Story and quotes provided by the good people at Talking Points Memo.

Idaho: epicenter of the KKK, home of the potato, and possibly now the area with the most concentrated backwardness per square mile in America. Sorry The South.

This weekend the Idaho Republican party, which is probably a couple weeks away from getting a burning cross to replace the state bird, held their convention. (The pun loving New Yorker in me likes to imagine that the locals refer to it as Fascist Week). Apparently, and this is just a guess here, the largest faction of the Idaho Republicans, the Pro-Evils, must have been able to sway juuuuust enough of the Moderate-Evils’ votes* to secure as their party’s political platform a series of ideas so anachronistic and out of step with the world that these plans would–and I hate to trott Glenn Beck’s favorite horse out for this one– probably make a guy like Hitler pretty proud that someone in this day and age was still following in his goose steps.

Now, I won’t go the whole nine with you like Glenn would. Mostly because there’s nothing complex about these comparisons. But also, if you’re gonna draw a chalk board word-map like Beck does that links the Illuminati to kickbacks in public pool construction to Building 7…to Obama, you better be ready to, as Zeus would have said, “release the Krazy.”

All I want to do here is point out three of this convention’s more Hitler-y results and let you decide for yourself. You know, like Fox, but for real. I won’t even harp too much on the Hitler-ness of it all, because we, as a nation , have plenty of ugliness in our past to draw parallels from already. No need to outsource.

1. “A call to repeal the 17th Amendment, which provides for the direct election of Senators instead of the original system of them being selected by state legislatures.”

Why this is dangerous and outlandishly retarded, given conservatives regular (though hollow) whining about how they want a government that’s more accountable? Well, for starters, this is an OLD WORLD FAIL. This was the ultimate system of cronyism. It didn’t work a century ago — or rather it did for both European nobility and later guys like Hitler and other military dictators who believed that people needed to be told how to vote, so why bother with such a nicety as elections held by an unterrified populace anyhow–and it’s not going to work now. No matter how badly Idaho wants to build a Delorean big enough to take the whole country back to 1910, it’s 2010. (Although I would love to see a Delorean that size. You’d probably destroy an ocean just opening those wacky up-down doors of theirs.)

The needs of the people, of regular folks, of even conservatives though they hate to admit it, do not include LESS accountability of elected officials and reps than already exists, which is what such a system Idaho Repubs are suggesting would lead to. For a group of people whose hatred for Europe is probably only eclipsed by their love of book burning (the heat from which they use to make possum soup, I imagine), voting in favor of a pro-aristocratic and pro-fascist system of “elections” makes about as much sense as, well, living in Idaho. Wait. Oh. I guess that explains it then. Next stop, Paradox Gulch.

IDAHO: Where stupid is as stupid votes!

2. “The platform also called for marriage to be limited to a “naturally born” man and woman, going the extra mile beyond conventional gay marriage bans and making sure to exclude transgendered folks, as well.”

And then they came for…well, for everyone who isn’t them, I guess. Pink triangles for everyone! On the house!

Look, either marriage is a ceremony that exists for your union to be recognized by the state for tax and property reasons (and you can throw in whatever religious meaning does it for you but that’ll be personal and irrelevant to the state) or it’s only religious. If it’s only religious, then marriage has no place being recognized by the government on any level because that is part of your personal sphere of interests. Not public.

Also note the phrase “naturally born.” Gee, I sure hope they don’t mean to exclude the clones the shadow government is growing to fight in the next civil war. As long as it’s only gays and transgendereds, it should be ok. Thank goodness they’re not people with needs and feelings and the same basic desire to be with someone they love that everyone else shares. Phew.

You can’t have it be only religious and still be recognized by the state because the U.S. is not a theocracy. Not yet at least. Mullah on that, Idaho.

3. “In addition, the GOP calls for the state of Idaho to take back federally controlled lands.”

“Taking back” land that doesn’t belong to your state…umm, how is that Rhineland doing these days? Is it good? Has it recovered yet from that case of annexation it contracted? Someone send me a postcard.

“The platform also calls for the state legislature and governor to “nullify any and all existing and future unconstitutional Federal mandates and laws, funded or unfunded, that infringe on Idaho’s Tenth Amendment sovereignty.”

Yup. All existing rules go out the door when they don’t fit with an authoritarian regime being planned and such action is usually claimed to come as a naturally occurring movement from “the people.” SEE: Hitler. The self-fulfilling part of this prophecy is that once intimidation, political and or physical, has seeped in and altered the political and cultural landscape severely enough so that things like, say, openly applauding a company that  terribly mismanaged the largest oil spill in history isn’t met only with derision, then large numbers of people can be openly sold a party’s mania for unquestioning respect of top-down authority.

Regarding statements made by people like Alaska Representatice Don Young who said that the BP oil spill wasn’t a natural disaster, the thinking by the average conservative seems to be one of trust, instead of their usual mistrust: “Well, he wouldn’t say that if it were an outright lie, right?” Yeah Don has a pipeline going straight into his donation bin, but there’s probably no conflict of interest there. The oil spill is probably PBS’s fault anyway.

As the extra-vocal hate screeds get more attention than anything said by sensible and realistic minds, this type of insanity even starts to look like the will of the people, even though it’s clearly not. In our nation’s case it’s mostly the will of deranged fear mongers backed by large corporations and/or their wealthy executives, who would love nothing more than to answer to no authority except their own. And to Jesus. But not nice, “give to the poor” Jesus, more like Thor-Jesus, pure, white, and who shits lightning hammers upon his civilization-supporting foes. Oh, I jest, I jest. Conservatives aren’t all fire and brimstone. Some are just regular folk, regular folk who happen to think corporations are also just regular folk. And they both love lemonade. Yesum…nice cool, lemonade. Hot day, huh? Sure could use a nice cool glass of momma’s own recipe for lemonade–now what were we talkin’ about back there? Heh. I forget too. Let’s talk about lemonade instead. It’s from Monsanto’s lemon tree farm. Them trees can talk now, d’you know that? Yup, Monsanto done fixed up them tree genes. Yup, nothing like a sweet cool drink made from the lemons pulled from the branches of screaming, angry trees. Well I have to run. Don’t forget to vote for a fringe wacko in the next election. Take care, now!

LOST IN IDEOLOGY

Before I go, let me just say a few things about the underlying causes for everything we’ve discussed so far.

Government, politics, these are about practical solutions to actual problems. Or at least, that is they’re intended purpose. EX: Our populace was woefully uneducated, a fact which was hurting our economy, military, and general culture, so we established a system of public schooling. Meat packing plants were the filthiest, least safe places on earth for workers and for the consumers of the end products, no problem, here’s a regulatory board to clean you up. Corporations were dumping every pollutant they could into any body of watering, killing people, wildlife, and ruining vast tracts of beautiful land. Oh, the EPA and its Superfund Program will clean existing disasters up and prevent similar disasters? Great. Thank you, Progressives of every era.

Those were practical solutions to existing problems.

But for ideologues like the modern day conservative, politics and governmental bodies are about manufacturing idealized (and therefore impossible) solutions to non existent problems, to issues that “in theory” could maybe possibly create a situation of some concern far, far down the road… but even then only in terms of the idealized syllogisms they think in: “If gays can marry, people will start marrying animals. Therefore, we should ban gay marriage to stop anyone from marrying animals.” In a fantastic twist of irony, animal-human unions would only be a problem in the states that try to ban gay marriage and impose sodomy laws. Silver linings! (Speaking of Silver, Idaho Republicans also want to make gold and silver the only acceptable currency. You know who had a similar idea and started hording a lot of gold…ahem. You know him, you…well, you know him…HITLER!)

Once a consensus about what imaginary terror to preach against has been reached within the party, at this point all conservatives need do is ratchet up the fear rhetoric and turn “down the road” into “it’s coming in a few weeks if we don’t do something TODAY! Run! And don’t forget to kill an abortion doctor on the way to your white pride gathering! ” Then, all of a sudden, large numbers of otherwise nice people lose their sense of rational thought and start attending survivalist camps, purity balls, and NRA rallies.

In a way, exercising concern that the federal government might impinge upon a state’s reasonable and necessary rights is great. It’s necessary. We have a system of checks and balances not just in the separate branches of government but also in the scope and distribution of authority, between local, state, and federal governments. But Idaho Republicans aren’t afraid that Obama or “the Democrats” are going to replace potato crops with rows of tofu and force everyone to buy a Prius. The “any and all existing and future unconstitutional Federal mandates and laws” that might “infringe on Idaho’s Tenth Amendment sovereignty” are things like civil rights laws and pollution restrictions and tax money that go to wonderful safety net programs for those in need. You know, laws and mandates that have proven wildly successful in improving the quality of life for everyone, the laws upon which our nation’s very greatness stands upon.

To be clear, Republicans believe in authority for authority’s sake. Therefore, every law made by our great ole forefathers, no matter from how long ago or how injurious or how backward those laws were, in theory these should all be reinstated. And THEN we can discuss them without the interference of all those meddling progressives. That’s what the Republican Party today stands for. Reversing progress. Killing individual freedom in exchange for greater freedom for those in charge — the exact opposite of what they claim to be about.

Jim Crow…coming back. Maybe not for blacks, but this time it might just be based on your economic status or religious affiliation. The legal system beginning to ignore again hate crimes against gays, non-Christians, and the poor…on its way. Your food, from the soil to the plate, totally in control of sovereign corporations…so no matter how many Mexican child fingers you get in that Manwich meat, shut your trap and be happy. No matter how often the genetically modified Monsanto crops in your state take over the non-GM foods you and your neighnors are growing and then you lose the law suit they launch against YOU for stealing THEIR unstoppable gene tech, too bad. They’re the greater authority. Respect it.

This isn’t a down the road, slippery slope thing either because it’s not a paranoid fantasy. This is the way it was in our country before Progressives and Liberals, from both parties, stood up and changed things for the better. There were no laws, no regulations, no ethics that could stop you as long as you had enough money. Companies policing themselves, officials electing themselves, and hate-criminals hailed as cultural heroes by those who can live in peace only if others suffer. This was the ruling class of our nation and it took centuries to even begin to fix.

This is the way of things that Republicans want to return to, you know, the good old days when the poor knew their place and the rich knew how to have a good time. And they’re doing it all in your name, and in mine. Delusions can sometimes not be broken however. They may be beyond rational discourse by now.

What do we do?

Well, how about a nice cool glass of lemonade? Come on. I’ll show you to the kitchen. MA!

* Moderate Evil stances include things like “not stoning gays, just putting them on an island somewhere” and  “blaming hurricanes and terrorist attacks on only partial birth abortions.” All in all, very reasonable.