I think now it is time to address two aspects of the Congressional Progressive Caucus's platform that do not appear to have been posted. That, I think, is because they're hot-button issues for a lot of people and it's very tricky to incorporate them in such a way as to accommodate the sensibilities of most members. We can't and shouldn't even try to please everyone, but we need to come to an agreement before putting it up for a vote. I speak, naturally, of abortion and gun control. Either or both of these issues could potentially fracture and even kill a new political party, if there is too much emotion-driven disagreement amongst the membership. So we need to be abundantly clear on what position we should actually adopt. So what better time than now to start hammering it out details? I'll pitch my ideas first, and the rest of you should pitch in with your own. Bear in mind that at this stage these are only ideas to be considered and debated upon, We won't vote on these until there is a general consensus.

1. Abortion
   
   Obviously this is the biggest issue for us to grapple with, since it directly affects roughly half the nation's population and indirectly affects the other half. I speak, of course, of women and men, respectively. I think most of us can agree that women have the right to decide whether or not to go to term with pregnancies. I also think most of us can agree that third trimester abortions should be restricted to instances in which the life or long term health of the mother is threatened, but I don't want to put my opinion in other people's mouths, if you will. So I want to know if this is something our female members can agree with. Since this is your issue, ladies, the vast bulk of the decision is yours.
   
2. Gun Control
   
   This is another hot-button issue, for obvious reasons. There is a whole swath of the population that thinks gun ownership is an individual right, and another that thinks it is a collective right for militias. I purchased a book last year by OSU professor Saul Cornell, called A Well Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America, which now that I have finished reading Paul Krugman's Conscience of A Liberal I may now devote my attention to. Cornell argues that both sides of the gun control debate are wrong, that gun ownership is a civic duty of the able-bodied populace and that governments retain the right to regulate militias as they see fit in keeping with the 2nd Amendment. My own thoughts on gun control are that we need to pass reasonable laws to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and psychopaths, while returning full control of the National Guard unites to the states from whence they are taken. In short, have both a federal military and the individual state-controlled, regulated militias. What say the rest of you?

I think these two parts of a platform should be as fully and comprehensively settled as we can make them, before proceeding to a vote.