2008 Platform (filtered to extreme)

This is neither a violent nor extreme offense and does not rise to the level of a felony.

Complete bans on pornography are subjective, unconstitutional, and only come from a desire to have government decide individual morality. However, conservatives support community standards that usually separate intensive pornography businesses from places where children congegrate.

This plank grossly overshoots any reasonable proposal.

"any form of medical care" is ridiculous: it would require explicit parental endorsement of any act of emergency care, first aid, and simple nurse care at schools.

The rest of this plank is terribly misguided: Our quest to limit abortion must be based on conservative principles. It must not use Democrat tactics like increasing government interference, changing the operation of our justice system, or interfere with parental or patient confidentiality.

The main point of this plank is to address the abortion issue, so it is redundant with the main abortion plank.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are silly here because they are not legal in Texas.

Existing law limits "withdrawal of nutrition and hydration" to circumstances that neither constitute suicide nor murder. There is no reason to "protect" a provider in the absence of moral unsoundness.

"Employees of hospitals and insurance companies, health care organizations, medical and scientific research students, and any employee should be protected by Texas law" is grossly over-broad and applies to people who have no hands-on role in morally unsound activities.

"human cloning, embryonic stem cell research, [and] eugenic screenings" are specialized fields. It is easy to decline to participate in these activities: don't work in these fields.

Furthermore, eugenic screenings are almost universally considered morally unsound. Since they are not commonplace, the best way to deal with these is direct bans, not a conscience clause.

The core problem is when unsubstantiated, anonymous tips are used as justification for child removal.

Local board of elected officials are just additional layers of bureaucracy. Our elected legislative representatives, the governor, and the court system are the appropriate venues for handling unresolvable greviances.

It is not clear why law enforcement officers are the only ones who should remove children.

Textbook content adoption must have checks and balances. Otherwise textbook standards will entirely be created by an unelected committee.

The anti-technology provision is silly and contradicts other parts of the platform that affirm technology.

Furthermore, by limiting textbook authority to the SBOE, this plank contradicts other planks that call for local control.

Let's be frank about what this is about: some see the SBOE as the best hope for replacing science with religious doctrine or presenting a politically-biased, revisionist view of history. They keep trying but always fail.

Textbook pricing problems can be greatly alleviated by eliminating Texas's unusual, centralized control of textbook adoption and purchasing. Let the free market work, let local control work, let local districts purchase their textbooks like the rest of the nation. Fortunately that has already started.

The concept is legitimate: the vast majority of Texas children attend public school and should be in school while it is in session. There is little reason to have blanket opposition to this measure.

Safeguards are already in place. For example, see the Motor Vehicle Records Disclosure Act (Texas Transportation Code Chapter 730) from 1997.

"Legislation should provide redress to anyone denied service for refusing to provide such information." This is grossly over-broad. Providing personal information may be necessary to prove one's identity.

Pornography is protected free speech.

The government is already fighting multilateral wars to prevent importation of illicit drugs.

Rehabilitation programs that are effective should be emphasized. It is neither legal or wise to promote a program just because it is affiliated with a religious movement; otherwise the government would have to promote programs like Narcanon, a front for the Scientology cult.

Needle exchange programs are a local issue.

"Abstinence" is strongly associated with sex education and should not be used in this context.

We DUI enforcement support must be qualified. Current trends are ensnaring innocent citizens with spurious citations, pointless arrests, and roadblocks.

Need to be clear that it's the recreational use of drugs that is proscribed. Some otherwise illicit drugs have valid clinical uses.

There is in fact no special Congressional retirement system. They are just members of the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), although they are eligible for the older Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) if they were in Congress before 1984.

The problem is that Congress requires FERS to calculate its own retirement benefits much more generously than for typical federal employees.

Armed guards and pilots on aircraft is a statutory issue.

"Expert" connotes an insurpassible level of experience; airline pilots can and do have some training, but expertise is too much, especially in the limited context of what pilots can accomplish midair. Pilots need to be experts at flying; security needs to be experts at stopping terrorism.

Protecting Constitutional rights is an inherent duty of all government officials, not just Homeland Security.

This would be a drastic change in existing policy that would only provoke China. While it is understandable to want resolution, the current "stalemate" has resulted in de facto independent nations.

The issue of independence is one that Taiwan can and should work out internally.