here are 50 states in the US, more than half of them predominantly Republican. Texas is no different from lots of other "red states" except by the intensity of it's Republican leadership, which is overzealous, and the pipeline from Texas to national power. As of 2004, the President and the Speaker of the House are both Texas Republicans, along with many other rising Republican politicians, and this makes a closer examination of the Texas GOP constitution worth engaging in.  It's some scary reading.

Updated are posted in descending order, with the newest ones added on the bottom of this page.

October 10, 2003

Excellent and worrisome post by CalPundit about the Texas Republican Party, and their goals. In the post he quotes The Texas Republican Party Platform for 2000, a document that all elected Republicans from Texas sign are signatories or at least not in opposition to.  The speaker of the house and the president of the United States are two of the more prominent Texas Republicans.  Their agenda is strikingly radical, far more so than anything Bush has done, aside from his attempts to dismantle the EPA and other consumer protection and regulatory agencies, plus the whole neo con fantasy of the Iraq Attack somehow creating the first in a series of democratic, American-friendly countries in the Middle East.

The party platform advocates things like the total outlawing of abortion and homosexuality, not allowing homosexuals to ever be anywhere near children, seizing the Panama Canal, overturning all Supreme Court powers to set laws related to abortion or religion or anything else in the Bill of Rights, teaching Creationism in science classes, abolishing Social Security and all forms of welfare and the federal income tax, and much, much more.

The obvious argument about this is that it's no big deal, it's just a bunch of nuts in Texas, etc. And yes, it is a bunch of nuts in Texas, but every movement begins with a small core group and spreads out.  The Texas Republicans weren't all unified on this 10 years ago, and now they are, and two of the top three Republicans in the US are from this group.  Obviously it's powerful, and growing rapidly.  In the typical "I can't defend us so I'll try to make it sound like you're just as bad." argument, some in the comments list wacky liberal organizations and say their goals are just as crazy. Which is true, to a moderate, but those wacky liberal organizations have zero power on a national level.  The Texas Repubs have enormous power and influence and money, and they're growing rapidly.

The other objection is that Bush and Tom Delay aren't acting on all of the principles in the Texas Republican Party.  That's also true, but it's pretty clear why not; they would get slaughtered by the vast majority of other legislators who aren't in on this agenda. So they have to take baby steps towards their eventual goals.  Bush can't just remove the US from the UN, outlaw abortion, dissolve the EPA and all environmental laws, and end Social Security anymore than a hypothetical liberal president could instantly increase the federal tax rates for people with over $1m in income or $10m in assets to to 90%, change all non-violent drug offender prison terms to drug treatment classes, and dissolve the Patriot Act.  The president isn't a king, he has to get agreement from congress to change laws, and congress isn't going to go along with a really radical agenda.

There are quite a few comments on the post already (46 as I type this) and as far as I can see, there isn't any disagreement. A few of the right wing posters are in denial about it, and try to make the two arguments I just stated, but when other people in the comments shoot down their arguments, they have nothing left to say.  I don't know if the situation is as scary as some comment says, "This is the Republican Party in 20 years if they aren't stopped." but I certainly don't want people with these beliefs coming to power in the US.

The question is, what to do about it?  I think shining a light under their rock is the only way to go after them; expose them for the radicals they are and force them to defend what they believe in on a national stage.  All Democrats and most Independents and Republicans would be horrified by this agenda, so it's basically a matter of trying to make the ignorant masses aware of just what the people taking power in this country actually want.

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