Malone Today

Yep, 10 unelected mem­bers of the Repub­li­can Party are work­ing hard to ensure defeat in next year’s elec­tion with their pro­posed lit­mus test of party mem­bers. Now, as I’ve made clear on my Web site, I am reg­is­tered as a Repub­li­can but pretty much in name only. I truly con­sider myself an inde­pen­dent. Work­ing my way through the pro­posed state­ments that I must agree with to qual­ify as a mem­ber of the Repub­li­can Party leads me to con­clude that I do not qual­ify. Based on these idiots and their poorly worded, badly timed, and incred­i­bly ill-​conceived loy­alty test, I am not wel­come and should take my sup­port, money, and votes elsewhere.

Appar­ently the Democ­rats and MSM are right and the Repub­li­can Party is dead. We all there­fore own James Bopp, Jr., Donna Cain, Cindy Costa, Deme­tra Demonte, Peggy Lam­bert, Car­olyn McLarty, Pete Rick­ets, Steve Schef­fler, Helen Van Etten, and Solomon Yue a big thank you. Saves me a lot of heartache, time, and money to sim­ply skip past the Repub­li­cans in the upcom­ing elections.

The pro­posed state­ments that must be agreed to?

1. We sup­port smaller gov­ern­ment, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by oppos­ing bills like Obama’s “stim­u­lus” bill;
   As writ­ten, I do not agree. Oppos­ing Obama’s“stimulus” bill, which started with Bush any­way, is not going to lead to smaller gov­ern­ment, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes. What about some­thing more mean­ing­ful and con­struc­tive? This is a big area and the vague­ness of the plank allows pretty much any­thing.
    
2. We sup­port market-​based health care reform and oppose Obama-​style gov­ern­ment run health­care;
   I don’t know, or more likely, no. Throw­ing around slo­gans like “market-​based health care reform” and “Obama-​style gov­ern­ment run health care” is not very infor­ma­tive. As I’m guess­ing what these mean, I do not want either. I, instead want to see seri­ous reform: allow inter­state insur­ance plans, remove or limit pre­con­di­tion exclu­sions, respect doctor’s treat­ment deci­sions by dis­al­low­ing an insur­ance com­pany to deny cov­er­age of pre­scribed treat­ment, includ­ing choice of drugs, except as a result of an in-​person exam and sec­ond opin­ion (no more bureau­cratic ‘we know bet­ter than your doc­tor), and gov­ern­ment over­sight on reim­burse­ment rates and pre­mi­ums. And, by the way, I absolutely oppose any mal­prac­tice caps or tort reform (if some­one screws with me I want unin­hib­ited access to the courts for redress). Finally, “market-​based reforms” is sim­ply euphemism for doing noth­ing.
    
3. We sup­port market-​based energy reforms by oppos­ing cap and trade leg­is­la­tion;
   No. Oppos­ing cap-​and-​trade, which is already dead, is not market-​based reform, unless market-​based reform is, again, a euphemism for doing noth­ing. How about some­thing seri­ous, con­struc­tive, and spe­cific?
    
4. We sup­port work­ers’ right to secret bal­lot by oppos­ing card check;
   Yes. But if we are talk­ing about work­ers’ rights, what about national right to hire, right to orga­nize, absolute secret bal­lot on any vot­ing, and full dis­clo­sure of fund sources and expen­di­tures among union mem­bers?
    
5. We sup­port legal immi­gra­tion and assim­i­la­tion into Amer­i­can soci­ety by oppos­ing amnesty for ille­gal immi­grants;
   No, first because, like the other ques­tions, it is so poorly writ­ten. Very sim­ply oppos­ing one thing is not auto­mat­i­cally sup­port­ing another. I sup­port reform­ing legal immi­gra­tion to pro­vide empha­sis on needed skills, require depor­ta­tion of any legal immi­grant con­victed of seri­ous crimes (e.g., eli­gi­ble for 6+ month jail sen­tences, regard­less of actual sen­tence); depor­ta­tion of any legal immi­grant who claims need for pub­lic assis­tance last­ing cumu­la­tively more than 6 months in a 24 month period; and absolutely no amnesty to any­one in the U.S. ille­gally on after some future date (e.g., six months after enact­ing immi­gra­tion reform). For oth­ers who were in the U.S. ille­gally but leavea­head of the dead­line, then givethem amnesty from pros­e­cu­tion upon full dis­clo­sure of their past ille­gal activ­ity (e.g., ille­gal entry, res­i­dence, and employ­ment; dis­clo­sure of any and all false or stolen iden­ti­fi­ca­tion they used; pay­ment of any taxes due from their stay in the U.S., and resti­tu­tion to vic­tims of their iden­tity theft.) There­after, they can apply for legal immi­gra­tion on an equal basis with oth­ers who are apply­ing to immi­grate legally to the US. Finally, H1B and H2B pro­grams need to be severely restricted to areas where there are truly no one avail­able at a com­pet­i­tive rate and no longer allowed as a means to hire for­eign­ers at a rate below U.S. cit­i­zens. In a free-​market soci­ety, if we truly believe in one, says there is always an Amer­ica will­ing to do the job if you pay them enough (and with unem­ploy­ment offi­cially over 10 per­cent and in some areas of the coun­try or with some demo­graphic groups rang­ing from 25 to 50 per­cent or more unem­ploye­dor under­em­ployed, there are plenty of U.S. work­ers avail­able, even if they require train­ing or incen­tive to relo­cate.)
    
6. We sup­port vic­tory in Iraq and Afghanistan by sup­port­ing military-​recommended troop surges;
   No! Troop surge with­out clear mis­sion is no solu­tion. First, I want to see a clear state­ment of our goal(s) in Iraq and Afghanistan, then sec­ond, a clear plan, sup­port, and actions to achieve them. Finally, this knee-​jerk sup­port for mil­i­tary actions is wrought with prob­lems. It glosses over the dif­fer­ences between the two wars – the unjust and unnec­es­sary war in Iraq that I never sup­ported and the war in Afghanistan, that we never focused enough on to win in the first place.
    
7. We sup­port con­tain­ment of Iran and North Korea, par­tic­u­larly effec­tive action to elim­i­nate their nuclear weapons threat;
   No. While I may sup­port mean­ing­ful and respect­ful con­tain­ment, I do not sup­port tak­ing action to elim­i­nate their nuclear weapons threat as this is a recipe for pre­emp­tive war. Any­way, it is stu­pid pos­tur­ing and a a wasted point. Face real­ity. Iran and Korea, as inde­pen­dent coun­tries, will choose to develop or acquire nuclear weapons as they deem impor­tant, desir­able, or afford­able. No amount of chest thump­ing and threats is going to change this. Just as we would not, or at least should not, allow another nation to tell us what to do. Fur­ther, unless we apply our view across the board, it won’t mean any­thing. For exam­ple, unless and until we get Israel to admit to its nuclear stock­pile and give them up we have zero chance at get­ting Iran to do sim­i­larly. And finally, we need to sep­a­rate our poli­cies and actions in the Mid­dle East and South Asia from Israel as we are not Israel and they not us. Our inter­ests, our val­ues, and our actions are not the same and it is to our detri­ment that we’ve been dragged into sup­port­ing what­ever Israel wants or does, even at the expense of Amer­i­can lives.
    
8. We sup­port reten­tion of the Defense of Mar­riage Act;
   Yes. Regard­less of the leg­is­la­tion, I stand by tra­di­tional mar­riage and also sup­port civil unions with appro­pri­ate joint ben­e­fits where nec­es­sary and appro­pri­ate. What say the Repub­li­can Party about the lat­ter?
    
9. We sup­port pro­tect­ing the lives of vul­ner­a­ble per­sons by oppos­ing health care rationing, denial of health care and gov­ern­ment fund­ing of abor­tion; and
   Say­ing no seems strange but this is a poorly writ­ten and rather loaded state­ment. As writ­ten, I say No. First, I seri­ously doubt that any­one in the U.S. one sup­ports health care rationing or denial of health care except regard­ing ille­gal immi­grants, where we should give them care only as nec­es­sary to to address life threat­en­ing ill­ness or injury and enable the gov­ern­ment to safely deport them. As the state­ment is writ­ten, though, it would sim­ply allow unlim­ited cov­er­age for any­one. And, regard­ing gov­ern­ment fund­ing of abor­tions, I do not sup­port a com­plete ban. We must allow for excep­tions, such as when med­ically nec­es­sary (e.g., the life of the mother is at imme­di­ate risk).
    
10. We sup­port the right to keep and bear arms by oppos­ing gov­ern­ment restric­tions on gun own­er­ship
    Yes. but make this more mean­ing­fully clearer. The sec­ond amend­ment applies, or at least should, to all cit­i­zens with­out regard to where they live. Any legal U.S. cit­i­zen of vot­ing age, or any age if in the mil­i­tary, has the right to buy, own, and pos­sess guns any­where in the U.S. except as may be con­strained by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment (e.g., bar­ring con­victed felons or men­tally impaired indi­vid­u­als from buy­ing, own­ing, or pos­sess­ing guns, con­tin­u­ing the ban on military-​style weapons, restrict­ing weapons from gov­ern­ment build­ings and facil­i­ties, from schools, and from loca­tions that serve alco­hol; and allow­ing unhin­dered con­cealed weapon with sim­ple reg­is­tra­tion and per­mit to ensure that the indi­vid­ual is not oth­er­wise pro­hib­ited from buy­ing, own­ing, or pos­sess­ing a gun. 

Over­all, I score 7 No and only 3 Yes. I there­fore do not qual­ify as a Repub­li­can though, even as a pro­fessed inde­pen­dent, most peo­ple would label me one. I am con­fi­dent that I am not the only per­son who finds them­selves at odds over this ridicu­lous list of Repub­li­can qual­i­fy­ing state­ments. But, based on these state­ments, it appears my vote is notdesired by at least 10 Repub­li­can party zealots. If the Repub­li­cans lose in 2010 and in 2012, they def­i­nitely should thank the stu­pid­ity of James Bopp, Jr., Donna Cain, Cindy Costa, Deme­tra Demonte, Peggy Lam­bert, Car­olyn McLarty, Pete Rick­ets, Steve Schef­fler, Helen Van Etten, and Solomon Yue.

[Updated]

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