I wrote the first draft of this platform over two years ago after the 2002 election ended with my candidate for governor of MN, Tim Penny of the Minnesota Independence Party, was not elected due to the cultural wars and the more successful politicization by the Republicans of how the Democrats “politicized” Sen. Paul Wellstone’s funeral.   

The Christian Progressive Pragmatic Party(CPPP) will be based on the premise that an active involvement in politics can be glorifying to God if done in an ethical manner that is not dogmatic and seeks to widen the range of interests that can be served by the government. It will generally view political parties as pragmatic institutions that seek to sustain their own viability and which, while necessary, can choke the access to the control of Government. The CPPP endorses a Stephen Carter-style view of the relationship between the Church and State, as described in “The Culture of Disbelief.” The separation of Church and State implies, not that their spheres are separate, but their autonomy from each other. The separation requires that all parties agree to accept the importance of democracy and compromise in the determination of laws.

The CPPP is a thought-experiment meant to encourage social moderates to conservatives to be more independent and pragmatic in their voting. The CPPP’s initial platform positions will include moderate, compromising positions on social issues:

For abortion, the CPPP supports making the regulations of the abortion industry more consistent with the commitments to the need for legal protections for human life of a wider portion of the US population. It supports the Pragmatic Prolife Manifesto. 

For gay rights, the CPPP believes legal recognition and some extension of the current privileges given to heterosexual married couples should be given to same-sex couples, with the qualification that longer-term relationships be encouraged. Similarly, the CPPP has no problem with the provision of other rights to homosexuals and their protection against homophobic violence.  It would insist that such actions be made in a way that avoids the public endorsement of different forms of sexuality as equally “valid”.  It would prefer to focus more on collaboration with other parties on other family values issues, as much of the current religious right “family values” agenda tends to conflate God’s ideals with human laws that inevitably will accomodate human sinfulness… 

Also, for the CPPP, it does not matter whether or not the phrase under God is included in the pledge of allegiance, since the pledge is ultimately a declaration of political solidarity. It would, however, be opposed to removing the references to God from the rest of Government institutions, since we should not be ashamed of the US’s religious heritage.

One important priority for the CPPP will be reconciliation between Christians and Muslims and other faiths. Some areas where we may help achieve this is to help rebuild the nation of Afghanistan better, making sure there will be a stable, peaceful government that will serve as a bulwark against the Al Quaeda. It is also important that the US make a formal apology to Afghanistan and other 3rd world countries for how its “Anti-Communism” foreign policies destabilized their governments during the Cold War. The CPPP would also like to assist in securing that USmuslims have a greater voice in our nation’s gov’t. By showing how democracy can work for muslims, we will counter the lies given to many muslims by their leaders about the US and democracy.

The CPPP will also support the US pressuring muslim states to make democratic reforms and an enforced separation of Mosque and State, interpreted as their autonomy from each other. It also is essential to ensure that the Israeli and Palestinian states become recognized by each other and their neighbors and are able to live peacefully.

The CPPP supports reducing the US’s dependence on oil, through subsidization of research on alternative energy sources from a tax on oil products. As Thomas Friedman has pointed out, countries with oil have often been the least likely to make reforms due to the corruption and intransigence derived from this unproductive form of wealth. Hence, to reduce our reliance on oil will likely induce reforms in the long-run. It may be necessary to also seek extensive int’l cooperation in the development of alternatives to oil, since an imminent shortage of oil will affect all of us on planet earth.

The CPPP believes that it is essential that the US enforce Campaign Finance Reform(CFR) and Corporate Accounting Reporting Reform (CARR). Yet above and beyond that it is also of great long-run importance that we develop institutions that will make CFR and CARR on a more continuous basis. One lasting change would be to permit soft-money to return to politics, rather than be redirected to alternative venues, but to tax both soft and hard money. A tax on campaign contributions reduces moneyed interests’ influence on politics by making it more expensive to buy the same level of influence or forcing moneyed interests to accept less influence. A general reduction in the amount of money spent on elections would reduce the importance of campaign commercials that are devoid of content and other expensive ways that parties manipulate voters. The election would depend more upon the actual positions taken by candidates, their speaking ability, ability to inspire others into working hard on their campaign and so on and so forth.

The money raised by the tax could either be used to reduce other taxes and/or some of it could be credited to the parties that lost as tax-free money to be spent on the next election. This serves to make it so that elections are not winner-takes-all games. It also checks high-spending campaigns by ensuring that the next-contenders would be getting more money for the next-match.

Essential to viable, ongoing CFR is that third-parties gain more influence in US politics, or more ability to threaten the duopoly of control between the Dems and the Repubs. This is because one cannot trust the enforcement of CFR to the people who are being regulated by CFR. For this reason, the creditation of funds for the next elections should be to all parties that get more than half a percentage point of the vote. The credit should be proportional to how much of the vote that a losing partie received. This would give a stronger incentive for third parties to expend resources to increase its votes, even when they are not likely to win an election. So long as a variety of third-parties exist, this would not persay spoil elections. One can even give the third-party the right to transfer its credited funds to another party if that party took on enough of its issues.

Third parties would give voters more exit threat from the main parties and it would force the main parties to be more dynamic, adopting in their platforms new issues that gain popular support and initially find voice in third-parties.
So long as the main two parties are flexible, their dominant positions will probably be, more or less, maintained and the US will not face the instability of having several parties rotating into power, as is the case in Italy.

The CPPP will support ban or taxation of the advertisement of alcohol in the US as is done in France, where the net effect is that there is less alcohol consumption with generally higher quality alcohol. Mass advertisements only serve the interests of high volume, low quality alcohol producers. One likely affect of such a reform will be that it will reduce the pay of professional sports players and the inequality in the revenues of large market sports teams which should then reduce the inequality in their ability to hire the best players(i.e. as with the Yankees in Baseball).

The CPPP would support a redirection of the activism of those who want to cancel the debt of the highly indebted poor countries(HIPCs) to, instead, giving HIPCs some control over the World Bank so they can have some voice in the determination of the conditions for receiving credit from this institution.

The CPPP believes that, consistent with recent research finding higher returns to earlier improvements in the quality of education, to ensure a higher quality elementary then secondary education on a more uniform basis across the US is more important that making sure everyone can go to College.

The CPPP supports ensuring through careful observation and some regulations that worker’s have some counter-weight against employer’s right to make the wage-offer and are not put in an overly competitive position by virtue of their low wages. Similarly, experimental methods can be employed to ascertain whether there is a continued need for Affirmative Action in hiring and education.

The CPPP supports tax-code reform through simplification and increased enforcement of taxes among higher income payers. The CPPP supports the Basic Income Guarantee(BIG). The BIG would alter the tax-system of the US, sweeping away its complex web of exceptions and also replace the welfare-system. Instead, all citizens would receive an income transfer, regardless of how much they earn, and then they would have a flat tax-rate on whatever income they earn. This would fight poverty and remove disincentives against high-income-earners from working harder. The CPPP will also support experimentation as to the impact of income taxes on work-effort/hours by allowing for some, randomly determined, very moderate differences in marginal tax rates.

The CPPP supports maintaining or reinstating the estate tax, as well as instituting and enforcing punitive measures against corporations that seek to avoid taxes by relocation.

Also, the CPPP supports a levelling of the playing field in the film industry. This could include:a progressive tax on the advertisement of movies, a modest tax on sequels(to encourage more creativity), and maybe some anti-trust action regarding the concentration of control of local theaters. The playing field should be levelled, because films do not just entertain. Film is a medium for the telling of stories and offers a glimpse at other’s world-view. As such, it is important that more people be able to make films and gain a broader access to the market.

Similarly, subsidies to farming in the US need to be reduced, in that we are over-producing and the excess supply is not going to the people who need it most. Starvation world-wide is caused by corruption not a shortage of food-production.

The CPPP also supports the US government continuing to support faith-based groups that seek to help provide structure/hope to youths/families in low income areas.

The CPPP supports expansion of careful measurement of the US economy both at the consumer/household and firm levels, so as to lay a more firm empirical base for the design and evaluation of changes in the rules/regulations of the economy.

CPPP would consider linking regional-level minimum wages at some fixed real-value level(probably no more than fifty percent higher than existing nat’l levels in most cases with of course, experimentation done to measure the likely employment costs of assigned levels) that would be periodically adjusted to account for changes in the costs of living. Of course, if the BIG(mentioned above) is passed then minimum wages would be less important. This is because citizens would be guaranteed some income regardless of how much they earn. The additional income would make them less dependent on their jobs to survive and they would have more bargaining power with their employers as a result. The CPPP will look into pushing for the adoption of reasonable minimum wages and working conditions in under-developed countries that compete with US workers, since evidence suggests that minimum wages may be more effective anti-poverty devices when workers are poorer and there is too much cut-throat competition among workers.

CPPP also believes that corporations and unions are both forms of collective action with their advantages and disadvantages and should be treated more symmetrically, than currently is the case, by the government.

Employed Minors would be forced to save a fraction of their pay until they were 18, unless they come from poor families. This is meant to refocus their attention on their education, rather than immediate consumption.

The CPPP will generally seek to promote strategic alliances between other third party movements, notably the Green Party and Reform or Independence parties, in that what is most important is not that all of our issues are at the top of the list, but rather that the Democratic and Republican parties duopoly of control over the government be broken or at least severely threatened. This requires reconciliation on extremely ideologically divisive social issues of the past, especially abortion.

Similarly, the CPPP will oppose the legalization of Marijuana but support that the legal penalties against its users/sellers be relaxed some and that its use be combated at the community level through education and similar measures currently being used to discourage cigarette smoking. Marijuana has resulted in too many people being thrown into jail, losing their right to vote, and costing our country too much for what it is worth. Ultimately, the decision to smoke marijuana is best reduced through alteration of cultural norms. And, our limited funds for fighting the selling of drugs are better used on more serious drugs.

The CPPP supports lowering the drinking age to say 18, with the establishment of high penalties for youths and their parents for the alcohol abuse. Parents should teach their children to drink responsibly as should universities who will be free to teach and monitor for responsible drinking, by it being legal for college students to drink.

Also, with respect to the environment, the CPPP finds it useful to separate environment policy into three separate issues: (1) seeking to better inform the public about environmental issues and the likely consequences of sustaining or increasing existing pollution levels, (2) seeking to persuade the public to care more about the importance of reducing pollution, ensuring ecological stability, long-run sustainability of economic growth and (3) evaluating the economic costs/impacts of making changes in the right to pollutes of companies, which takes into account who will likely pay the burden caused by a reduction in pollution. All three tasks will be promoted by the CPPP above and beyond the levels currently undertaken by the two main parties.

The CPPP is by no means anti-business. Business leaders will need to play a critical role in any potential changes in regulation of business, since they have a strong information advantage regarding the likely consequences of changes in the rules. As such, to avoid doing harm, changes will need to be gradual and tentative with much evaluation as to their consequences and likely revisions in their content. Yet changes can and should be made.

All of these issues are not adequately and pragmatically addressed by the two main parties. The Independence party in MN is too concerned about representing the “center” and deciding issues by consensus. The Green party is too single-issue oriented and the Reform Party has declined in its influence with the replacement of Perot with Pat Buchanan.

It is hoped that by championing this view of government that Christians can dispel myths about “conservative” Christianity and find opportunities to share about the importance of trying to relate one’s received world-view to the dramatically different world-view held by Jesus of Nazareth two thousand years ago and the ways in which giving authority to that world-view can transform one’s life.

dlw