Welcome...

Welcome to the first ever 3rd District Common Agenda discussion week. We are a newly formed group of citizens in, around, or interested in the politics of GA’s 3rd U.S. Congressional District. Visit our home page if you’d like to learn more about the group. The topic of this discussion week will be the health care policies of current presidential candidates. The idea behind the Common Agenda platform is that we all have a basic need to see certain issues addressed. We all need a healthy functioning economy, successful schools, and a health care system where everyone can get the care they need. How we get to that point is in question, what policy steps will help rather than hurt. That’s the debate. The issues and ideas are the issue at hand, not liberal this and conservative that. Most citizens don’t care who comes up with it, they care if the policy works and helps them thrive. So onto the ground rules.

1. Talk about health care policies of the presidential candidates. If one of the candidates is quotes speaking on something and you want to digress further into that issue that is great. So say Kucinich is talking about his Universal Medicare plan, I could quote him and his take and get more into the details that the quote couldn’t possible do. Don’t let your health care discussion digress into Iraq, or abortion, or the War on Terror. Now, for example, if you want to talk about health care and you discuss the health care of current Iraqi vets, that is perfectly fine. Follow up posts on past posts are fine without using a candidate, you might want to site the post so that new visitors can keep up.

2. Stick to facts and figures and where they came from. You can go directly to the studies. Or since the topic is presidential candidate policies. You can quote that candidate as a source of a study. Now say John Edwards states a “fact” and you have studies that contradict it by all means post it.

3. Keep it above the belt. No attacks on people. And no attacks on political philosophies. No “Republicans hate poor people” or “Democrats are Communists.” That doesn’t help the discussion and tends to get people defensive. Let me clarify, facts about voting records is fine. So if say some bill failed to pass but was voted by party lines you could say: In the committee meeting all 9 Democrats voted for the measure while all 8 Republicans voted against it. But try to quote people directly on their vote and why they voted that way. Dig deeper than just the facts. We want to start with the empirical facts that no one denies and then piece them together so see what they mean. Who profits, who gains, who loses. Each vote, each policy idea that succeeds or fails has huge impact on every day people.

4. Do not violate copyright. If its protected (such as Times Select) you can cite important highlights. And actually for the most part we want to stay true to the blog form. We don’t need the whole article or op-ed posted. Just post a link. Maybe quote your key highlights and then your own thoughts. Everyone is able to go read the full link.

5. Everyone and anyone is welcome to post. The agenda of this group is to help educate people on different Universal Health Care policy ideas but all sides, views, and opinions are welcome to participate.

6. Keep track and on the last day or two post a final report on your experience from the week: what did you learn, did you change your mind on anything, was the week helpful or merely spinning wheels.

7. Tell your friends and family about it. Advertise! Let people know about this weeks blog. We want this to be as successful as possible and build a grassroots movement of every day citizens who take the time to jump in with the policy wonks and try to articulate their own ideas. We all have an agenda, in a democratic system we should all have a place to articulate our concerns, ideas, and feelings on the issues that impact our lives.