There are many things that the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, states that divert attention from reality toward his ridiculous perception of the world as it currently exists.
By way of these diversions, little attention is given, by the media, to several parts of the Republican Party platform that could wreak havoc on our country.
The platform is available for download on the party website.
Before I set forth items in the platform that I find horrendous, let me point out that professor Lee Payne of Stephen E. Austin State University, a research school in Texas, has found that the parties voted in line with their promises (i.e. party platforms) more than 80 percent of the time in the past 25 years. So, casually dismissing the party’s promises would be a serious mistake.
The first item I disapprove of is from page 21: “Federal government owns or controls over 640 million acres of land in the United States . . . Congress shall immediately pass universal legislation . . . requiring the federal government to convey . . . public lands to states. . . . We call upon all national and state leaders and representative to exert their utmost power and influence to urge the transfer of those lands . . . to the states.” Give oversight of national park land, BLM land, national monuments, national forests, etc., to the states? How long would it take rich developers (Trump comes to mind) to push 99-year leases so they could build hotels that only the rich could afford to stay in? Or 99-year leases where they harvest our forests or control hunting rights so that elk, moose and buffalo herds are destroyed?
The second item I disapprove of is from page 35: “In order to bring down college costs and give students access to a multitude of financing options, private sector participation in student financing should be restored.” That is what got student loans so astronomical, the private sector, and they want to give it back to Wall Street banks?
While there are several other planks I find discouraging, the worst comes from page 22: “The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution. Its unreliability is reflected in its intolerance toward scientists and others who dissent from its orthodoxy. . . . We reject the agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, which represent only the personal commitments of their signatories.” The subject of climate change (or anthropogenic global warming) has been studied worldwide by climatologists and meteorologists for decades. Regarding this plank, in the words of a recent TV political ad. “What do they think we are? Stupid?”
The thrust of scientists is to improve and increase scientific knowledge. There are very small numbers of these scientists (mostly working for fossil fuel corporations) who dispute aspects of climate change. However, 97 percent of climatologists and meteorologists throughout the world insist that anthropogenic global warming is caused by carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels (and the massive forest fires out West), and we humans are the culprits. We need to reduce carbon emissions.
The Paris Agreement was worked out by 192 countries. You think that is a “political mechanism”?
Virtually all the countries of the world insist anthropogenic global warming is real, but the U.S. Republican Party disagrees. Could it be that the fossil fuel corporations have their feet on the throats of the national Republican Party? “What do they think we are? Stupid?” Well, yes, yes they do, as shown by their plank.
Reading the 2016 Republican platform confirms that the national Republican Party is owned and controlled by the rich and corporations. What electing Republican control of the House or Senate would do is smother any attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. And the world governments, which now are moving cohesively toward implementing measures to reduce carbon dioxide, would feel abandoned to go it alone.
Only with true, wholehearted commitment can our world governments take the necessary steps to prevent our world from overheating.
As a lifelong registered Republican, I feel that the party has abandoned me and the middle class, and will doom all our grandchildren to stifling heat while the rich get richer.
Therefore, I urge that you do not vote for any Republican candidates, whether state or national.
(Walter Carlson lives in Concord.)