The Anti-Manichaeist

I’m thankful again for knightopia for pointing to an excellent blog entry condensation of a conversation of top political wonks discussing the election.

Steve points to Joe Trippi as predicting that there will be a third party in the US in 2008. Sounds likes he thinks it will be one drawing upon the Deaniacs.

I’ve written in the past that in order for the US to develop a viable third party system, it will be necessary first to reduce the inflammation caused by the cultural wars in our political system. Or the viable third party would have to be a pragmatic coalition of existing third parties. Preferably it will be pragmatic, championing a host of neglected issues and changes in the political system that currently favor the main two parties.

Oh wait, I’m just describing my own Christian Pragmatic Progressive Party!

If I could offer any advice to John Kerry, I’d tell him to adopt the planks on abortion from my platform because I think they are geared best at effectively making abortions safer and rarer. Doing this will also thwart the religious rights movement to turn out the single-voter vote. It would especially be good to publicly establish the fact that it is highly unlikely that all elective abortions in the first trimester are going to be made illegal again and kept illegal. This makes attempts to reverse RoeVWade one of the most extravagant wastes of political capital in recent history.

There really is a need for new pro-life political activism strategies/leadership. Current strategies may focus on gradual changes, but their commitment to making all elective abortions illegal again and their non-civil rhetoric provokes an unwillingness by their pro-choice opponents to tread out onto the slippery slope by accepting the proposed compromises. The net effect is deadlock and more abortions that could have been prevented.

dlw