The GOP platform, shamelessly revealed in the run-up to the Republican National Convention, is a hard-line, fanatical and unreasonable set of goals.

If only partially implemented, these objectives would do great damage to our country, to the environment and to millions of people, especially poor people. And don’t be fooled, the GOP platform is the Romney-Ryan agenda.

That is the cold reality that is meant to be obscured in a maze of mendacity. The right-wing rally stirring the swamps of Tampa was a startling spectacle. Anti-labor, anti-immigrant, anti-environment, and anti-everything but lower taxes for the 1 percent, the Republican Party is leading the way (back to antebellum America).

Maine’s Ron Paul delegation — proboscides pinned and proud — may be applauded for walking out of the convention in protest. We all know they had good reason to do so. It must be noted, however, that the Paul delegates and alternates, in full retreat or in chastened remand, did not object to the party’s intolerant platform.

Christopher McKinnon

Augusta