The GOP Fires Up The Idiocy For The Platform

We have a lot of problems in the country at the moment — Racism, ISIS, Terrorism, Veterans’ Suicides, Poverty, Dysfunctional Government, Gender & Income Inequality, Immigration Reform, Energy Policy, etc. — and the list goes on and on. As news begins to leak from the Republican Platform Committee, however, we find that the focus is on much more important things — and some of the comments on those issues seem to be both uninformed and close to moronic.

The first one that caught my attention was a debate on “Medical Marijuana”, the use of which is legal in many jurisdictions (with recreational use legal in two states and on the ballot in others). The motion to support its use was defeated on the second ballot after “right-thinking” delegates stood up to roll back this attempt to lead us down the path to depravity (while easing the pain of children and the terminally ill). As reported in the Huffington Post (http://goo.gl/nP21Oq):
“A member from Utah claimed scientists have a ‘long way to go with research’ on marijuana and argued that studies, which she did not provide, showed a link between it and mental health issues. Another delegate absurdly claimed that people who commit mass murders are ‘young boys from divorced families, and they’re all smoking pot.’ Yet another delegate claimed marijuana triggered schizophrenia, and is funded nationally by Democrat and New York financier George Soros. ‘Let’s think a little bit what happens with Percocet, with OxyContin,’ claimed a third delegate, who drew a connection between the ongoing heroin epidemic and teenagers smoking marijuana.”

I wonder if the learned delegate worried about the “mass murderers” considered that they all also had two eyes and ears and a mouth — and were all males with guns! I guess he or she overlooked that in the concern for the George Soros led conspiracy.

Then there was another “hot issue” that, at first blush, led me to believe that this must be an Andy Borowitz New Yorker magazine put-on until I followed the links all the way through to the CNN story (http://goo.gl/IKUiT6), “GOP platform would declare internet porn a ‘public health crisis’” where I read:
“North Carolina delegate Mary Frances Forrester successfully proposed the amendment in a subcommittee of the platform committee Monday morning. ‘The internet must not become a safe haven for predators,” the provision states. ‘Pornography, with its harmful effects, especially on children, has become a public health crisis that is destroying the life of millions. We encourage states to continue to fight this public menace and pledge our commitment to children’s safety and well-being. We applaud the social networking sites that bar sex offenders from participation. We urge energetic prosecution of child pornography which closely linked to human trafficking.’ The amendment passed with little debate.”

Let’s considered the obvious. Child Pornography is already a crime in every jurisdiction in the land and is prosecuted diligently. We need no “War On Porn” to fight that battle. As for adult porn, it may be unseemly but it is not criminal. It is, rather, a multi-million dollar industry that should warm the cockles of the pro-business GOP. Talk about screwed up priorities — porn is about #1,996 on the list of national problems — how about all the issues listed above? Those issues are complex and require more than slogans — this one is easy to score points with the unthinking.

TV’s Joe Scarborough, a former Republican Congressman, said on the air sometime ago “I don’t care if my party is the ‘Conservative Party’ or the ‘Moderate Party’; I just don’t want it to be the ‘Stupid Party’.” Sorry, Joe — You lose!