. . . you are beyond redemption. Nathan Robinson, in Current Affairs, has a thoughtful essay on what I might all generational responsibility. Just as an earlier generation faced the threat of Nazism, our faces climate change and a new fascist movement. By all means read it, but what I want to do here is pull his list of items from the platform of the Republican Party of Texas. It essentially calls for the extinction of the 20th Century and a return to the 18th, if not the 12th. This is real, folks. (I'll actually go along with abolishing Daylight Savings Time although I think what they actually object to is probably Standard Time.)
- opposing any effort to classify carbon emissions as a pollutant
- abolishing the EPA
- repealing the Endangered Species Act
- prohibiting teaching “sex education, sexual health or sexual choice or identity in any public school”
- recognizing pornography as a “public health crisis”
- abolishing Child Protective Services
- abolishing the Department of Education
- teaching American history courses “heavily weighted toward the study of original founding documents”
- opposing the use of any national or international education standards
- requiring mandatory daily pledges of allegiance to both the United States and Texas
- banning critical race theory from schools
- banning any lockdowns, contact tracing, or mask mandates as public health measures
- newly limiting the time disabled people can receive SSDI benefits
- eliminating the minimum wage
- banning cities from passing paid sick leave ordinances, rent control, or plastic bag bans
- abolishing school-based mental health care providers
- “oppos[ing] all efforts to validate transgender identity”
- repealing all limits on campaign contributions to politicians
- repealing all estate taxes
- eliminating same-sex marriage
- eliminating no-fault divorce and supporting covenant marriage
- entirely eliminating abortion
- introducing a right to use cryptocurrency to the Texas Bill of Rights
- requiring employers to verify citizenship status through E-Verify
- abolishing all federal welfare programs
- drug testing state welfare recipients
- adding “the right to refuse vaccination” to the Texas Bill of Rights
- stopping fluoridation of the water supply
- disallowing prescription drugs manufactured outside the U.S.
- limiting Medicaid
- banning Drag Queen Story Hour from libraries
- allowing people to bring guns into schools
- a prohibition on using gas or vehicle taxes for public transit or bike lanes
- opposing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and using mass deportation instead
- abolishing the refugee resettlement program
- eliminating birthright citizenship
- new criminal penalties for desecrating the American or Texas flag
- revoking the tax-exempt status of any organization that “knowingly aid[s] and abet[s] illegal immigrants”
- ending the H1B foreign worker visa program
- ending daylight saving time
- “support[ing] an aggressive war on terrorism”
- requiring cities that cut police budgets to cut property taxes by the same percentage
- eliminating all public funding for public broadcasting
- repealing the “motor voter” law that allows voter registration at state DMVs
- withdrawing from the United Nations
- “unequivocally oppos[ing]” the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
5 comments:
Do you think these are rogue politicians, or do you think they represent their constituencies faithfully?
That would be an important distinction.
Time for a massive boycott of Texas. I realize that this will hurt the population who lives there, but I can’t see any other way to drive this freakish, unholy pariah into either submission or secession. I’ll take either one.
Mr. Atreides, my response to that is threefold. First, Texas legislative districts are gerrymandered. So the legislature doesn't necessarily represent the majority. But most people are not aware of what's in the platform and don't really vote on the basis of any deep understanding of public policy. This is designed to rile up a small base of highly motivated voters, basically. I'm quite sure only a minority would endorse most of these planks. But yes, those people are out there and the Republican party as an institution has apparently decided on a strategy of energizing them, rather than trying to represent a broader constituency of Americans.
It appears that Texans want less federal intervention.
Maybe they should secede. But they refine about 46% of the country's gasoline!
I'm sure they would still sell it to us...
The beauty of it all, Innocent Bystander, is that we don’t need the oil. As a matter fact, we need not to be using the oil. We need to transition to green so that we can survive as a species. Change never comes without pain. But oh, what glorious change it’s going to be. We could be living in a paradise.
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