Republican Party Says Drop Dead To Pro-Lifers, Gun Owners, Those Concerned About Immigration, The Family, Religious Liberty
Dear Friends of the Constitutional Republic,
In 1975, when President Gerald Ford refused a Federal bailout to rescue New York City from bankruptcy, the "New York Daily News" ran a huge, front-page headline reading: "Ford To City: Drop Dead." I thought about this headline when I recently went to a Web page for the 2004 Republican National Convention.
On this Web site people are asked to participate in the development of the GOP Platform. To do this, there is a drop-down menu which lists 20 different subjects including "other." You can click on a subject which is "most important." With this input, it is said, the Republican Party will be helped to define the GOP "vision for America’s tomorrows."
But, missing from this list of subjects is "Abortion" or "Pro-life." There is no such category. More than 40 million innocent, unborn babies have been slaughtered by abortion since 1973 when the Supreme Court "legalized" such killing. President Bush says he's pro-life. But there is no specific category where a person can say that, for them, abortion and/or pro-life is the most important issue.
Also missing from this list of issues is anything pertaining to the Second Amendment which protects the God-given right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms. There is no reference to "Second Amendment" or "Guns." Nothing. There is, however, a reference to "Innovation And Technology" and "Energy" and "Tort Reform."
There is no reference to "Immigration." Despite the fact that in this age of terrorism there are millions of illegal immigrants in our country, this GOP Web page provides no opportunity for anyone to say that immigration is, for them, the most important issue.
There is no category for "Family" even though the God-ordained man/woman only family is under vicious attack from, among others, homosexuals who want to get "married."
Last and certainly not least, there is no subject heading for "Religious Liberty" even though millions of Christians undoubtedly consider this subject the most important one.
In other words, by completely ignoring all of these subjects, the Republican Party is saying "Drop Dead" to those who care about abortion, the Second Amendment, immigration, the family, and religious liberty.
But, in all honesty, I must say --- and it saddens me to say it: It doesn’t really matter what’s in the Republican Party Platform because this Platform is a dead letter when it comes to actually governing. For example, when Bob Dole was the Republican Presidential nominee, he said he had not even read that year's GOP Platform. And the implication was obvious: He had no intention of reading this document much less abiding by it.
In recent decades, the Republican Party Platform has been sucker-bait the sole purpose of which has been to fool conservatives and get their vote. Once a Republican President and Vice President are elected, however, the Platform is a dead-letter. For example: The 1996 Platform called for the abolition of the un-Constitutional Federal Department of Education. Today, George Bush’s Administration is spending more than $63 BILLION annually on this Department.
As the old saying goes: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Well, the Republicans, over the years, by ignoring their Platform in so many important areas, have fooled us a lot more than twice. So, please, do not be fooled again.