What makes someone a Democrat?

[bloom]

Is there any way to have reasonable minimum standards?

It is possible to have a definition/expectations besides what people call themselves?

What would those expectations be?


Tinoire-

“PNAC is a small off-shoot, occupying the 5th floor, of the American Enterprise Institute which has been around since 1943. AEI has had 12 very busy floors with plenty of time to send their operatives to the Democratic Party, or leave them in to be more accurate since the PNACers & AEIers are ORIGINALLY DEMOCRATS. To this day Richard Perle, Fieth and Wolfowitz are still Democrats. The day the Republican party, which they hijacked also, no longer suits their needs, they'll follow other PNAC neo-cons like Marshall Wittman back to the DLC.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1687818&mesg_id=1688529

[3waygeek]

1. A functioning mind n/t

[classof56]

4. Good answer! n/t

[hobbit709]

12. That's what

I was going to say

[splat@14]

2. republicans

[joemurphy]

3. Advice from my grandfather.

When I was 4 years old, my grandfather put me on his knee. He was a Croatian immigrant that spoke broken English. He told me: "Joe, don't ever vote for a Republican. They won't do a damn thing for you."

I've never forgotten that. He was absolutely right.

[ProudDad]

5. Checking off the box that says

"Democrat" on the voter registration card is the only legal requirement.

I'm a little hazy as to what it "means" when one listens to "democrats" such as Lieberman, Feinstein, Landreau, etc. I was really confused when Kerry "campaigned" last year too.

[paulk]

33. now Kerry's not a Democrat?

is that what you're trying to say?

[Totally Committed]

37. I think what he's trying to say is

it was hard to make out that Kerry was a "Democrat" while he campaigned last year.

I have to agree. He was so afraid of committing to being anything at all, who could tell what the hell he was! He came off way too generic. Even with the ABB phenomenon going for him, he gave no indication of the clear line of demarcation between himself and his opponent. He was too polite, too docile, too beige. No one could tell what the hell he stood for, or we as the Party he was supposed to be representing, stood for. It was just a catastrophic campaign.

I think this is what the poster is trying to say, if I could be so bold as to paraphrase for him/her.

[ProudDad]

41. What he/she said

is what I meant...

Thanks Totally Committed... :bounce:

[longship]

6. The only standard

Did you register to vote as one.

[bloom]

7. I would think populism would be pretty basic.... and yet:

"DLC Chairman Evan Bayh, a senator from Indiana, said populist rhetoric "tends to alienate swing voters."

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/politics/3761763.htm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=11323&forum=DCForumID60#114

[joemurphy]

10. He'd know. He doesn't have a populist bone in his body. n/t

[Clark2008]

28. Actually, genetically, he does.

I don't know what happened to him, but his Dad was a fantastic populist.

Kind of sad when the apple rolls down the hill from the tree and into a corporate factory, isn't it?

[rman]

35. there's populism and then there's populism

appealing to the predudices of the people is populism (blacks are inferior, liberals don't want to work, terrorists hate us for our freedoms), but championing the people's interests is also populism (minimum wage, workers rights, universal health care).

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. Landing in the lower left box on the political compass grid?

(Although not always. Some fall into the lower or upper right and still register Dem.)

http://politicalcompass.org/

[tmorelli415]

9. Democrats are ...

an irrational circular firing squad made up of selfish fools whose refusal to compromise renders them powerless and paranoid as their country grieves.

[joemurphy]

13. When have the Republicans ever offered Democrats

an opportunity to compromise on anything?

[libodem]

11. Objectivity

I think Democrats could encompass everyone from the Green party voters to the DLC to moderate Republicans. I think a good many libertarians and Independents are quite fed up with the Neocon. I'm dismayed by the way conservatives think. I've been pondering a statement a fellow nurse made about one of our patients who was a vegetative tube feeder with methacillin-resistant pneumonia. We were all irritated with his wife for trying to keep him alive to suffer even though he was clearly dying. Somehow our conversation came back to Terry Schivo. The other nurse said the difference was because Terry Schivo was actively 'living' while our patient was actively 'dying'. She's a religious freeper. Told by her church what to think. Neither patient was alert, oriented, conscious of much more than reflexes. I just let it go and agreed with her because we were at work and didn't debate her logic. I thought what makes us so different in how we process information? We are both intelligent and qualified professionals. I think it may be the difference between abstract and concrete thinking. You know the questions...a rolling stone gathers no moss... you can't see the forest for the trees, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones...a concrete thinker will interpret those sayings literally. An abstract thinker will attach meaning and parallels.

[Ksec]

14. Im a Labor Democrat

And Ive always been one because they are the party of the working classes.

Simplistic but its why Im here.

[Al-CIAda]

17. I don't think thats simplistic at all. In fact, I think thats IS why many

were Dems in the recent past. Labor laws, min. wage, child labor, etc..

This is the party of Jefferson and FDR. How I wished this party would reclaim both these men and stand proud for the ideas they represent.

[Sgent]

36. By that logic

the Rethuglicans are the party of Lincoln and Civil Rights.

We have to define what we are, not what we were.

[Al-CIAda]

40. Ok then, you abandon Jefferson's ideals and FDR's New Deal policies.

...and we'll continue to get twisted, lost and screwed.

If you think the R's are still 'the party of Lincoln', well, thats an opinion I guess. I would differ. No, again, I say we need to get BACK to being the party of Jefferson and FDR.

[Applan]

15. A good judge of character

I mean, isn't it obvious to you that Bush, Cheney and Rove are really, really evil people. Don't you find yourself wondering why everybody doesn't see that?

[bvar22]

16. My Dad.

A Blue Collar Industrial Worker (skilled).
He said, "Son. As long as you have to work for a living, you better vote for the Democrat. If you ever get filthy rich, then you can consider voting for the Republican."

[liberaliraqvet26]

18. its not only abortion...

it is many different issues.

[ProudDad]

25. Abortion, Gun Control and Gay Marriage

should have NO place in whether one is democrat or republican.

They're bullshit issues that are designed to divide the working class.

They're designed to keep us from seeing where our common interests lay.

They're designed to keep us from seeing that the rich and powerful are robbing us of our resources, piece of mind, life and liberty.

[bloom]

19. Maybe I should have asked - can someone be a Democrat and support

the PNAC?

posted by JohnOneillsMemory:

http://nypress.com/17/48/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

"We've got to repudiate, you know, the most strident and insulting anti-American voices out there sometimes on our party's left... We can't have our party identified by Michael Moore and Hollywood as our cultural values."
— Al From, CEO, Democratic Leadership Council

"You know, let's let Hollywood and the Cannes Film Festival fawn all over Michael Moore. We ought to make it pretty clear that he sure doesn't speak for us when it comes to standing up for our country."
— Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute, the think-tank of the DLC

>snip<

In addition to his duties as the president of the PPI, Marshall kept himself busy in the last few years. Among other things, he served on the board of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, an organization co-chaired by Joe Lieberman and John McCain whose aim was to build bipartisan support for the invasion of Iraq.

Marshall also signed, at the outset of the war, a letter issued by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) expressing support for the invasion. Marshall signed a similar letter sent to President Bush put out by the conservative Social Democrats/USA group on Feb. 25, 2003, just before the invasion. The SD/USA letter urged Bush to commit to "maintaining substantial U.S. military forces in Iraq for as long as may be required to ensure a stable, representative regime is in place and functioning."

One of just a handful of Marshall's co-signatories on that letter was Bruce Jackson, who also happens to be the head of the PNAC (whose letter Marshall also signed) and the founder of the aforementioned Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Jackson is not only a neo-con of high rank and one of the chief pom-pom wavers for the war effort. He was also a vice president in the weapons division of Lockheed-Martin between 1993 and 2002—meaning that he was one of the implied targets of Bowling for Columbine, which came out in Jackson's last year with the company."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2784312

[ProudDad]

26. Niether of them

are "democrats". They're tools of the plutocrats.

[wyldwolf]

38. Depends on if the Democrat YOU support supports it in any way...

...like, for example, Dennis Kucinich supported the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 which was PNAC inspired.

[bloom]

20. "traditional interest groups"

"Simon Rosenberg, the former field director for the DLC who directs the New Democrat Network, a spin-off political action committee, says, "We're trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party. In that way," he adds, "they are ideologically freed, frankly, from taking positions that make it difficult for Democrats to win."

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=4706

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1346735&mesg_id=1346735

-----

What are the interest groups now?

It sounds like - if you read between the lines - Rosenberg was saying that the interests of the majority of people do not need to be considered - as long as people can be persuaded to go along with the corporate/pro-war viewpoint - however that is manipulated.

---

"they are urging progressives to leave the party"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1346735"

---

Where does that leave DU?

And where does that leave democrats who are NOT abandoning the traditional interest groups?

[Gregorian]

21. Love.

"Us", rather than "me".
Consideration for others.
Sensitivity.
Flexibility.
An open mind.
Social intelligence. (Not "intelligence", mind you)

Those are the first off the top of my head, in thirty seconds.

I honestly think that if you want the minimum standards, they are actually in the bible. Not fundy bullshit that is convoluted. Just the basics. And in fact, the only one that is really a minimum is in my subject line. Love. Love is a dirty word to a republican.

[election_2004]

22. I don't know....

I'm an Independent, so I can't speak for the people who consider themselves Democrats.

All I know is that if Democrats don't stand for the basic dignity of same-sex civil unions, then I'm glad I'm not one.

[AJH032]

23. support of a few basic principles

-right to privacy in personal decisions
-standing up for the environment
-promoting certain regulations on capitalism so that it does not destroy the middle/lower classes (this doesn't necessarily mean being socialist; if the Dem party ever becomes socialist, I'd be out)
-promoting civil rights

[bloom]

24. Do you think

someone can be a Democrat and support wars that are being fought mostly for the benefit of corporations? And not for any particularly "American" (ie. altruistic) values.

[ProudDad]

27. What's your definition of Socialism

Inquiring minds would like to know.

[AJH032]

29. government owns everything

no private business

[ProudDad]

30. There's no country on earth

that I know of now that is constructed that way.

Do you have any examples?



Here are some definitions I've found:

"Economic system which is based on cooperation rather than competition and which utilizes centralized planning and distribution."

"1. Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.
2. The stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved."

Notice is say MEANS OF PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION not ownership of goods and/or property beyond the means of production and distribution. Also, with Socialism, WE are the government and we all would have a say in the governance of such a system.

Just because a pure "socialist" country hasn't apparently been created yet, doesn't mean that it's not possible or desireable. I can't think of one successful capitalist country either.

[AJH032]

32. I'm not looking to argue

all I said with regards to socialism was that I'd be out if the Dem party became socialist. I wasn't speaking for others. I wasn't really talking about the merits of socialism vs. capitalism either.

Anyway, by that first definition you provided, private industry doesn't exist, which is exactly what I said.

[ProudDad]

42. I don't want to argue

But I would like it to be clear that the way Socialism is perceived by the public is warped at best and an outright set of lies at worst.

Thanks to the capitalist propaganda that drapes like a fog, a miasma on the minds of most people, the big lie is king.

When you hear "Socialism" think co-operation, a feeling that we're all in this together, empathy for the plight of the less fortunate and a feeling of general responsibility to help the least among us. That's what it's really about.

For the religious among you, when you hear "Socialism" think of Jesus', Mohammad's and the Buddha's teachings. It's a hell of a lot closer to the great teacher's ideals than capitalism.

---Edited to add a link to an interesting discussion of this subject in case you're interested.

http://www.zmag.org/parecon/indexnew.htm

[Chicago Democrat]

31. Voting with the party

on stuff

[NuttyFluffers]

34. sanity and ethics

anyone can have intelligence, but he who is sane uses it with reason and common sense (unlike inhuman directionlessness intelligence).

anyone can have morality, but he who is ethical uses moral guidance with compassion and following the "spirit" of the law (unlike self-righteous moral hypocrisy).

basically someone who stepped up to the plate to become a better, more mature person.

[liberalitch]

39. we believe that government should be like the Preamble

the social contract we believe in requires that, in exchange for power over our own natural rights that we relinquish to the government, the government must:
"...establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare...."

[ginnyinWI]

43. After the election, Ted Kennedy defined the Party

He said Democrats stand for:
opportunity,
fairness,
tolerance,
and respect for each other.

These values guide all of our policies.