Obviously if we're going to create any kind of viable third party we're going to have to formulate a platform. What will that platform be? Clearly FDR's Second Bill of Rights will need to be included. And maintaining the separation of church and state, though what we mean by that should ideally be hammered out. Then of course we'll need to cover our position on the environment, women's rights, minority rights, gay rights, health care, the Bush/Cheney wars, gun control, civil rights, abortion, etc.

So, this is where we start presenting ideas. Each member will cover a position on a certain issue (try to avoid covering a topic someone else has already addressed at this stage, we can debate the various minutae of individual platform positions in a separate thread).

I'll start us off with Separation of church and state.

The very first part of the First Ammendment states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This was clearly the biggest concern of the founders, whose own fathers and grandfathers had suffered under the theocratical yoke of the Puritan church in the 17th and early 18th Centuries. They also recognized that the Puritans themselves has come to America to escape religious persecution in England. Clearly they needed to balance the right of the people to worship--or not--God in whatever manner they chose with the right of the people to be free from a government that sought to impose a certain religious ideology or set of beliefs upon them. In short, the founders rightly figured that freedom of religion was incumbent on keeping religion out of government and vice versa. To this end, we need to balance the need to protect the religious rights of people from various faiths while at the same time preventing religious institutions from trying to force themselves on people of different faiths, athiests and agnostics. Example: Keep "under God" in the pledge of allegience, but don't force people to recite the words. Or, keep mager scenes off public property but don't try to have them removed from private property. Don't let institutionalized prayer in public schools, but don't try to stop kids from praying on their own.