Bob's take on the GOP Manifesto

Obi wan over at The Utah Hornet's Nest pointed out that the Utah Republican Party has posted a new manifest on it's website.

And, like most things that come out of their offices on South Temple, this one is all talk.

And, like I always do, I will take the opportunity to give my take on the manifesto. Everything that follows not in brackets [] and italics is taken straight from utgop.com:

We are Republicans Because...

The Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal [except blacks, Democrats, and Mexicans], that they are endowed, by their CREATOR[that's right! bold and CAPS!], with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.—“[Well, OK, we only agree with one. Liberty is a commie term, and happiness is a sin.]

These God given rights are sacred and precious to Republicans. The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights give us further direction with words of wisdom like, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion [unless it's the one true religion], or prohibiting the free exercise thereof [unless that free exercise conflicts with our own views]” and “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”. Government must protect the rights articulated in these texts [except freedom of speech, the press, assembly....oh, and the 4th amendment, just to point out a few exceptions to the rule.].

The platform of the Republican Party helps us understand our mission to protect these timeless, traditional values for our families, our children and our posterity.

Life

We value the infinite worth of a human being [with the exception of the time period between 1 hour and vegetable].

We fight for the life of the unborn and oppose abortion except to preserve the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest [unless the A word comes up during the 45 days the legislature is in session. Then we oppose all abortion, until the Church reminds us otherwise].

We recognize the traditional family as the fundamental unit of society [as long as your idea of traditional family doesn't include our state's history pre-1890] and that parents have the responsibility to direct the upbringing of their children.

We believe in God and that government must be based on a moral foundation with honesty, integrity, morality and accountability [psyche!].


Liberty

We are a law abiding Party and support the rule of law [Well, except election laws....].

We unabashedly support our military, honor their sacrifice unless they need services from Veteran's Affairs.... and commit ourselves to do our part to protect the freedoms they protect [except those outlined above].

We affirm the right to individual religious expression, including prayer, in public and in private [again, unless it's a prayer to someone other than the approved Father In Heaven].



Pursuing Happiness

We encourage free enterprise, private initiative and volunteerism.

We support the right of individuals to own and use property [Unless they want to use said property for purposes we disagree with, or we want to build a soccer stadium].

We encourage individuals, families and charitable organizations to help the needy, but support a government safety net if all else fails.

We want welfare recipients to work towards self-sufficiency. [We encourage this by taking away welfare.]

We are committed to all children having access to quality education.

We support parents’ rights to choose public, private or home education [and for the state to pay for that choice].

We support incentives to promote competitive excellence in education.

We accept the need for limited taxation in order for government to perform and administer essential public services, but advocate simplification of our tax code, Elimination of the estate tax and broad based tax rate reduction where possible [because we have not been able to pull this off in our 25+ years in power].

We have seen that government regulations can be a major impediment to productivity and competition and encourage reliance more on market forces and less on government. Our environment, air, water and land are at the heart of our existence and must be protected through balanced management [which is why we don't have things going crazy in the private sector right now....].



Join with the Republican Party as we promote and defend these principles and values.