Purity test

Via @zeekatai, it seems the GOP is considering putting together a "purity test"--which is a litmus test a candidate must pass in order to be endorsed by the Republican party. Apparently, a candidate would have to disagree with no more than three two of the following:

Here is the resolution’s list:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

I don't put much stock in this sort of thing--it's the kind of irrelevant noise you get from political parties who are trying to appear faithful to their base (kind of like all that meaningless haggling over wording in the parties' respective platforms when the conventions happen).

That said, it's interesting to me that the document is pretty unserious and shows a total unwillingness to set priorities or make tradeoffs. For example, it seeks "smaller government", "lower taxes", and "lower deficits" in (1), and yet in (6) and (7) commits to significant war related expenditures, and in (9) appears to commit unlimited funds towards health care (if you do not "ration" health care or deny it to anyone--um, that means you're going to be spending exorbitant amounts of money on health care).

Moreover, points (2) and (9) stand in contradiction to each other. Market-based health care reform doesn't entail no rationing of health care; it just means that health care is rationed by the price mechanism in a market, rather than in some other way. Moreover, if you have a market-based health care system that (by definition) does not cover poor people (because they are priced out of the market), then how can you also claim to oppose "denial of health care"? A market-based health care system entails a denial of health care--to the poor!

Also: (3) is contradictory as well, because cap-and-trade is a market-based energy reform! It's essentially a way of pricing the market externality that is greenhouse gas emissions. It is no different in principle from a carbon tax.

Arg.