I've been highly critical of the partiers and libertarians in general, but some parts of this aren't that bad, just as long as you're familiar with these issues. For instance, LOST would apparently let the UN become self-sustaining with a tax on forms of energy production, letting them morph from a coalition into in effect a government unto themselves. "Localism" is the new name for something that would have the same effect as the FairnessDoctrine. And, if you think being a sanctuary state is a good idea, spend some time in L.A.

Some parts of it are Randroid loony ("immoral"), others make sense once you're familiar with the details.

Where are the people under 50 and the non-whites?

"Where are the people under 50 and the non-whites?"

not in maine...

Well, to be fair on that point, Maine is something like 97-98+ percent white (last time I checked). It's one of the least diverse states in the Union.

These people are still nuts, though.

I'd love to see "working class Mainers" explain the Austrian School of economic theory.

Well, I'd like to seen edumacated Austrians explain the Austrian School of economic theory, but I agree with your point. These guys are like chickens voting for Col. Saunders. They really don't get that a lot of these ideas were tried, oh, 500 years ago, and feudalism failed. Time to update, guys!

A recently spotted bumber sticker says it all...
OGM GOP WTF!

But what are they doing about a Kenyan being in the WHITE house, huh? Must have been an oversight on their part not to include that. I guess they are saving that for the upcoming civil war. THE SOUTH (AND MAINE) SHALL RISE AGAIN!

Hey weirdos. Want to know the best thing about you liberal freaks and this regime? Well, now the pendulum will be swinging back to Conservatism. Then, guess what, no matter what the reason, it is going look as though the influx of conservatism in the next election will be the cause of the positive changes in the country. Then guess what, progressivism will look to be the cause and conservatism the solution. Good luck trying to win an election in the next 20 years. Thank God for Glenn Beck.
Hey, Progressives, Your done. Peace. Hahahahahaaaaaaaaaachoooooo.

"LOST would apparently let the UN become self-sustaining with a tax on forms of energy production" - where are you getting that? I've been scanning through the whole frickin treaty (like I have nothing better to do) and the only reference to energy production I see simply affirms that coastal states have the right to produce energy in their territorial waters. And the only organization whose funding is discussed is the "International Seabed Authority", not the UN as a whole.

Unless you've got a non-insane source on this, I'd be filing that in the same category as the notion that the numbers on the back of street signs are secret directions to the FEMA death camps (which will probably be in the GOP platform by this time next year...)

... it will come wrapped in the American flag and carrying the Christian cross.

So, basically what you're saying is, even if we're doing the right thing, it'll look like the wrong thing, and you're okay with that?

Are you really that insanely dogmatic?

Also, it's "you're".

First time posting here: I can only assume this is a left wing blogger? Because he's so far out in left field on a)what happened and b)what it means that it's silly.
Silly, silly, silly.

I'd advise anyone interested to follow the link in the article and read the actual platform. It is truly batsh*t insanity.

I live in Maine and was always somewhat grateful that the Maine Repubs were somewhat more sane than the Repub party nationally. I don't care much for Snowe or Collins, but they don't carry tambourines and sing about Jesus like the rest of the party these days.

Looks like those days are over with this platform. Glenn Beck could have written it. The Maine Repubs have voluntarily admitted themselves to the insane asylum that is now the national party.

Maine is the South of the North.

Whups, I re-read my comment and apologize for painting all Mainers with the same brush. That wasn't cool. I shall be more specific:

"Maine has a number of people who want it to become the South of the North."

"'Freedom of Religion' does not mean 'freedom from religion'"

I'm guessing that the Teabaggers still want freedom from Islam, Judaism, Hindu, Buddhism, and Wicca.

It will be interesting to hear how the Republican candidates for Governor answer questions about the platform. This is the sort of document that becomes harder to defend or even explain the more that you open up the discussion. "Seal the border"? "Dismantle the Department of Education"? I can't wait to hear the answers.

If any of these convention voters had an idea of what they were talking about or voting on, it'd be an improvement.

If you know no science at all, you can call global warming a myth--but it's not a myth. We have over 100 years of measurements showing that the planet's warmimg up. We have 30 years of predictions matching the warming. Only the fools who avoid these things think it's a conspiracy.

The Law of the Sea doesn't provide any means for broad-based tax. If you want to call it a tax, fine, but it raises some money from member nations only to run a few related offices--not do something totally different like, for example, our US income taxes helping to pay for education or the military.

As for abolishing the Department of Education...I guess these people really prefer ignorance.

This illustrates perfectly the fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Both sides have their crazy people. Democrats have Code Pink, the 9/11 Truthers, etc., while Republicans have the Tea Party and the people obsessed with Obama's birth certificate.

The difference: we Democrats marginalize our crazies. Nobody takes Code Pink or the 9/11 Truthers seriously. Republicans, on the other hand, elevate theirs. Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, the crazier the better. I completely expect the national Republican party to go in this same direction, and to ignore their increasing self-marginalization as long as possible.

The problem with looking for votes from crazy people is that most of the country isn't crazy.

Well, I just look forward to the day when my Republican masters allow me put up a Wiccan pentacle in Monument Square for the Winter Solstice. And it's so liberty-minded, too! Why, it comes right out and tells me who I can marry and whether I have to procreate!

Anyway, "Lost" is a pretty popular show, I bet they won't get far with that part.

"The official platform for the Republican Party of Maine is now a mix of right-wing fringe policies, libertarian buzzwords and outright conspiracy theories."

Nothing rivals the strangeness of the Left.

The Stranger ....

WTF?

You can't "abrogate" the law of the sea. It's the oldest international law there is. Even without the treaty, the US would still be bound by custom.

And the US never even ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

So, lets imagine a hypothetical world where the individuals who created this platform can actually implement it as well.

If healthcare is not a right, does that mean we can look forward to the savings that will be available with the elimination of MaineCare and Medicare? Those are two significant entitlement programs that draw an enormous amount of money and drive up the size of the state and federal government. Eliminating those programs would allow for a massive tax cut!

I’d like to see some discussion of what the statement about healthcare not being a “right” means when it comes real life. Right now a majority of Mainers utilize one or the other of those programs. Is the Republican Party throwing everyone using those programs under the bus?

Where is Cujo when you need him?

This proves that Maine is the country's largest trailer court.

Get rid of the Department of Education. Of course, teaching people to think is a crime worse than all, and stupidity is a (Republican) family value.

Get rid of the Federal Reserve? Of course, far be it for a teabagger to actually pick up a history book and find out why we set it up .... sorry, all the history books are written by LIBERALS, aren't they.

Now back to your Fox / Glenn Beck / Hanitty / Rush fix. Ignorance is bliss! Freedom is slavery! Create the Ministry of Love now! (Sorry, this assumes that teabaggers can read well enough to know what the Ministry of Love was /is)

How about Travis Bickle ????

Wow! I didn't know the staff of The Onion lived in Maine.

except this platform.

They want to seal the border, and their border is with Canada?
Have they any idea how much money they get thru the border with Quebec? Will they wall off Campobello Island?

KSE: you probably don't consider anything other than the UN and wiki a reliable source, but the rest of you can see things like these:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2004/04/The-Law-of-the-Sea-Treaty

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/12/lost-senate-moves-ratificatio...

Wow! I've never been so embarrassed. I'm proud of Maine, and proud to be a Mainer, but am not proud of this ridiculous platform. For all of those who still live in the real world, my apologies for the Teabagger Gophers.

Consider the sources!

1) Heritage, I quote: "Former President Reagan refused to sign the Treaty in 1982 due to its innate conflict with basic free-market principles (e.g., private property, free enterprise, and competition)."

I presume that means the right of, say, BP, to drill anywhere they want and screw up the environment?

2) Fox: I you'd bothered to read deep into the piece you'd find that:

"American firms and businesses want legal certainty so they can compete with foreign companies for marine resources," said Spencer Boyer, director of international law and diplomacy at the Center for American Progress. Without the clearly defined authority established by the treaty, "there's confusion -- a lot of businesses don't want to take that risk."

The American military is looking for another kind of certainty from LOST -- a guarantee of safe passage through all seaways, a right China sought to deny an unarmed Navy vessel Monday in its own Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea.

"The Convention codifies navigation and overflight rights and high seas freedoms that are essential for the global mobility of our armed forces," the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote in a June 2007 letter to Senate leadership."

So your beef is ???

Consider the sources!

1) Heritage, I quote: "Former President Reagan refused to sign the Treaty in 1982 due to its innate conflict with basic free-market principles (e.g., private property, free enterprise, and competition)."

I presume that means the right of, say, BP, to drill anywhere they want and screw up the environment?

2) Fox: I you'd bothered to read deep into the piece you'd find that:

"American firms and businesses want legal certainty so they can compete with foreign companies for marine resources," said Spencer Boyer, director of international law and diplomacy at the Center for American Progress. Without the clearly defined authority established by the treaty, "there's confusion -- a lot of businesses don't want to take that risk."

The American military is looking for another kind of certainty from LOST -- a guarantee of safe passage through all seaways, a right China sought to deny an unarmed Navy vessel Monday in its own Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea.

"The Convention codifies navigation and overflight rights and high seas freedoms that are essential for the global mobility of our armed forces," the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote in a June 2007 letter to Senate leadership."

So your beef is ???

You guys keep running around calling everyone else crazy...yet you keep loosing elections. Maine is supposedly a liberal state. Wut happened?

Not in the GOP....

Good observation about Democrats marginalizing their fringe while Republicans elevate theirs. However, the idea that we have two parties is itself false. We have one government where both parties protect the interest of corporate donors who gave enough money to buy a representative. Neither party puts the interests of the middle class or working people first. Both parties put the interests of business first.
Congress does not protect the working middle class, it protects rich corporate campaign donors. Who gives more than lip service to the middle class? Who works for protection of the working middle class? Who supports an agenda of benefits to the working middle class? Not congress. Congress has "trained the chickens to vote for Colonel Sanders"

Fascism is here and is being covered with perverted, co-opted and twisted progressive ideals.

The 'O' is a Fascist Nut Job who is transforming our Nation into an Imperial Power that was begun under George.

Unlimited Detention, ExtraJudicial Punishment, Legislated Commercial Purchases. The list could go on and on.

And I wonder if the MSM will ask them about their party...
Remember Reagan's comment that the Democratic Party left him? How can sane Republicans not feel the same way about their party today?

Interesting that the right wingers posting don't bother to, y'know, refute the article. Instead it's just "THIS IS BIAS, THE LEFT IS CRAZIER." Oh yeah, howso? What policies are we for that aren't the norm in every other industrialized nation? My guess is you guys are a little unfamiliar with history (no, not the re-written history being fed to you by the tea party) if you support this BS. Stop thinking with your gut and frigging learn something for once you loons!

That said, I don't think the majority of mainers are crazy or stupid enough to vote for this junk, so I hope they make this a very public platform.

p.s. maybe it's my browser, but this CAPTCHA is the worst. I can hardly read the letters and have had to try like 5 times.

You so-called "conservatives" in Maine do realize that the US economy had worse (and more frequent) boom-and-bust cycles before the Fed, right? There's many things wrong with it, but the general point of having a Fed is sound.
Also, instead of focusing on Obama's health care initiative, try doing something useful like reigning in all spending.
1) Your precious GWB passed Medicare Part D. Unlike the recent healthcare bill, it was entirely unfunded. It was also a larger dollar value than Obamacare.
2) Military, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, and interest on the debt is over 80% of the national budget each year. If you actually care about the deficit, you cannot avoid tackling one of those four head-on.

Focus on actual solutions rather than insane nonsense that doesn't affect anyone's life.

Where in the Constitution does it say that you can institute term limits?
If you intend to hit "reset" on the Constitutional amendments, how do you deal with "defects" that deal with slavery and male-only voting?
Where does the Constitution mention government bailouts or the free market?
How many of you peckerwoods realize that corporate predators (like myself) are salivating at the thought of you all turning over the market to us to run over dupes like yourselves?
People are going to get very, very rich off of this movement, and it will not be any of the people screaming for it with signs in their hands.

It's a sea of white hair in the video above. Almost all recipients of SS checks and Medicare coverage. In other words, they are on welfare. "Health care is not a right!" they bellow as they receive hip transplants, heart valve replacements, and other life-saving operations on the public dime. "Socialism is evil" they wail while waiting to cash their Social Security check.

Selfish, small-minded, ignorant hypocrites.

Man, you *know* that no matter how much the GOP "embraces" and will continue to "adopt the platform" of the Tea Party movement, they will never, ever implement any of their goals. The Federal Reserve isn't going be dismantled, and neither is the Department of Education. I doubt even most of the smaller goals will ever get through the legislative process. The most that will happen is that a few House members will declare Global Warming, Benjamin Franklin and gay people to be myths, and garner a couple of precious fringe votes. I don't agree with the Tea Party movement, but I respect their conviction and it's somewhat sad to watch the process of them being Mainstreamed.

white or otherwise, join the lunatics known as "teabaggers". On the other hand, maybe they do in Maine??!

REMEMBER when Piglosi said it was all "astroturf"?

Well it ain't...

It's real, and its coming right at ya.

REMEMBER November.

you're an idiot (YOU'RE, not your....as in you are...a contraction)
an idiot.

Simpleton. You are part of a small noisy minority of quasi-literates. You don't have a clue about how the world operates and how you play into the hands of evil.

In the event you liberal progressives haven't figured it out, you have had both parties under your control since Reagan. All you have done is make things worse. It is time that somebody began moving us back toward the Founding Father's ideals. Maine has taken the first step.
Now, if only we can equate progressivism with the treachery that it truly is, and with treason against our Constitution and government that it is, we won't see anything from you people for another 40 years...if ever. Yay!

I agree with your sentiment here, but those people getting Social Security checks paid into the system. It's their unwillingness to address shortcomings in the Social Security tax system - namely removing the FICA cap, which limits the amount of tax the rich have to pay - which means you and I will have none ... thanks loads. Something else you're doing "for the kids", right?