The Democratic Party 101: A Teacher Gives Republicans A Lesson In Facts
<skip>
Dear Friend,
You said that conservatives believe that rights are endowed by our Creator while liberals believe that rights are provided by the government. I take issue with that notion; liberals believe that the government has a responsibility to protect and defend our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not define them or interpret their limitations for us. As a Democrat, I take that to believe that each individual is entitled to live a free and happy life in any way they choose as long as they do not hurt another person or interfere with another person’s liberties. The government doesn’t give us our rights; it makes a promise to protect them. It is my belief that no person has the liberty to tell someone what is right for them. We don’t always stop to recognize that our circumstances are often much different from someone else’s, and that what might be right of us isn’t necessarily right for them. That is one of the primary reasons that I am so socially liberal; I can choose what is right for my own life as long as I don’t harm anyone else, but I have no right to tell someone else how to live their own life. In contrast, banning something like abortion or gay marriage imposes a single view on everyone with no room for personal choice. That is not freedom. That is not upholding the creed that “all men are created equal,” and that is where my biggest qualms with the Republican Party lie.
Our Constitution says, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…” Telling someone that they do not have the right to make decisions about their own body or marry the person they love is not upholding our liberties. Denying help to the most vulnerable among us is not promoting “the general Welfare,” and stigmatizing them as lazy and parasitic is, in my view, obscenely iniquitous and injudicious. There will always be people who take advantage of the system, but the vast majority of people receiving government aid are hard-working, and often disadvantaged individuals: veterans, children, the disabled, single mothers, widows and widowers, the elderly, the mentally challenged… The notion that everyone can climb to the top if they just work hard is a myth. It sounds beautiful in theory, but the fact of the matter is that children who grow up in poverty have everything stacked against them. Yes, the occasional exception is out there, and my respect goes out to those incredible individuals, but this is not the reality for 99% of others who share their circumstances. People get caught up in a cycle of poverty that becomes near impossible to escape. If you grew up in a family that had nothing and you had to drop out of school to help pay the bills, when do you have time to get an education and make something of yourself? And the sad truth is that most of the people who live in these circumstances do not actually receive any federal or state aid. The ones that do receive food stamps and health care for their children, and my God, it’s the least that we can do for them. My cousin would not have health care or groceries without the state aid that her mother receives. Should we tell her mother that she just needs to go out and work harder to provide for her daughter, as if she isn’t already working as hard as she can? She was raised by parents who were drug addicts. There were times when she didn’t even have a place to live. She never had a chance to develop the life she deserved. Do her life circumstances not justify the paltry aid that she receives? Should we punish the innocent for being born into life circumstances they did not ask for or deserve? Should we not give them a chance to escape that cycle? What would our nation look like if we just left these people to fend for themselves? We would be ransacked by poverty, and it would seep into every corner of our nation.
I too believe that each individual is entitled to the fruits of their labor, but I don’t see this as a black and white issue. We are members of a dynamic economy that requires efforts and contributions from all angles in order to function properly. Businesses need labor to run efficiently and reap profits, and workers need businesses to offer them employment. Neither side can function or succeed without the other. At the same time, in order for any of this to be possible, we need a government that protects the common good and enforces protections to ensure that the market runs efficiently. Laissez faire sounds great in theory, but an entirely unregulated free market is an unpredictable and unstable system, and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is a guarantee. As Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” Many of the services provided by the government, like education and infrastructure, strengthen our nation and give us the opportunity to become active and productive participants in our society and economy. Research shows that no personal or government investment yields greater returns than education; yet, the education budget has been dramatically slashed at the federal and state levels over the past decade.
As a Democrat, I believe that our society and economy are dynamic entities, and no single person, industry, business, or government can succeed independently of their counterparts. As a result, we all have a responsibility to do our part to contribute to the “general welfare” of our nation. Citizens pay income and sales taxes, business provide jobs and markets, and the government provides services that protect and care for its people. The fruits of our labor include our personal income along with the services and infrastructure that our taxes buy for us. I don’t know about you, but I would rather not privatize and pay out of pocket for the use of freeways, first responders, education, and other publicly funded programs. That is why we pay taxes: so that these services and protections are available and accessible for all of us. I believe whole-heartedly in personal responsibility and individual rights, but we must not forget that it takes a group effort for an economy and society to exist in the first place—an economy and society that gives us the opportunity to cultivate our individual passions and achieve the life that we want for ourselves. I have worked tirelessly to accomplish the things that I have, but I could not have accomplished those things without the platform that was provided to me by my government and economy. No, our government is not perfect, but it has made this nation a better place to live than most places on earth. I believe that Senator Elizabeth Warren put it best: “There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there – good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea – God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
more . . . http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/03/30/the-democratic-party-101-a-teacher-gives-republicans-a-lesson-in-facts/
= new reply since forum marked as read
