05.30.12
White, right wing and paranoid — Iowa GOP
Mark Potok, famous as a scholar of US right-wing extremism and tabulator of domestic hate groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center, reacted to the proposed Iowa GOP political platform two days ago. It’s a platform fit for the fans of Alex Jones conspiracy Internet radio show, composed by people who reason exactly like Ted Nugent. It is, in two words, bug nuts.
And that’s how Potok calls it. But bug nuts, mean and evil are the mainstream of the modern GOP. Of the two major political parties in the US, it has morphed into a national security threat because of these insane beliefs.
When you cleave to what these people do and your country is the size and throw weight of Romania, it’s of no consequence except to the unfortunates who must live with you. When it’s a country the size and power of the United States and one of the people running for president caters to such hateful rubbish because he’ll go along with anything to appeal to the group, it’s a jaw-dropping threat.
Some bits from the Potok opinion piece:
Dear Iowa,
I used to think you were a pretty straight-ahead place, what with all that flat land and healthy vegetables and honest living. I mean, Iowans rejected slavery 20 years before the Civil War and they approved interracial marriage a century before the U.S. Supreme Court. Homosexuality was decriminalized almost 30 years before the 2003 Lawrence vs. Texas decision did so nationwide. Today, control of the state’s Legislature is split between Democrats and Republicans and, a few characters aside, it is not known for political extremism …
That idea of the state ended for me last week when I read the proposed platform released by the platform committee of the Republican Party of Iowa.
Are you people totally insane?
The platform is absolutely thick with ideas from the extreme right, lunatic conspiracy theories, and barely concealed hatred for President Obama and anything that smacks of multiculturalism. It sneers at science, is down on poor people, and despises, really despises, the United Nations.
Here’s a sampling of the deep-thinking goals of the Iowa GOP:
• Require candidates for president to prove that they are “natural born citizens,??? beginning with the 2012 election …
• Reject the “claims??? of global warming, which are “based on fraudulent, inaccurate information??? and pushed by people using “extremist scare tactics.??? The Iowa GOP “recognizes??? that policies and laws designed to combat global warming are really “a plan to take our freedoms and liberties away.???
• Eliminate the Federal Reserve Act and implement a “sound commodity-backed currency??? with a gold or silver standard …
• Entirely eliminate the departments of Agriculture, Education, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Energy, Interior, Labor and Commerce, along with the Transportation Safety Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• Likewise, abolish the Internal Revenue Service and repeal the 16th Amendment, which legalized the federal income tax …
• Allow parents to refuse to have their children immunized.
• Reject the teaching of multiculturalism.
• Only teach evolution as a theory, along with creationism.
• Repeal compulsory school attendance laws.
• Outlaw pornography …
• Oppose the imposition of Shariah, or Islamic religious law, in the United States …
There’s a lot more, all of it as rancid as can be. Near the end Potok concedes there’s so much he can’t cover all of it.
The proposed Republican Party Platform of Iowa is here.
It starts with a boxed out quote from Cicero on ‘the enemy within,’ employed here to argue the nation is being cut down by treason in the highest office:
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106-43 B.C.)
‘ Roman Statesman, Philosopher and Orator
Other excerpts:
We believe human life should be protected from conception to non-intervened natural death, excluding acts of capital punishment.
We affirm that science has now proven that life begins at conception. On day one (1) a baby’s genetic code and DNA are formed. That is the beginning of life.
We call for the Iowa General Assembly to repeal the recently passed “Electric & Plumbing??? Bill which takes away an individual’s right to make household repairs. {There is no such prohibition.]
We call for the repeal of all mandatory minimum wage laws.
We call for the removal of Kevin Jennings, now head of the United States Office of Safe Schools (Safe School Czar). America’s schools would be safer without him.
We believe that Intelligent Design theory, or Creationism, should be included with all science instruction along with the Darwinian theory … We recommend that tax funded school libraries include creation science or intelligent design materials on their bookshelves.
The use of the Bible as a textbook should be allowed.
We believe the state should prohibit school based health clinics and external organizations from providing or recommending abortion or birth-control services or referrals, including the distribution of condoms … We believe that sex education should not be taught as a mandatory course in public schools …
We believe that sexual orientation should not be allowed to be a basis for any school clubs, such as the Gay Straight Alliance, at any level of the public school system …
We support an amendment to both the U. S. and Iowa constitutions that states that all marriages should be traditional one natural male and one natural female, omitting transgendered …
We favor improvement, strengthening, and simplification of adoption laws, and oppose adoption by homosexuals …
We affirm that desecrating the American or state flags is not constitutionally protected free speech, and should be punished accordingly …
We demand full restoration of 2nd Amendment rights and call for a state law authorizing law-abiding citizens to carry firearms, open or concealed, without a permit …
We demand that the U. S. House of Representatives exercise its constitutional responsibility and duty to impeach activist judges who legislate from the bench. We refuse to surrender to judicial tyranny …
We support the continued use of Guantanamo Prison as long as needed.
We support repealing the smoking ban. We believe this to be an issue of liberty.
We support prison reform including the limitation of prisoner rights and amenities. Inmates should be required to work for their room and board …
We support retribution for acts of war on the citizens of this great nation. It is to be swift and severe …
We call for the continued development of weapons that would give our troops an advantage in battle situations …
We call for the continued deployment of the anti-ballistic-missile defense system and for the updating, retraining, expansion, and reequipping of our nuclear strategic forces. We call for continued research and deployment of strategic missile, rocket, and artillery defense systems. We support the deployment of the newest laser weapon system, recently killed by President Obama …
We believe there should be longer and more hunting seasons to thin the population of deer …
We strongly oppose the diabolical collusion of the United Nations …
We require each duly nominated candidate that won their primary to sign the State platform once passed, and agree with 80% of the planks in order to receive state party funding … [Thus guaranteeing the purity of the crazy.]
It’s stupefying in its sheer awfulness, a mixture of “sovereign citizen” rebellion, Tea Party dogma, John Bircher-ism … it just goes on and on, a frenzy of pet hates collected and written out as a set of party planks. It seems to have been created by and for people with no intelligence or even slight decency, a wish list for persecuting everyone everyone who doesn’t share their various phobias and mental illnesses.
Christoph Hechl said,
May 30, 2012 at 11:22 pm
I think i have finally managed to understand where the fear of the “infiltration with Sharia law” comes from:
If you let the GOP extremists have their way, Sharia would look appealing in contrast, so it’s really just fighting the competition.
Seriously, how can anybody worry about anything happening abroad, when people like these are in your neighbourhood, carrying lots of weapons and openly living out their antidemocratic resentments.
George Smith said,
May 31, 2012 at 8:31 am
Good question. Others have asked it too. Still, voters put them in power in 2010 and they’ve taken over one entire party. Everything they believe or advocate for is either nonsensical or aimed at preying on someone else not exactly like them with the exception of big money, which is financing all of them. If you read the entire thing they’re not even logically consistent on issues. They are vehemently opposed to any government bailout to financial institutions that wrecked the global economy but they also want destroyed all the arms of government that would regulate the financial business that created the problem.
They believe a zygote is a person. They want “sound money” backed with gold. They think law exists to prosecute them for fixing things around the house.
Enon said,
June 3, 2012 at 2:03 pm
I’m still reading through this amazing document.
It’s mostly but not entirely nutty.
4.19 We oppose “No Child Left Behind???.
Well, yeah.