A little satire for the campaign season…
Utilizing the Internet in helping to retool the party’s platform for 2008, the Republican National Committee has turned to online suggestions from those who log on to the new site gopplatform2008.com. Believing that town hall-styled platform debates don’t get enough feedback from the people who attend, the RNC has given the net community the ability to give suggestions through which an RNC platform team will wade.
Richard Burr, a Republican Senator from North Carolina, said that many previous platforms of the party "have encompassed everything John McCain believes.” He added that the RNC would be working closely with McCain on developing a platform that is agreeable to both McCain and the party. “I’m confident that we’re going to come up with a platform that is the best ever, that clearly defines where the Republican Party is on the issues that are most important to the American people and it will be a platform that the campaign will be proud to be part of,” Burr said.
While we wait for the RNC to figure out just where the GOP stands on the issues, and how they will balance their platform with a candidate that seems to have more friends like Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Clinton than Jim DeMint and Chuck Hagel, here are a handful of possible platform planks that would fit the new Republican Party.
Domestic Spending and Taxation
We, the Republican Party, believe that taxes are much too high for all Americans. If there was one thing President George Bush did right (seriously, there was only about one thing), it was cutting taxes. Unfortunately, we forgot about balancing the budget. In order to maintain the Bush tax cuts in the future, and to maintain our current level of spending, we encourage the borrowing of money from countries like China, and those in the Middle East. Is China a growing economic competitor? Sure, but you must be crazy to think that we will be reducing government spending.
The Economy
We, the Republican Party, admit we have no idea what we’re doing with the economy, so we’ll just give more power to the Fed and hope they can figure it out.
Terrorism
We, the Republican Party, support and encourage the policy of fear mongering, which has been so effective these past eight years. Without keeping the American public in constant fear of attack, our assault on civil liberties would not be possible. We maintain the policy of, "If you’re not with us, you’re against us," unless it comes to nations we hope to borrow from to cover more stimulus checks (please refer to "The Economy" for more information).
Energy
We, the Republican Party, would like to give more subsidies to our partners in Big Oil, but someone (we won’t point fingers, but his name starts with John and his last name rhymes with McLame) is pushing for cap and trade policies. While we told said individual that cap and trade is actually similar to policies proposed by Democrats, we decided for the sake of unity on a compromise called, "Cap and Trade…and Subsidies." If gas prices get too high, we’ll just invade Canada.
Privacy and Surveillance
We, the Republican Party, believe that all invasions of privacy are for the good of the country, and if the programs are not necessarily legal, we will ensure that we appoint individuals to the Department of Justice that make them legal.
Foreign Policy
We, the Republican Party, believe that if we continue to bully other nations, they won’t mess with America. It worked for us on the playground in grade school, and we’re sure it will work the same at the international level.
Iraq
We, the Republican Party, have no objections to remaining in Iraq for a million-trillion years, no matter what the Iraqi government thinks. If they give us any trouble, we’ll just re-invade them.
Health Care
We, the Republican Party, used to believe that it wasn’t the responsibility of government to provide health care for all people at the taxpayer’s expense; however, Democrats called us names and we didn’t like that. Instead of justifying our beliefs on the principles of individualism, fiscal responsibility and capitalism, we will instead capitulate.
Second Amendment
We, the Republican Party, recognize that our presidential candidate has been called “one of the premier flag carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment” by the NRA, and that George Bush tried to undermine the very idea of a right to bear arms–but as long as we pretend to be for gun rights, we think people will believe us.
Author’s Note: Democrats will also be revamping their platform for 2008, but a blog entry for them is not necessary. It is clear that the Democratic Party no longer believes in anything at all, except that which will do best for them in the polls. We could post several predictions for what they would promise to do for Iraq or civil liberties, but we’d have to take them down after they go unfulfilled.
