Democratic platform

[vandelay87]

I'm a pro-life, pro-stem cell research, pro gay rights, anti-death penalty democrat and my question is this: If democrats had different stances on certain hot button social issues do you think that we would gain even more power? Because most people believe that the reason why the south usually votes republican is mainly because of these issues, not because of economic interests or or other policies.

[Buck Laser]

I'm a pro-life, pro-stem cell research, pro gay rights, anti-death penalty democrat and my question is this: If democrats had different stances on certain hot button social issues do you think that we would gain even more power? Because most people believe that the reason why the south usually votes republican is mainly because of these issues, not because of economic interests or or other policies.

I don't think the issues you cite account for the south's conservative bent. Historically, the republican party gained the south with the passage of the civil rights and voting rights acts in 1964 and 1965. The republicans played long and hard on states' rights and desegregation, and thus won the south. For the most part, southern voters are more socially conservative than other parts of the US, but I believe it's a combination of republican partisans and the religious right that have hammered on the idea that the democrats have a social agenda that's unacceptable.

I assume you meant "pro-choice" in your initial statement, rather than "pro-life." But whatever, the democratic party is actually a much more inclusive "organization" than the GOP. And in each of the issues you mention, there is a wide variety of opinion, from very conservative to very liberal.

Finally, to my knowledge, there's no "democratic platform" that democrats are obliged to support.

[lily]

I'm a pro-life, pro-stem cell research, pro gay rights, anti-death penalty democrat and my question is this: If democrats had different stances on certain hot button social issues do you think that we would gain even more power?

.......but wouldn't that make Democrats Republicans?

[Labrocca]

I think you described the liberal agenda. The problem is that the democrats don't really have an agenda of their own. They have a mixture of beliefs from the far-left to the middle where they encroach on GOP territory. As you say...for them to gain votes and states they need to adopt Republican agenda. How does this empower them? It doesn't. The only reason we GOP lost last election was because they themselves messed up not because the Dems had a better agenda. As is now evident from their position in power and unwillingness to do very much.

[lily]

Um, I don't think so Labrocca. There is a reason during the debates the Republicnas didn't mention Bush. This presidential election, he is going to look even rarer than he didÂ*Â*during the senate elections. He's like the third rail. The Democrats according to you have nothing, but one thing we don't have is Bush as our Albatross (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18505030/site/newsweek/)

May 5, 2007 - It’s hard to say which is worse news for Republicans: that George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation, or that he seems to be dragging every ’08 Republican presidential candidate down with him. But According to the new NEWSWEEK Poll, the public’s approval of Bush has sunk to 28 percent, an all-time low for this president in our poll, and a point lower than Gallup recorded for his father at Bush Sr.’s nadir. The last president to be this unpopular was Jimmy Carter who also scored a 28 percent approval in 1979. This remarkably low rating seems to be casting a dark shadow over the GOP’s chances for victory in ’08. The NEWSWEEK Poll finds each of the leading Democratic contenders beating the Republican frontrunners in head-to-head matchups.

[Stoner]

Lab nailed it. Libs don't really have a plan. At least with Rebublicans you know what you're getting. With libs they just tell you what you want to hear to get in office. Look at this Congress for a perfect example. They made all of these promises and failed virtually all of them once they got in.

[vandelay87]

Thanks for all of your input. To answer the first reply, I actually am pro-life it wasn't a misprint. I probably should have been clearer when I was talking about certain social issues. There are obviously more than the four I just mentioned. In response to another post, I don't think that someone's stance on social issues makes them a republican or a democrat. I believe that being a republican or a democrat is mostly based on economic views and preferences on the role of government because as another poster said, there are obviously a wide array of opinions within the party, but with the influence of the religious right and the historical takeover of the south by the republicans, social issues are clearly an a divisive issue that more than likely pull many people who would otherwise be democrats into the republican party.

[ClayBarham]

Just for the hell of it, check the post on the Democrat Platform 100 years ago. Some democrats mistakenlsy still believe that is their party's platform, and are they wrong. But, belief precedes understanding. And, if the economic issues are important to many of them, the socialism of current democrats is not their answer.

[Buck Laser]

Just for the hell of it, check the post on the Democrat Platform 100 years ago. Some democrats mistakenlsy still believe that is their party's platform, and are they wrong. But, belief precedes understanding. And, if the economic issues are important to many of them, the socialism of current democrats is not their answer.

Ah, yes...from the days of Jim Crow. The republicans own all of that now.:rolleyes:

[Drocket]

.......but wouldn't that make Democrats Republicans?


That was pretty much the Democratic plan for the past decade or so. You know, the decade in which they got utterly creamed. The past few years have been the start of a major shift in the Democratic party, and they've actually started to stand up for radical far-left ideas like standing up for people's rights. They've also, not to coincidentally IMO, starting winning elections.

The next few years are going to be extremely interesting ones, I think. Liberalism is, right now, revitalized to a degree that it hasn't been since the at least the 1960's, or maybe even further back to the 1920's. The religious right has drug our country way, way, WAY to the right, to the edge of outright fascism over the past 2 decades, and the country has finally woken up and realized that's not where they want to be. We're not actually going to get anywhere close to actually being a left-wing country (though O'Reilly, Rush and others are going to scream bloody murder that we are every step of the way), but we are going to go pretty much back to the center, where we need to be.

[Mayberry]

If democrats had different stances on certain hot button social issues do you think that we would gain even more power? So you are saying that you'd rather your party sell out their values just to gain power? Of course we'd all like to see our party of choice "in power", but when that happens, things don't seem to go very well. Ideally there would be a 3rd party, a "wild card" of sorts, to keep everything in check, but unfortunately the big money game of politics has set it's self up nicely to avoid this situation. So on that note, a 50/50 split of Republicans and Democrats would be the next best thing. The Dems are too far left, The Republicans to far right. Elements of both parties "straddle the fence" but don't seem to be able to affect policy much. So we're left with polar opposites hashing things out, each trying to undo the other, and nothing much being accomplished.

[Alonzo]

So you are saying that you'd rather your party sell out their values just to gain power?

I'm not really agreeing or disagreeing with any poster here, just commenting on this.

While there is a point where gaining power would produce no benefit, quite often it's better to give up a few of your cherished beliefs, since doing so will allow you to change things to favor your belief system in other areas. Not doing so will result in none of you goals becoming reality.

[Mayberry]

While there is a point where gaining power would produce no benefit, quite often it's better to give up a few of your cherished beliefs, since doing so will allow you to change things to favor your belief system in other areas Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Not doing so will result in none of you goals becoming reality. Maybe, but I just find it kinda sad when people are willing to give up in what they believe in for power or money. Like my old sig said, "You've got to stand for something, or you'll fall for anything."

[ClayBarham]

Buck Laser: The GOP forcing the Civil Rights Act through did not endear them to the south or even those it was supposed to help. The South is still the more conservative Christian South, which is what helped them. As to the idea the Democrats are more for individual rights, that is an error. They have been very up front that they are concerned with community rights, not individual rights, which they criticize Republicans for supporting. It is community interests that every socialist, monarchy, dictatorship, et al, have traditionally supported in one way or another. Only in America have individual interests and rights been supported. Nowhere else in this world has the idea that we are created equal and endowed by our Creator with rights, and that government's job is simply to secure those God-given rights. Everywhere else in his world, and here to if the Democrats take control, government give rights, and can take them away if the need arises.

[Buck Laser]

Buck Laser: The GOP forcing the Civil Rights Act through did not endear them to the south or even those it was supposed to help. The South is still the more conservative Christian South, which is what helped them. As to the idea the Democrats are more for individual rights, that is an error. They have been very up front that they are concerned with community rights, not individual rights, which they criticize Republicans for supporting. It is community interests that every socialist, monarchy, dictatorship, et al, have traditionally supported in one way or another. Only in America have individual interests and rights been supported. Nowhere else in this world has the idea that we are created equal and endowed by our Creator with rights, and that government's job is simply to secure those God-given rights. Everywhere else in his world, and here to if the Democrats take control, government give rights, and can take them away if the need arises.

You write as if libertarianism had its roots in the Puritan settlement. It didn't and doesn't. You know as well as I do that the Puritans were responsible for the witch trials in Massachusetts.

I don't know where you were boy, but I was a part of the Civil Rights movement in the 50s and 60s, and I have a deep resentment of your scornful attitude toward it. It is and was very much about individual rights. It denied to the community the right to exclude people from institutions like the schools, hospitals, and enterprises open to the public.

I'm glad you find yourself at home here, because your intellectual dishonesty trumps absolutely anything I've seen here, including the two most contentious long-term posters here. You are a victim of an idee fixe, but you don't even know how to defend it without trotting out the most outrageous revisionist history I've ever seen. I really have no problem with your expressing your opinion, but I have a MAJOR problem with your utter falsification of American intellectual history. You come across as a defender of the phlogiston theory of combustion, a full two hundred years after oxygen was tagged as the element necessary to combustion.