The Increasingly Insane GOP

There’s a great story in the April 29, 2007 Daily Herald serving central Utah (http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/220065/4/) that does a wonderful jog of showing just how badly the GOP has been taken over by the lunatic fringe of the “Christian” Right. It was precisely the growing influence of this element in the GOP that caused me to resign from the Party as a matter of conscience a number of years back. This stuff is impossible to make up. Here’s the pertinent part of the story:

Utah County Republicans ended their convention on Saturday by debating Satan's influence on illegal immigrants. The group was unable to take official action because not enough members stuck around long enough to vote, despite the pleadings of party officials. The convention was held at Canyon View Junior High School.

Don Larsen, chairman of legislative District 65 for the Utah County Republican Party, had submitted a resolution warning that Satan's minions want to eliminate national borders and do away with sovereignty. In a speech at the convention, Larsen told those gathered that illegal immigrants "hate American people" and "are determined to destroy this country, and there is nothing they won't do."

Illegal aliens are in control of the media, and working in tandem with Democrats, are trying to "destroy Christian America" and replace it with "a godless new world order -- and that is not extremism, that is fact," Larsen said. At the end of his speech, Larsen began to cry, saying illegal immigrants were trying to bring about the destruction of the U.S. "by self invasion."

Republican officials then allowed speakers to defend and refute the resolution. One speaker, who was identified as "Joe," said illegal immigrants were Marxist and under the influence of the devil. Another, who declined to give her name to the Daily Herald, said illegal immigrants should not be allowed because "they are not going to become Republicans and stop flying the flag upside down. ... If they want to be Americans, they should learn to speak English and fly their flag like we do."

Even though I set up the original incorporation documents for the Virginia Beach GOP, now it is increasingly dominated by folks like brother Pat shown above.