Consider moving to Oklahoma...

Following up on the 7 places NOT to live in America if you love liberty, this Ralph Nader column I was reading mentions the Oklahoma GOP Platform for 2005 (MS Word format).

Nader's assessment of it goes as follows:

• Take the Oklahoma platform ‚ typical of several other state Republican Parties. It wants to privatize social security, eliminate the minimum wage, the income tax, all toll roads, institute a national sales tax, get rid of the U.S. Department of Education, and repeal much corporate regulation that protects consumers, workers and the environment.

  The Oklahoma Republican Party wants to get the U.S. out of the UN, eliminate funding for PBS and National Public Radio, and repeal the state tax on business inventory. They want to post the Ten Commandments in all public schools, oppose monetary foreign aid, only credits with which to buy U.S. goods.

  On the other hand, the Oklahoma Party wants to abolish many forms of corporate welfare such as tax holidays to attract industry and other subsidies and giveways so dear to the hearts and pockets of corporate Republicans. The state Party is opposed to Bush's Leave No Child Behind's budgets, testing, national teacher and student standards.

  Similar to their Texas counterparts, they want the U.S. out of the World Trade Organization, an end to the Office of Surgeon General, no limits on campaign contributions and no national health insurance. Lots of treaties they do not like, including the ones limiting nuclear proliferation and environmental devastation. They cannot stand the EPA, or the National Endowment for the Arts and the Endangered Species Act.

Here are some select excerpts from the platform, that the "corporate Republicans dominating the nation's capitol" "cannot accept but also cannot openly reject".

• We support the right of parents to rear, educate, discipline, nurture and spiritually train their children without government interference. We also support those who choose the vocation of Homemaking.
• We believe in the sanctity and value of human life from conception through natural death. We oppose abortion (including the use of RU-486 and partial birth abortion), infanticide, euthanasia and mercy killings, and the funding of such by the government. We support a Constitutional Amendment protecting innocent human life.
• Our Founding Fathers based our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and early laws on the Bible and traditional Judeo-Christian ethics and values. We believe these documents are the basis for law, order and behavior, allowing individuals, including government workers and officials, the freedom to involve God in all activities according to their consciences.
• We believe the religion clause of the First Amendment was meant to protect individuals’ freedom of religion, not remove religion from public life.
• We strongly encourage and support for the unity of our nation, the establishment of English as the official language.
  
• The traditional family unit, consisting of a (husband) man, (wife) woman and child(ren), is the foundation of our social structure. The Oklahoma Department of Education should uphold and teach this definition of family at all levels of public education.
• Parents and legal guardians are responsible and accountable for the education of their children.
• Parents have a Constitutional right to home school their children. We oppose any and all regulation of home schooling.
• We oppose any graduation and/or curriculum that includes required community service.
• Local school boards should maintain the right to choose curriculum and textbooks without state limitations. They further maintain the right to insert disclaimer statements into textbooks.
• We support curriculum that promotes national sovereignty and oppose one world government and global citizenship.
• Multiculturalism promotes cultural segregation and should not be taught. We respect different cultures and affirm that U.S. citizens of any race, creed, or culture are fully Americans, not hyphenated Americans.
• We believe that Oklahoma’s efforts to attract industry should be grounded upon the establishment of a favorable and friendly economic climate rather than upon tax and other governmental subsidies to individual businesses.
  
• We support the revision of corporate and business laws and regulations to encourage business and economic development while reflecting free market principals.[sp]
• We support a requirement that each vote cast in all elections be documented by a paper or other physical record.
• We believe that the judiciary should apply the law, and should not make law or policy by fiat. We support a strong review process for sitting justices.
• We believe that the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and that no other laws will supersede it, including conventions and resolutions, rulings, mandates or any other laws or policies written by the United Nations or any other international organization.
• We support the right under the Second Amendment for Americans to keep and bear arms; therefore, we oppose any attempts, whether by law or regulation at any level of government, to restrict any law-abiding citizen’s right to keep and bear arms.
• We support the Tenth Amendment that states “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
• The use of U.S. agricultural products for foreign aid instead of money.
• Abolishment of the federal minimum wage.

It goes on from there, but it is sad that there is no real movement in Washington pushing the above agenda beyond its usage as campaign rhetoric.

The only possible salvation for our Republic lies within the above framework, where human beings are set free from the chains of oppression handed down by government agents which serve to accomplish nothing besides the handicapping of human creativity and advancement.