What We Are Up Against In Nc -- Dear God In Heaven [Archive] - Ron Paul Forums

Penners

02-17-2008, 12:16 PM

I couldn't resist posting this even after a previous posting of the link. It is taken directly from the Mecklenburg County GOP site but is the STATE GOP Platform..

Once again ... make sure you are sitting down when you read this:eek::eek:

North Carolina Republican Party Platform
2005
Final Version
Adopted in Convention May 21, 2005
Preamble | Family | Economic Policy | Individual Liberty | Sanctity of Life | State Government | Election Laws | Education | Justice | Environment | National Policy | Conclusion
Preamble
1. The North Carolina Republican Party represents the values of the majority of North Carolinians.
2. We want to empower and free individuals. We oppose all efforts to replace that power and freedom with undue governmental control.
3. Our nation was founded on faith in God, family, country, and freedom.
4. The United States is a democratic republic. Our elected representatives must honor the original meaning of our Constitutions, and must protect the inalienable rights of the American people as recognized in the Bill of Rights and the North Carolina Declaration of Rights.
5. The Republican Party is strong, principled and conservative. It is the party that should lead the state of North Carolina. We want to lead, not by patronage but by principle, and not by dividing interests but by serving the good of all.
6. Membership in our Party is open to all citizens residing in our state who share the values and beliefs expressed in this document. We welcome all who share these values from groups not traditionally associated with our Party.
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Article I: Family
1. We believe our nation’s strength lies with the family. The family is where each new generation gains its moral anchor. It is the first school of good citizenship, the engine of economic progress, and a haven of security and understanding.
2. The ideal environment for raising children is a two-parent family where a husband and wife live in harmony in one home. We support all reasonable efforts to help families remain intact. We also praise the courageous efforts of single parents who work hard to provide stable homes. We recognize that single parents often succeed and that two-parent families sometimes fail.
3. We believe homosexual behavior is not normal and should not be established as an acceptable "alternative" lifestyle either in public education or in public policy.
We do not believe public schools should be used to teach children that homosexual behavior is normal. We do not believe that taxpayers should fund benefit plans for unmarried partners. We oppose special treatment by law based on nothing other than homosexual behavior or identity. We support federal and state constitutional amendments to ensure that marriage is limited to the union of one man and one woman. We oppose attempts to legitimize homosexual relationships by placing such relationships on an equal footing with marriage. We oppose the adoption of children by same sex couples.
4. Government cannot legislate love and compassion and should not preempt parental responsibility for children; however, government can protect children from abuse and neglect. We support laws that balance parental rights with the protection of a child’s life, safety and wellbeing. We support efforts, including tax credits, to hasten the adoption of children into permanent, safe and nurturing homes. We urge strong support for religious and private initiatives that seek to promote healthy, nurturing families and work to restore and rebuild dysfunctional families.
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Article II: Economic Policy
1. The free enterprise system is the most effective and the most just economic system known. Economic freedom is essential to human liberty. Denying economic freedom diminishes individual human dignity as well as the general welfare.
2. Government ought to provide an unencumbered environment for individual initiative and private enterprise. Regulation and taxation reduce and redistribute income; they do not create it. Government should remove the burden of excessive taxation and regulations that hamper economic growth.
3. Growth in employment and personal income requires expanding capital formation. Taxing capital gains as ordinary income is a disincentive for investment. We urge the General Assembly to significantly reduce the rate of taxation of capital gains.
4. We urge Congress to make immediate and permanent the tax changes of 2001 and 2003, which temporarily removed the marriage penalty and increased the child tax credit. We urge complete elimination of the death tax.
5. We pay taxes that exceed what is necessary. We have the second-highest tax burden in the southeastern United States. Government spending should not increase more than population growth and inflation combined. We support a taxpayers bill of rights, incorporating this principle, which would result in an overall reduction in tax rates.
6. We support North Carolina’s workers and business owners. It is unfair to recruit out-of-state business with tax incentives when North Carolina-owned businesses must bear the burden of full taxation. The best way to promote economic growth is to reduce the overall tax burden on North Carolina’s businesses and individuals. Raising taxes on many of us to provide preferential treatment for a few is unfair and violates the constitutional principle of equal protection.
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Article Ill: Individual Liberty
1. The Republican Party of North Carolina embraces the vision for America established by our nation's founders — the authors of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the North Carolina Declaration of Rights.
2. Our forefathers gave individuals four ways to protect themselves against the power of the state: (1) the soapbox (freedom of speech); (2) the ballot box (the right to vote); (3) the jury box (trial by peers); and (4) the cartridge box (right to bear arms). The Republican Party stands against efforts to erode these freedoms.
3. The state must not control or interfere with our freedom of religion and the voluntary expression thereof. We oppose efforts to remove the recognition of God from our schools and courts and from our Pledge of Allegiance. State colleges and universities should not discriminate for or against any religion. They should not promote any religion nor should they deny religious organizations equal access to school resources.
4. Individual liberty and redistribution of wealth are not compatible. We oppose restricting the former for the sake of the latter.
5. Government should treat all citizens fairly and impartially and should assure equal opportunity without regard to wealth, race, religion, sex, or national origin. We oppose all forms of invidious discrimination. We oppose efforts to include sexual orientation as a category for preferential treatment status under civil rights laws.
6. We strongly support the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that guarantees the right of free and law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. We oppose any government effort to restrict the ownership, sale, purchase and “lawful carry” of firearms by law-abiding citizens.
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Article IV: Sanctity of Life
1. The North Carolina Republican Party believes strongly in the sanctity of all human life.
2. We believe unborn children have constitutional rights to life and liberty, and we therefore urge the Supreme Court to overturn its decision in Roe vs. Wade. We also support the adoption of a constitutional amendment establishing that human life begins at conception. We stand with the overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose efforts to mandate legalized abortion or to fund local, national, or international organizations that provide or promote abortion services. Abortion is never an acceptable method of birth control.
3. We oppose the heinous procedure known as partial-birth abortion. We applaud President Bush and the majority of the Congress who passed into law the federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban. We urge the North Carolina General Assembly to pass state legislation prohibiting this procedure. Furthermore, we urge members of the Republican Party of North Carolina to support financially, or with in-kind contributions, only those candidates or nominees who support measures to end partial-birth abortions.
4. We support and strongly encourage positive alternatives to abortion, such as adoption. We believe that biases against intact, caring families should be eliminated from adoption laws and tax codes. Adoption should be encouraged through significant tax credits, insurance reforms and legal reforms.
5. We oppose the erosion of parental rights and responsibilities by agents of the state when it comes to pregnant unmarried minors. Informed consent and parental consent should be prerequisite to any minor receiving family-planning services.
6. We support all developments in biomedical research and technology that enhance and protect human life. But we oppose any new development that does not treat all human life as a precious gift of God, or that does not treat every individual human life as a locus of unique and irreplaceable dignity no matter how weak, immature, or dependent.

7. We oppose all procedures in research and medicine that involve the intentional destruction of innocent human life. We also oppose the cloning of whole human beings, and the destruction of human embryos. We support adult stem cell research.

8. We support treating the infirm and elderly with love and respect, not as a burden. We oppose euthanasia.
9. We urge the recruitment and support of candidates who will work hard to protect all innocent human life.
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Article V: State Government
1. The North Carolina Republican Party encourages our state legislature to be efficient, effective, and responsive to the people as a part-time citizen legislature.
2. Legislative session limits must be accompanied by measures to ensure that policy decisions are made by elected legislators and are not made by unelected state employees or legislative staff.
3. Government should encourage citizens to pursue happiness through honest, hard work and should not be in the business of subverting the rewards of honest labor. Therefore, we oppose any expansion of legally sanctioned gambling, including a state lottery.
4. A state lottery turns government into a bookie, succeeds only on the basis of false advertising, capitalizes on broken dreams and personal irresponsibility, and places the burden of taxation most heavily on those who are least able to afford it. A referendum on a lottery is not only unconstitutional but also extremely unwise as millions in corporate gambling money could be used to drive up Democratic Party turnout.
5. We support a ban on video poker.
6. We oppose unfunded mandates at any level of government. We call on each level of government to fund the programs they require of other levels of government.
7. The General Assembly should adopt zero-based budgeting. It should not automatically continue programs before establishing their efficacy.
8. Elected officials should not appear in “public service ads” funded with state funds, unless that official has already announced retirement from all public office.
9. All state funds shall be used as appropriated and subject to audit. We oppose reductions in the jurisdiction and resources of the State Auditor. We oppose “slush funds” that are available to individual legislators to distribute at will.
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Article VI: Election Laws
1. The ballot box is the only true protection citizens have against tyrannical abuse of power by the state. The Democratic Party has used insidious practices that deny the majority of North Carolinians the honest representation they deserve. Unable to win elections in a fair fight, the Democratic Party has relied upon gerrymandering and manipulation of voter registration laws. Our laws should do everything possible to protect against voter fraud. Voter registration forms for naturalized citizens should include either the naturalization certificate number or a United States passport number.
2. Voters should select government officials. Officials should not select voters. We support reasonable, compact, congressional districts and single-member legislative districts that do not split counties in accordance with the North Carolina State Constitution. When the legislature does not follow state and/or federal law when drawing legislative districts legal action should be pursued.
3. We recognize the independence of the judicial branch of government, and oppose attempts to breach that independence by appointment of state judges. The right to hold to account our state courts through regular, direct elections is a valuable right.
4. The voters of North Carolina will make the right choice at the ballot box when they have full and timely information on candidates' campaign finances. Prompt and accurate reporting is the best campaign finance reform. We oppose funding any election campaign with public funds.
5. The public is not well served by nonpartisan judicial elections. We urge the General Assembly to allow the party affiliation of judicial candidates to appear on the ballot and that nominees for election be selected by the parties.
6. We will follow the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act as the law of the land. However, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling we can read the Constitution for ourselves. We observe that the Act quite obviously abridges our freedom to speak on core political subjects. We urge Congress to repeal this Act.
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Article VII: Education
1. We believe in the value of maintaining a good system of public education. Good public education is impossible unless parents, not the state, have control of their children’s education.
2. Choice and competition have served the state well in higher education. We believe choice and competition should be used to improve public education at primary and secondary levels as well. We support tax credits for parents who relieve the burden on our public schools by lawfully educating their children in private or home schools. We support charter schools and we urge the legislature to remove the cap that limits the number of charter schools. Parents are the best judges of what kind of schooling is best for their children. There should not be any additional legal restrictions on parents’ ability to educate their children at home.

3. The current system of top-heavy, bureaucratic, centrally planned public education fails to ensure the quality of education our children need and deserve. Incremental change of this failing system augmented by higher taxes, higher spending, and more regulation will not meet the needs of North Carolina’s future citizens.

4. We support measures that maintain the independence of North Carolina schools from the federal government. We support keeping all North Carolina education dollars in North Carolina without going to maintain unneeded bureaucrats at the national level.
5. Real education reform means local control of curriculum, budget, textbook selection, and personnel in the public schools. We believe parents must have complete access to all information concerning curriculum activities and materials used for teacher development.
6. Real reform must also include defining academic performance standards, cutting administrative waste, and establishing part-time and alternative teacher certification. Our students must have the best possible teachers in the classroom, whether physically present or by use of technology. Teachers should be paid, retained, and promoted based on the quality of their work, not on the length of their service. Teachers, especially of high school math and science, should be trained in the subject matter they are actually teaching.
7. Students are not served by the ideological indoctrination inherent in outcome-based education. All children should be able to read and write at grade level and all high school graduates should be proficient at the twelfth grade level rather than at the eighth grade level currently allowed by the state. We believe the “No Child Left Behind” law has the correct goal of requiring schools to educate all children to grade level. Social promotion should be eliminated.
8. All schools should encourage patriotism and knowledge of the traditional values of Western civilization upon which our republic is based and the true facts of the history of the United States. We oppose using public dollars to fund liberal attempts at social engineering contrary to the foundations on which our nation rests. We support daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in our schools, and we believe every classroom should display an American flag and a copy of our national motto — “In God We Trust.”
9. Republicans oppose mandatory sex education in public schools. Sex education should not be included in any public school program without provision for prior approval from parents or guardians. We support teaching abstinence until marriage as required by state law, and as the expected norm for acceptable sexual behavior. The majority of Americans agree with this approach. Abstinence until marriage is the most effective way to prevent teenage pregnancies, absentee fathers, abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases. It is also the most effective way to create healthy relationships and healthy self-esteem among young people.
10. We oppose the provision of school-based social services, including school-based clinics and mental health programs which bypass parental responsibility.
11. We support the right of students to engage in voluntary prayer in school and the right of others to pray as well at public occasions such as commencement exercises.

12. We oppose the restriction of free speech and free assembly by public educational institutions on ideological or religious grounds.

13. North Carolina has traditionally provided affordable higher education to its citizens. But taxpayers should not be required to fund higher education for illegal immigrants.
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Article VIII: Justice
1. One of the first duties of government is maintaining law and order, thereby allowing citizens freedom to pursue the blessings of life and liberty.
2. By better allocation of resources and tax dollars, the crime rate can be reduced and the state can ensure the rights of innocent people and victims, as well as the legitimate rights of the accused. We support the principle of victim’s rights, including restitution and notification.
3. We believe the death penalty deters some murderers. But we also believe that premeditated and deliberate murder calls for punishment directly proportional to the wrong perpetrated against its victim and against the moral order. Therefore, we believe the death penalty, whether or not it serves to deter other criminal acts, is the right punishment for premeditated murder. We call for legislation to drastically reduce the time between death sentence and executions.
4. Drug and alcohol abuse are major problems in North Carolina. We support effective educational and treatment programs to address these problems. We call for stiff punishment for those who drive while impaired by drugs or alcohol. We oppose decriminalizing or legalizing drugs that are currently illegal. Drug dealers must face stiff punishment for contributing to the supply of these poisonous products.
5. We are repulsed by the rise of gratuitous violence and pornography in literature, music and the electronic media. Therefore, we support mandatory labeling on products of this kind. We oppose using tax dollars to buy these offensive materials. We also vigorously endorse constitutional laws to control obscene materials that degrade anyone — particularly women and children.
6. We endorse stiff penalties for abducting, exploiting or abusing children. We abhor domestic violence and spousal abuse. We support community organizations that
work with the justice system to provide efficient and effective solutions for family members facing domestic violence and abuse.
7. We support prisons with less attention to inmate comfort and more security, labor, and education. Prison labor should be used for construction of the facilities when possible. All inmates should be required to work and pay for their incarceration, including reasonable payment for health and dental care.
8. We support efforts to force "dead-beat" parents to meet their financial obligations.
9. We support tort reform, including a cap on awards for pain and suffering, reform in the collateral source rule, limiting fees to attorneys, allowing more of the award for the victim, and structured payments of awards.
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Article IX: Environment
1. We affirm our continuing commitment to stewardship of our God-given natural heritage. We all have a duty to protect air and water quality, productive forests, and abundant wildlife.
2. Extending and enforcing private property rights protects the environment better than increasing government regulation. To the extent government regulation is needed it should be flexible and not proceed without first proving that the ecological benefits of new regulations warrant the cost.
3. When government takes the economic value of property by regulatory action, it should compensate landowners in proportion to their loss. We recognize that local economies and local levels of government are both adversely affected when land is removed from the local tax base by environmental “set-asides” for conservation or easements.
4. Environmental policy should be based on sound science, not trendy pseudoscience. We should be more concerned with measurable results than with the good intentions of the regulations.
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Article X: National Policy
1. We support our President in all phases of the war against terrorism, including preventing rogue nations from having or obtaining weapons of mass destruction. We support our troops as they fight our enemies. Americans owe our continued freedom and security to these brave men and women.
2. The most important responsibility of the federal government is “to provide a common defense” for the states and the nation. Our borders must be made more secure. The federal government should actively enforce its immigration laws. Opposing “racial profiling” in absolute terms is neither wise nor moral if imposed at the expense of national security.
3. America's defense must be second to none. We oppose any attempt to weaken our national defense. We support efforts to: (1) restore the ban against known homosexuals in the military; (2) prevent women from being assigned to front-line combat roles; (3) maintain the American armed forces at full combat readiness.
4. We believe a “one-world” government and a “one-world” economy are threats to the sovereignty of the United States. We oppose any foreign effort to influence our elections.
5. American participation in the United Nations, or any other international body, must never sacrifice the constitutional sovereignty of the United States. Therefore, we oppose relinquishing U.S. freedom and independence to any organization or agency claiming authority to impose and enforce global regulations or standards upon the United States of America. The United States will never require a permission slip from the United Nations in matters affecting its national security.
6. We recognize the need for legally binding treaties between nations which preserve American freedom and independence and are consistent with serving the common good. We support efforts to revise or withdraw from any treaty that compromises our constitutional sovereignty, that undermines national defense, or that hinders American companies from competing internationally.
7. We support a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. We support spending cuts as the right means to balance the federal budget and tax rate reductions as the right way to stimulate the economy.
8. Individuals should work in return for public assistance but spending restrictions on workfare workers should be abolished. Our nation needs to change from a welfare state to an opportunity society.
9. We share President George W. Bush’s commitment to put Social Security on a sound basis. We oppose annual raids on Social Security trust funds Congress should protect these funds by balancing the federal budget apart from Social Security reserves, which should be entirely dedicated toward meeting future obligations. We support offering today’s workers more choice and control over their own retirement security, but in ways that do not harm anyone already on Social Security or anyone who is within a few years of retirement.
10. Early intervention and wise health choices are best made by individuals and doctors who are guided by sound medical opinion. We encourage adoption of the
President’s plan to reform health care by improving access to health care and by speeding compensation to injured patients.
11. Greater choice for patients, with better information about health care prices, will allow the market to reduce health care costs. We support medical savings accounts as a good innovation because they combine personal responsibility with access to affordable healthcare.
12. We call on Congress, the President, and the courts to abide by the Ninth and Tenth Amendment according to their original intent limiting federal power, and to oppose and reverse federal encroachments upon all powers and rights the Constitution of the United States has reserved to the states, or to the people.
13. We encourage the United States Senate to modify its rules to prevent the filibuster of judicial candidates.
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Respectfully submitted the 19th day of March, 2005.
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2005 Platform Committee:
Carla Bedford, Goldsboro, District 1
Dan Maynard, Bunnlevel, District 2
Javier Castillo, Greenville, District 3
Martha Jenkins, Chapel Hill, District 4
Buck Golding, Lowgap, District 5
Barbara Holt, Greensboro, District 6
Charlton Allen, Wilmington, District 7
Darrell Furr, Albemarle, District 8
Christian Polking, Charlotte, District 9
Richard Epley, Morganton, District 10
Sue Lynn Ledford, Murphy, District 11
Mary Powe, Winston-Salem, District 12
Frank Williams, Raleigh, District 13
Heather Royster, Raleigh, Member at Large
Keith Williams, Greenville, Member at Large
Paul Stam, Apex, Member at Large, Chairman