[Okonkwo]

this may be the best thread I've seen in a long time.

I second that. Props to Arbiter for the idea and the implementation.

but hey, its bold

Now we already have two symbols for the parties.



^ My favourite one.

[Attica]

SLD guys what do you think of replacing green with maroon/burgundy?

[Infidelis]

Being from Portland, the "City of Roses," this is win...looks like the Rose Festival logo.

Nice work Attica! And I like Green more...

[Paradigm]

Here's my little rough draft for the SLD. I tried to make it somewhat open-ended so it didn't just look like a manifesto of my own positions. I also copied parts of the PUC platform because I wasn't creative enough to reword it. Let me know what you think.

Social Liberal Democrats Political Platform


Party Philosophy:

The Social Liberal Democrats believe in personal freedom as well as social, economic, and environmental justice. We believe in both positive and negative freedom for the individual, and in the value of social cohesion. We support the Rawlsian concept of minimax: maximizing the welfare of those who are least well-off. Thus, we do not oppose all inequality, but insist that any inequality must be to the benefit of those at the bottom.

Economic Policy:

Minimum Wage – Minimum wage should be pegged to inflation, so as to avoid covertly reducing everyone's wages. We would also consider a guaranteed minimum income as a replacement for minimum wage and welfare programs

Finance and Banking – Tighten regulation and oversight, and implement policies which encourage long-term investment over short-term speculation.

Taxes – In general, we support a progressive tax regime. This can include a graduated income tax, a negative income tax, capital gains tax, and/or a land value tax. We also support certain pigouvian taxes, particularly with an environmental focus, such as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade.

Monetary Policy – Either a Keynesian system which follows Hyman Minsky's financial instability theory, or a nationalized monetary system of debt-free fiat money.

Fiscal Policy – We endorse Keynesian spending measures to control the boom-bust cycle.

Unions – We stand by the unions in their right to organize for better wages and working conditions.

Sustainability – We seek to live peacefully and sustainably with our environment, and will actively support policies which conserve the environment and make business and society more sustainable.


Trade:

- Support restructuring corporate charters to make outsourcing more difficult.
- Support updating trade agreements to allow less developed nations to protect infant industries while opening up markets of more developed countries.
- Ban exploitative patents on traditional herbal medicines.


Healthcare:

- Support universal healthcare, with either a single-payer regime such as in Canada, or a supplementary regime such as in France.
- Computerize health information to streamline treatment process.
- Support 3-year limit on patents to make pharmaceuticals more affordable.


Education:

- Support compulsory free education from K-12
- Support free college and vocational training
- Support charter schools to raise academic standards.


Environmental Policy:

Global Warming – Acknowledge scientific consensus. Support cap-and-trade or carbon tax.

Energy - Support massive investment in R&D for clean energy. Offer grants based on merits of technology without picking favorites. Seek distributed energy grid over centralized energy production wherever possible.

Transportation - Support broad overhaul of public transportation infrastructure. Support city planning geared toward pedestrians and public transport rather than vehicles. Support feebates for cars to encourage greater energy efficiency without adversely affecting automotive industry.

Reforestation – Strongly support advancing and expanding reforestry programs. Seek to make paper out of more sustainable alternatives such as hemp.

Conservation – Support expansion of national park system and wildlife reserves. Seek to reform endangered species program to account for ecosystems.

Agriculture – Seek to remove current farm subsidies, particularly for corn. Encourage organic and sustainable farming, as well as urban farming programs such as vertical farming and eco-roofs.


Social Policy:

Marriage – Support marriage equality for all adults.

Abortion – Support a woman's right to choose. Seek to reduce abortion by addressing issues of poverty, education, and healthcare.

Prostitution – Support legalization with strict safety regulations to protect prostitutes and customers alike.

State and Church – Strongly support separation of church and state, and the freedom of religion.

Civil Rights – Support strong anti-discrimination legislation

Affirmative Action – Support economic affirmative action to replace race-based affirmative action.

Narcotics – Support legalization and regulation of all soft drugs. Seek expansive harm-reduction measures for harder drugs, such as needle-exchange programs, methadone clinics, and allowing doctors to prescribe maintenance doses for addicts.

Alcohol & Tobacco– Support legal age for each as 20.

Gambling – Support legalization and heavy regulation and taxation.

Gun Ownership – Require special licenses for automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Require registration of all guns and close loopholes for private sale of firearms.

Law and Order – Support the rule of law, and equal protection under the law.


Foreign Policy:

Israel and Palestine – Seek two-state solution, working with both sides to broker an agreement. Stop selling arms to Israel, and make any other aid to them condition on their cooperation.

Iran – Support diplomacy in seeking peaceful resolution of conflicts, and discourage nuclear ambitions.

Iraq War – Support withdrawal at earliest practicable date.

Afghanistan War – Support civil as well as military involvement to stabilize region. Seek co-operation from Pakistan through economic incentives.

Zimbabwe – Supports all international efforts towards the removal of Robert Mugabe from power, as well as efforts towards his trial for crimes against humanity.

North Korea – Seek international support in containing threat from Kim Jong-Il.

Sudan – Support all international efforts towards the removal of Omar Bashir from power, as well as efforts towards his trial for war crimes in Darfur and South Sudan.

Mexico – Seek to stop funding Drug Cartels by reforming our own drug policy. Provide economic aid for bilateral efforts to control illegal immigration.

United Nations – Support restructuring this organization to increase enforceability of resolutions.

[Okonkwo]

This is how far I have gotten:

PoFo Social Liberal Democrats
“Man is free at the instant he desires to be”



The Party’s stance
The Social Liberal Democrat Party (SLD) sees itself as a party of social liberalism and social democracy.
We consider liberty and equality to be the defining aims of our policies, represented by an emphasis on individual rights and the equality of opportunity. The SLD stands for freedom of speech, rule of law, a transparent system of government and liberal democracy as defined by the thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment. Our basis of a legitimate political order and civil society is a social contract with the sovereignty in the hands of the people. We believe in upholding the constitution, in democratic representation of the people and in a government that governs by reason and duty.
The state itself should only be the instrument of the community, it should assume no power which conflicts the fundamental rights of the citizens and with the conditions essential for a responsible and creative life.

Economic policy
The SLD is a party that endorses the neoclassical synthesis: the combination of Keynesian macroeconomic thought and neoclassical microeconomics.
We believe in economic freedom, we oppose any violation of it – whether by the state or by private monopolies, cartels and trusts.

Minimum wage: We believe in implementing a minimum wage to increase the standard of living for the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.

Welfare: The SLD is for a welfare state; however this welfare state should not encourage laziness and unproductivity but rather aid the community and the working class. We believe that this continuous betterment of the conditions of the working class is essential to a more just and equal society.

Banking: The SLD believes in more strict regulation and better oversight of the banking sector.

Nationalisation: We admit state ownership only to a certain degree and only when private ownership has failed. It should only be used as a last resort when there is no other option available, if however this scenario were to happen we believe the state should act swiftly and without hesitation.

Monetary policy: The SLD favours a Keynesian monetary system.

[Paradigm]

Impressive. Could use a little work, though.

[Okonkwo]

Impressive. Could use a little work, though.

You should do the economic part. You're much better at it.

[Dave]

You should do the economic part. You're much better at it.

-tax the poor

[Brio]

You should do the economic part. You're much better at it.

Land Tax?

But yes you do have much more skill at that. I have very little knowledge of economics and possible economic policies.

[Okonkwo]

Land Tax?

I was already thinking about putting in a little nod to Paradigm, something like:
The SLD is a party of neoclassical economics with some factions supporting a Georgist land tax.

[albionfagan]

You'll always sell out the workers in the end.

[Okonkwo]

You'll always sell out the workers in the end.

We should put that in, too.

SLD - Selling out workers since 2009.

[albionfagan]

[Paradigm]

Well, as I mentioned in my version, a guaranteed minimum income could be used to replace minimum wage and the welfare system. As for taxes, you know that I favor land value taxes, but since this isn't a Georgist party, I would propose it as one of many possible progressive tax measures, others including capital gains tax and progressive income tax. As for monetary policy, a Keynesian approach to central banking is good, but my personal preference would be the more radical reform proposed by the American Monetary Institute:

-Incorporate the Federal Reserve System into the U.S. Treasury where all new money is created by government as money, not interest-bearing debt, and spent into circulation to promote the general welfare; monitored to be neither inflationary nor deflationary.

-Halt the banks privilege to create money by ending the fractional reserve system in a gentle and elegant way. All the past monetized private credit is converted into U.S. government money. Banks then act as intermediaries accepting savings deposits and loaning them out to borrowers; what people think they do now.

-Spend new money into circulation on infrastructure, including education and healthcare needed for a growing society, starting with the $1.6 trillion that the American Society of Civil Engineers estimate is needed for infrastructure repair; creating good jobs across our nation, re-invigorating local economies and re-funding government at all levels.

Again, I don't want to impose my personal beliefs onto what should be a broad coalition of progressives, so I would simply add those preferences as options within a more broad framework. Therefore, I would propose the following revisions and additions:


Welfare: The SLD favors a welfare state; however this welfare state should not encourage laziness and unproductivity but rather aid the community and the working class. We believe that this continuous betterment of the conditions of the working class is essential to a more just and equal society. We would also consider replacing the welfare system with a guaranteed minimum income, so as to eliminate the "welfare trap" which prevents people from seeking jobs.

Monetary policy: The SLD favours a Keynesian approach to central banking, or possibly nationalization of monetary system.

Taxes: The SLD favors a broadly progressive tax regime, with such options as a progressive income tax, capital gains tax, and/or land value tax. We also favor pigouvian taxes to internalize externalities, particularly those having to do with the environment.

Intellectual Property: The SLD acknowledges the usefulness of intellectual property in promoting innovation, but also recognizes its exploitative and anti-productive effects when carried too far. We therefore a 3-year limit on patents, and a somewhat longer lifespan for copyrights.


Trade

Outsourcing: The SLD seeks to limit corporate outsourcing by overhauling corporate charters.

Trade Agreements: The SLD supports fair trade agreements which allow developing countries to protect infant industries, while opening up the markets of more developed countries.


We should also articulate our positions on social policy and health care. I'd also like our party principles to mention something about the minimax principle.

[Okonkwo]

I for one agree almost completely with a land tax, but we should settle on something like "progressive taxation" for the sake of unity.

We need to have another topic covered: health care.
EDIT: Ach, you already had that in your post.

Social policy should be easy to do, everyone in this party has similar views about that.

[Cartertonian]

Never mind all that bollocks - what about defence?

[Paradigm]

I for one agree almost completely with a land tax, but we should settle on something like "progressive taxation" for the sake of unity.

We could say "progressive and direct taxation" which would include both land value taxes and income taxes while excluding consumption taxes.

[Okonkwo]

Agreed.

[Zagadka]

I would also move for the following policies:

- Open foreign relations. Every country is inextricably connected to both those directly around it and those in the global market. No country is to be held as a superior of another, and strong cooperation and diplomacy should be the tools of conflict resolution, not ruling out military coalitions and regional aid groups. Support should be given for organizations like the EU, AU, etc in their aims to regulate and equalize nations in their respective regions, with representation from said nations.

- Capitalism is not something to be ruled out. It is something that can exist freely outside of the state; free enterprise is every citizen's right, though excess riches and corporate muscling shall be limited.

- The state will not invest in wasteful private enterprise. So much boo-hooing is done about welfare for the poor and working classes, while public funds are regularly given to the construction of sports arenas and teams, which see profits in huge amounts for non-necessary skills. Not only shall the state not invest in any such private enterprise, it shall also provide luxury taxes on use of public facilities by things like golf courses, which use disproportionate amounts of a community's water supply, especially in times of drought. This is not a declaration against sports, they are merely examples.

- Education is a right of every person, including trade skill training.

- If someone designs us a logo, please don't put a damn eagle on it.

Intellectual Property: The SLD acknowledges the usefulness of intellectual property in promoting innovation, but also recognizes its exploitative and anti-productive effects when carried too far. We therefore a 3-year limit on patents, and a somewhat longer lifespan for copyrights.

Patents are a tricky area. Some require a lot of investment; we should recognize (well regulated) extensions on technology and medical patents, as well as a classification of university research patents (to be available to other universities).

Monetary policy: The SLD favours a Keynesian approach to central banking, or possibly nationalization of monetary system.

I'd prefer to leave a Keynesian central bank with a free (though regulated) public sector. There should be a central bank, a treasury branch, and various international funds.

Further, I'd like to voice opposition to a concept of global currency. Markets vary too much regionally for a stable currency to represent all nations - though each country is free to peg its money to another currency (or utilize a shared currency, such as the Euro). They may also be free to own foreign currency in their reserves; this helps balance catastrophic inflation in the event of single-market failure, though at the risk of devaluation of foreign currency.

Oh, one more thing... I'd insist on international standardization of rail and air travel. This includes magnetic rail and ultra-high altitude or space deployment by private companies or governments; all nations should share in tracking systems for air and space traffic.


--

EDIT

BTW, I notice people are using various random poll sites... everyone (of any stripe) is welcome to use http://www.zagadka.net/pollfo/ , registration is open and I take no responsibility for content. It might be more convenient (and permanent) than free poll sites.

[Okonkwo]

- If someone designs us a logo, please don't put a damn eagle on it.

Fellow Social Liberal Democrat Attica created a logo for the party:

EDIT: I added it to the programme. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Zagadka.
We should also have a list of official members, so far it's:
Attica, dilpill, Paradigm, Infidelis, Zagadka and me.