For the most part, the new platform was very similar to the old platform, with some sections actually being verbatim matches. So, there's no need for me to repeat everything here that I wrote in the previous review. My comments in this review will be directed at new additions to the platform, or sections that I might have missed from the previous platform (it was 25 pages, and I only skimmed through the thing).

I think the thing that struck me the most this time was just how much the platform was influenced by nonsense. I mean, there are legitimate political debates - the balance of power between federal and state governments, the rights that should be granted to a developing fetus at different stages of development, the balance of personal freedom & privacy versus public safety, parental authority versus welfare of the children, etc. But many of the planks in this platform are the types of baseless arguments you'd normally expect to come in an e-mail forward or to hear from the lunatic fringe, such as the 'birther' nonsense, the support for alternative medicine, the paranoia of a one world government, and the questioning of evolution and global warming.

Before getting started with my own review, I'll note that there's a decent review at Capitol Annex, which gets a bit more into the motivation behind some of these planks, and points out some of the hypocrisy.

If It’s Good Enough For Us, It’s Good Enough for Them – The Government shall not, by rule or law, exempt any of its members from the provisions of such rule or law.

This sounds reasonable, but I've included it here because I recognize the source. I've received a few e-mail forwards recently with similar wording, and after a conversation with a co-worker, I learned that it's a relatively common belief that Congressmen and women don't have to pay into Social Security like the rest of the nation. While that may have been true decades ago, it hasn't been true since 1984 - 26 years ago. And even when members of Congress weren't paying into Social Security, it meant that they received no Social Security retirement credit for their time in office. Additionally, there aren't any laws the government members are exempt from following.

In other words, the Republicans of Texas have promoted a non-issue to the prominence of a plank in their platform.

more info: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/do_members_of_congress_pay_social_security.html
more info: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,308378,00.html

Washington D.C. – We strongly oppose making the District of Columbia a state and adding unconstitutional voting Congressional members.

This is an interesting debate. There's currently proposed legislation in the form of House Resolution 5388, the D.C. Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act, that would give D.C. a voting representative in the House. Opponents cite Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, which uses the wording of 'states', and that since D.C. isn't a state, then this legislation would be unconstitutional. Others cite Article I, Section 8, and claim that gives Congress the right to grant D.C. a voting representative.

Legality of that particular bill aside, there's the question of whether D.C. should get a representative. Currently, residents of D.C. have no representation in the federal government, even though they're bound by federal laws. It's a situation very similar to the 'taxation without representation' that led to the Revolutionary War. A single House representative certainly wouldn't give D.C. undue weight. The average constituency for members of the house is currently around 650,000 people, while D.C. has a population of 600,000 - just about a perfect match. However, giving D.C. two senators would give D.C. a lot of power in the Senate. Some have proposed compromises, such as an amendment to the Constitution to give them a House representative but no senators.

Still, the Republicans managed to mangle the wording of this plank in their platform. If D.C. were to be made a state, then it wouldn't be unconstitutional for it to have voting members in Congress. I also find it odd that they would 'strongly' oppose giving representation to U.S. citizens.

more info: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/93590/taxation_without_representation_should.html?cat=37

Remedies to Activist Judiciary – We call Congress and the President to use their constitutional powers to restrain activist judges. We urge Congress to adopt the Judicial Conduct Act of 2005 and remove judges who abuse their authority. Further, we urge Congress to withhold Supreme Court jurisdiction in cases involving abortion, religious freedom, and the Bill of Rights.

I discussed this quite a bit in my review of the previous platform, but in the new platform, the Republicans have summarized it quite nicely. They are pushing for Congress to restrict the Supreme Court from hearing cases that would test the constitutionality of laws! Not only is that unconstitutional itself, it's such a clear break from the original intentions of the Founding Fathers, who set up a system of checks and balances to make sure that no branch could abuse its power. This is un-American.

Candidate Eligibility – A candidate running for office should be required to reside within the geographical boundaries of the office sought. A candidate must submit proof of qualifications for the office being sought, including proof of citizenship and in the case of a presidential candidate, an original or certified copy of a birth certificate, bearing names and signatures of parents, attendant(s), as well as date, time and location of birth for the purpose of satisfying the requirement of being a "natural born citizen".

This is another one I included not because it's too unreasonable on the face of it, but because of the source. I think it's pretty obvious that the source of this plank is the whole 'Birther' nonsense regarding President Obama's citizenship. That this nonsense would be promoted to a plank on the platform is a sign of either stupidity in the Texas Republican Party leadership, or shameless pandering to stupidity among their base.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_citizenship_conspiracy_theories

Companion Animal Welfare – We support legislation to license and regulate large-scale commercial dog and cat breeding facilities to ensure the humane handling and care of dogs and cats in those facilities.

It's actually a bit of a nice surprise to see this plank.

ObamaCare – We urge the Congress to defund, repeal, and reject the national healthcare takeover, also known as “ObamaCare” or any similar legislation.

Calling health care reform 'ObamaCare' is nothing but political rhetoric. I wouldn't be too surprised to hear Republicans use the term in everyday conversation, but not the official party platform. It's also a stretch to call it "the national healthcare takeover".

Health Care and Nutritional Supplements – We deplore any efforts to mandate that vitamins and other natural supplements be on a prescription–only basis, and we oppose any efforts to remove vitamins and other nutritional supplements from public sale. We support the rights of all adults to their choice of nutritional products. We strongly favor legislation recognizing legitimate alternative health care choices.

I'd always thought of alternative medicine as being more in the realm of liberal new age types than right wing conservatives, but I guess I was wrong.

As Tim Minchin says, "Do you know what they call 'alternative medicine' that's been proved to work? Medicine." That's the problem with talking about "legitimate alternative health care choices". Once a treatment has gone through all the necessary clinical trials, compared to controls, checked for side effects, and still been demonstrated to be effective, it moves into the realm where all doctors will use it, and everybody quits referring to it as an 'alternative' treatment. For example, just look at willow bark. At one point in time, that was an herbal treatment used as a painkiller. Then some scientists decided to look into just how the willow bark was helping, and discovered that it was the salicylic acid that was the active ingredient. So, they isolated that chemical to better control the doses that people received. Not too long after, when acetylsalicylic acid was discovered, it was recognized to be very similar to salicylic acid, so researchers tried using it as a painkiller. Not only did it work, but it had less side effects than salicylic acid. So, from a precursor as an herbal remedy prepared from willow bark, researchers developed aspirin. But despite its herbal roots, I doubt anybody would call aspirin an alternative medicine.

There's also this weird mindset that 'natural' means healthy. Don't forget that cyanide is natural, and you wouldn't want to take that.

I do have some sympathy with this position, though, for the same reason that I think all drugs should be legalized. Adults should have the freedom to do whatever they want to their own bodies, without government interference, so long as they recognize the risks. If adults want to take herbal supplements instead of getting effective treatment, they should be allowed to. But, the companies selling those supplements should have to follow the same laws as all other companies, and not engage in false advertising. Specifically, they need to disclose the real, demonstrated efficacies and risks. It's just that I think that by the time they've gone through enough tests to determine the efficacy and risks, they'll either have a real medicine on their hands, or nothing but snake oil.

The sticky point in this whole issue comes in if parents decide to use these 'alternative' treatments on their children. As I've said before, children shouldn't have to suffer for the stupidity of their parents, and I think parents should be punished for using alternative treatments on their children in place of effective methods.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salicylic_acid
more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin#History

Unprocessed foods – We support the availability of natural, unprocessed foods, which should be encouraged, and that the right to access raw milk directly from the farmer be protected.

Wow, who'd have thought that the hippies would become Republicans? Do they want legislative support for granola, too?

Seriously, this is another one of those areas where I think people should be able to take whatever risks they want to. We let people rock climb, sky dive, bungee jump, base jump, drive race cars, and participate in other risky behaviors. Risky eating should be no different. If they want to drink milk potentially infected with pathogens, it's not up to the government to protect them from themselves. The government's main role should be to make sure that the risks are known, and not allow vendors to use false advertising (i.e. lying about risks) when selling the products. The only other place where the government should step in in cases like this is preventing parents from putting their children at risk. Pregnant women, especially, need to be careful, lest they end up with a Listeria infection which would have serious consequences for their baby.

But again, there's this Luddite attitude that 'natural' and 'unprocessed' are better. Look at it this way. If we only ate natural foods that haven't been modified by humans, we'd be stuck with teosinte instead of corn. And if we didn't process food, we'd be stuck eating whole corn kernels (and you know what happens to them), instead of much more nutritious corn products like corn flakes, corn bread or corn tortillas.

more info: http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079516.htm

Americans with Disabilities Act – We support amendment of the Americans with Disabilities Act to exclude from its definition those persons with infectious diseases, substance addiction, learning disabilities, behavior disorders, homosexual practices and mental stress, thereby reducing abuse of the Act.

It seems odd to list actual disabilities, and then suggest that an act intended to protect opportunities for people with disabilities shouldn't include those particular disabilities.

And since when has homosexuality been considered a disability? In fact, TITLE 42, CHAPTER 126, SUBCHAPTER IV, § 12211 specifically states, "For purposes of the definition of “disability” in section 12102 (2) [1] of this title, homosexuality and bisexuality are not impairments and as such are not disabilities under this chapter." So, this Republican platform is calling for an amendment to exclude people who are already excluded. Perhaps a little more knowledge of the laws they want to criticize is in order?

more info: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/search/display.html?terms=12211&url=/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00012211----000-.html

Classroom Discipline –We recommend that local school boards and classroom teachers be given more authority to deal with disciplinary problems. We urge the Legislature, Governor, Commissioner of Education and State Board of Education to remind administrators and school boards that corporal punishment is effective and legal in Texas.

Wow. I've heard stories from my dad of what the nuns used to do to him. I would be pissed off, to say the least, if any teacher used corporal punishment on my daughter. It's a bit hard to imagine that a main stream group would be promoting corporal punishment in schools in this day and age, but there it is.

Controversial Theories – Realizing that conflict and debate is a proven learning tool in classrooms, we support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories, including evolution, Intelligent Design, global warming, political philosophies, and others. We believe theories of life origins and environmental theories should be taught as challengeable scientific theory subject to change as new data is produced, not scientific law. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.

I discussed this in my review of the previous platform, but since it's an issue I'm so interested in, I'm bringing it up again. Obviously, teachers should be able to openly discuss any subject. Evolution and global warming shouldn't be exempt. However, the Republicans have betrayed their motivations by mentioning Intelligent Design specifically by name (and by their mangled use of the terms theory and law). I'm going to be a bit rude here, but Intelligent Design is garbage. As I've said before, it's nothing more than creationism that refuses to unambiguously name God as the creator, and everybody who isn't lying knows that Intelligent Design really is religiously motivated. But even if you ignore the motivation, it's still garbage. We can say that evolution happened with about as much certainty as we can say anything. It's right up there with the heliocentric theory of the solar system, which I hope most people would consider a fact.

If a teacher was going to honestly discuss weaknesses in evolutionary theory (and some people would argue that these are just research opportunities, not weaknesses), they could discuss, to quote myself from a previous essay, things such as "which is more accurate - gradualism or punctuated equilibrium; what is the relative importance of natural selection versus genetic drift versus sexual selection versus other forms of genetic change; what are the relative importances of allopatric, peripatric, parapatric, and sympatric speciation; how do epigenetics contribute to evolution; etc." They would not bring up silly arguments like the second law of thermodynamics, the bacterial flagellum, or any other of the number of creationist arguments that have been refuted many times over (see the Index to Creationist Claims).

Early Childhood Development – We believe that parents are best suited to train their children in their early development and oppose mandatory pre-school and Kindergarten. We urge Congress to repeal government sponsored programs that deal with early childhood development.

It's one thing to say that preschool and kindergarten shouldn't be mandatory. It's quite another to urge Congress to take away funding for those programs.

Gambling and Education – We strongly oppose gambling or any other vice that tears at the fabric of society to fund public education.

I mentioned their opposition to the state lottery in my review of the last platform, but the wording hear was too good to pass up. They're calling the state lottery a "vice that tears at the fabric of society". So, when I buy a lottery ticket every other week, I'm tearing at the fabric of society.

This is just one more example of the Republicans trying to impose their brand of morality on everybody else.

Knowledge-Based Education – The primary purpose of public schools is to teach critical thinking skills, reading, writing, arithmetic, phonics, history, science, and character as well as knowledge-based education, not job training. We support knowledge-based curriculum standards and tests. We support successful career and technology programs, but oppose mandatory career training. We oppose Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and similar programs. Further, because of an aging U.S. population and global competition, and because much of today’s education teaches children to be employees or perhaps at best managers for employers, we encourage the teaching of entrepreneurial skills and investment skills.

I quoted this here because I ragged on the Republicans so much in my review of their last platform on this issue. In the previous platform, they specifically called for a return to the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic, and I criticized them for not including more advanced subjects and skills. They've remedied that in this platform, and made, for the most part, a statement that I can agree with.

Pledge of Allegiance in Public Schools – Students should be led daily in the Pledge of Allegiance, the Texas Pledge, the National Anthem, and be taught flag etiquette and patriotic songs to ensure that the loyal and patriotic spirit of Texan and American heritage is preserved.

This is similar to the wording from their previous platform, but now they've added "patriotic songs" into the mix.

Listen, if you want people to have a "loyal and patriotic spirit", the best way to do that is by building a country that people can be proud of (which, for the most part, America is). Indoctrination, brain-washing, and propaganda are what totalitarian and fascist governments use, and we don't need them here.

Private Education – Parents and legal guardians may choose to educate their children in private schools to include but not limited to, home school, parochial schools, without government interference, be it through definition, regulation, accreditation, licensing, or testing. We encourage competition and cooperation between public and private schools in academic and athletic extracurricular activities.

They've changed this plank from the previous platform in a very bad way. I don't have a problem with parents having options for their children's education. What's ludicrous, however, is to suggest that any of those options should be "without government interference, be it through definition, regulation, accreditation, licensing, or testing." That would open the door to all types of abuse. To be frank, most people in this country are pretty ignorant. The Newsweek article linked to below discusses just some of the stupid ideas that many Americans believe (for example, as I like to point out, around 1 in 4 Americans believes the Sun goes around the Earth). Imagine giving those ignoramuses free reign over their children's education. We'd be doing those children a deep disservice, and we'd end up with an entire generation of voters even more ignorant than this generation.

I wonder if this has anything to do with the Institute for Creation Research being denied accreditation?

more info: http://www.newsweek.com/photo/2010/08/24/dumb-things-americans-believe.html
more info: http://www.texscience.org/reviews/icr-thecb-certification.htm

Traditional Principles in Education – We support school subjects with emphasis on Judeo-Christian principles (including the Ten Commandments) upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America’s legal, political and economic systems. We support curricula that are heavily weighted on original founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and Founders’ writings.

First of all, let me once again dispel all that nonsense about America being founded on Judeo Christian principles and those being the basis of our legal, political and economic systems. As I've pointed out before, just the First Amendment is counter to several of the Commandments. A representative democracy is more of a Greco-Roman principle. And the Treaty of Tripoli and the actions around it make it quite clear that our country was not founded as a Christian nation.

more info: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html

The rewording of this plank does clarify a point I criticized from the last platform. It sounds like they want additional subjects to be taught in school that cover Judeo-Christian principles. In a perfect world, where we didn't have to worry about religiously biased teachers using such classes as a pulpit, I would be in favor of a class like this, as long as it was an elective, it was taught in an objective manner, and as long as similar classes were offered for other religions. Actually, a comparative religions class for high school students would be very informative.

Though I'm not sure in-depth study of the Bible would have the effect evangelicals wanted. I'm reminded of this story of Randolph Churchill (son of Winston) reading the Bible for the first time, as related by Evelyn Waugh, "In the hope of keeping him quiet for a few hours Freddy & I have bet Randolph 20 [pounds sterling] that he cannot read the whole Bible in a fortnight. It would have been worth it at the price. Unhappily it has not had the result we hoped. He has never read any of it before and is hideously excited; keeps reading quotations aloud `I say I bet you didn't know this came in the Bible "bring down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave'" or merely slapping his side & chortling `God, isn't God a shit!' "

more info: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/mosley-letters.html

Tenure – We support the removal of the system of tenure in Texas state colleges and universities.

Wow. That's pretty anti-intellectual. The purpose of tenure is to ensure academic freedom. It allows professors to pursue unpopular ideas without fear of losing their jobs. A good example is Michael Behe. He's spent the past few years promoting Intelligent Design, which hasn't earned him any favor from his biologist colleagues, to say the least, but thanks to his tenure, he is free to do so. It's also one of the reasons why Richard Lindzen can be vocal about his skepticism of global climate change without fear of repercussion. Doing away with tenure would create an environment much more conducive to group think, where people were less likely to challenge the status quo.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe
more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lindzen

State Militia – We support the establishment and maintenance of a volunteer Constitutional State Militia, with assistance from County Sheriffs.

Holy crap. We already have the Texas National Guard, which anybody who legitimately wanted to serve the state could join. What possible role could there be for a volunteer militia? We don't need a bunch of vigilantes running around pretending that they're John Wayne.

more info: http://www.agd.state.tx.us/

Capital Punishment – Properly applied capital punishment is legitimate, is an effective deterrent, and should be swift and unencumbered.

That "properly applied" makes all the difference, and really, is one of the main reasons I'm opposed to the death penalty. Just consider Cameron Willingham, a man who was executed for arson on very shaky evidence, and was most probably innocent, or the many people who have had their sentences overturned based on new DNA evidence. Our law system is pretty good, but mistakes are made, and there's no way to rectify those mistakes if the accused is dead. If the punishment were "swift and unencumbered", even more innocent people would be dead.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham
more info: http://www.innocenceproject.org/

There's also the question of just how much of a deterrent capital punishment really is. The studies that support it are pretty weak, and in fact, around 90% of criminologists don't think it is a deterrent.

more info: http://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/reports/summer06/capitalpunish
more info: http://deathpenaltyinfo.org/study-88-criminologists-do-not-believe-death-penalty-effective-deterrent

Funding Special Interest Organizations – We oppose any government support of special interest organizations, such as ACORN and the ACLU.

Given the smear campaign against ACORN, I guess this platform just wouldn't be complete without calling them out. And while they were at it, the Republicans threw in an organization that defends our freedoms guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.

Birthright Citizenship – We call on the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of these United States to clarify Section 1 of the 14th amendment to limit citizenship by birth to those born to a citizen of the United States: with no exceptions.

The biggest problem is that once you have permanent residents, legal or not, who give birth to children in this country, those children grow up in America and know of no other home. Just imagine that birth right citizenship were revoked. What are you going to do to the people who grow up here once they're 'caught'. Are you going to send them back to their parents' country, where they don't speak the language and don't know the laws or even the culture?

Then there's the problem of enforcement. In Germany, where there is no birth right citizenship, there's a black market for imbissvaeter, or fast-food fathers, citizens who claim to be children's fathers in exchange for a fee. The only way around that type of fraud would be mandatory paternity tests, but I don't think anyone is ready for that type of invasion of privacy.

Nobody particularly likes that illegal immigration takes place, and something needs to be done about border security, but do they really want to go down this road?

more info: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-weise-birthright-20100902-20,0,7972332.story

Israel – We believe that the United States and Israel share a special long-standing relationship based on shared values, a mutual commitment to a republican form of government, and a strategic alliance that benefits both nations. Our foreign policy with Israel should reflect the special nature of this relationship through continued military and economic assistance and recognition that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and should remain an undivided city accessible to people of all faiths. We believe that the US Embassy should be located in Jerusalem. In our diplomatic dealings with Israel, we encourage the continuation of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but oppose pressuring Israel to make concessions it believes would jeopardize its security, including the trading of land for the recognition of its right to exist. We call on the U.S. to cease strong arming Israel through prior agreements with the understanding of delivering equipment to them to defend themselves in exchange for future diplomatic concessions, such as giving up land to the Palestinians on the West Bank. We support the continuation of non-recognition of terrorist nations and organizations. Our policy is based on God’s biblical promise to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel and we further invite other nations and organizations to enjoy the benefits of that promise. [emphasis mine]

I'll be honest. I haven't studied international politics enough to have an educated opinion on Israel. However, the Republican reasoning in this platform (which I've bolded) is breath taking. They're basing foreign policy on Bible verses!

One World Government Organizations – We oppose a one-world government in direct opposition to our basic principles and eroding our sovereignty. We oppose the implementation of one world currency.

I can't say that I've heard any mainstream politicians propose a one-world government, so I wondered if this was simply a non-issue being promoted to a plank on their platform. To find out, I googled 'one-world government'. As it turns out, this is a common worry among conspiracy theorists, with roots in, to quote from Wikipedia, "the militantly anti-government right, and secondarily fundamentalist Christians concerned with end-time emergence of the Antichrist." To quote from Wikipedia again, "The common theme in conspiracy theories about a New World Order is that a secretive power elite with a globalist agenda is conspiring to eventually rule the world through an authoritarian world government, which replaces sovereign nation-states, and an all-embracing ideology, which indoctrinates cosmopolitanism. Significant occurrences in politics and finance are speculated to be orchestrated by an extremely influential cabal operating through many front organizations. Numerous historical and current events are seen as steps in an on-going plot to achieve world domination through secret political gatherings and decision-making processes."

Wow. Conspiracy nuts are influencing the writing of the Texas Republican Party Platform.

United Nations – We believe it is in the best interest of the citizens of the United States that we immediately rescind our membership in, as well as all financial and military contributions to, the United Nations.

We will:
1. support legislation similar to “The American Sovereignty Preservation Act”, which would remove the United States entirely from the control of the UN;
2. demand that Congress ratify no more, and rescind any existing treaties that compromise the United States Constitution;
3. support immediate recall of our military forces from UN initiated engagements, and restore them to their traditional mission of defending the liberty and freedom of the people of the United States of America;
4. support an amendment to the United States Constitution stating, “a treaty that conflicts with any provisions of the Constitution shall not be of any force or effect”;
5. urge our Texas Senators to unalterably oppose any agreement or treaty that seeks to establish an International Criminal Court (ICC), make the United States a participatory party to such a court; recognize the jurisdiction of such a court within the United States or upon any native-born or naturalized citizen of the United States;

and We oppose:

1. UN control of any United States land or natural resources;
2. the use of Presidential Executive Orders to implement UN treaties, thereby circumventing our elected Congress;
3. any attempt by the federal government, or the UN, to directly or indirectly tax United States citizens for UN support;
4. a UN resolution that would force the United States to adopt gun control measures by treaty;
5. the placement of the UN flag and emblem on public property or in government facilities;
6. payment of any debt allegedly owed to the UN;
7. Any attempt to grant veto power over the sovereignty of the United States to set national defense priorities, wage effective war, and negotiate peace in terms favorable to our vital interests; and
8. Ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST).

We urge Congress to evict the United Nations from the United States and eliminate any further participation.

I discussed this a bit in my previous review, but they've expanded this a bit in their new platform, so I included it just to show what they think. It's hard to believe that in a world of increasing globalization, the Republicans want the U.S. to leave the one organization that tries to make everybody work together.

My overall impression after reading the 2010 platform, to quote from my review of the 2008 platform, "simply reinforced what I already knew about the Republican Party - their mangling of history, the injection of religion into politics, their opposition to science, the suppression of free speech, their bigotry towards homosexuals, their isolationist views on international issues, their desire to impose their morality on everybody." There's also their disregard for the checks and balances in the federal government, with their desire to limit the judiciary's power. And, what really struck me after reading the 2010 platform, is that it wasn't simply that they had political views that I disagreed with, but that so much of the platform was based on utter nonsense.

As I've said before on this blog, I'm a political independent, but between the two major parties, I definitely lean more towards the Democrats. My view of the Republican party in general is pretty low. But I wondered, am I being biased by certain factors that cause me to think the Republicans are worse than they actually are? After all, I watch the Daily Show quite a bit, and they only show the worst of political parties. Ditto for the more liberal blogs that I read regularly. The numerous right wing e-mail forwards I receive , with all their propaganda and false claims (like this one, don't reflect too well on the right wing, either.

So, rather than look to second hand sources, I figure I ought to look at what Republicans officially endorse. I did receive an official survey from the RNC a few months ago in the mail. I had plenty of problems with that, but that wasn't a full statement of their principles or the laws they would like to see enacted. So, to be thorough, I figured it might do me some good to take a look at the party platform. Since I live in Texas, I downloaded a copy of the official 2008 STATE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM PLATFORM* for Texas (here's a pdf copy). There's actually quite a bit that I do agree with. It's just that on some of the points where I disagree, it's a huge disagreement. The official platform, if anything, made me think even less of the Republicans as a political party. The G.O.P. is going to have to make quite a few changes if they're going to ever make me lean more towards their party, and now that I know what the platform actually states, candidates are going to have to come out and disagree with the worst parts explicitly if they want to get my vote.

From the opening sections of PRINCIPLES and LOCAL AND STATE PRIORITIES, I'll address individually each of their points. But because the platform is so long, I can't do that for the whole thing, so I'll just pull out some highlights - most of the excerpts from areas where I disagree strongly, but a few from where I actually agree with them.

1. We respect and cherish the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and our Founders’ intent to restrict the power of the federal government over the states and the people. We believe self-government, based on personal integrity of a proper moral foundation, is the best government. This is best balanced with limited civil government, coupled with public trust, to provide collectively for the people those services not efficiently achieved individually.

Well, I agree with that, actually. I just think we have slightly different opinions of how much the federal government should be restricted. I've also noticed that many Republicans put too much stock in the Declaration. It's part of our heritage, but it was a declaration of war against the British, and carries no weight in current U.S. law.

2. We believe that human life is sacred, created in the image of God. Life begins at the moment of fertilization and ends at the point of natural death. All innocent human life must be protected.

First of all, I don't like the religious overtones. Even when I was still religious myself, I recognized the importance of keeping the government secular. Second, their second sentence is stupid. Life doesn't begin at conception. At no point were the egg or sperm dead. Life is one long unbroken chain going back to the very first life on this planet. They could have said individuality, or personhood for legal purposes, but in a very literal sense, we are living continuations of our parents blended together. (I'll cover this topic in more detail below.)

3. We believe that good government is based on the individual, and each person’s ability, dignity, freedom, and responsibility must be honored and recognized. We believe equal opportunity is a right and a privilege but equal outcome is not. We insist that no one’s rights are negotiable and that individual freedom demands personal responsibility.

I agree with this, too, but keep it in mind for later in this entry, to see how much they really value individual freedom.

4. We believe that government spending is out of control and needs to be reduced. We support fundamental, immediate tax reform that is simple, fair, and fully disclosed.

Frankly, I disagree. There are definitely individual government programs that need to be addressed, but I don't think the overall spending levels are out of control.

5. We believe that traditional marriage is a legal and moral commitment between a natural man and a natural woman. We recognize that the family is the foundational unit of a healthy society and consists of those related by blood, marriage, or adoption. The family is responsible for its own welfare, education, moral training, conduct, and property,

First of all, 'traditional marriage' has meant a lot of things. Even for Christians, polygamy is documented in the Old Testament. Looking beyond that, other cultures have a range of 'marriages' - polyandry, condoned extra-marital sex, serial monogamy, henogamy, etc. Traditional marriage is not limited to one man and one woman.

Second, how is traditional marriage relevant to law? A hundred years ago, traditional marriage meant no inter-racial marriages. Before that, traditional marriage meant the husband owned the wife, and many traditional marriages were arranged marriages. We've gotten past that. Marriage should be based on what makes sense, and not be limited by arbitrary traditions.

Finally, what's this stuff about a 'natural man and a natural woman'? I realize they're targeting transsexuals who have undergone sex change operations (another disagreement I have with the Republicans), but do they realize that they're also condemning all hermaphrodites - people who had no choice whatsoever in not being natural males or females?

Why is it so hard to let two people who love each other get married? Quit imposing your morality on other people when it doesn't affect you.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_marriages

6. We believe that a well-educated population is fundamental to the continued success of our Republic; and that parents have the right, as well as the duty, to direct their children’s education. This right should include choices among public, private, home and religious schools. Competition improves education.

Nothing too bad about this. Education is important, and parents should have a choice in how their children are educated, so long as the children still receive a good education, and that the public schools don't lose funding. I think home schooling needs quite a bit of regulation/oversight, due to the hugely varying abilities and education levels of parents.

It's hard to take Texas Republicans seriously on education, though, considering what's been done in the Board of Education and TEA.

7. We believe that the future of our country depends upon a strong and vibrant private sector unencumbered by excessive government regulation.

Again, I agree with the sentiment, but probably not with the details of what they consider to be 'excessive regulation'.

8. We believe that a strong America ensures a free America. While we recognize that our nation is the primary leader in the global community, we must also vigorously protect the sovereignty of the United States.

Who doesn't think we should protect American sovereignty? You do have to be careful not to be isolationist or xenophobic, however.

9. We believe in peace through strength. We take a principled stand to preemptively defend the citizens of the United States against all foes, foreign or domestic, whose goal is to destroy our American way of life. Freedom is never free, and we honor all those who have served our nation to protect our liberty, especially our men and women in uniform, who unselfishly and courageously defend our country.

I have a serious problem with that 'preemptively defend' phrase. Unprovoked acts of war are not to be taken lightly. Look what it cost us in Iraq. Other than that, I agree with the rest. (Although, considering their first point up above, about trying to follow the founders' original intent, their hypocrisy is pretty clear. The U.S. never had a large standing army until after WWII. Prior to that, armies were raised specifically for wars. Following the founders' original intent would mean drastically reducing military spending.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_armed_forces)

10. We believe all Americans have the right to be safe in their homes, on their streets, and in their communities. We support enforcement of the laws through the Courts imposing swift and sure justice with stiff penalties, truth in sentencing, and respecting the rights of law-abiding citizens, while opposing judicial activism.

Who would argue that we don't have a right to be safe? The whole emphasis on punishment to achieve that goal, however, may not be the best approach. The U.S. already has 25% of the world's inmate population, and more prisoners per capita than any other nation. Turning the country into a complete police state is not the answer if we want to still preserve freedom.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States

I also cringe at that phrase, 'judicial activism'. I see that phrase tossed about so much where it shouldn't be used, when judges are just fulfilling their constitutional duties. Look how many people called Judge Jones an activist judge after the Kitzmiller case, or recently in California, when Judge Walker ruled Prop 8 unconstitutional.

more info: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District

LOCAL AND STATE PRIORITIES
Over the next two years, the Republican Party of Texas encourages its officeholders and grassroots to work towards enacting the following:

• Promote adult stem cell research with public funds, and prohibit public funds for research that destroys human embryos.

Saying you're going to destroy embryos sounds heartless, but the truth is, many embryos from IVF clinics are already destroyed. There's no workable alternative. An excess of embryos are made so that they can be screened, and the most promising taken to attempt a pregnancy. I know people talk of embryo adoption, but there are more unused embryos than there are people to adopt them. Plus, the unused embryos weren't used for a reason. Should we really force pregnancy attempts with high likelihoods of miscarriage? And it's not like we can keep those embryos in suspended animation indefinitely. Supposing that a little clump of cells really could experience anything - what type of life would that be? So, if embryos are going to be destroyed, why not at least use them to try to further our knowledge, and potentially use that increased knowledge to cure diseases?

On the other hand, I don't think embryos deserve much legal status. Just because a clump of cells has human DNA doesn't make it a human being, and in a way, trying to say that it does cheapens the status of actual humans. There's definitely a grey area when the fetus begins to develop a nervous system, but before there's a functioning brain, what type of experiences can a fetus have?

Of course, funding for adult stem cells is nice, too.

• No Mandates Without Funding – reduce the indigent healthcare burden for counties and local government.
• Truth in Sentencing – fully inform juries as to the actual length of the sentence.
• Judicial Sentencing – empower our judges to assign punishment in felony cases.

Actually, I don't take much issue with any of those. I wonder though, why for "No Mandates Without Funding" did they tie it in to health care.

• Law enforcement should make Child and Sex Abuse and Methamphetamine Drug Manufacturing their top priority. Stricter sentencing for Methamphetamine traffickers is needed.

I don't know enough about crime statistics to know what crimes should be the top priority, so I can't comment on child and sex abuse. Obviously, they're bad, but so are other crimes.

I definitely disagree with the whole War on Drugs. I think it's an intrusive form of government that removes personal freedom. What I'd like to see happen is for all drugs to be legalized and then regulated in a similar manner as alcohol or tobacco. Just like alcoholism, addiction to other drugs should be addressed through treatment, not jail time (that's not to say that crimes committed under the influence should go unpunished).

• Protect the authority of the State Board of Education to manage the Permanent School Fund and control textbook content; expand the cap on charter schools; and remove funding for bilingual education.

It takes a lot of gall to say this after all the shenanigans the Republicans on the Texas Board of Education have committed. After what they did with the English standards, the Science standards, and the Social Studies standards, (not to mention the Chris Comer affair), I'd like to see the current board dismantled and replaced. Why even bother to use expert panels to come up with standards if you're going to let a few ideologically motivated politicians throw out the whole thing?

• Abolish the School Property tax – we can fully fund public schools using surplus revenue, existing budget resources, consumption taxes, and funds released by cutting unnecessary expenditures.

As long as schools still get adequate funding, I would go along with this. Property taxes are one of those things that rub me the wrong way. It's like you're renting your land from the government, rather than owning it. And it really sucks when someone's had a house for years, but then for whatever reason the value shoots up and they can't afford the taxes anymore (like has happened to many people owning houses near the coast in Florida).

Patriot Act - We urge review and revision of those portions of the USA Patriot Act, and related executive and military orders and directives that erode constitutional rights and essential liberties of citizens.

Hear! Hear! The PATRIOT Act is a gross violation of our privacy and grants too much authority to government agencies. It has such an Orwellian ring to it, too.

Emergency War Powers – We charge the President to cancel the state of national emergency and charge Congress to repeal the War Powers Act and end our declared state of emergency.

Environment, Property Ownership, and Natural Resources – We reaffirm our belief in the constitutional concept of the right to own property without governmental interference. We believe that property ownership is the source of the nation’s wealth; free enterprise forms the foundation of our collective wealth; local stewardship of our natural resources is best; sound science trumps politically correct science; groundwater is a vested ownership right; the state should not abridge or deny our inalienable property and mineral rights; in state control of state resources; in opposing nationalization of lands and watersheds; in opposing conservation easements on our natural resources administered by organizations unaccountable to voters; in opposing vast acquisition of Texas land by government agencies to protect endangered species; in allowing states to consider costs when comparing emission control techniques; in election of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality chairman; and in eliminating the Endangered Species Act. [emphasis mine]

They make some good points about private ownership, but due to the nature of an ecosystem, your actions on your property aren't isolated. They affect everyone. Without sufficient regulation, you end up with a tragedy of the commons, and everybody loses.

Saying "sound science trumps politically correct science" is rich coming from the party that still doubts global warming.

I can't believe they want to do away with the Endangered Species Act.

Free Speech for the Clergy – We urge change of the Internal Revenue Code to allow a religious organization to address issues without fear losing its tax-exempt status. We call for repeal of requirements that religious organizations send government any personal information about their contributors.

First of all, they're not actually arguing for 'Free Speech for the Clergy'. Everyone in this country, clergy included, has freedom of speech as an individual. If a priest or a minister wants to send a letter to the editor, or participate in a protest, or any other act protected by the First Amendment, they're free to do so. The problem is when they do any of those actions in the name of their church, rather than as individuals. The reason is that most churches are recognized as non-profit organizations, and have to follow the same rules as all other non-profit groups.

So, this is really a case of special pleading. The Republicans aren't arguing that all non-profit organizations should be able to speak out on political issues, or not have to report information about people that have donated to them. They're asking for special exemptions for religious organizations just because they're religious. But just think how ripe for corruption this would be. We'd have new 'congregations' popping up all over the place.

Judicial Restraint – We urge Congress to adopt the Constitutional Restoration Act and support the principle of judicial restraint, which requires judges to interpret and apply rather than make the law. We support judges who strictly interpret the law based on its original intent. We oppose judges who assume for themselves legislative powers.

I hadn't heard of the Constitutional Restoration Act before, so I just looked it up. Holy crap. It's supposed to be a law that makes it illegal for the Supreme Court to hear constitutional challenges for certain religious liberty cases. To make that clear, it would be a law, passed by Congress, trying to restrict the Supreme Court's ability to accept cases that test the constitutionality of laws. Talk about going against the Founding Father's original intent! Congress should never have the power to restrict the judicial branch without actually passing a constitutional amendment. Checks and balances between the branches is an integral part of our government, and to put it frankly, attempting to make laws to unconstitutionally strip the power of any of the branches is un-American.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Restoration_Act

I'm also not one who gets too caught up in original intent. Yes, it's important, but times change, and we need to be able to adapt. For example, just read the Second Amendment. I think that phrase about a "well regulated Militia" makes the original intent fairly clear, and I think that intent is covered by the National Guard. In addition, the Bill of Rights was originally applicable only to the federal government, but not necessarily state or local governments. But by the current interpretation, the amendment is used to protect the individual's right to own firearms. And it doesn't just restrict the federal government from banning guns, all forms of government in this country, including states and the District of Columbia. And I'm fine with that. I don't care that the amendment has been adapted from its original intent, since we live in different times than the Founding Fathers did.

Protecting Union Member’s Dues – We support legislation requiring labor unions to obtain consent of the union member before that member’s dues can be used for political purposes.

I hadn't thought of this before, but considering that union membership is required to work in certain jobs, I think this sounds reasonable. However, if union membership were made to be entirely voluntary, then this law wouldn't have to go into effect.

Enforcing the Platform – The Republican State Chairman and county chairs are responsible for implementing this platform by requiring party candidates to indicate their positions on platform planks before their acceptance on the ticket and to make such information available on the Party website. The SREC should seriously consider candidates’ positions on the Party platform before granting support.

I would really like to see how candidates respond to each of the individual planks in this platform. It would make it very easy to tell if it was even worth considering voting for them.

HONORING THE SYMBOLS OF OUR AMERICAN HERITAGE Ten Commandments – We oppose any governmental action to restrict, prohibit, or remove public display of the Decalogue or other religious symbols.

They don't seem to understand that whole separation of church and state, do they? But just for clarification, I'll discuss that word 'public' a bit. I'm not sure what sense the Republicans are using it here, but in general, when you hear that 'public' displays of religious symbols are illegal, 'public' is meant specifically in the sense of 'government'. It doesn't mean everywhere that the symbols are publicly visible. If you want to put up a religious symbol on private property, including businesses, the First Amendment guarantees that you'll be allowed to. But that same amendment also says that the government can't endorse a specific religion, which is why government facilities can't put up such displays as the Ten Commandments.

Besides, while the Ten Commandments may be part of our cultural heritage, they had very little to do with the founding of our nation. Go ahead and read them (the ones from Exodus - the ones from Deuteronomy never get put up in courthouses). Only a handful are actually laws in this country. And the First Amendment of the Constitution is actually contrary to the first 3 Commandments (or 4, depending on how you count them).

Pledge of Allegiance – We support adoption of the Pledge Protection Act. We also demand that the National Motto “In God We Trust” and National Anthem be protected from legislative and judicial attack.

I looked up the Pledge Protection Act, and it looks like another attempt to remove checks and balances from the federal government, making it illegal for all federal courts, including the Supreme Court, to hear constitutional challenges to the "under God" part of the Pledge of Allegiance.

more info:http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/09/23/hamilton.pledge/index.html

Aside from that, why shouldn't we take "under God" out of the pledge? Not enough people realize that the original pledge never had that phrase in it to begin with. It was originally written in 1892 as "one nation indivisible", a strong statement about a united country. "Under God" wasn't added until 1954, during the height of the Red Scare and McCarthyism.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#History

"In God we trust" is another one I take issue with. Our country didn't originally have an official national motto, but the de facto motto (as used on the Great Seal) was E Pluribus Unum, or 'From many, one'. It wasn't until 1956 that Congress passed the official motto we all know now. So again, a nice statement of national unity was put aside during the Red Scare.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_God_We_Trust#History

American English – We support adoption of American English as the official language of Texas and of the United States.

I don't know about this one. On the one hand, it would save money if government documents only had to be printed once. And everybody who's a permanent resident in this country should be able to speak at least rudimentary English. But on the other hand, I like multiculturalism. Do we really need to make English the official language?

I also think it's funny that they specifically said American English. Because that British English is unpatriotic.

Flag Desecration – Any form of desecration of the American Flag is an act of disregard for our nation and its people and penalties should be established for such.

So, the first amendment only counts as long as it's a form of expression that Republicans agree with? I'm an Eagle Scout. I learned all the proper rules of respect for the flag. I was the only one on my street to take down my flag last Memorial Day when it started to rain, I always fold it properly when I keep it stored, and I never, ever let it touch the ground. But it's just a piece of cloth. It does no actual harm to anybody to desecrate the flag. It angers me to see people burn the flag, but it would be a violation of our country's principles to make that act illegal. Plus, it seems a bit totalitarian to make symbolic gestures against inanimate objects illegal.

Symbols of American Heritage – We call upon governmental entities to protect all symbols of our American heritage from being altered in any way.

Hmm. You mean like adding verbiage to the Pledge that was never in the original? Hypocrites.

Confederate Widows Plaque - We call for restoration of plaques honoring the Confederate Widow’s Pension Fund contribution that were removed from state buildings.

Somehow, in the mix of all this pro-America, patriotic symbolism, the Confederacy got slipped in. The Confederates were enemies of the United States. They fought and killed soldiers in the U.S. Army. It's a sad chapter from our nation's history that we shouldn't forget, and we shouldn't necessarily demonize the soldiers from the Confederacy, but I'm not sure why we should honor the enemies who were fighting to destroy the United States.

Family and Defense of Marriage - We support the definition of marriage as a God–ordained, legal and moral commitment only between a natural man and a natural woman, which is the foundational unit of a healthy society, and we oppose the assault on marriage by judicial activists. We call on the President and Congress to take immediate action to defend the sanctity of marriage. We are resolute that Congress exercise authority under the United States Constitution, and pass legislation withholding jurisdiction from the Federal Courts in cases involving family law, especially any changes in the definition of marriage. We further call on Congress to pass and the state legislatures to ratify a marriage amendment declaring that marriage in the United States shall consist of and be recognized only as the union of a natural man and a natural woman. Neither the United States nor any state shall recognize or grant to any unmarried person the legal rights or status of a spouse. We oppose the recognition of and granting of benefits to people who represent themselves as domestic partners without being legally married. We advocate the repeal of laws that place an unfair tax burden on families. We call upon Congress to completely remove the marriage penalty in the tax code, whereby a married couple receives a smaller standard deduction than their unmarried counterparts living together. The primary family unit consists of those related by blood, heterosexual marriage, or adoption. The family is responsible for its own welfare, education, moral training, conduct, and property.

There's so much wrong with that one paragraph. First, there's the religious talk. Government should be neutral on religion. It's right there in the First Amendment. Then there's that 'natural man' and 'natural woman' language I already addressed above. Then there's the 'judicial activists' line (because enforcing the Bill of Rights is apparently activism). Then there's the un-American proposal for Congress to pass an un-Constitutional law limiting the Supreme Court's power. Then there's the proposal for a Constitutional amendment that takes away people's rights (a sort of anti-Bill of Rights amendment).

And aside from all that, there's the sheer bigotry of it all. They're not even willing to allow homosexuals to enter into civil unions. What's so wrong with letting people who love each other get married?

Marriage and Divorce - We believe in the sanctity of marriage and that the integrity of this institution should be protected at all levels of government. We urge the Legislature to rescind no–fault divorce laws. We support Covenant Marriage.

It's not just homosexuals who they want to force their own morality on. They want to force it on us heterosexuals, too. It is not the government's job to enforce morality or "sanctity". In the government's eyes, marriage is a contract. If two people want to cancel that contract, the government shouldn't demand a justification. That's not to say that marriage is unimportant - it definitely is. I take my marriage very seriously, and expect to stay with my wife for the rest of my life. It's just that the government shouldn't be in the business of enforcing morality (or more specifically, enforcing some people's concept of morality on everybody).

Marriage Licenses - We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such.

I know I already covered the marriage equality issue above, but this merits special mention. They want to make it an actual felony to perform a same sex marriage. That's outrageous.

Homosexuality – We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.” We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. We oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.

That paragraph is just so wrong that there's really not much I have to write about it. It speaks for itself. But, just to repeat what I've already said, it is not the government's place to legislate morality. It's also hard to get behind a political party that's so openly bigoted.

Texas Sodomy Statutes - We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.

Wow. Talk about intrusive government. I thought Republicans were supposed to be the party for limited government. Whatever two consenting adults want to do to or with each other, so long as it affects nobody else, is entirely up to them.

And for anybody out there who doesn't care about equality for homosexuals, remember that 'sodomy' is not necessarily a homosexual act. It's any sex act deemed 'unnatural', which usually includes anal and oral sex, even if it's between a married heterosexual couple. In other words, the Texas Republicans want to tell every couple what they're allowed to do in the privacy of their own bedroom.

Pornography – We urge our governmental bodies to enforce laws regarding all forms of pornography. We urge more stringent legislation to prohibit all pornography including virtual pornography and operation of sexually–oriented businesses.

So, once again, the Texas Republicans are showing that they don't really support the First Amendment. Whether or not you think pornography is moral, it doesn't matter. It's a form of expression, and freedom of expression is protected in the Bill of Rights.

I also wonder what they mean by 'sexually–oriented businesses'. Considering that prostitution is already illegal, I can only assume they mean stores that sell sex toys. Once again, they're trying to force their morality on everybody.

Partial Birth Abortion – We oppose partial birth abortion. We recommend that Congress eliminate from all federal court jurisdictions all cases involving challenges to banning Partial Birth Abortion.

Abortion is a touchy subject, and anybody considering it shouldn't take the decision lightly. But there are legitimate reasons for people to get abortions, so they shouldn't be banned outright.

There's a very touching article on this subject, and if you only follow one link from this blog entry, follow this one. It's written by a woman who found out during the second trimester that her baby had severe hydrocephalus and spina bifida, and if it had survived at all, would have experienced severe suffering, followed with a story of another woman who's baby girl had anencephaly - no brain or any chance of life. Both women had what could be termed 'partial birth abortions' to terminate the pregnancies.
Real Life: Why I Chose Abortion

Another story that greatly affected my views on abortion is that of Jonny Kennedy. He had a rare skin disorder known as dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa which caused him horrible suffering. In a documentary on his life, The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off, he was asked what he would do if he had a child, and it was discovered while the child was still in utero that the child had the same condition. Without hesitation, he said that he would want the woman to have an abortion. For those of us who have been lucky enough to live comfortable lives, it's easy to say that every potential life should be given a chance, even if there are circumstances that might not be perfect. But to hear someone who had suffered their entire life basically say that no one else should have to experience that suffering is pretty powerful.

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonny_Kennedy

And again, what is it with the Texas Republicans wanting to screw up the checks and balances created by the Constitution?

Right To Life – All innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from fertilization to natural death; therefore, the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We affirm our support for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution and to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection applies to unborn children. We support the Life at Conception Act. We oppose the use of public revenues and/or facilities for abortion or abortion–related services. We support the elimination of public funding for organizations that advocate or support abortion. We are resolute regarding the reversal of Roe v. Wade. We affirm our support for the appointment and election of judges at all levels of the judiciary who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We insist that the U.S. Department of Justice needs to prosecute hospitals or abortion clinics for committing induced labor (live birth) abortion. We are opposed to genocide, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. We oppose legislation allowing the withholding of nutrition and hydration to the terminally ill or handicapped. Until our final goal of total Constitutional rights for the unborn child is achieved, we beseech the Texas Legislature in consideration of our state’s rights, to enact laws that restrict and regulate abortion including: 1. parental and informed consent; 2. prohibition of abortion for gender selection; 3. prohibition of abortion due to the results of genetic diagnosis 4. licensing, liability, and malpractice insurance for abortionists and abortion facilities; 5. prohibition of financial kickbacks for abortion referrals; 6. prohibition of partial birth and late term abortions; and 7. enactment of any other laws which will advance the right to life for unborn children.

Hardly anybody likes abortion. Most people who go through with the procedure take it very seriously, and many do suffer emotionally. But I don't think that there should be a blanket restriction on abortion. Read the article I linked to above. Those were very good reasons to get an abortion, and they're not the only ones.

As I already wrote above, I also disagree with considering a fertilized egg to be a full human being with all the legal rights that entails. My brother made what I consider a good definition for when people should be considered human - brain activity. At the end of life, it's when brain activity ceases that we say it's okay to pull life support. Likewise, when brain activity starts is when we should say that the fetus becomes a human who should get appropriate protection (and as I already wrote, there is a grey area, since the brain doesn't just switch on). But even when brain activity begins, the rights of the developing baby need to be balanced against those of the pregnant woman. If the pregnancy is endangering the life of the woman, I would think that the woman's life takes precedence.

Still, by making abortion legal, you're not making it mandatory. It's only an option for those who choose it. A woman could continue with a life endangering pregnancy if she wanted to.

This paragraph also mentioned assisted suicide. I have a problem with the restriction on that, as well. I know a person who was terminally ill, with zero chance of recovery. Nearing their death bed, hospice provided them with pain killers to ease the suffering, with the explicit 'warning' not to administer a dose of X, because that would result in death. Once that person had all of their affairs in order and had made their peace, they took the dose of X. The alternative would have been to languish a few more days or weeks, with the suffering only getting worse day by day. Why would anybody deny a person like that the freedom to end the suffering? It just seems cruel.

RU 486 - We urge the FDA to rescind approval of the physically dangerous RU-486 and oppose limiting the manufacturers’ and distributors’ liability.

Actually, I'm a little torn on this one. Between 4.5 and 7.9% of women who took Mifepristone during clinical trials required surgical intervention, and there are quite a few side effects. However, I also tend to favor letting people do what they want to themselves, as long as they understand the associated risks. The current state of affairs, where Mifepristone is only available from doctors, doesn't seem so bad.

Morning After Pill – We oppose sale and use of the dangerous “Morning After Pill.”

First of all, there is no the Morning After Pill. There are several drugs that can be used for emergency contraception, including progestogen only (Plan B), combination of estrogen and progestogen the (Yuzpe regimen), mifepristone (RU486), and Ulipristal acetate (Ella), and the language in this platform gives the impression of ignorance.

Assuming this plank is referring to Plan B, it carries risk of side effects like any other drug, but doesn't appear to be particularly dangerous.

Unborn Child Pain Protection - We support legislation that requires doctors, at first opportunity, to provide to a woman who is pregnant, information about the nervous system development of her unborn child and to provide pain relief for her unborn if she orders an abortion.

This sounds reasonable to me. It's also why Roe v. Wade had the outcome it did. The physical structure of the brain starts coming together around the start of the second trimester. Measurable brain wave activity begins around 25 weeks, near the start of the third trimester.

Abortion Requirements for Hospitals - We propose legislation that entitles hospitals to refuse to perform abortions because government has no moral authority to require such an abortion.

Conscience Clause -- We believe that doctors, nurses, pharmacists, any employees of hospitals and insurance companies, health care organizations, medical and scientific research students, and any employee should be protected by Texas law if they conscientiously object to participate in practices that conflict with their moral or religious beliefs, including but not limited to abortion, the prescription for and dispensing of drugs with abortifacient potential, human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, eugenic screenings, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the withdrawal of nutrition and hydration. We call on the Texas Legislature to pass legislation to strengthen and clarify the current conscience clause in the Occupational Code to include the above-mentioned persons and practices.

This is one of those touchy subjects (what obligations go along with being a public service provider), but I tend to go on the side opposite that of the Republicans. Especially for public hospitals receiving taxpayer money, I think there is an obligation to fulfill expected services. If the hospital is private, and doesn't receive taxpayer money, then I think they should have more freedom to perform only the services that they want to.

Look at it this way. What if a police officer didn't agree that drugs should be illegal. Do you think there should be a Conscience Clause that lets them not enforce the law? No, because there's a certain expectation that they will exercise their duties.

Fetal Tissue Harvesting - We support legislation prohibiting experimentation with human fetal tissue and prohibiting the use of human fetal tissue or organs for experimentation or commercial sale. Until such time that fetal tissue harvesting is illegal, any product containing fetal tissue shall be so labeled.

Stem Cell Research - We oppose any legislation that would allow for the creation and/or killing of human embryos for medical research. We encourage stem cell research using cells from umbilical cords, from adults, and from any other means which does not kill human embryos. We oppose any state funding of research that destroys/kills human embryos. We encourage the adoption of existing embryos. We call for legislation to withhold state and/or federal funding from institutions that engage in scientific research involving the killing of human embryos or human cloning.

Many of the arguments I used above in discussing abortion apply here. Especially for very young embryos in an early stage of development, I don't think that they are yet human beings. I have to say, though, that the resistance to stem cell research especially angers me. There are real people suffering in this world, and stem cell research may potentially lead to cures. Limiting that research to only adult stem cells is limiting that potential, possibly extending the suffering.

Human Cloning - Each human life, whether created naturally or through an artificial process, deserves protection. We confirm that somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) is the process by which a human being is cloned, and that SCNT creates a unique human being with the same properties of a human embryo created through the union of sperm and egg. We seek a ban on human cloning for reproductive purposes (where a cloned human embryo, created through SCNT, is implanted in a womb and the human clone is birthed). We also seek a ban on research cloning (where a cloned human embryo, created through SCNT, is created, grown in the laboratory, and then destroyed when its stem cells are extracted for research purposes). Furthermore, criminal penalties should be created and experimenters prosecuted who participate in the cloning of human beings. No government or state funding should be provided for any human cloning.

Cloning a human and growing the clone into a fully developed person is questionable. But, for the same reasons I don't have a problem with research on embryonic stem cells, I don't have a problem with using this procedure for research. What if it turns out to be the best way to make stem cells that match the patient?

Gene Manufacturing – We support a ban on research that alters human DNA in living human beings at any stage of life, including the altering of artificial, manufactured, and natural genes and chromosomes.

Yeah, I'm sure people who suffer from genetic diseases will be thrilled to hear that you don't want them to ever have a possibility of a cure. This plank is just idiotic. Some of the most promising treatments for genetic disease (like cystic fibrosis, for example) involve doing exactly what this plank would make illegal.

Adoption – We support reducing the time, bureaucratic interference and cost of adoption. The law should assure mothers of a choice in selecting a traditional home for their children at the time of terminating their rights for adoption. We oppose mandatory open adoption and adoption by homosexuals.

I agree with the first part of that, but not the second (actually, I even disagree with the wording. 'Mother' is a title that's earned by raising a child, not simply by getting pregnant and giving birth, just like 'father' means more than just 'sperm donor'.). Why should a woman be allowed to let her bigotry affect who can adopt the child? Should she be allowed to specify the race or even the political party, as well? If people are deemed fit to raise a child, there shouldn't be any further restrictions.

Foster Care - We support eliminating bureaucratic prohibitions on corporal discipline and home schooling in foster homes to help alleviate the shortage of foster parents.

I don't know the full story and what might have prompted this plank, but "eliminating bureaucratic prohibitions on corporal discipline" sure sounds like saying foster parents should be allowed to beat their kids. But maybe the situation really is bad right now, to where foster parents can't spank even when it is justified.

Government–Sponsored Gambling - We continue to oppose government–sponsored gambling as a means of financing state government. Government–sponsored gambling has had a devastating impact on many Texas families. Moreover, we oppose any further legalization, government facilitation, or financial guarantees relating to any type of gambling including casino, riverboat, video lottery terminals (VLTs), slot machine, video keno, eight-liners, multi-state lotteries, and other games of chance including on Indian reservations. We support the repeal of the state lottery, and enforcement of existing laws and regulations related to gambling.

Really? They want to get rid of the lottery? The most innocent form of gambling next to a church raffle? The lottery that brings in around $1 billion a year to fund public schools?

more info:http://www.txlottery.org/export/sites/default/Supporting_Education/

I also disagree with their opposition to "any further legalization... relating to any type of gambling". I'm not much of a gambler myself, but I don't think I should be imposing my morality on anyone else. Whatever people want to do with their own money is up to them.

AIDS / HIV - We recognize that the preventable diseases of AIDS and HIV infection represent a threat to human health. We view with compassion all people infected with HIV. We call for appropriate levels of research to find a cure for the disease and ask that the government give full disclosure of the causes. However, because AIDS represents such a severe threat to both the health and economic well–being of our citizens, we insist that the epidemic be de–politicized and that as a society, we take all appropriate steps to protect our citizens from this epidemic. All people, no matter what disease they may contract, are worthy of deep respect as humans; however, behavior has personal and social consequences. We call upon the United States Public Health Service and all states to declare HIV a “dangerous, yet preventable, infectious, communicable disease.” It should be legally reported in the same manner as any communicable disease. We oppose the needle exchange and bleach kit programs. We urge the return to the requirement of blood testing in order to obtain a marriage license with the previous reporting responsibilities to prevent the spread of dangerous, infectious, and communicable diseases. [emphasis mine]

So, in a paragraph all about compassion and wanting to prevent HIV infection, they come out and say that they're against programs that have been demonstrated to actually help prevent the spread of HIV.

Look at that first part I bolded, too. What exactly do they mean? The methods of transmission for HIV are pretty well understood, and it's not hard to find them. Are they implying some sort of government conspiracy to hide other ways that it can be spread? Just for reference, here's a link to the CDC's basic information page on HIV. What other causes are the Republicans implying that there are that the government hasn't yet disclosed?
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/basic/#spread

Immunizations - All adult citizens should have the legal right to conscientiously choose which vaccines are administered to themselves or their minor children without penalty for refusing a vaccine. We oppose any effort by any authority to mandate such vaccines or any medical database that would contain personal records of citizens without their consent.

I strongly disagree. If not getting immunized only affected the individual without immunization, I'd be a little more apt to consider this argument. Though I'd probably still be in favor of mandatory vaccines, because children shouldn't have to suffer diseases because their parents are too stupid to get them immunized. However, an important aspect of immunization is herd immunity. Newborns haven't yet had all of their vaccinations, and most vaccines aren't 100% effective, so even in a population where all adults have been vaccinated, there are going to be people who are susceptible to diseases for which vaccines exist. If there's a large population of un-vaccinated people, they're going to be carriers for preventable diseases, and put others at risk.

State Board of Education – We support an elected State Board of Education (SBOE) with authority over the Texas Education Agency, selection and termination of the Commissioner of Education, and textbook adoption. The SBOE must retain constitutional authority over the Permanent School Fund. The state should offer subject-area teacher certification without additional educational requirements for individuals who hold a baccalaureate in their field or professionals who have equivalent life experience in a field. We urge that the Legislature repeal Education Code 28.008 and 28.009; and that the legislature instead work within the established framework of the Texas Education code and the authority of the State Board of Education.

Textbooks and Curricula – The SBOE must have sole authority over textbook content and state adoption, and this process must include public hearings. We urge the Legislature to give the State Board of Education authority to establish textbook adoption standards. We oppose the replacement of textbooks by laptops. We support competitive pricing as part of the textbook selection process by independent school districts and oppose standard maximum pricing schemes. [emphasis mine]

I already mentioned this, but our SBOE is really screwed up in this state. It's so bad that it's crossed my mind to leave my job and move to a new state, so my daughter won't be stuck going to Texas schools (but then I remember that education is much more about individual teachers than the SBOE). Considering that it's been Republicans responsible for all the shady goings on in the board since I've been living here, I don't put much faith in them correcting the problems, and I don't really trust them to run the system well.

Look at that statement that I put in bold. It seems so Luddite. What could possibly be the problem with using laptops instead of printed books? More up to date material? More sources of information? Video and other multimedia?

No Child Left Behind - The No Child Left Behind Act has been a massive failure and should be abolished.

It seems that nobody likes this act. Why does it continue to be in effect?

Sex Education – We recognize parental responsibility and authority regarding sex education. We support policies that mandate parental notification and consent before any sex education program is presented to their child. Parents must be given an opportunity to review the material prior to giving their consent. We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until heterosexual marriage.

Abstinence only sex ed doesn't work - period. Areas with abstinence only sex ed have higher rates of teen pregnancy than areas with comprehensive sex ed. Sex ed should be based on ABC - Abstinence, Birth control, and Contraception. Obviously, abstinence is the best way to avoid getting pregnant or transmitting sexual diseases, but not everybody is going to wait until they're married. Teaching them what to do if they actually decide to have sex just makes sense. And even when couples do get married, they may not want to have children right away, if at all.

Considering that this platform makes it clear that the Texas Republican Party is against abortion in any form, you'd think they'd want to do everything possible to reduce teen pregnancy, which makes their stance on sex ed all the more infuriating.

Traditional Principles in Education – We support school subjects with emphasis on Judeo-Christian principles upon which America was founded and which form the basis of America’s legal, political and economic systems.

This doesn't even make sense. Since when are reading, writing, and arithmetic Judeo-Christian principles?

And no, our country wasn't founded on Judeo-Christian principles. It was founded on Enlightenment values. As I already pointed out above, just the First Amendment is counter to quite a few Commandments. And where does the Bible call for a bicameral congress, or three branches of government. Hell, where does the Bible even call for Democracy? If anything, I'd say that's a Greco-Roman principle.

Basic Standards – We favor improvements on the quality of education and a return to the traditional basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic with sufficient discipline to ensure learning. We support standardized testing to ensure minimal standards are met. We advocate the elimination of the TAKS test.

Well, at least they want to get rid of the TAKS test. For anybody not from Texas, this is the program of standardized tests given to students every year. For certain grades, the TAKS in certain subjects must be passed in order to advance to the next grade. Because of their importance, teachers end up teaching to the test, rather than giving a well rounded education.

I also cringe at their wording of "return to the traditional basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic". U.S. schools actually cover those basic skills fairly well. We have a 99% literacy rate. It's more advanced subjects, like history, geography, and science, and more advanced skills, like critical thinking or knowing how to perform research, where our schools need the most improvement. The former Republican head of the SBOE, Don McLeroy, actually wrote, "Thus, the most amazing "orthodoxy" which dominates the educational establishment "leviathan" today is the slighting of "facts and knowledge" for emphasis on problem-solving and critical thinking. Problem solving and critical thinking are secondary skills. Before one can think and solve he must first have something to think about." Considering that, I'm a bit suspicious of Texas Republicans favoring a return to only basic skills in our schools.

McLeroy's Essay: http://web.archive.org/web/20050826020816/http://home.att.net/~dmcleroy/main.html

Educational Entitlement – We encourage legislation that prohibits enrollment in free public schools of non-citizens unlawfully present in the United States, whether or not such illegals pay or offer to pay tuition for such education.

This is another tough issue. Children don't choose where to live. Their parents do. Not providing a fee education to children here illegally is punishing the children for the crimes of their parents.

Theories of Origin – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories, including Intelligent Design. We believe theories of life origins and environmental theories should be taught as scientific theory, not scientific law. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.

I've followed the creation/evolution controversy enough to recognize the code words. When creationists talk of "strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories", they're not being honest. Much of what they consider to be weaknesses are old arguments that have been refuted many times over (such as those covered in the Index to Creationist Claims).

More info: Strengths and Limitations

Then there's old mistake of thinking as theories and laws as rungs on the scientific ladder. They're not. Theories are overarching frameworks. Laws are concepts that can be expressed in succinct statements or formulas. Calling something a law or a theory says nothing about whether it's true or not. For example, the Law of Universal Gravitation (F=G*m1*m2/r^2) is actually wrong. It's only an approximation, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity is more accurate. The Aether Theory of Light is entirely wrong, while the Germ Theory of Disease is pretty well backed up.

Intelligent Design is little more than creationism that refuses to unambiguously state that God is the creator, in an attempt to get around the First Amendment and get some form of creationism taught in schools. But even then, it's hardly a theory. There's no real research being done on it.
Difference Between ID Proponents and Theistic Evolutionists

I wrote an entry a while ago on politicians' stances on evolution and global warming. Both are based on so much evidence, that the only reason to deny them is ignorance, or letting ideology trump reality. Neither option is good for a political party.
Political Litmus Test

Pledge of Allegiance in Public Schools – Students should be taught flag etiquette and should be led daily in the Pledge of Allegiance, the Texas Pledge, the National Anthem, and other patriotic songs to ensure that the loyal and patriotic spirit of Texan and American heritage is preserved.

I didn't realize how creepy the Pledge of Allegiance was until I moved to Texas and heard the Texas Pledge, and realized that there's no way in hell I'd ever recite the Texas Pledge. Seeing a pledge as an outsider puts it in perspective.

For a really uncomfortable image, take a look at students reciting the pledge while using the Bellamy Salute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pledge_salue.jpg

College Tuition – We recommend three levels of college tuition: In state requiring proof of Texas legal citizenship, Out of State requiring proof of US citizenship, and, nonresident legal alien. Non-US citizens should not be eligible for state or federal grants.

What's with the xenophobia? If we can lure the best and brightest to move to this country and stay here, they'll contribute to U.S. industry and the economy, which helps everybody in the U.S.

Judeo-Christian Nation – As America is a nation under God founded on Judeo-Christian principles, we affirm the constitutional right of all individuals to worship in the religion of their choice.

The Judeo-Christian part is wrong, as I already discussed, but I'm definitely for religious freedom. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but this platform didn't recognize the right to not worship at all.

Actually, this is a good place to quote something I've written in another

"If May is upset that someone doesn't consider the U.S. a Christian nation, he would have been furious at our second president, John Adams, and the entire U.S. Senate from 1797. The Treaty of Tripoli, read aloud to the Senate (it was only a couple pages) and approved unanimously, contained the following statement, "As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion..." (http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/buckner_tripoli.html). The Senate made a point to record the vote, and Adams issued the statement, "Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof." [emphasis mine]"

Safeguarding Our Religious Liberties – We affirm that the public acknowledgment of God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom, prosperity and strength. We pledge our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and toward dispelling the myth of separation of church and state.

The "myth of separation of church and state"? Let's see what old Thomas Jefferson had to say about that.

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Electronic Privacy – We believe all law-abiding citizens should be free from government surveillance of their electronic communications except in cases directly involving national security. Except for non-citizens, we further oppose any national ID program, including the Real ID Act and the use of Radio Frequency Identification Chips (RFID) on humans.

I agree, but even bringing up Radio Frequency Identification Chips rings of paranoia, and inspires images of people sitting around wearing tin foil beanies.

Boy Scouts of America – We support the Boy Scouts of America and reject any attempt to undermine or fundamentally change the ideals of the organization.

The Boy Scouts was one of my favorite activities from my childhood, so it's good to see them get support. However, I would like to see them change to officially accept any boy who wanted to join.

Addictive Behaviors – We encourage state and federal governments to severely prosecute illegal dealers and manufacturers of addictive substances and pornography. We urge Congress to discourage export of such substances into our country. Faith based rehabilitation programs should be emphasized. We oppose legalization of illegal drugs. We support an effective abstinence-based educational program for children. We oppose any “needle exchange” program. We urge vigorous enforcement of our DUI laws.

I already discussed legalization of drugs above. I don't see why the government should be able to tell people what they can do to themselves if it doesn't affect others.

If they dropped "Faith based" from "rehabilitation programs", I'd agree with them.

Faith-Based Charities – We oppose any restrictions by the IRS or any other government rules on taxpayer contributions to faith-based charities. We support new incentives to encourage more faith-based charitable contributions from all taxpayers.

Why this special pleading for religious institutions again? Charities are charities, and religious charities shouldn't get any special treatment.

Property Taxes – We favor abolishing property taxes. Until ad valorem taxes are abolished, we recommend that property valuations be fixed for not less than three years following each revaluation. Appraisal Boards should be elected. We urge four board members be elected by commissioners court precinct, and one member elected county-wide.

I already discussed this above. I don't like renting my property from the government.

Global Warming – We oppose taxes levied and regulations imposed based on the alleged threat of global warming.

What's with the "alleged"? Global warming is a real threat. It's also telling that this was the only specific mention of climate change in the whole platform. For something as serious as global warming, you'd think they could have outlined their plan to deal with it.

For the record, I disagree. A little more taxes now to lessen the impact of global warming will be a lot cheaper than adapting to extreme warming.

Legal Immigration – One nation, one flag, one language, one loyalty

America is a country of immigrants, we should insist that any immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself/herself to the United States. He/she shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else. This is predicated upon the fact that the person is in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance. Anyone who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t American at all. We have room but for one flag, the American Flag. We have room for but one language here and that is the English language. We have room for but one sole loyalty and that is loyalty to the American people. (Teddy Roosevelt, 1907)

What's wrong with more than one language? My great grandmother spoke Pennsylvania Dutch. Now, nobody in my family does. I wish my family had kept that tradition alive. My wife's family immigrated from Mexico and speaks Spanish. I would hope that future generations keep the language.

What's wrong with being proud of your heritage. I call myself an American, but one who's part German, Polish, and quite a bit more. I also consider myself a citizen of the world.

This 'one loyalty' rhetoric is simplistic. Of course people can have loyalty to more than one entity. I have loyalty to my family, my job, my country, and the world at large, to name just a few.

NASA – We support appropriate funding for NASA and the Texas Aerospace Commission. We also support private sector research and development of space technology.

Nothing much to say. I just like NASA.

Support of Our Armed Forces – We encourage all Americans to support the brave and patriotic men and women of our armed forces. They should be paid a wage sufficient to prevent them from ever needing food stamps and that encourages retention. We strongly recommend that all our armed forces remain commanded only by the Commander-in-Chief and his subordinate commanders; upgrading, modernizing and maintaining the equipment, weapons, and vehicles for the safety, efficiency and effectiveness of our armed forces; the continuation of the all volunteer armed forces, the recruitment and advancement of military personnel based on the needs of the military and the qualifications of the person; disqualification of homosexuals from military service; immediate discharge of HIV positive individuals; separation of men and women in basic training; exclusion of women from ground and submarine combat roles; provision of full military honors for burial of veterans; restoration of all veteran benefits without an offset for disability pay; health and disability benefits equal to active military for national guard and reserves; passage of a “new” G.I Bill that fully funds expanded educational scholarship opportunities for honorably separated Veterans; restoration of full lifetime health benefits to retired military and their families; and assurance that military and civilian voters displaced by their service be afforded full opportunity for their votes to be counted; and the expeditious construction of a Veterans Museum in Texas. [emphasis mine]

Look at the part I put in bold. It's like they can't help but insert their bigotry into everything. Anybody who's willing to put their life on the line to serve their country should be allowed to.

War on Terror – There is no substitute for Victory! We commend and support the Bush Administration’s current policy regarding our military operations fighting the War on Terror and confronting radical Islamist terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries around the world. We believe our military forces deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular, should not be prematurely withdrawn from the conflicts until victory has been secured and both countries are able to sustain peace with limited assistance from the United States. There should be no “time-table” applied to the withdrawal of our forces. We also support keeping Guantanamo Detention Center for terrorist detainees. We oppose any plan to close Guantanamo and to bring detainees into the U.S. for Court trials.

First, notice the conflation of issues. The war in Iraq had nothing to do with terrorism, and it's extremely dishonest to say that it did.

I really, really hate Guantanamo. To quote something I've already written for this site, "The prisoners locked up in military jails may or may not be terrorists. How do we know without giving them their day in court? If there was sufficient evidence to lock them up in the first place, then a trial will convict them and they'll stay locked up. If there's not sufficient evidence, how can we be sure they're guilty? Maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe some soldier just didn't like the way they looked at him. I'm ashamed to be living in the 'land of the free', when we're willing to take away people's freedom just because we're scared."

American Patent Rights – We support protecting our inventors, enforcing our patent laws, and strengthening penalties for patent law violations by foreign entities.

As someone working in a field where intellectual property is extremely important, I agree with this.

United Nations – We believe it is in the best interest of the citizens of the United States that we immediately rescind our membership in, as well as all financial and military contributions to, the United Nations.

Yeah. In an era of globalization, when companies regularly do business on 6 continents, and you can travel halfway around the world in a day, lets rescind our membership in the one political organization that tries to make everybody work together. That's just crazy talk.

That's it. That's the worst of it. It's hard to believe how crazy some of the things are that they wrote. It's not like this is some random web page from a guy working out of his basement. It's the official platform for the most powerful political party in Texas, and one of the two most powerful in the country. It's enough to make you depressed and fear for the future of our nation.

Much of what was written simply reinforced what I already knew about the Republican Party - their mangling of history, the injection of religion into politics, their opposition to science, the suppression of free speech, their bigotry towards homosexuals, their isolationist views on international issues, their desire to impose their morality on everybody. I think what surprised me the most was learning just how little regard they have for the Constitution and the founders' intent for checks and balances - their platform had several instances calling for legislation that would unconstitutionally restrict the power of the judicial branch.

Oh well, I'm glad I looked over the platform. At least now I know just how bad the Republican Party is in this state.

*That's what I get for taking so long to write this entry. I downloaded the Republican Platform two years ago, and had been meaning to write this entry for a while now. Well, this past June, the Texas Republican Party voted on a new version of the platform. I've skimmed through it, and although there are differences, the main points from this entry are still valid.

In the new platform, there's now support for alternative medicine, a call for 'corporal punishment' in public schools, the removal of tenure at universities, a call for a volunteer Texas militia, explicit support for the death penalty, and repeal of birthright citizenship, to name just a few things.

Added 2010-09-03 I've had a chance to review the 2010 platform, and have posted my review:
The 2010 Texas Republican Platform

First, there's an example that's so obvious that we almost forget about it - muscle size. Genetics gives us a potential muscle size & strength, but our actual muscle size can be greatly affected by diet and lifestyle, particularly by being active or working out. This is a clear example of genetics and environment interacting to produce a trait.

Here's an article on height (since that was one of the traits my coworkers and I discussed specifically). Based on studies between twins and other relatives, it looks like genetics is 60 to 80% responsible for height, and environmental factors, particularly nutrition, are responsible for the remaining 20 to 40%.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-much-of-human-height

Here are a couple more links on height.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mle00/mole00125.htm
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/135/9/2192

One important caveat on twins that doesn't get mentioned in many of these articles - identical twins don't look so similar solely because of their shared genetics (although that is the biggest reason). It is also due to the shared environment in the womb. That's why fraternal twins look more similar that siblings that didn't develop together. So, it's not enough to look at identical twins in these studies - you have to use fraternal twins as a control for early developmental factors.

Here's a really good site on the 'nature vs. nurture' debate that focuses on intelligence. I'm giving the link to the conclusion, but if you follow the links on the site, you can find the evidence they list. To quote part of that site:

Through the research we have done, it seems that heredity, as well as environment plays an important role in humans’ mentality; but these are not exactly equal in influence. A person’s entire environment seems to be more effectual in determining his mental ability than heredity is. The most fundamental way to explain our opinion is quite comprehensible. It is that heredity determines one’s potential, but environment determines how far one will reach that potential during his lifetime. In other words, every individual has a destined mental potential, but how much of that potential the individual will be able to gain solely depends on the environment that the individual grows in.

http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/ubnrp/intelligence05/Rconclusion.html

Here's another article that touches briefly on genetic determinism, mentioning an experiment where cloned plants (i.e. genetically identical) were grown in different environments, and the plants grew differently depending on the environment they were in.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/richard_lewontingenetic_determ.php

Another point against genetic determinism is the fact that our cells aren't perfect machines, where given inputs give precise outputs. Cells are a cluttered stew of molecules inside a membrane. Depending on how molecules are dispersed throughout the cell, two genetically identical cells may have different reactions to the same conditions. Carl Zimmer's book, Microcosm, has a good explanation of this, if you ever get a chance to read it. A good example, one which made headlines, is the first cloned cat. Although it has identical nuclear DNA to its mother, it has a different color pattern, because the activation and inactivation of the responsible genes is more or less random.
http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SU/copycat.php

Here are two more links, dealing with related themes that we discussed. The first link is to an article on the Flynn Effect (the fact that IQ scores have been increasing). We also discussed abstract thinking, and whether or not it's a learned skill. The second link below includes a discussion of a study done in Uzbekistan which seems to confirm that abstract thinking is learned (though the article also mentions potential problems with the study).
http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/the-domestication-of-the-savage-mind
http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/slothblog/484.html

Okay, so what's my point in all this? Genetics plays a significant role in who we are, but so do environmental factors, and even random chance has a part. So, given the long complicated history that has led to the current conditions in the world, unless two people have had very similar upbringings, it would be nearly impossible to tell how much of the difference between them was due to genetics.

If anyone's really interested, my traffic has pretty much recovered from the dip last summer when I was too busy to post many entries. I guess new content really does keep people coming back.

July 2010

1. Autogyro History & Theory
2. Blog - A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
3. Blog - Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
4. Blog - Casio EX-F1 - First Impression of the High Speed Video
5. Blog - Letter to Pharmacy about MBT Shoes
6. Factoids Debunked & Verified
7. Blog - Ray Comfort - Still Ignorant on Evolution
8. Programming
9. Blog - Running AutoCAD R14 in XP Pro 64
10. Blog - Response to Anti-Liberal Article by Gary Hubbell

June 2010

1. Autogyro History & Theory
2. Blog - A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
3. Blog - Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
4. Blog - Letter to Pharmacy about MBT Shoes
5. Factoids Debunked & Verified
6. Blog - Casio EX-F1 - First Impression of the High Speed Video
7. Programming
8. Factoids Debunked & Verified, Part II
9. Blog - Ray Comfort - Still Ignorant on Evolution
10. Blog - Running AutoCAD R14 in XP Pro 64

May 2010

1. Autogyro History & Theory
2. Blog - A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
3. Blog - Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
4. Factoids Debunked & Verified
5. Blog - Ray Comfort - Still Ignorant on Evolution
6. Blog - Letter to Pharmacy about MBT Shoes
7. Factoids Debunked & Verified, Part II
8. Blog - Casio EX-F1 - First Impression of the High Speed Video
9. Programming
10. Theoretical Max Propeller Efficiency

April 2010

1. Autogyro History & Theory
2. Blog - A Skeptical Look at MBT Shoes
3. Blog - Origin of Arabic Numerals - Was It Really for Counting Angles?
4. Factoids Debunked & Verified
5. Blog - Letter to Pharmacy about MBT Shoes
6. Factoids Debunked & Verified, Part II
7. Blog - Casio EX-F1 - First Impression of the High Speed Video
8. Blog - Ray Comfort - Still Ignorant on Evolution
9. Blog - How Monotheistic Is Christianity?
10. Blog - Texas Board of Education in NY Times Magazine

Some of the more extreme atheists whose writings I've read seem to want to lump those that accept theistic evolution into the same group as those that accept Intelligent Design (ID). In a very broad sense, I can understand the reasoning, but I think there is an important distinction between the two concepts. Here is the first of two comments I left in a thread discussing this issue.

I know I'm late to the party (I was on vacation), but I'll have to agree with the posters who've said that theistic evolution is not nearly the same thing as intelligent design. I know ID advocates are usually pretty vague on what ID actually entails, and it's a big tent, but here are a couple quotes from Of Pandas and People, the ID textbook that was going to be used in Dover (this is recycled from another comment thread [discussed on this site here]).

First, in discussing tetrapod evolution on page 22, the book said:

Instead, fossil types are fully formed and functional when they first appear in the fossil record. For example, we don't find creatures that are partly fish and partly something else, leading gradually, in the dozens of characteristics which they exhibit, to today's fish. Instead, fish have all the characteristics of today's fish from the earliest known fish fossils, reptiles in the record have all the characteristics of present-day reptiles, and so on.

In discussing the incompleteness of the fossil record on page 25, the book said:

There is, however, another possibility science leaves open to us, one based on sound inferences from the experience of our senses. It is the possibility that an intelligent cause made fully-formed and functional creatures, which later left their traces in the rocks.

That's quite a bit different from theistic evolution, where people believe that evolution occurs just like it really does, but that God's nudged the process somehow.

As others have pointed out, it's hard for a theist to accept evolution and not believe in theistic evolution. It's like the old joke of the guy caught in a flood on his roof. Most theists see God being involved in everything, so it's no surprise that they think he was involved in evolution, as well, even if they don't have an explanation for the exact mechanism. As long as theistic teachers stick to the secular explanations of topics in school, I don't see it as a huge problem.

After a couple people posted comments disagreeing with me, I posted another comment.

SteveM,

You're right. There is a possibility that somebody could be a deist. But honestly, how many deists are there in this country? Most people who have been indoctrinated into Christianity believe in an active god who intervenes in the universe.

JacobCH,

Theistic evolution is not functionally the same thing as ID. As I pointed out with the quotes above, and as most people already know, ID is little more than creationism that refuses to unambiguously state that God is the creator. It's a tactic to get creationism taught in schools. Theistic evolution is for people who have been indoctrinated into believing in an interventionist god, but who are rational enough to recognize that evolution must have happened.

Look at it this way, to an ID advocate, if you take away the 'designer', evolution is impossible. The designer has to be there to poof irreducibly complex systems into existence, or add specified complexity, or whatever other gobbledygook they come up with. To someone who accepts theistic evolution, if you take away the god, evolution continues to happen. It's just that without the god's guidance, evolution may not have resulted in the organisms we have now, particularly humans. Yes, the god is superfluous in that case, but that's what theistic evolution is. Whereas ID tries to force the evidence to fit God, theistic evolution tries to force God to fit the evidence.

I agree that if you just drop God it makes the whole thing easier, but that indoctrination can be really hard to get past.

How true is it, really? I'm in aviation, so I know how much liability lawsuits have hurt general aviation. And my wife is in the medical field, so I know how much malpractice insurance costs doctors. (On the flip side, since she works on an Air Force base, where the military culture makes it very, very difficult for patients to sue, I've heard all types of stories of malpractice that go unpunished.)

It seems that what most people base their view on are anecdotes of the most frivolous cases that have gone to court, and even then, sometimes the anecdotes are oversimplifications of the real event. Consider the lady who spilled hot coffee in her lap and sued McDonald's. As usually told in urban legend form, the story says the lady spilled her coffee while driving. In reality, she was the passenger, and the car was stopped when she spilled it while trying to add cream and sugar. The coffee was hot enough that she received 3rd degree burns, and was hospitalized for over a week. Additionally, McDonald's had already received over 700 complaints from others who had received 3rd degree burns from the coffee, and had covered hospital expenses totaling over $500,000 for other burn victims. The lady only sued McDonald's after they refused to cover her $11,000 hospital bill. And, what looked to be the final punitive damages before she and McDonald's settled out of court was only $480,000, not $2.7 million as often cited. I'm not arguing for one side or the other here, just showing that there's more to the case than is usually told.

Additionally, because it's the frivolous cases that have the most emotional appeal, they're the stories that get repeated. You don't often here about the cases that show the system working like it should. I'll give an example. The girlfriend of a friend of mine was recently sued. The background is that she had a verbal agreement with a company to create some spreadsheets for them, which she did. Another guy was contracted by the company to network their computers, which he did. However, right after all this computer work, the employee for the company who had basically given them the jobs skipped out of town with money stolen from the company. Around the same time, the company's computers became infected with viruses. The company owner suspected my friend's girlfriend and the networking guy of being in cahoots with the crook, so they refused to pay them and got the police to investigate. The police did investigate, and found no evidence of any wrongdoing on their part. Additionally, they found that the company's computers didn't have antivirus software, so they were at huge risk of infection. Well, the company owner wasn't happy with the results of the police investigation, so she sued my friend's girlfriend and the networking guy. When all the facts came out and it was clear that neither defendant was at fault, the judge not only ruled in their favor, but forced the company owner to pay each of them the money she'd withheld before, along with gas money to get them to the courthouse (it was an hour away), and lost revenue for the day of work they were missing.

A Snopes article dealing with a list of supposed frivolous lawsuits gives examples of several real frivolous lawsuits. In all the real lawsuits that Snopes listed, the plaintiffs all lost, and in one case, was forced to pay 75% of the legal fees associated with that case.

So, as to whether we live in a litigious society, it all depends on how you want to look at it. It seems pretty easy to sue for whatever you want to sue for, and it seems easy to find a lawyer willing to take your case. But, it's not as easy to actually win lawsuits, and you may end up being the one who has to pay if your lawsuit is too frivolous.

Added 2010-07-22 Okay, after thinking about this a bit, I realize I haven't done enough research to say how many people are actually winning frivolous lawsuits. It may be a problem. However, I still feel pretty confident that most people are biased by hearing anecdotes of the worst cases, and particularly by urban legends of cases that never happened, or exaggerations or over simplifications of actual cases.

To join the small business server domain you must be a member of the local administrators

The first thing you should try to do is to follow all steps listed in Microsoft Support:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926505

However, if you're like me, you'll still get the same error message, even though the account you're working from is an administrator account. What I found is that it turned out to be an easy fix. You just have to enable the built in Administrator account, and then run the setup wizard from that account.

There are several ways to enable the built in Administrator account. Here's one.

1. Run 'secpol.msc' from the Start menu.
2. Go to Local Policies -> Security Options
3. Double Click on 'Accounts: Administrator account status'
4. Click 'enabled'
5. Click OK

Once the Administrator account has been enabled, log off, then log back on as Administrator, and then try to run the client setup wizard from the server.

If you're still having problems after that, then you're worse off than I was, and I don't know how to help you.

I'm skeptical. This seems too much like a perpetual motion machine. For example, you can't hook up an electric motor to an electric generator, and then have the generator power the motor. Resistance in the wires and friction in the moving parts will rob energy from the system and dissipate it as heat into the environment. In fact, if you just had a flywheel of the same inertia on low friction bearings, it would spin longer.

I drew up two quick diagrams to illustrate what I'm getting at with this HHO generator. The first diagram below is a normal car - it burns gasoline to power the engine to turn the wheels. Below that is a car with the HHO setup.

That extra loop resembles a perpetual motion machine too much. You're taking energy from the engine to split water, then trying to use that as fuel to turn the engine, and hoping to get more energy out than you're putting in. But remember, there's friction in the alternator and resistance in the wires running from the alternator to the HHO generator; when you run current through the water, only some of it goes into splitting the molecules while the rest heats up the water; and then there's also friction in the lines from the HHO generator to the intake. You're losing energy to heat in every step of that process.

Still, my friend bought that system and installed it in his car, and he insists that he's getting better gas mileage than before. So, I've tried to think of reasons why this may be the case. Here are my thoughts.

1) The hydrogen makes the combustion process more efficient, so that the engine converts more thermal energy into kinetic energy. This really seems pretty unlikely, though, especially without doing any additional modifications to the engine. First of all, the increase in efficiency would have to more than offset all the lost energy from the HHO generator. And internal combustion engines are already really efficient, especially modern engines with oxygen sensors and fuel injection that can tailor the air fuel ratio. And automotive companies are under pressure from government regulations (not to mention market forces) to make the engines as efficient as possible. Given the number of engineers working on these engines, and the amount of money manufacturers spend on development, I can't imagine that there's much room for improvement in efficiency.

2) He hasn't done enough tests. Fuel mileage is strongly dependent on driving style and other variables. A lead foot burns a whole lot more fuel than driving conservatively. Sitting at stops signs and traffic lights hurts fuel economy (even though the engine's at idle, you're getting zero miles per gallon during those times). A head wind will hurt you, while a tail wind helps. Properly inflated tires have a noticeable effect. I don't think a few tanks of gas driving around town is enough to smooth out all those variables. You either need to do some really controlled testing (an external fuel tank you can weigh on a closed course), or run thousands of miles with and without the HHO generator for comparison.

3) The hydrogen and oxygen are messing up the oxygen sensors. Engines are usually tuned to run at lower power at a stoichiometric air fuel ratio (AFR). This is when the amount of gasoline and oxygen are matched up perfectly, so there's no fuel left unburnt, and no free oxygen left. However, as the engine's power output increases, if it continued to operate at the stoichiometric AFR, it would burn hot enough to damage engine components. That's why the AFR needs to be enrichened - the extra fuel lowers the combustion temperature, keeping the engine from getting damaged. I've got some first hand experience with that - at work, we hired an 'expert' consultant to help us tune an engine, and he let the exhaust gas temperatures (EGTs) get up to 1750ºF (we usually tried to keep them below 1550º), and it literally burnt the ends off of the spark plugs.

The other problem with running too lean is that the engine could start knocking (when the fuel air mixture explodes instead of burning smoothly). That's another reason the AFR gets enrichened. I've got some first hand experience with that, too. We were tuning the engine another time (at a different shop), and we had a laptop hooked up to the engine computer that gave us real time feedback on all the variables the engine computer was monitoring. We kept advancing the timing (another variable that strongly influences knocking) to try to get the engine operating as efficiently as possible. The guy operating the dyno had run plenty of engines, so he had a good ear for it. The laptop was telling us that the engine was sensing knocking, but the guy running the dyno couldn't hear it, so we figured it was a false signal. After a few more dyno runs, we basically destroyed the engine. When we took it apart and inspected it, it had all the signs of knocking. The moral being - your ear isn't sensitive enough to reliably detect knocking at levels that are still high enough to damage your engine.

If the hydrogen and oxygen are messing up the oxygen sensors, it may be tricking the computer into running the engine leaner. This would improve fuel economy, but at the cost of higher EGTs and increased chance of knocking - both of which will reduce the life of your engine. Unfortunately, there's no way of telling on a more or less stock system. Block temperature is not a reliable indicator of exhaust temperature, because there's plenty of capacity in the cooling system to keep the block temperature low enough. And knocking isn't something you can always catch by ear.

My gut feel is that it's probably option two above. I think that with more testing, my friend will find that the HHO generator is actually hurting his gas mileage. If it turns out to be option three, though, it could be causing some serious damage to the engine. I recommended to him that he at least pull the plugs periodically to see what they look like, and that it might not be a bad idea to invest in some EGT probes and a knock sensor, either.

Anyway, after a little bit of research, I did find a few other sites discussing this (the first link below is the best). It looks like my second option above is the most likely.

• http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/07/water4gas.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fuel_enhancement
• http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/alternative-fuel/gas-mileage/4276846?series=19
• http://www.wyff4.com/news/17036761/detail.html

It looks like maybe there could be something to these HHO generators in an engine specifically designed for them, but nowhere near as much as many of the scam artists are claiming. Plus it's analagous to octane. High octane fuel doesn't explode as easily, so some of those things that cause knocking (advanced timing & leaner mixture which I already discussed, plus higher compression ratios which I didn't mention) can be pushed harder if you have high octane fuel. So, if you have an engine designed to take advantage of high octane fuel, you can get better efficiencies. But, if you simply run high octane fuel in an engine designed for low octanes, you won't see any difference. Some of the stuff I've seen for hydrogen says that it might allow you to run leaner than with pure gasoline, but your engine and sensors would have to be designed accordingly. Simply pumping it into a stock engine wouldn't give you those benefits.