Republican Party Platform 2008

The Republican Party has approved it’s platform and although I haven’t had the chance to read the entire document, it starts out with this:

Our party embodies a uniquely American spirit. It is the spirit of independent minds, the conviction that open and honest debate is essential to the freedom we enjoy as Americans.

 

I wish this were true, but it doesn’t feel to me that Republicans really want to engage openly and honestly in debate.  Rather we are spoon-fed talking points in the hopes we are too busy or disinterested to discover the lies.  Sarah Palin, in her first speech to the American public, claims she said “Thanks, but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere.  We now know that it false.  Republicans were all over the airwaves this holiday weekend talking about her Commander in Chief creds vis-a-vis her being the Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard, making it sound like she actually makes life and death decisions about troops serving in Iraq.  This is just a sampling of the distortions being spread by the RNC.

 

Here’s more:

With gratitude for eight years of honorable service from President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, the Republican Party now stands united behind new leadership, an American patriot, John McCain.

 

I guess they had to say something about the disastrous two terms of George W. Bush, but honorable isn’t what first comes to mind.  I found it interesting that the above adds the adjective, American patriot, to describe McCain while there seems to be a controversy about whether Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party, a group that advocates secession from the United States.

 

And now for some of the meat:

1. We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes.
2. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

So if you support stem cell research or a woman’s right to choose, then vote of Barack Obama.  The support of a human life amendment goes beyond overturning Roe v. Wade and would not allow states to decide the issue.  Women would not be able to have abortions in the case of rape, incest, or even when the mother’s health was at risk.  I seriously doubt such an amendment could pass, but overturning Roe v. Wade is a clear possibility if the evangelicals choose the next Supreme Court justices.

 

And although  I’m not sure how effective sex education is for teenagers, I would still opt for more than less:

 

We renew our call for replacing “family planning” programs for teens with increased funding for abstinence education, which teaches abstinence until marriage as the responsible and expected standard of behavior. Abstinence from sexual activity is the only protection that is 100 percent effective against out-of wedlock pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS when transmitted sexually.

 

There is also a controversy over global warming, a word that does not appear anywhere in the Republican Party Platform.  But that is for another post.