Here is how the grass­roots works. In Maine yes­ter­day, an orga­nized bloc of tea-bagger del­e­gates to their state repub­li­can con­ven­tion over­whelm­ingly voted to scrap the pro­posed GOP party plat­form and replace it with their own version[1], writ­ten by a group called the Maine Refounders.

The new plat­form raises many dis­turb­ing issues. Rather than tear into it line-by-line, I encour­age you to read it for yourselves.[2] I’ll focus instead on three espe­cially trou­bling clauses.

First, global warming:

Defeat Cap and Trade, inves­ti­gate col­lu­sion between gov­ern­ment and indus­try in the global warm­ing myth, and pros­e­cute any ille­gal collusion.

The new plat­form pro­poses crim­i­nal­iz­ing efforts between gov­ern­ment and indus­try to under­stand the human causes, effects and cures for cli­mate change. While global warm­ing could arguably be any­where from valid con­tro­versy to proven fact, cer­tainly it is no myth. Fur­ther­more, what the tea-baggers call col­lu­sion, I call coop­er­a­tion. We need only look back to McCarthy to under­stand how eas­ily this dis­tinc­tion can be blurred.

What if I blog about global warm­ing and link to research con­ducted by peers? Is that con­sid­ered col­lu­sion and if so, must I fear state law enforce­ment haul­ing me down­town for a lively inter­ro­ga­tion? Remem­ber, this is brought to you by the same party that claims to “adhere to the restric­tions out­lined in the Con­sti­tu­tion to pro­tect the indi­vid­ual from intru­sive government”.[2]

Sec­ond, reli­gious freedom:

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

This is a direct endorse­ment for allow­ing reli­gion to walk the halls of gov­ern­ment to inform the work of hon­or­able law­mak­ers. Um okay, whose reli­gion? Do Chris­tians in the new-and-improved Maine GOP really accept that they may be sub­ject to other, non-Christian expres­sions of faith? I recall one big right-wing stink when a judge ordered the removal of a Ten Com­mand­ments mon­u­ment from Alabama’s state judi­cial building[3], then another when a newly elected Mus­lim con­gress­man from Min­nesota car­ried a Koran to his swearing-in ceremony.[4]

On the slip­pery slope of neo-fascist pol­i­tics, when will this prin­ci­ple be re-written as “Free­dom of my Reli­gion does not mean your free­dom from my religion”?

Finally, Aus­trian Economics:

Return to the prin­ci­ples of Aus­trian Eco­nom­ics, and redi­rect the econ­omy back to one of incen­tives to save and invest.[2]

What exactly does this mean? For starters, its roots lie in 15th cen­tury eco­nomic law as espoused by dis­ci­ples of St. Thomas Aquinas. So you guessed it, the tea-baggers are advo­cat­ing strong moral the­ol­ogy and nat­ural law — in other words god — to guide eco­nomic policy.

Lud­wig von Mises’s rule says: “the first job of an econ­o­mist is to tell gov­ern­ments what they can­not do.“[5]

Does this stance by the Aus­trian School make econ­o­mists and the pri­vate sec­tor effec­tively god?

• If so, it would explain why, in the face of America’s crush­ing eco­nomic melt­down, con­gres­sional repub­li­cans do not sup­port mean­ing­ful finan­cial reform to reign in cor­rupt busi­ness practices.
• It would explain why, as oil from the equiv­a­lent of mul­ti­ple Exxon Valdezes floats omi­nously below the sur­face of the Gulf of Mex­ico, BP execs con­tinue to play the shell game with dam­age esti­mates and delayed video footage from the seabed.[6]
• It would explain why, in the face of this likely worst-ever envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter, the revised Maine GOP plat­form nonethe­less pro­motes “energy inde­pen­dence aggres­sively by remov­ing the obsta­cles cre­ated by gov­ern­ment to allow pri­vate devel­op­ment of our resources; nat­ural gas, oil, coal, and nuclear power.“[2]

Note the delib­er­ate exclu­sion of inno­v­a­tive, clean, future-thinking, job-creating energy sources like wind, solar or even sim­ple con­ser­va­tion? The new Maine GOP plat­form is not a ratio­nal doc­u­ment. It is jihad — based on one group’s own nar­row inter­pre­ta­tion of nat­ural law.

Maine, I want to scream at the top of my lungs that “you’re all out of your bleep­ing minds!” But I don’t believe that. I’m con­fi­dent that nearly every mod­er­ate, demo­c­ra­tic and inde­pen­dent Maine cit­i­zen who’s wit­nessed this trav­esty is pretty ticked off, and hope­fully mobi­lized come November.

But yes, I am sad­dened once again by how good repub­li­cans through apa­thy have enabled a rel­a­tive few truly mis­guided peo­ple to hijack your party. In Maine, the tea-baggers have just stolen your brand. Maybe it’s time for you to either fight back with trade­mark lawyers or start over with a fresh iden­tity. Either way, I hope you’ll do what’s best for our nation and world.

Ref­er­ences

1. Maine Repub­li­cans Adopt Tea Party Plat­form | Maine Politics
2. 2010 Maine GOP Plat­form — Maine Refounders / Tea Party
3. On Ten Com­mand­ments bill, Chris­t­ian Right has it wrong — CSMonitor.com
4. At swear­ing in, con­gress­man wants to carry Koran — CSMonitor.com
5. What is Aus­trian Eco­nom­ics — Free clas­sics from the Mises Institute
6. Oil Flow Rate Ques­tioned as BP Tries 2nd Fix — CBS News

Posted on May 15th, 2010 by Sky
Filed under: Politics