Like all of you I am sure, I periodically receive emails from my friends on all sorts of subjects especially pornography and politics and at times I dutifully forward on to my other friends and acquaintances those emails that I particularly like for some reason or another. In the case of politics, I receive emails from friends on the right and on the left and even at times from those claiming to be moderates or independents. Actually that is not really true, almost everyone claims to be moderate or independent (another Socratic paradox?). Anyway, these communications, I assume, are sent to me either to amuse me, to edify me or to persuade me to join in their forlorn hopes. As with my own emails of similar cast, these communications are generally unsolicited and in rare cases unwelcome.
From my friends on the left, I receive communications attempting to prove the recent Bush administration may have had some significant responsibility for our current economic situation. Or, I get allegations that Fox news may have inadvertently misstated what some Democratic politician had said on an issue. Sometimes my lefty friends even send me charts on the ever-widening income and wealth gaps in english speaking countries and how other countries who have controlled or lessened those disparities have seen their economies thrive.
On the other hand, from my more conservative friends I receive ever more elaborate proofs of Obama's lack of American citizenship or his training as a terrorist in an Indonesian madras. I also receive periodic warning of the threat posed to our way of life from the screaming hoards of mad mexicans streaming across the border to rape our women, decapitate our citizens and push our children onto drugs. I once even got arguments with photos attached proving that Republican woman are prettier that Democratic woman. Who would you prefer to be seen on opening night with, Sarah Palin or Eleanor Kagan? But I digress...
This Diary was prompted by a communication from one of my more conservative correspondents (who shall remain nameless to protect my correspondent's reputation as well as mine). It seems that my friend has come into possession of a document that I have been informed is making the rounds of certain insider circles of the Republican, Tea-Party and Libertarian establishment. It pro-ports to be a listing of policies and talking points for conservatives to use in the upcoming elections to counter the Democratic claim that the Republicans are bereft of programs to deal with the current national crises.
Perhaps It would or could become another "Contract with America" for the next decade or form the basis for the statement of policies promised by the Republican congressional leadership to be released in September or October just prior to the 2010 mid-term elections.
What I received was not an original, but my correspondent's transcription of the document in the writer's possession. It, unfortunately, is an incomplete version. My friend indicated that only portions of it had been copied since my correspondent had to get on to other things. My correspondent promised to send me more if possible.
To me it clearly is a work in progress since I noticed that a number of significant policies supported by the conservative establishment are missing. I also had to edit it somewhat to remove some of the most blatant typo's and the like.
Is it a hoax? I think so, but I cannot figure out why it would be tried out on me. Also nothing in the document has not, in some way or another, been broached with approval on Fox News.
I am republishing here in this Daily Kos Diary, envisioning myself as a bush league Wikileaks.
What do you think? Have any of you heard about something like this going around in either liberal or conservative circles. Is it a hoax?
PROPOSED FUNDAMENTAL POLICIES FOR THE RESTRUCTURING OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY.
1. Reduce the Tax Burden on the American Citizen by Privatizing Most Governmental Services.
a. Phase out public schools and replace them with home schooling private schools.
b. Privatize all public utilities, such as electric, gas water electricity and sewer services.
c. Replace public safety services (police, fire and emergency) by private entities that can compete to provide for fee services.
d. Privatize highways, roads and other public services with users paying fees for access or use.
e. Privatize all public transportation, postal and communication services currently provided by government.
f. Phase out all foreign subsidies except those deemed required for national defense, drug enforcement or to combat smuggling.
g. Eliminate the Diplomatic Corps of the US State Department by privatizing the ambassadorial and passport services of American foreign embassies including allowing companies doing business in the foreign country to provide those services.
h. Privatize the court system except for the Supreme Court and have the different court enterprises compete.
i. Abolish the current social security medicare and other health and social welfare programs and replace them with market based private investment and insurance programs.
j Privatize the National State and local Park systems as well as all Federal, state and local wildlife and ecological preserves.
k. Privative the national and local election system so that the candidates themselves finance the elections or permit the levying of a fee to vote.
l. Continue and accelerate the privatization of the military and remove budgeting authority from the executive department to the military.
2. Provide Jobs and Stimulate the Economy.
a. Eliminate all intellectual property rights guaranteed by government and replace them with voluntary arrangements.
b. Eliminate all governmental regulations regarding consumer protections (e.g. implied warranties, existing and future standards of quality).
c. Eliminate all existing workplace safety and labor laws and prohibit strikes or other interference with business operations by workers.
d. Eliminate any prohibitions on any enterprise or privatized entity to hire or fire whomever they choose for any reason.
e. Eliminate current environmental protection laws and replace them with voluntary rules established by associations of the affected enterprises.
f. Prohibit the exercise of eminent domain by a governmental entity for any purpose.
g. Provide true tort reform by limiting recovery to actual costs incurred and prohibit the requirement of any standard of care greater than reasonable care no matter the extent of the hazard or danger to individuals or the public and irrespective of the special knowledge of the party rendering the service.
3. Preserve Essential Rights in Law or by Amending the Constitution if Necessary.
a. Recognize that the United States is a Judeo-Christian nation and that this recognition shall not be abridged.
b. Expand second amendment rights to include the individual right to possess armaments of any kind and carry them openly or concealed in any public or private place or business.
c. Declare the human fetus a person and ensure that it has the same right to life as anyone else, that anyone participating in termination of that life for and reason whatsoever is guilty of first degree murder and ban all public funding for abortion and birth control.
d. Amend the Constitution of the United States to eliminate the right of children of illegal aliens to become citizens by right of birth.
e. Recognize the right of each state or local community to declare any laws promulgated by a higher governmental authority such as the State or Federal governments null and void within that local jurisdiction.
f. Establish the right of every community to decide for itself who shall be a citizen able enjoy the the rights and freedoms of that community.
g. Ensure that all of the individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States also apply to legally established domestic corporations and extend the right to establish such corporations to all local governments.
h. Ensure the right of free speech by eliminating any restriction on the ownership or content of any media transmission system such as the Internet, newspapers, television and the like and prohibit public and not for profit ownership of the same.
i Abolish all anti-trust laws as governmental restraints on trade.
i. Strengthen the criminal codes of the nation by focussing on moral crimes, disturbance of public order and crimes against persons and property and eliminate criminal penalties for economic crimes.
k. Preserve the citizens fundamental right to privacy except for purposes of national security, criminal activity prevention and suppression and that necessary for the advancement of commerce.
l. Recognize the fundamental right of the individual to be free of governmental restraint on any activity that does not directly harm other people or their property.
j. Reaffirm the fundamental right or the individual citizen or corporation to do as he will with his own real property without governmental restriction or regulation including but not limited to construction and development thereon and the owners right to restrict the use of that property by others including the selling of goods and services, the renting and sale of the property as the owner sees fit.
k. Protect the institution of marriage by restricting the right to marry only to a marriage between a man and a woman.
l. Recognize that homosexuality is a curable mental decease.
m. Amend the Constitution of the United States to include the ten commandments as a fundamental basis of American law and governance.
4. Reform Taxes and Governmental Structure.
a. Eliminate all corporate income taxes, taxes on unearned income (capital gains) and inheritance taxes.
b. Preserve all business tax exemptions and tax credits necessary for a sound economy.
c. Eliminate and prohibit any governmental restriction of any kind on campaigning for public office.
d. Assure that the raising of taxes of any kind requires a two thirds vote of the legislative body authorizing the raise.
e. Repeal all federal taxes on gasoline, alcohol and tobacco.
f. Prohibit the setting of income tax rates at any rate other than one equally applied irrespective of income or ability to pay.
g. Repeal the 16th Amendment to the United States Constitution permitting an income tax.
h. Repeal the 17th Amendment to the United States Constitution providing for the direct election of United State Senators.
i. Eliminate real property taxes.
j. Provide a mechanism for any person to withhold the use of any portion of his taxes on governmental programs with which he opposes.
k. Provide for a proof of citizenship and a civics test for voting in an election.
5. Enhance American Foreign Policy, National Security and Sovereignty.
a. Withdraw from the United Nations because the charter of that institution infringes on the sovereignty of the United States.
b. Affirm that any international treaties or other inter-state arrangements that may interfere or in any way limit American sovereignty are null and void.
c. Adopt a policy that it shall be the goal of American foreign policy to eliminate by any means necessary, including military, a regime that opposes the fundamental economic interests of the United States of America.
d. Allow all public safety officers and citizen to detain anyone suspected to be an illegal alien.
e. Prohibit any right of a suspected illegal alien to have access to the American judicial system even to have his status adjudicated.
f. Allow local law enforcement officers to deport anyone suspected of being in the United States illegally.
g. Revise the immigration law of the United States to substantially reduce legal immigration from those countries from which emigration to the United States has been primarily because employment opportunities are greater in the United States then in their home country.
h. Allow United States enterprises to import contract labor from a foreign country (who shall have none of the rights guaranteed to an American citizen) where it can be demonstrated that the foreign labor can be restricted to a specific site or sites and the adequate security has been provided to prevent breech of the contract and the return of the contractee to his own country upon completion or termination of his contract.
You may also wish to take a look at my new blog Trenz Pruca's Journal.