RPT Platform: Back to Basics

Well the Republican Party of Texas has released its official platform and again we cannot be more pleased. It’s official, the Republican Party of Texas is for repeal of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. It’s back to basics for America, it seems, as we sell out our country and our liberties to the robber barons of the golden age of capitalism gone wild. Don’t believe me? It’s all here.

First on their list of things to undo is taxes. George H. W. Bush said “Read my lips, no new taxes,” and then he raised taxes. The RPT is willing to go him one better, or rather one less, and trim this to just two words: “no taxes.” No income taxes, no property taxes, no estate taxes.

Just a sales tax. Just a regressive sales tax where the lower and middle class, by our sheer numbers, will bear the brunt of the total contribution.

Then we need to go back on the Gold Standard. No one but some really delusional people think that America can operate on a gold standard. To that end, the gold market would be allowed to fluctuate with market trends. The gold standard was meant to stabilize the economy. This would have just the opposite effect. But it would be lovely for the rich, wouldn’t it?

Thirdly we need to do away with the two most successful Democratic programs in US history, Medicare and Social Security. In their places we need to replace them with mechanisms that allow the super-rich to gamble with the health of the middle class through a privately funded voucher system and allow them to play a game of craps with trillions of retirement dollars, a game that would have destroyed lives had it been in place in 2008.

Oh, and in education, we need to stop teaching these damned kids critical thinking skills. You know, those skills that allow people to analyze and synthesize information so that they may make informed decisions based on logic and inference. That’s right. No more critical thinking. You see, it disempowers parents from inculcating their children with their opinions and values – you know, the ones you hear about on Fox News.

And finally, let’s all allow schools to beat our children once more. They’re getting too smart for their britches and need to be beaten into submission once more. What was good for great grandfather, who was taught to beat great grandmother in school should be good for these bratty kids.

Yes, the GOP has its fingers on the very pulse of current American thought and expression.

Current as of `1875.