So what makes a good Democrat?

[walldude]

Seems to be much dissent on this issue in the last couple weeks. We all know what makes a good Republican. Taking orders, marching in lock step, voting against your own interests and misspelling protest signs. Pretty simple.

But what makes a good Democrat?

If you look at the various threads on either side of the health care debate you would think that there is no "good Democrat". People are getting hammered for marching in lock step and not marching in lock step. People who have worked fiercely for liberal causes are being bashed because they don't support this bill. People who have worked fiercely for liberal causes are being bashed because they do support this bill. Here's some Advil.

Seems to me that there isn't much difference between us. The goal is the same. Problem is we all come at this from different perspectives, and we seem to conveniently forget that when start debating the issues. I see a lot of "I just don't understand how you can't see that I'm right" going on. Well, maybe you grew up well off while the person you are debating grew up poor. Or maybe you are a Christian and he/she is Jewish. Maybe they grew up in another country, or lived a sheltered life. Point is you are not going to get everyone to agree and that doesn't mean the other person is wrong they are just seeking the same goal in a different direction.

Make no mistake, we do seek the same goals, and thats what makes this debate healthy. I could be wrong in this debate. This bill might end up being a great success. But then again it's possible that it won't, that it will fuck over people who need help the most. Anything is possible. And that is what I think makes a good Democrat. Being able to take a side to stand for what you believe in but also realizing that there are many many perspectives and that your side of the issue isn't the only reasonable one.

Of course this is just my perspective... I could be wrong.

[BlooInBloo]

1. (shrug) Let's clear out the easy stuff first...

1) You can't be a teabagger.
2) You don't make blackface jokes.

Maybe it gets dicey after that, but possibly those two are easy for everybody to agree upon.

[cliffordu]

7. ....WTF????!!!! ARE YOU CRAZY!!!111!!

:rofl:

That list is a damned fine start....

[BlooInBloo]

8. Right? I'm such a stickler for my puritanical high standards!

[cliffordu]

10. Really. You fucking teach MATH or something???

[Texasgal]

2. On DU

it appears purity. :shrug:

[amborin]

3. Dissent & Factionalism are the Essence of Democracy

Hate to see them being threatened

[walldude]

5. LOL.. I wonder what the people who loved today's "Palin" Doonsbury

would think of this one :rofl: :rofl:

[Warpy]

4. Support elected officials when they're right

and let them have it when they're wrong.

[Xipe Totec]

6. The ability to listen and understand opposing points of view

Not necessarily to agree, but at least to listen.

[BeFree]

9. Minimum

If the republicans are against it, you are for it.

If the republicans are for it, you are against it.

Round Up the republicans and let democracy grow!

[walldude]

13. So if a Republican is for say, having a balanced budget

I should be against that?

[BeFree]

14. well

...its obvious that republicans are not for a balanced budget. Ronald proved deficits don't matter.

Nice try, but your problem is you still believe their hype and lies, eh?

[walldude]

15. No I'm just not stupid enough to write off an entire group of people

because I think my shit doesn't stink. I happen to know Republicans who are for gay rights, a balanced budget and Single Payer health care. But fuck them right? They are just Republicans and we should tell them to go fuck themselves even on issues they may agree with us on. Your third grade view of the world is hilarious.


And you don't know me, you don't know fucking shit about me yet you feel the need to tell me what my problems are? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: Sad.

[BeFree]

18. Oh?

You know people? They say they are pubbies?

Really, what you are saying is that they too believe the lies.

You are right, I don't know you. But I do know better than to repost republican lies on DU!!

[walldude]

21. Which Republican lie did I post?

You seem to be intent on labeling me a Republican. Maybe it's a reflection of how you feel about yourself. Or maybe you are just another hide in my mommy's basement shit-stirrer. I certainly didn't attack you, I never said anything rude, I just disagreed with something you said and you went off on a tirade basically calling me a fool and accusing me of supporting Republicans, because i have a few friends who happen to be Republican.

Maybe it was just the whole thread, maybe you need someone to hate on. Well be my guest, I promise something some anonymous poster said on some political blog is not going to affect the way I live my life. Good luck with all that hate, maybe you ought to get a hobby or something.

[BeFree]

24. Look

The republican party are liars about 99% of the time. Inferring that the republican party is for balanced budgets is a lie, so don't say that. The truth is that republicans are stupid people who believe republican lies. Otherwise they would be dems or at least indies.

That's the truth.

[mmonk]

11. I prefer to look at things as what makes a good person and public servant.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. I gave up on being a "good" Democrat after Chicago '68.

Now I'm a "lesser of two evils" Democrat who votes issues rather than party.

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all." --Thomas Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.

"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." --Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." --John Quincy Adams

[Odin2005]

16. Wanting the DLC cronies OUT OF OUR PARTY!

[HughMoran]

17. I have to assume you've been unrecced for using "good" and "Democrat" in the same sentence

I guess no reasonable person would suggest that there "isn't much difference between us". I guess it's not time yet for consensus. :(

[walldude]

19. I was kind of wondering...

I was trying to be nice, kind of offer an olive branch. I attacked no one, I took no sides, I just tried to reason out why we have all this animosity. I think it's time to just give up on politics all together. I have a hippie friend who barely knows who is President. He cares not for who is running things, to him they are all the same. He is the most happy, well adjusted person I have met in my life. I'm starting to think he may have the right idea.

[HughMoran]

22. Yeah, sometimes ignorance is bliss

You probably know that I disagree with you on the HCR bill, yet I know when to turn it off and rec a thread that is asking nothing more than we stop for just one second and contemplate. I don't know what else to say. Maybe it is time to grow my hair out and be called "hippie" like I was in the 60's. :smoke:

[Cleita]

20. Easy, one who doesn't think like a Republican for example a DLCer.

Unfortunately, most of our leadership today is DLC because the corporations have the money to get them into power. So those who apologize for "Democrats" who are really corporate shills aren't true Democrats IMHO. I find party registration has little to do with being a good Democrat. I think union membership is a better indicator of a true Democrat.

As far as the health care debate, single payer universal health care is really a middle of the road concept, not one of left wing loonies as it's been painted to be. Most of the health care is done in the private sector, by doctors, clinics and hospitals who compete with each other the old-fashioned free market way. It's how it's paid that is socialistic through taxes by the government. True socialist health care would be one that the government runs like the VA. The health care bills passed today are along the model of Mass. health care brought to us by a Republican, Mitt Romney, who insisted on the mandates and also advocated by Arnold Schwarzenegger, another Republican, for California.

The fact that there wasn't a compromise between the middle and the far right about the public options shows anyone who hasn't let scales grow over the eyes that we are a truly fascist state. There was no room this time for a debate from the moderate left let alone the far left. The only thing that is missing is the dictator, which George Bush came close to being. Thank God for term limits. If one more lock step Republican is allowed to steal another election you can be sure that will be the next step. The Corporate States of America will never allow another Democrat into office again. Term limits will be removed by a Republican majority congress and we will have a President for life when corporate interests find one that is a good puppet for their interests. Mark my words.

[bridgit]

23. A space helmet with a pipe cleaner antennae if you think even the goals are the same...

To the extent they are are convertible goal-for-goal, they are more easily done so than that in the abstract i.e. I don't like it when innocent people have inequities & encumberments foisted upon them; you don't like it when innocent people have inequities & encumberments foisted upon them, hey! - well what do you know: it's beer:30 though again, even where they might or do convert? The tactics for achieving any that do match are tirelessly diluted to the points of meritocracy and nothingness

First there is no debate about that, and any as such debate as to the likelihood is routinely squished and found wandering here at DU - when the CBC stands up chastising Obama for not doing enough for black rates of unemployment; beside a Liberal Progressive Democratic Israel - the only one in the ME, right? - and her bike lane painting Rabbis here finding us lacking for being little able to shed much more American blood and treasure to secure a buffer between her and her enemies...like women in bike shorts; beside Dem West VA coal miners living generational lives trying not to be crushed or forgotten; beside go-teed, red scarfed romanticist' forcing Che Chavez T-shirts down every other throat; beside Russian & Chinese software hacking and shutting down apps while Buffett and Soros invest in all of it; beside the pissed off spring water/orderves noshing Netroots of a cyber revenue stream besieged for being ultimately based on the silica found in sand, and much much more...

It's too late imo to wonder what makes a good Dem. We've had more than ample time to source that out by now

We don't get the government we deserve, we get the government we placed on 'Ignore'

http://www.pekingduck.org/2008/10/george-soros-china-rising-us-declining

http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=49494