This year’s GOP platform states that “PUBLIC education is a foundation of a FREE and civil society” (so much for the family and the church). The platform also praises Bush for increasing federal education spending. The GOP platform committee rejected attempts to add language recognizing the contributions of home and private schools to the platform.

Andrew Sullivan points out that even the libertarian rhetoric of Reagan and Goldwater has been banished from the GOP:

“The (Tuesday night GOP convention) began with a series of speeches trumpeting vast increases in federal spending: on education, healthcare, AIDS, medical research, and on and on. No, these were not Democrats. They were Bush Republicans, extolling the capacity of government to help people, to cure the sick, educate the young, save Africans from HIV, subsidize religious charities, prevent or cure breast cancer, and any other number of worthy causes. The speakers were designed to target certain demographic and interest groups, just as the Democrats used to. The notion that these things are best left to the private sector, or that spending needs to be slashed in the wake of rising debt, or that the race of a speaker is irrelevant: all these are now Republican heterodoxy.”

Thankfully, one can still find Ron Paul Republicans in the Lone Star State, if not in New York.