Tell Me Again Why You Would Vote For A Republican

I try to be civil. I try not to judge. I try not to point fingers. I try to see both sides of an argument. (Even when the other person inevitably is going to be wrong because they aren’t in complete agreement with whatever I’m saying)

But the past 3 years or so (the period since the faux “tea party” surfaced) have pushed me past the breaking point.

I don’t know if it’s the endless lies that the wingnuts believe. I don’t know if it’s the mindless sexist, racist, bull poop they spew. All I know is that lately I’ve been sorely tempted to carry with me at all times a 2 by 4 so I can whack people up side the head whenever they say something stupid.

Which means now I have to haul a load of timber to Texas.

Lord knows Rick Perry alone is a full-time job for anyone trying to fix stupid, but the Texas state Republican Party has just put on display what may be one of the biggest batches of stupid known to man: the “2012 State Republican Party Platform.”

In thirty pages of astoundingly lame-brain statements, they leave no subject untouched in their effort to make Texas – and conservatives everywhere – look even dumber than usual.

I should have been able to guess that a state that favors corporations over its people would be “The embodiment of the conservative dream in America.”

After all it’s dead last in high school graduation rates, per capita spending on mental health, the percentage of non-elderly women with health insurance, the percentage of pregnant women who receive prenatal care and share of its workforce – 76 percent – covered by workers’ compensation, while leading the country in executions, share of its population that lacks health insurance and five categories of air pollution — nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide, mercury emissions, volatile organic compounds and particulates.

Then there’s the actual platform. Here’s a random sampling of the contents.

We strongly oppose all efforts of the extreme environmental groups that stymie legitimate business interests. We strongly oppose those efforts that attempt to use the environmental causes to purposefully disrupt and stop those interests within the oil and gas industry. We strongly support the immediate repeal of the Endangered Species Act. We strongly oppose the listing of the dune sage brush lizard either as a threatened or an endangered species. We believe the Environmental Protection Agency should be abolished.

Because the only species worth protecting are the oil and gas ones.

We urge that the Voter Rights Act of 1965 codified and updated in 1973 be repealed

Because people who don’t vote like us shouldn’t have voting rights.

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

Because the native language of a bunch of white people from a foreign country is what everybody here should speak, only with a Texas accent.

We urge the Legislature to rescind no-fault divorce laws.

Because marriage is only between a natural woman and a natural man and it’s forever dammit whether you like it or not.

All innocent human life must be respected and safeguarded from fertilization to natural death.

This allows us to ban abortion while simultaneously supporting capital punishment because after all, death by injection ain’t natural.

We support eliminating bureaucratic prohibitions on corporal discipline.

Because part of respecting and safeguarding our children is the ability to beat them.

We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories.

Because we all know that our great-great grandparents had pet dinosaurs.

We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills, critical thinking skills and similar programs that [challenge] the student’s fixed beliefs and undermin[e] parental authority.

Because we don’t want people thinking for themselves.

We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until marriage.

Because it’s so effective.

Public schools should be required to obtain written parental consent for student participation in any test or questionnaire that surveys beliefs, feelings, or opinions.

Because children should never be allowed to think for themselves. (Didn’t we already cover that when we opposed higher order thinking?)

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.

But only if the choice is an approved Christian religion. Everyone else needs to be deported.

We deplore all discrimination. We urge immediate repeal of the Hate Crimes Law. Until the Hate Crimes Law is totally repealed, we urge the Legislature to immediately remove … the sexual orientation category in said Law.

Because discrimination is bad. Unless it’s against gays. That’s okay. Because:

Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, [and] recognized by our country’s founders …

Because it says so right there in the Constitution under article … What? They didn’t?

We believe the Minimum Wage Law should be repealed.

Because that way we can pay poor people even less.

I think I’m gonna need more lumber.