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Some Colorado Republicans have expressed concerns that our governor, Bill Owens, is short on purity. He is co-chairman of the national party's platform committee for the convention later this month, and certain Colorado convention delegates fear that he won't do enough to condemn abortion and vilify homosexuals.
As one of those delegates, Kendal Unruh, put it, I
want him to put it in the strongest language possible. I
want to make it evident that we will not condone their
choice of homosexual lifestyle. And I'm not sure the
governor's willing to do that.
I'm not sure, either, since a party platform is supposed to attract potential voters, not alienate them. And Owens has been kind of squishy on abortion -- for instance, he has yet to call for legislation that would respect life by applying the death penalty to any woman who procures an abortion.
Further, Owens has said he does not oppose abortion when the pregnancy results from rape or incest. If you're going to be consistent with the belief that human life begins at conception, then this exception leads to a strange conclusion: It should be legal to kill any human beings whose conception resulted from rape or incest -- no matter how old they are.
After all, if you believe that fetuses are people, just like everybody else, and should therefore be entitled to the full protection of the law, then any exceptions you make for fetuses make should apply to everyone.
No matter what Owens does or doesn't put into the Republican platform, though, the matter is about as relevant as determining whether Superman could fly under a purple sun. Party platforms are not enforceable contracts, and if you wanted to predict what a party might do, once in power, a Ouija board or a deck of tarot cards would tell you more than a platform would.
If you think this is hyperbole, then consider some of these gems from the 2000 Republican platform:
Over a five-year period, as surpluses continue to
grow, we will return half a trillion dollars to the
taxpayers who really own it ... We will not stop there, for
we are also determined to protect Medicare and to pay down
the national debt. Reducing that debt is both a sound
policy goal and a moral imperative.
Note that the surpluses did not continue to grow, but
instead became annual deficits, and note also that even if
Republicans consider it a moral imperative
to reduce
the total federal debt, it too has grown significantly in
recent years.
Government also has a responsibility to protect
personal privacy, which is the single greatest concern
Americans now have about the Information Revolution.
Citizens must have the confidence that their personal
privacy will be respected in the use of technology by both
business and government.
These are the same people who want to know what books you read, and who are blocking the wider adoption of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol, something that could make long-distance quite cheap) until there's a way to put wiretaps on it.
What happened? Eight years ago, the nation was
energy-confident. Our standing in the Middle East was at
its zenith. The oil cartel was in retreat; gasoline was
affordable, even as automotive progress reduced emissions
from cars. Today, gas prices have skyrocketed, and oil
imports are at all-time highs.
And today, we are more popular than ever in the Middle East, and gasoline is cheap?
Rooted in America's political and economic ideals,
this Republican blueprint promotes open markets and open
societies, free trade and the free flow of information, and
the development of new ideas and private sectors.
Wasn't this the same free-trade
administration
which imposed quotas on imported steel?
Further reading of that platform could doubtless produce many more differences between the promises of 2000 and the realities of 2004, but it should be clear by now that those GOP stalwarts from Colorado need not worry about the text of the Republican platform or whether Owens will maintain their party goals.
If 2000 is any indication, the platform won't bear any relationship to what will happen if the party stays in power.
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