Quick political update

[quislibet]

No funnies today. Hello, people who have added me because I use my academic powers for procrastination and not for dissertation-writing!

Today, I will simply post a link to this, which I found interesting:

http://www.calpundit.com/archives/002393.html

"The heart and soul of Republican grass roots activism can be found pretty easily: it's in Texas. ... It is the biggest, most active, most energetic, and most determined segment of the Republican party today.

So it's fair to ask, what do they really want?"

Comments

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

yeah, well, the problem there is with those extremely misleading "short translations."

also at times the real meaning of the original position is not particularly clear either.

[komos.livejournal.com]

They should push to take Hong Kong while they're at it. It's not like Britannia is using it any more...

Hey, if you're gonna pick a fight, you may as well think BIG.

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

that said, a lot of these things are pretty freaking scary.

since most of the scariest ones are not at all a part of common conservative discourse, though, I wonder how prominent they really are? I don't really know what the relationship of the Texas GOP is with ...everyone else, I guess.

(the homosexuality-related ones _do_ turn up in common conservative discourse, unfortunately)

[komos.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I see what you mean. The synopses seem to be fully in keeping with the stated positions. The only one that might be misrepresented is the final, "We are dead serious about all this." We can't know how serious signing the document is without having a better understanding of what the Texas GOP does to candidates who step away from the platform in some way.

[atalanta.livejournal.com]

ok, let's see ..

1. Federal reserve - looks pretty straightforward
2. Congress/Supreme court - original wording somewhat vague, so synopsis is uncertain
3. church/state separation - way off. that's not what they say at all.
4. sodomy - sodomy does not equal gay sex (as fas as you can tell from what is stated, the official position includes hetero sodomy). it's still a stupid offensive position imo, but the synopsis is assuming something that's not there.
5. abortion - the synopsis is adding plenty that is not there. and it's impossible to tell exactly how far this position is meant to extend without more information about the human life amendment.
6. gays/child abusers/adoption - yeah, I think the synopsis is right on here. yuck.
7. creation science - the synopsis is exaggerating the position statement, though the position statement on its own is still scary enough .. no need to exaggerate.
8. social security - again with the exaggeration/misstatement. this is an advocation of a shift to a different system, gradually, because conservatives think it will work better.
9. fed income tax - yep. though the synopsis ignores the part about moving tax income to state level
10. min wage - yep. though the conservative position on this is based on the idea that minimum wage increases unskilled-worker unemployment; it's not because those mean old GOP types want to pay the poor people nothing.
11. fed. agencies - again trying to mislead readers with the synopsis, when the point here is not to starve the poor and ignore the sick, but to take these powers out of federal control.
12. UN - yep.
13. panama canal - pretty weird position but still, no real basis for adding the military action part to the synopsis
14. candidates must agree with this - no way to know how heavily this is enforced, I guess, as you say.

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the Latin post merely made me giggle for an extended period of time, and say, "Hey, look at this!" to several others. It was your other writing, such as the Witch City Street Scene, which made me decide I needed to read more, and thus add you. Thanks!

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

church/state separation - way off. that's not what they say at all.

How do you read it, then? Looking at the full text of the platform he linked to, I understood them as saying that they felt the Constitution mandates only freedom from persecution, not separation of Church and State, and the belief that there should be such separation is based on a "myth."

[roocifer.livejournal.com]

Found your latin post on Memepool of all things. Then read more. Decided to add you. Then noticed we have the same birthday. That's a first for me...hmm.
Also, you being from MA, would you kindly reproduce earlier said post in East-coast-ese? ;)
I jest. Though I do miss that accent.

[quislibet.livejournal.com]

I'm actually a transplant from the Midwest, so don't have that magical accent, I'm afraid.