The Principled Party

[deignan]

Our future success as a national political force lies on the edge of a knife. The lanscape is changing and the old rules that ensured success no longer can gain national majorities consistently. Without these majorities, plans cannot become policy and the nation will drift ever more away.


I'm new here and I don't know if this is the fertile ground I am looking for to launch a reformation of the party -- but I am willing to pose the questions:

1. Do we want to be satisfied being a minority faction -- perhaps go off and form a thord party?

2. If not, then what are our consistent core set of values?



Since I am new here, I do not pretend to do anything more than pose the questions. Thanks for your consideration and hospitality.

[bryant69]

1. Third Parties are unlikely to be successful in the near future

As for our Core Values, I don't know. I mean i know what I think our core values should be, but I don't know if others would go along.

But I think we should be about making this country work for everybody. I don't think you should have to suffer foul air or unsafe working conditions just because you aren't wealthy. I don't think your kids should have a crappy education if you can't pay for a private school. There are certain basic things that all Americans should have, in order that we can have a level playing field.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Name removed]

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[eallen]

3. Those who want a theocracy can vote for the new GOP

The notion that an embryo is one of us, a person, is peculiar to Catholicism and the more conservative branches of Christianity. Making that a political plank, as does the GOP, pretty much divides the nation into the religious right and everyone else.

I'm with everyone else.

[Name removed]

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[GreenPartyVoter]

8. So how do you feel about the morning after pill? Do you think it is wrong

to force sperm and an egg to not get together if they in the presence of each other?

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[recovering democrat]

10. Choice

You make your own point when you refer to this as the party of Abortion. It is NOT. This is the party of CHOICE. Our moral judgments, whether religious in nature or not, are reserved for the choice of the woman whose body is affected. There is no support for abortion - there is support for the woman's right to choose. This party is working on a message that gets the debate back on track. Misleading and incorrect statements about what we are about do not help.

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[eallen]

22. I want to defend all civil rights: speech, privacy, reproductive, ...

As a civil libertarian, my interest is neither solely nor primarily reproductive rights. But neither am I willing to sacrifice those to attract the fetus fetishists. The truth is, the vast majority who attack abortion rights also will attack other civil rights. Triangulating on that issue is a non-starter.

[recovering democrat]

28. Republicans

And let us also not make any bones about this: what many in the Republican party are after IS a theocracy. That is what we must help the voting public to recognize.

[eallen]

15. Categorizing embryos as people is essentially religious.

There is no common-sense or secular reason for thinking that something that has not yet developed a functioning nervous system is a person.

[Name removed]

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[eallen]

29. What about non-arbitrary milestones?

As I pointed out in another thread, there is room for compromise if this issue is discussed rationally. Very few on the pro-life side want to do that. Here's your chance. Let begin with the fact that a blastocyte doesn't even have differentiated nervous tissue, and simply doesn't even have feelings, thoughts, or sensation. Now: where do you want to draw the line based on neurological development, and why? If you can frame an argument on that ground -- i.e., discuss this rationally -- you might be able to frame a good reason why abortion should be restricted at the later stages of pregnancy.

But if you just want to pretend that blastocytes are people, that's an article of faith.

[eallen]

33. PS: I didn't suggest "fully developed." You did. As a strawman.

If you want to discuss this rationally, there are a lot of stages of neurological development between "no differentiated tissue yet" and "fully developed."

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. So you think 13 year olds raped by their father should have to give birth

to their own brother/sister?

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[GreenPartyVoter]

7. Because asking the child to bear that child is demanding that

she continue to be raped by her father for 9 months straight?

Or have you never had a baby kick you in the rectum before? It's not pleasant even if you are in love with that child and can't wait to hold him in your arms.

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[GreenPartyVoter]

12. Why do you care more about one child over the other? I can tell you why I

care about the mother in this case. She's been abused and forcing her to have the baby continues the abuse. The embryo, however, has not been abused and I don't think it is likely to understand or care what has happened if it's terminated.

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[GreenPartyVoter]

23. Because it should be up to the family/mother to decide

If, God forbid, my blood pressure had climbed any higher during my pregnancies and I had stroked out, and only either I or my baby could be saved, why should it have been up to ANY one other than my husband and me to make the decision of who lives and who dies?

It's not enough for people to be in agony over a situation without you imposing rules that choose for them?

I suppose you think that it is a brilliant idea for every woman who has a miscarriage to report it to her doctor as per law?

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[eallen]

17. What child? I'm not going to pretend that an embryo is a child.

[Dhalgren]

20. It isn't about when life starts, it is about who gets to decide.

We are Pro-Choice. That means that each, individual woman gets to decide for herself what it is she will do with her body and everything and anything that is in it. If being the party for personal choice and personal responsibility is not for you, then, as a great fictional President once said, "Vote for the other guy".

[GreenPartyVoter]

16. So in terms of consistency you are anti-death penalty? I can side with

you on that, but I think the mother is the one who has to decide what to do with her body.

Personally, I would never have an abortion and would likely try talk to talk someone else looking to have one about the adoption option. But I will support another woman's right to choose for herself. If that woman does not feel having that baby is right for her, so be it.

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[GreenPartyVoter]

24. So.. death penalty is bad.. but rape and incest abuse are good?

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[GreenPartyVoter]

32. But you think the rape should go on... You think the 13 year old

should have to get kicked in the rectum day and night for 9 months, and her soul should die with every little movement from that baby.

So, in essence you are putting the worth of the body above that of the soul. Which is fine, if that's what you believe.

Here is what I believe, and no of course I can't prove the "truth" of it one way or another.

But for me, I believe in protecting the soul from further damage. Now if the 13 year old would feel more damaged by the abortion, then no she should not have it. But if having the baby would damage her soul more, then she should not have the baby. The baby's soul can come back to a new body to be born, but the 13 year old's soul will continue living out the horror that she is in as long as her soul is in her body.

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[K-W]

13. Ignore, this is an off topic distraction

Lets not help kill this thread.

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. Sorry, but pro-incestuous rape posts really get to me.

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[Blue Wally]

26. The rape has already happened............

Rape has occurred whether or not a child is conceived. The question is how to stop the rape from occurring.

[GreenPartyVoter]

27. The rape keeps on happening with every kick from that baby. DO NOT

doubt that.


Editing to add that I agree, we should figure out how to stop it from happening. But in all the time humans have inhabited the earth we have yet to figure out how to do that. :(

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[GreenPartyVoter]

34. Yes... and usually I manage to stay out of these discussions, but

obviously not this one. I am very sorry about the hijacking. You had some very good questions in your original post, but as I am not a Dem I can't really answer them. But if you want the opinion of someone from a smaller progressive party, I'd be happy to give it to you.

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[K-W]

9. We need power before we can reform.

And reforms would be neccessary for an effective third party to exist.

The only reason we would need to go the way of a new party is if we built our numbers and still were unable to gain power in the Democratic party, and I dont see that as very likely.

What we have to do is fairly simple to explain but fairly hard to do. We need to convince our neighbors and our nation to go to the polls and vote on progressive issues and vote for progressives. Then we need to field progressive candidates for office. If we want to be respected in politics, we need to win elections. Plain and simple. We need to show democrats that there can be more votes to gain by fighting for what is right than there are to aquessing to corporate money.