The Better World Fund, a group which "works to build a stronger relationship between the United States and the United Nations", has started the On Day One project. The purpose of the site is to provide a platform for gathering and sharing "ideas about what the next president can do on the first day of his or her administration to help address the world's most pressing challenges."
Not being a fan of the UN (I'm more of a League of Nation kind of guy) I would normally not give such project much thought. But a friend is involved in promoting the site and suggested that social conservatives should "submit ideas, swarm and vote, and get their readers to push those ideas." Since it would be amusing if the UN Foundation ended up having to submit a bunch of social conservative policy recommendations to the incoming President, I decided to add this proposal:
Require Family-Impact Statements for Global Policies
President Reagan's EO 12606 required government agencies to file family-impact statements before implementing policies that affect families, and to provide "adequate rationale" for any negative impact those policies might have on families. The next President should issue a similar directive that includes not only policies that affect Americans, but also global polices that affect the international community and which are not directly related to national security interests.
The site is still new so a few hundred votes would push it to the top of the page. (Click here to vote for this entry.) I'd also encourage other social conservatives to submit their own ideas. The site could use some thoughtful suggestions to help balance out the left-leaning entries (Submit Kyoto for Ratification, Withdraw Troops from Iraq, etc.).
President Reagan's EO 12606 required government agencies to file family-impact statements before implementing policies that affect families, and to provide "adequate rationale" for any negative impact those policies might have on families.
If Shrub had had to do that vis a vis Iraqi families, there would never have been an Iraq war.
(Or would he have made an exception for non-Christian families, as so many "pro-family" Christians have done in the past?)
And if he'd had to do it vis a vis American families, perhaps he would have listened to the Democrats warnings about imminent attacks within the US back in early 2001.
Thanks for the idea, the encouragement and the link. I voted and left a comment.
The people over at Smart Marriages did the same thing with Politico.com, writing up some suggested questions to ask the presidential candidates about pro-family policy. They encouraged everyone to go there an vote. I'm not sure any of the questions made the final top 20, but they were near the top for a while.