-LGBT Discrimination: We endorse the First Amendment Defense Act, Republican legislation in the House and Senate which  will  bar  government  discrimination  against  individuals and businesses for acting on the belief that  marriage  is  the  union  of  one  man  and  one  woman.

12. Make Christianity a National Religion: We  support  the  public  display  of  the  Ten  Commandments as a reflection of our history and our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage and further affirm the rights of religious students to engage in voluntary prayer at public school events and to have equal access to school facilities.

13. Loosen Campaign Finance Loopholes and Dark Money: Freedom of speech includes the right to devote resources  to  whatever  cause  or  candidate  one  supports. We oppose any restrictions or conditions that would discourage citizens from participating in the  public  square  or  limit  their  ability  to  promote  their ideas, such as requiring private organizations to publicly disclose their donors to the government.

14. Loosen Gun Controls Nationwide: We  support  firearm  reciprocity  legislation  to  recognize  the  right  of  law-abiding  Americans to carry firearms to protect themselves and  their  families  in  all  50  states.  We  support  constitutional  carry  statutes  and  salute  the  states  that  have  passed  them.  We  oppose  ill-conceived  laws  that  would  restrict  magazine  capacity  or  ban  the  sale  of  the  most  popular  and  common  modern rifle.

15. Pass an Anti-Abortion Constitutional Amendment: We  assert  the  sanctity  of  human  life  and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a  human  life  amendment  to  the  Constitution  and  legislation  to  make  clear  that  the  Fourteenth  Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.

16. End federal funding for Planned Parenthood: We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned  Parenthood,  so  long  as  they  provide  or  refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide healthcare.

17. Allow States to Shut Down Abortion Clinics: We  condemn  the  Supreme  Court’s  activist  decision  in  Whole  Woman’s  Health  v.  Hellerstedt  striking down commonsense Texas laws providing for  basic  health  and  safety  standards  in  abortion  clinics.

18. Oppose Stem Cell Scientific Research: We  oppose  embryonic  stem  cell  research.  We  oppose  federal  funding  of  embryonic  stem cell research.  We support adult stem cell research and urge the  restoration  of  the  national  placental stem cell bank created by President George H.W. Bush but  abolished  by  his  Democrat  successor, President Bill Clinton. We  oppose  federal  funding  for  harvesting embryos and call for a ban on human cloning.

19. Oppose Executive Branch Policy Making: We condemn the current Administration’s unconstitutional  expansion  into  areas  beyond  those  specifically  enumerated,  including  bullying  of state and local governments in matters ranging from voter identification (ID) laws to immigration, from  healthcare  programs  to  land  use  decisions,  and  from  forced  education  curricula  to  school  restroom policies.

20. Oppose Efforts to End the Electoral College: We oppose the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact  and  any  other  scheme  to  abolish  or distort the procedures of the Electoral College.

21. Require Citizenship Documents to Register to Vote: We  support  legislation  to  require  proof  of  citizenship  when  registering  to  vote  and  secure  photo  ID  when  voting. We strongly oppose litigation against states exercising their sovereign authority to enact such laws.

22. Ignore Undocumented Immigrants When Drawing Congressional Districts: In  order  to  preserve  the principle of one person, one vote, we urge our elected representatives to ensure that citizenship, rather than mere residency, be made the basis for the  apportionment  of  representatives  among  the  states.

23. No Labeling of GMO Ingredients in Food Products: The  intrusive  and  expensive  federal mandates on food options and menu labeling should be  ended  as  soon  as  possible  by  a  Republican  Congress.  We  oppose  the  mandatory  labeling  of  genetically modified food, which has proven to be safe, healthy, and a literal life-saver for millions in the developing world.

24. Add work requirements to welfare and cut food stamps: Nearly all the work requirements for able-bodied adults, instituted by our  landmark  welfare  reform  of  1996,  have  been  removed.  We  will  restore  those  provisions  and,  to correct a mistake made when the Food Stamp program  was  first  created  in  1964,  separate  the  administration  of  SNAP  [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program] from  the  Department  of  Agriculture.

25. Open America’s Shores to More Oil and Gas Drilling: We support the opening of public lands and the outer continental shelf to exploration and responsible production, even if these resources will not be immediately developed.

26. Build the Keystone XL Pipeline: The  Keystone  Pipeline  has  become  a  symbol  of  everything  wrong  with  the  current  Administration’s  ideological  approach.  After years of delay, the President killed it to satisfy environmental extremists. We intend to finish that pipeline and others as part of our commitment to North American energy security.

27. Expand Fracking and Burying Nuclear Waste: A  federal  judge  has  struck  down  the  BLM’s rule on hydraulic fracturing and we support upholding  this  decision.  We  respect  the  states’  proven  ability  to  regulate  the  use  of  hydraulic  fracturing,  methane  emissions,  and  horizontal  drilling,  and  we  will  end  the  Administration’s  disregard  of  the  Nuclear  Waste  Policy  Act  with  respect to the long-term storage of nuclear waste.

28. No Tax on Carbon Products: We oppose any carbon tax… We  urge the private sector to focus its resources on the development of carbon capture and sequestration technology still in its early stages here and overseas.  

29. Ignore Global Climate Change Agreements: The  United  Nations’  Intergovernmental  Panel  on  Climate  Change  is  a  political  mechanism,  not  an  unbiased  scientific  institution.  Its  unreliability  is  reflected  in  its  intolerance  toward  scientists  and  others  who  dissent  from  its  orthodoxy.  We  will  evaluate  its  recommendations  accordingly.  We  reject  the  agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement,  which  represent  only  the  personal  commitments   of   their   signatories;   no   such   agreement can be binding upon the United States until it is submitted to and ratified by the Senate.

30. Privatize Medicare, The Health Plan for Seniors: Impose no changes  for  persons  55  or  older.  Give  others  the  option  of  traditional  Medicare  or  transition  to  a  premium-support  model  designed  to  strengthen  patient  choice,  promote  cost-saving  competition  among  providers.

31. Turn Medicaid, The Poor’s Health Plan, Over to States: Moving to a block grant approach would allow for state  and  local  governments  to  create  solutions  for  individuals  and  families  in  desperate  need  of  help  in  addressing  mental  illness.  We  respect  the  states’ authority and flexibility to exclude abortion providers from federal programs such as Medicaid and other healthcare and family planning programs so  long  as  they  continue  to  perform  or  refer  for  elective abortions.

32. No Increasing Social Security Benefits by Taxing the Rich: As  Republicans, we oppose tax increases and believe in  the  power  of  markets  to  create  wealth  and  to  help secure the future of our Social Security system.

33. Repeal Obamacare: Any  honest  agenda  for  improving  healthcare  must  start  with  repeal  of  the  dishonestly  named  Affordable Care Act of 2010: Obamacare.

34. Give Internet Service Providers Monopoly Control: The President ordered  the  chair  of  the  supposedly  independent  Federal  Communications  Commission  to  impose  upon the internet rules devised in the 1930s for the telephone monopoly… The  internet’s  free  market needs to be free and open to all ideas and competition  without  the  government  or  service  providers picking winners and losers.  

35. Make English the Official U.S. Language: We both encourage the preservation of heritage tongues and support English as the nation’s official language, a unifying force  essential  for  the  advancement  of  immigrant  communities and our nation as a whole.

36. No Amnesty for Undocumented Immigrants: Illegal immigration endangers everyone,  exploits  the  taxpayers,  and  insults  all  who  aspire  to  enter  America  legally.  We  oppose  any form of amnesty for those who, by breaking the law,  have  disadvantaged  those  who  have  obeyed it.

37. Build a Border Wall to Keep Immigrants Out:  Our  highest  priority,  therefore,  must  be  to  secure  our  borders  and  all  ports  of  entry  and  to  enforce our immigration laws. That  is  why  we  support  building  a  wall  along  our  southern  border  and  protecting  all  ports  of  entry.  The  border  wall  must  cover  the  entirety  of  the  southern  border  and  must  be  sufficient  to  stop  both  vehicular  and  pedestrian  traffic.

38. Require Government Verification of Citizenship of all Workers: Use  of  the  E-verify  program  —  an  internet-based system that verifies the employment authorization  and  identity  of  employees  —  must  be  made  mandatory  nationwide.  We  reaffirm  our  endorsement  of  the  SAVE  program  —  Systematic  Alien Verification for Entitlements — to ensure that public  funds  are  not  given  to  persons  not  legally  present in this country.  

39. Penalize Cities that Give Sanctuary to Migrants: Because “sanctuary cities” violate federal law and endanger their own citizens, they should not be eligible for federal funding. Using state licenses to reward people in the country illegally is an affront to the rule of law and must be halted.

40. Puerto Rico Should Be a State But Not Washington, D.C.: We  support  the  right  of  the  United  States  citizens of Puerto Rico to be admitted to the Union as a fully sovereign state… A [D.C.} statehood amendment was soundly rejected by the states when last proposed in 1976 and should not be revived.

41. Support Traditional Marriage But No Other Families: Children  raised  in  a  two-parent  household  tend  to  be  physically and emotionally healthier, more likely to do well in school, less likely to use drugs and alcohol, engage  in  crime  or  become  pregnant  outside  of  marriage. We oppose policies and laws that create a financial incentive for or encourage cohabitation.

42. Privatize  Government Services in the Name of Fighting Poverty: We call for removal of structural impediments which progressives throw in the path of poor people: Over-regulation  of  start-up  enterprises,  excessive  licensing  requirements,  needless  restrictions  on  formation of schools and day-care centers serving neighborhood families, and restrictions on providing public services in fields like transport and sanitation.

43. Require Bible Study in Public Schools: A  good  understanding   of   the   Bible   being  indispensable  for  the  development  of  an  educated  citizenry,  we  encourage  state  legislatures  to  offer  the  Bible  in  a  literature  curriculum  as  an  elective  in  America’s  high  schools.

44. Replace Traditional Public Schools with Privatized Options: We  support  options  for  learning,  including  home-schooling,  career  and  technical  education,  private  or  parochial  schools,  magnet  schools,  charter  schools,  online  learning,  and  early-college  high schools.

45. Replace Sex Education with Abstinence-only Approaches: We renew our call for replacing “family  planning”  programs  for  teens  with  sexual  risk  avoidance  education  that  sets  abstinence  until  marriage  as  the  responsible  and  respected  standard  of  behavior.  That  approach  —  the  only  one always effective against premarital pregnancy and  sexually-transmitted  disease  —  empowers  teens  to  achieve  optimal  health  outcomes.  We oppose  school-based  clinics  that  provide  referral  or  counseling  for  abortion  and  contraception  and  believe  that  federal  funds  should  not  be  used  in mandatory or universal mental health, psychiatric, or socio-emotional screening programs.  

46. Privatize Student Loans Instead of Lowering Interest Rates: The  federal  government  should  not  be  in  the  business  of  originating  student  loans.  In  order  to  bring  down  college  costs  and  give  students  access to a multitude of financing options, private sector participation in student financing should be restored.

47. Restore the Death Penalty: The  constitutionality  of  the  death  penalty  is  firmly  settled  by  its  explicit  mention  in  the  Fifth  Amendment.  With  the  murder  rate  soaring  in  our  great  cities,  we  condemn  the  Supreme  Court’s  erosion of the right of the people to enact capital punishment in their states.

48. Dramatically Increase Pentagon Budget: Quite simply, the Republican Party is committed to rebuilding the U.S. military into the strongest on earth, with vast superiority over any other nation or group of nations in the world.

49. Cancel Iran Nuclear Treaty and Expand Nuclear Arsenal: We  should  abandon  arms  control  treaties  that  benefit  our  adversaries  without  improving our national security. We must fund, develop, and deploy a multi-layered missile defense system. We must modernize nuclear weapons and their delivery platforms.

50. Reaffirm Support for Israel and Slam Sanctions Movement: We   reaffirm   America’s   commitment to Israel’s security and will ensure that Israel maintains a qualitative military edge over any and all adversaries… We  reject  the false notion that Israel is an occupier and specifically recognize  that  the  Boycott,  Divestment, and Sanctions Movement (BDS) is anti-Semitic in nature and seeks to destroy Israel. Therefore, we call for effective legislation to thwart actions that are intended to limit commercial relations with Israel, or persons or entities doing business in Israel or in Israeli-controlled territories, in a discriminatory manner.

Original Article
Source: truthdig.com/
Author:  Steven Rosenfeld

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