DEMOCRATS – REPUBLICANS –FDR – BERNIE SANDERS
JUNE 19, 2016

Compiled by Lucy Warner

If you have problems with the definitions of various generations of Americans as I do, then these clips may help. I am clearly a Leading Edge Boomer. I was born in the month when the US conquered Japan by the means of the horrific new weapon, the Atomic Bomb, then came the Cold War and the Vietnam War, and finally the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements. In the words of the often quoted and perhaps mythical old Chinese curse, which goes “May you live in interesting times.”

My life has been terribly interesting, and our country still hasn’t moved to a truly benign society with a reliable safety net, an enlightened and educated populace, full rights for all minorities including LGBT and women, good healthcare, housing for all, enough good healthful food for all, a sustainable environment and protection of resources, a much better balance between the wealth, power, privilege, and generally superior resources of the rich versus the poor, reasonable business regulations and full social justice. We should have no unpunished violent policemen, greedy and wicked people who still march behind the White Supremacist movement, the bizarre “Militia” groups who as far as I can see are nothing but pure Anarchists under a new name, or perhaps a more descriptive term would be “outlaws!”

We need Progressive leaders – many more than our present day handful -- who will work to even out the wealth situation and protect those who are less strong and educated from those who are still living in great privilege. Free university tuition at state universities would help tremendously. We need to take wealth out of the political process as the operative drive to power. At this point the Oligarchy are much too involved in how candidates are chosen and elected, and what laws will be enacted in the legislature. The recent coopting of power by the DNC is a prime example. It’s not only the blatant power grab, but the thinking pattern that offends me so deeply.

The articles below which speak of Bernie Sanders define him as a Social Democrat and not a “Socialist” as he has described himself. His goals are greater justice and more money in the hands of the poor, working class, and middle class. He does not want to keep people from ever becoming wealthy, but just to share that wealth with the poor and middle class by a better tax structure, and he certainly hasn’t mentioned establishing federal control of “the means of production,” but merely intelligent and decent restrictions on a system that allows the CEO of a company to make a shockingly greater income than their employees.

That is not radical, and if he lives, I hope to see him succeed in moving us back toward the slightly left of center position that we were in from the times of FDR to Richard Nixon and then to Ronald Reagan. During Reagan’s time the strength of the Republicans began to frighten the Democrats, who then produced the New Democrats – a weakened and compromised economic and social stance. We caved in.

Read the article below on those generational groups, and then on some differing party policy stances. I have tried to find out just how far to the right our Clinton Democrats are willing to take us away from a democratic government, in order to keep getting those Megabucks from all the Big Business sources.

Read the New Deal article below to see where we have come from since the Great Depression and the Gilded Age. The article doesn’t mention it, but white on black violence was shockingly high during that time, as we are seeing again today.

This clip on the New Deal era is very pertinent to our situation then and now, and it’s mainly due to Republican control.

“Did You Know?

Unemployment levels in some cities reached staggering levels during the Great Depression. By 1933, Toledo, Ohio's had reached 80 percent, and nearly 90 percent of Lowell, Massachusetts was unemployed.”



[NOTE: SILENT GENERATION, BABY BOOMERS, ETC.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Generation

The Silent Generation is the demographic group of people born from the mid 1920s to the early 1940s.[1][2] The name was originally applied to people in the United States and Canada but has been applied as well to those in Western Europe, Australia and South America. It includes most of those who fought during the Korean War. In the United States, the generation was comparatively small because the financial insecurity of the 1930s and the war in the early 1940s caused people to have fewer children.[1]

The generation includes many political and civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Bernie Sanders, Robert F. Kennedy, Che Guevara, Ron Paul, Gloria Steinem writers and artists like Andy Warhol, Gene Wilder, Clint Eastwood, Little Richard, Ray Charles, William Shatner, Jimi Hendrix, Stephen Sondheim, James Brown, Miles Davis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Quincy Jones, Sean Connery, Elvis Presley, Richard Pryor, George Carlin and the Beat Generation, and intellectuals like Noam Chomsky. Time magazine coined the name in a November 5, 1951 article entitled "The Younger Generation," and the term has remained ever since.[1][3]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomers

“Baby boomers are people born during the demographic post–World War II baby boom approximately between the years 1946 and 1964. This includes people who are between 52 and 70 years old in 2016. According to the U.S. Census Bureau,[2] the term "baby boomer" is also used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise date definition, even within a given territory. Different groups, organizations, individuals, and scholars may have widely varying opinions on who is a baby boomer, both technically and culturally. Ascribing universal attributes to a broad generation is difficult, and some observers believe that it is inherently impossible. Nonetheless, many people have attempted to determine the broad cultural similarities and historical impact of the generation, and thus the term has gained widespread popular usage.

Baby boomers are associated with a rejection or redefinition of traditional values; however, many commentators have disputed the extent of that rejection, noting the widespread continuity of values with older and younger generations. In Europe and North America boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many grew up in a time of widespread government subsidies in post-war housing and education, and increasing affluence.[3]

As a group, they were the wealthiest, most active, and most physically fit generation up to that time, and amongst the first to grow up genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.[4] They were also the generation that received peak levels of income; therefore, they could reap the benefits of abundant levels of food, apparel, retirement programs, and sometimes even "midlife crisis" products. The increased consumerism for this generation has been regularly criticized as excessive.[5]

One feature of the boomers was that they tended to think of themselves as a special generation, very different from those that had come before. In the 1960s, as the relatively large numbers of young people became teenagers and young adults, they, and those around them, created a very specific rhetoric around their cohort, and the change they were bringing about.[6] This rhetoric had an important impact in the self perceptions of the boomers, as well as their tendency to define the world in terms of generations, which was a relatively new phenomenon. The baby boom has been described variously as a "shockwave"[3] and as "the pig in the python."[4]

The term "Generation Jones" has sometimes been used to distinguish those born from 1956 to 1964 from the earlier baby boomers.[7][8]

. . . . Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe, well known for their generational theory, define the social generation of Boomers as that cohort born from 1943 through the end of 1960, who were too young to have any personal memory of World War II, but old enough to remember the postwar American High.[12]

In the U.S., the generation can be segmented into two broadly defined cohorts: The Leading-Edge Baby Boomers are individuals born between 1946 and 1955, those who came of age during the Vietnam War era. This group represents slightly more than half of the generation, or roughly 38,002,000 people of all races. The other half of the generation was born between 1956 and 1964. Called Late Boomers, or Trailing-Edge Boomers, this second cohort includes about 37,818,000 individuals, according to Live Births by Age and Mother and Race, 1933–98, published by the Center for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics.[13]

An ongoing battle for "generational ownership" has motivated a handful of marketing mavens and cultural commentators to coin and/or promote their own terms for sub‑segments of the baby-boomer generation. These monikers include, but are not limited to, "golden boomers", "generation Jones", "alpha boomers", "yuppies", "zoomers", and "cuspers". Advocates of these "cultural segments" are often zealous and overstated in their attempts to redefine generational boundaries, often claiming wide adoption and sometimes advancing self-promotional agendas.[citation needed]”



MILLENIELS -- http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/25/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers/, APRIL 25, 2016, BY RICHARD FRY
“Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation”

. . . .
Millennials, whom we define as those ages 18-34 in 2015, now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69). And Generation X (ages 35-50 in 2015) is projected to pass the Boomers in population by 2028.

The Millennial generation continues to grow as young immigrants expand its ranks. . . . . Generations are analytical constructs, and developing a popular and expert consensus on what marks the boundaries between one generation and the next takes time. Pew Research Center has established that the oldest “Millennial” was born in 1981. . . . . to establish when the youngest Millennial was born or even when a new generation begins. To distill the implications of the census numbers for generational heft, this analysis assumes that the youngest Millennial was born in 1997.

Generation X –
Born between 1965 and 1981 … caught between two larger generations of the Millennials and the Boomers. They are smaller than Millennials because the generational span of Gen X (16 years) is shorter than the Millennials (17 years). Also, the Gen Xers were born during a period when Americans were having fewer children than later decades. When Gen Xers were born, births averaged around 3.4 million per year, compared with the 3.9 million annual rate during the 1980s and 1990s when Millennials were born.



DEMOCRATIC PARTY PHILOSOPHICAL SHIFT TOWARD THAT OF THE RIGHT

I’ve been blaming the Clintons for moving closer to the Republican policies due to Big Money political control. Below are some articles and excerpts on the subject.

From the New Democrats article comes a pretty thorough definition of their beliefs and the complaints of those who oppose them.

“As presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both reflected the priorities of the second New Democrat coalition, uniting donors from Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley with a “new majority” coalition of racial minorities, immigrants, liberal women, and young voters. Because Democratic voters are disproportionately poor, this has produced a Democratic Party that, in economic terms, is an hourglass coalition of the top and the bottom. Economic populism frightens the party’s billionaire donors, while social populism, which has often been associated with white working-class xenophobia, racism and religiosity, frightens blacks, Latinos, immigrants and white social liberals. The result is what Mike Konczal and others have called “pity-charity” liberalism — a kind of liberalism that appeals to the sympathy of the rich for the poor, rather than appealing, as the New Deal did, to solidarity among the middling majority.[9]”



HOW TO CLASSIFY FDR AND THE NEW DEAL

http://www.history.com/topics/new-deal


The Great Depression in the United States began on October 29, 1929, a day known forever after as “Black Tuesday,” when the American stock market–which had been roaring steadily upward for almost a decade–crashed, plunging the country into its most severe economic downturn yet. Speculators lost their shirts; banks failed; the nation’s money supply diminished; and companies went bankrupt and began to fire their workers in droves. Meanwhile, President Herbert Hoover urged patience and self-reliance: He thought the crisis was just “a passing incident in our national lives” that it wasn’t the federal government’s job to try and resolve. By 1932, one of the bleakest years of the Great Depression, at least one-quarter of the American workforce was unemployed. When President Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933, he acted swiftly to try and stabilize the economy and provide jobs and relief to those who were suffering. Over the next eight years, the government instituted a series of experimental projects and programs, known collectively as the New Deal, that aimed to restore some measure of dignity and prosperity to many Americans. More than that, Roosevelt’s New Deal permanently changed the federal government’s relationship to the U.S. populace.

GREAT DEPRESSION LEADS TO A NEW DEAL FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

On March 4, 1933, at the height of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address before 100,000 people on Washington’s Capitol Plaza. “First of all,” he said, “let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He promised that he would act swiftly to face the “dark realities of the moment” and assured Americans that he would “wage a war against the emergency” just as though “we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.” His speech gave many people confidence that they’d elected a man who was not afraid to take bold steps to solve the nation’s problems.

Did You Know?

Unemployment levels in some cities reached staggering levels during the Great Depression. By 1933, Toledo, Ohio's had reached 80 percent, and nearly 90 percent of Lowell, Massachusetts was unemployed.

The next day, the new president declared a four-day bank holiday to stop people from withdrawing their money from shaky banks. On March 9, Congress passed Roosevelt’s Emergency Banking Act, which reorganized the banks and closed the ones that were insolvent. In his first “fireside chat” three days later, the president urged Americans to put their savings back in the banks, and by the end of the month almost three quarters of them had reopened.

THE FIRST HUNDRED DAYS

Roosevelt’s quest to end the Great Depression was just beginning. Next,he asked Congress to take the first step toward ending Prohibition—one of the more divisive issues of the 1920s—by making it legal once again for Americans to buy beer. (At the end of the year, Congress ratified the 21st Amendment and ended Prohibition for good.) In May, he signed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act into law, enabling the federal government to build dams along the Tennessee River that controlled flooding and generated inexpensive hydroelectric power for the people in the region. That same month, Congress passed a bill that paid commodity farmers (farmers who produced things like wheat, dairy products, tobacco and corn) to leave their fields fallow in order to end agricultural surpluses and boost prices. June’s National Industrial Recovery Act guaranteed that workers would have the right to unionize and bargain collectively for higher wages and better working conditions; it also suspended some antitrust laws and established a federally funded Public Works Administration.

In addition to the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority Act, and the National Industrial Recovery Act, Roosevelt had won passage of 12 other major laws, including the Glass-Steagall Banking Bill and the Home Owners’ Loan Act, in his first 100 days in office. Almost every American found something to be pleased about and something to complain about in this motley collection of bills, but it was clear to all that FDR was taking the “direct, vigorous” action that he’d promised in his inaugural address.

THE SECOND NEW DEAL

Despite the best efforts of President Roosevelt and his cabinet, however, the Great Depression continued–the nation’s economy continued to wheeze; unemployment persisted; and people grew angrier and more desperate. So, in the spring of 1935, Roosevelt launched a second, more aggressive series of federal programs, sometimes called the Second New Deal. In April, he created the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to provide jobs for unemployed people. WPA projects weren’t allowed to compete with private industry, so they focused on building things like post offices, bridges, schools, highways and parks. The WPA also gave work to artists, writers, theater directors and musicians. In July 1935, the National Labor Relations Act, also known as the Wagner Act, created the National Labor Relations Board to supervise union elections and prevent businesses from treating their workers unfairly. In August, FDR signed the Social Security Act of 1935, which guaranteed pensions to millions of Americans, set up a system of unemployment insurance and stipulated that the federal government would help care for dependent children and the disabled.

In 1936, while campaigning for a second term, FDR told a roaring crowd at Madison Square Garden that “The forces of ‘organized money’ are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.” He went on: “I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match, [and] I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces have met their master.” This FDR had come a long way from his earlier repudiation of class-based politics and was promising a much more aggressive fight against the people who were profiting from the Depression-era troubles of ordinary Americans. He won the election by a landslide.

Still, the Great Depression dragged on. Workers grew more militant: In December 1936, for example, the United Auto Workers started a sit-down strike at a GM plant in Flint, Michigan that lasted for 44 days and spread to some 150,000 autoworkers in 35 cities. By 1937, to the dismay of most corporate leaders, some 8 million workers had joined unions and were loudly demanding their rights.

THE END OF THE NEW DEAL?

Meanwhile, the New Deal itself confronted one political setback after another. Arguing that they represented an unconstitutional extension of federal authority, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court had already invalidated reform initiatives like the NRA and the AAA. In order to protect his programs from further meddling, in 1937 President Roosevelt announced a plan to add enough liberal justices to the Court to neutralize the “obstructionist” conservatives. This “Court-packing” turned out to be unnecessary–soon after they caught wind of the plan, the conservative justices started voting to uphold New Deal projects–but the episode did a good deal of public-relations damage to the administration and gave ammunition to many of the president’s Congressional opponents. That same year, the economy slipped back into a recession when the government reduced its stimulus spending. Despite this seeming vindication of New Deal policies, increasing anti-Roosevelt sentiment made it difficult for him to enact any new programs.

On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. The war effort stimulated American industry and, as a result, effectively ended the Great Depression.

THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND AMERICAN POLITICS

From 1933 until 1941, President Roosevelt’s programs and policies did more than just adjust interest rates, tinker with farm subsidies and create short-term make-work programs. They created a brand-new, if tenuous, political coalition that included white working people, African Americans and left-wing intellectuals. These people rarely shared the same interests–at least, they rarely thought they did–but they did share a powerful belief that an interventionist government was good for their families, the economy and the nation. Their coalition has splintered over time, but many of the New Deal programs that bound them together–Social Security, unemployment insurance and federal agricultural subsidies, for instance–are still with us today.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democrats

New Democrats
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New Democrats, also called Centrist Democrats, Clinton Democrats or Moderate Democrats, is an ideologically centrist faction within the Democratic Party that emerged after the victory of Republican George H. W. Bush in the 1988 presidential election. They are an economically conservative and "Third Way" faction which dominated the party for around 20 years starting in the late 1980s after the US populace turned much further to the political right. They are represented by organizations such as the New Democrat Network and the New Democrat Coalition.

History[edit]

Origins[edit]

After the landslide electoral losses to Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, a group of prominent Democrats began to believe their party was out of touch and in need of a radical shift in economic policy and ideas of governance.[1][2] The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was founded in 1985 by Al From and a group of like-minded politicians and strategists.[3] They advocated a political "Third Way" as an antidote to the electoral successes of Reaganism.[1][2]

The landslide 1984 Presidential election defeat spurred centrist democrats to action, and the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was formed. The DLC, an unofficial party organization played a critical role in moving the Democratic Party’s policies to the center of the political spectrum. Prominent Democratic politicians such as former Vice President Al Gore, Vice President Joseph Biden participated in DLC affairs prior to their candidacy for the 1988 Democratic nomination.[4]

The DLC espoused policies that moved the Democratic Party to the center. However, the DLC did not want the Democratic Party to be “simply posturing in the middle.” Thus, the DLC declared their ideas to be “progressive”, and a third way to address the problems of the 1990s. Examples of the DLC’s policy initiatives can be found in The New American Choice Resolutions[4][5]

Although the label "New Democrat" was briefly used by a progressive reformist group including Gary Hart and Eugene McCarthy in 1989,[6] the term became more widely associated with the policies of the Democratic Leadership Council, who in 1990 renamed their bi-monthly magazine from The Mainstream Democrat to The New Democrat.[7] When then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton stepped down as DLC chairman to run for president in the 1992 presidential election, he presented himself as a "New Democrat".[8]

First-wave New Democrats[edit]

The first-wave of New Democrats, from the 1980s to 1990s, were very similar to Southern and Western Blue Dog Democrats. Al From, the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and its leader until 2009, had been a staffer for Willis Long, a Democratic representative from Louisiana. Among the presidents of the DLC were Al Gore, senator from Tennessee, and Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas. The first-wave New Democrats sought the votes of white working-class Reagan Democrats.[9]

In the 1990s, the New Democrat movement shifted away from the South and West and moved to the Northeast. In the 1992 United States presidential election, Bill Clinton was elected president.[9]
. . . .

Presidency of Bill Clinton[edit]

In the 1994 United States midterm elections, not only gave Republicans control of the House and Senate, but wiped out Democrats in the South and West.[9]

Second-wave New Democrats[edit]

Presidency of Bill Clinton (continued)[edit]

The second-wave of New Democrats, from 1990s to present, came into existence after the 1994 election. After 1994, the Democrats were much more dominated by urban areas, minorities and white social liberals. The New Democrats shifted from the South to Wall Street.[9]

Presidency of George W. Bush[edit]

During the presidency of George W. Bush, the evolving New Democrat or “economically liberal” movement was dominated by socially liberal economic conservatives in Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley. These centrist Democrats abandoned white working-class Southerners and Westerners and focused instead on winning over former moderate Republicans in the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast who combined liberal attitudes on abortion, LGBT rights, and environmentalism, with opposition to “big government” and concern about federal deficits. In 2008, many Wall Street Democratic donors abandoned Hillary Clinton and supported Barack Obama for president.[9]

Presidency of Barack Obama[edit]

On March 10, 2009, Barack Obama, in a meeting with the New Democrat Coalition, told them that he was a "New Democrat", "pro-growth Democrat", "supports free and fair trade", and "very concerned about a return to protectionism."[10]

As presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama both reflected the priorities of the second New Democrat coalition, uniting donors from Wall Street, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley with a “new majority” coalition of racial minorities, immigrants, liberal women, and young voters. Because Democratic voters are disproportionately poor, this has produced a Democratic Party that, in economic terms, is an hourglass coalition of the top and the bottom. Economic populism frightens the party’s billionaire donors, while social populism, which has often been associated with white working-class xenophobia, racism and religiosity, frightens blacks, Latinos, immigrants and white social liberals. The result is what Mike Konczal and others have called “pity-charity” liberalism — a kind of liberalism that appeals to the sympathy of the rich for the poor, rather than appealing, as the New Deal did, to solidarity among the middling majority.[9]

Claims that Robert F. Kennedy was a New Democrat[edit]
As a harbinger of modern liberalism and progressivism, Robert F. Kennedy has been described as the first "New Democrat".[11][12][13] As former President Bill Clinton described in his book My Life:

In the 1968 Indiana primary, Bobby Kennedy became the first New Democrat. He believed in civil rights for all and special privileges for none, in giving poor people a hand up rather than a handout: work was better than welfare. He understood in a visceral way that progressive politics requires the advocacy of both new policies and fundamental values, both far-reaching change and social stability. If he had become President, America's journey through the rest of the twentieth century would have been very different.[14]

Bill Clinton as a New Democrat[edit]

Bill Clinton was the single Democratic politician of the 1990s most identified with the New Democrats; his promise of welfare reform in the 1992 presidential campaign, and its subsequent enactment, epitomized the New Democrat position, as did his 1992 promise of a middle class tax cut and his 1993 expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor.[2] New Democrat and Third Way successes under Clinton, and the writings of Anthony Giddens, are often regarded to have inspired Tony Blair in the United Kingdom and his policies.[15]

Bill Clinton presented himself as a centrist candidate to draw white, middle-class voters who had left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party. In 1990, Bill Clinton became the DLC chair. Under his leadership, the DLC founded two-dozen DLC chapters and created a base of support. In 1989, there were 219 DLC members. By the spring of 1992, there were 700.[4]

During the 1992 and 1996 Presidential elections, Clinton ran as a “New Democrat.” However, based on voters’ perception of Clinton’s positions on an ideological scale, he was perceived to be just as liberal as 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis was in 1988. Thus, the Democratic Party’s success based on the New Democratic moniker is inconclusive. [16]

New Democrats were more open to deregulation than the previous Democratic leadership had been. This was especially evident in the large scale deregulation of agriculture and the telecommunications industries. The New Democrats and allies on the DLC were responsible for the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

An important part of New Democrat ideas is focused on improving the economy. During the administration of Bill Clinton, New Democrats were responsible for passing the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993. It raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers,[17] while cutting taxes on 15 million low-income families and making tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses.[18] Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over a number of years, through the implementation of spending restraints. This helped oversee the longest peace-time economic expansion in the United States' history.[19] Overall, the top marginal tax rate was raised from 31% to 40% under the Clinton administration.

Ideology[edit]

According to Dylan Loewe, New Democrats identify themselves as fiscally conservative, but socially liberal.[25]

Michael Lind argues that neoliberalism for New Democrats was the highest stage of left liberalism. The counterculture youth of the 1960s matured in the 1970s and 1980s to become more economically conservative, but retain their social liberalism. Many leading New Democrats, such as Bill Clinton, started out in the George McGovern wing of the Democratic Party and gradually moved toward the right on economic and military policy, but did not reach out to a disposed white working class.[26]

Organizations[edit]

Active[edit]

Blue Dog Coalition
New Democrat Network
New Democrat Coalition
Third Way

Defunct[edit]

Coalition for a Democratic Majority
Democratic Leadership Council
Moderate Dems Working Group
Senate Centrist Coalition
Criticism[edit]

Many on the left criticize New Democrats. Leftists argue that New Democrats' supposedly ideological "centrism" and "Third Way" positions were nothing more than economically liberal and right-wing ideologies being re-branded as "moderate".[26][27]



Charity vs Solidarity Liberals --

This Salon article below is very explanatory of some terms which were unfamiliar to me, particularly solidarity vs charity; and makes it even more clear to me that I am on the Solidarity side. In other words, rather than specifying a subset of the poor to aid financially in extraordinary ways, even if they do have special difficulties such as race discrimination, we must not ignore the poor whites as well. Our Bill of Rights should perhaps be expanded to handle discriminatory practices against those who are not of the mainstream; and what if we did insert language about social disabilities due to poverty as well as race? Most of these Trumpites are actually poor whites, and are in need of financial and social aid as much as are Blacks and Hispanics. They equally need free college tuition at state colleges, because they are usually undereducated. Unfortunately, they also can be more than a little bit vicious.

In the matter of college acceptance, for years and even today it is a fact that many colleges do not accept a proportional number of minorities of all kinds, including Asian, Jewish and the simply economic class based individuals. The poor, in high status colleges, are often not admitted simply because they are “undesirable” to the privileged parents and students. That does need to change, but it should be changed based on economic class and not race. Personal virtues, or the lack thereof, should not be inferred on the basis of either wealth or race/religion, etc. etc. etc. We should be beyond the point in our society of considering the poor and non-whites to be inferior, and thus excluded “for good cause!”

In short, there should be no racial basis at all in the matter of financial aid or college admissions quotas, as there is at this time. That has been a sore point among poor whites for as long as I can remember. Any of us who have come from less than wealthy or solidly middle class homes will probably enjoy the discussion below of the role of elites in society. Colleges, in their admissions policy, tend to favor the children of the elites over the poorly socialized, poorly dressed, inferior parts of society. Poor whites are angry over racially based affirmative action largely because they would like to get some financial aid also, but feel that Black people and Hispanics get most of it; in other words, whites are actively excluded from aid. From that belief came the stories about “welfare queens” driving up in their Cadillacs to get a “welfare check.”

If that is in fact true – if race in any way whatsoever determines how much aid a citizen can get-- then our social services system is indeed set up very badly, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have one. We just need to fix it. Poor Black people are no needier than are poor whites. Many, but by no means all, poor whites, out of their societal anger find it comforting to abuse minorities in many ways in order to elevate their own status thereby. It’s like wearing “elevator shoes.” You’re still only 5’ tall. At some point we have to accept our situation and try to improve it as we can – legally that is – and keep trying to get into the college. Difficult problems can usually be improved by persistence and patience.

I have noticed that lots of immigrants from other countries take inferior jobs at first and then start small businesses. It’s not easy to start a business, but with a creative and practical plan many people do it. That way, a lack of college degree or social status doesn’t get in the way. Many black people and whites as well work up a clientele for everything from cutting hair to mowing lawns. That’s honorable work and should not assign them to a class of inferior people. If they can’t make a full living, they should qualify for social service aid also.

The discussion below of the societal views of Charity Liberals vs Solidarity Liberals is very revealing about the Majority and the Elites. I would like to have a much stronger Middle Class who are college-educated and prominent in society, rather than powerful elites based on wealth. The comments below on the “discretionary powers” of the “Good Elites” is disturbing, as is their use of the term “Irrational Majority.” That is discussed under Charity Liberals. They came into power in the early 1900s and included Woodrow Wilson. The Solidarity Liberals were based in rural and labor endeavors, distrust all Elites and consider some among the Majority to be Good and some Bad. It’s very interesting stuff, and applies directly to the present and growing split between the two branches of the Democratic Party. Too many Republicans, of course, are actually only in favor of the Elites. They don’t care much at all about what happens to anyone else as long as they have their yacht to sail around the world.

Best Excerpt: “From all of this follows a distinctive solidarity-liberal approach to government. Because there are no permanently enlightened, permanently trustworthy elites, solidarity liberals want to minimize the discretionary power of elites — including the discretionary power of enlightened elites to do good. Discretionary policy should be replaced, as much as possible, by fixed black-letter law enacted by democratically accountable legislators.”

That last sentence says it all for me, partly because as a believer in the individual as the center of our society, we should have more of a bottom up system, as opposed to either an Elite or a Majority who essentially rule no matter how benignly. I believe in the ability of an individual to move upward in society – or at least retain a stable position -- by his own efforts and without the weight of the class system holding him down. Republicans believe in individual efforts too, of course, but they are highly elitist generally, and under our present system there is simply too little opportunity for too few to make it financially, and as technology continues to take over the work of PEOPLE it is getting worse.

On the subject of “elites”, I don’t trust Elitist power of any kind when it becomes so firmly entrenched that it cannot be removed from the position of control and when it has much “discretionary power” at all. I am thinking of the fact that Congressional and Senate seats don’t have the kind of built-in termination points that the Presidency does. That is a problem. There are aged, ultra-conservative, and almost exclusively male lawmakers up in Washington who have been there for decades. Rather than letting them stay in their seat of power until they are no longer voted in, they should have to go get another job after about two terms. I want to see new blood in our power structures, with new ideas -- like some good Progressives.

So I am in favor of actual redistribution of wealth and guarantee of a university education for those who can do college work, and paraprofessional training for those who cannot. We already have several technical schools in Jacksonville that are mainly for a specific field – medical, IT, legal, etc. Many young people who either don’t want to or can’t go to college for a four-year degree or higher, will be content with a “good job” with decent pay, retirement and medical benefits, time off for maternity or paternity needs, and so on.

There was a very interesting article on one of the Northern European countries which compared their workers benefits to ours, and the comparison was shocking. I know, their citizens have to pay high taxes for all that, but it does cut out the sometimes unbearable weight of competition on young people in this country.



http://www.salon.com/2013/06/25/liberalisms_mortal_danger/

Charity vs. solidarity: Exploring two philosophies of liberalism
MICHAEL LIND
TUESDAY, JUN 25, 2013 01:49 PM EDT

The debate over affirmative action reveals a split among liberals that goes back a century


The Supreme Court’s latest ruling on affirmative action in college admissions, restricting it while continuing to permit it, can be hailed as a victory by both proponents and opponents of the policy. Our polarized media has turned affirmative action into a left vs. right issue. It is worth recalling that there is a distinguished history of opposition to race-based affirmative action on the center-left.

Martin Luther King Jr. thought that poor whites as well as nonwhites should benefit from compensatory programs. Bayard Rustin, the organizer of the March on Washington, argued correctly that race-based public policies would help to destroy the fragile coalition between civil rights activists and the white working class. Christopher Lasch dismissed affirmative action in college admissions and business set-asides as cynical, low-cost ploys to co-opt nonwhite elites. And progressives like Richard Kahlenberg continue to make the liberal case for class-conscious but race-neutral approaches to public policy.

[NOTE: DEFINITION OF SET-ASIDES IN THIS CONTEXT:

set-a·side
noun
plural noun: set-asides
1.
the policy of taking land out of production to reduce crop surpluses.
2.
US
a government contract awarded without competition to a minority-owned business.]


Underlying this intra-progressive debate about affirmative action, it can be argued, is an even deeper difference in philosophy between what Mike Konczal has called “pity-charity liberalism” (which I will simplify to “charity liberalism”) and what might be called “solidarity liberalism.” For more than a century, the American center-left has been divided among charity liberals and solidarity liberals.

The American center-left has long united groups with little in common other than opposition to unregulated industrial capitalism. The original charity liberals were the Progressives of the early 1900s, who tended to be upper-middle-class Protestants like Woodrow Wilson who took a paternalistic approach to reform. The original solidarity liberals were the two groups that made up the early 20th century farmer-labor coalition in the U.S.—Jeffersonian rural populists of the school of William Jennings Bryan, and organized labor activists, whose constituencies tended to be European immigrants in the industrial cities. Despite their differences, the rural liberals and the labor liberals tended to have a similar bottom-up approach to politics, which often put them at odds with the top-down strategy of elite Progressives who otherwise shared many of the same enemies and the same goals.

Charity liberalism, I would suggest, imagines that society is divided three ways. There is the Irrational Majority, the Bad Elite and the Good Elite. From the days of J.S. Mill, who wanted college-educated voters to have extra votes, to Cass Sunstein, who wants government officials to trick the unthinking masses into pursuing their self-interest by manipulative “nudges,” a powerful strain of Anglo-American liberalism has had a low opinion of the rationality of most citizens.

But public irrationality and prejudice are not the only threats to the public interest, in the worldview of the charity liberal. The elite itself is divided into a bad wing — usually identified with powerful economic elites — and a good wing — often identified with the professional class, particularly college-educated career civil servants, tenured professors, nonprofit activists and journalists. The enlightened technocrats of the Good Elite should be entrusted with a great deal of discretionary power to promote the public interest, which they can perceive without bias (unlike the Irrational Majority) and can promote without selfishness (unlike the Bad Elite).

Solidarity liberals have their own triple division of society. There is an Untrustworthy Elite, a Good Majority and a Bad Majority.

Reflecting their roots in rural populism or union activism, solidarity liberals have a populist suspicion of all elites — including liberal elites. They do not trust their elite enemies to do the right thing. Nor do they trust their upscale friends.

At the same time, solidarity liberals do not trust themselves as a group to do the right thing. Although they are instinctive majoritarians, they distinguish between the Good Majority and the Bad Majority. These are not necessarily two different majorities, but may be the same group in different states of mind, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

From all of this follows a distinctive solidarity-liberal approach to government. Because there are no permanently enlightened, permanently trustworthy elites, solidarity liberals want to minimize the discretionary power of elites — including the discretionary power of enlightened elites to do good. Discretionary policy should be replaced, as much as possible, by fixed black-letter law enacted by democratically accountable legislators.

At the same time, to prevent the majority from using the law to advantage itself at the expense of minorities, solidarity liberals believe that laws and programs should be universal. Laws restrain the discretion of untrustworthy elites, and universalist laws restrain the selfishness of the majority.

Let’s see how these differences between charity liberalism and solidarity liberalism result in different perspectives on particular issues.

The separation of powers. Ever since Professor Woodrow Wilson became an academic celebrity before he became a politician with his attack on “congressional government,” progressives of the charity liberal school have sought to minimize the power of elected bodies — Congress, state legislatures, city councils — while maximizing the power of other branches and agencies — presidents, governors, city managers, judges, civil servants. The early progressives were in love with the idea of the impartial, technocratic “administrator.” Influenced by the role of the judiciary in the civil rights era, in the second half of the 20th century many liberals transferred their faith from reformist administrators to crusading judges. Today this belief in impartial hero figures who rise above petty politics informs the Bloombergian “No Labels’ movement and the cult of bipartisan “grand bargains,” to say nothing of the style and strategy of a certain “purple president.”


Solidarity liberals do not believe that wise, benevolent, Ivy League-educated executive branch appointees, career civil servants or judges will save us from stupid or misguided legislators. Bad legislators should be voted out in favor of good legislators. But democratic legislatures themselves should not be drained of their powers by unelected bodies, whose officers are likely to be as corrupt or foolish as legislators but less accountable. The cure for bad politics is not the absence of politics but better politics.

The welfare state. Solidarity liberals traditionally have favored universal, contributary social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Even if there is some mild redistribution, everybody pays and everybody receives benefits. In contrast, charity liberals, from the 1900s to the present, have often preferred means-tested programs focused directly on the poor. In the 1900s, many elite progressives disdained middle-class social insurance while favoring micromanagement of the behavior of the poor by upper-middle-class social workers. In the 2000s, charity liberals sometimes join conservatives in arguing that means-testing social programs like Social Security could free up more money for means-tested programs for which only the poor are eligible. Solidarity liberalism wants a fraternal welfare state; charity liberalism wants a paternalistic welfare state.

Civil rights. Solidarity liberals believe that the alternative to America’s sorry history of white supremacist racial discrimination is a straightforward ban on racial discrimination of any kind. Charity liberals are not against racial discrimination in itself. They tend to argue that the historic legacies of malign racial discrimination need to be cured by a period — possibly permanent — of benevolent racial discrimination, carried out by enlightened elites who are insulated from bigoted majorities.

Race-based affirmative action in college admissions is a perfect example of the faith in discretionary elite power that is characteristic of charity liberalism. The goal of defenders of affirmative action is not to mandate higher representation of blacks or Latinos in college classes by straightforward law mandating particular numerical quotas. No, the defenders of affirmative action want to maximize the discretion of university admissions committees to engage, as they see fit, in allegedly benign racial discrimination against over-represented groups — non-Hispanic whites and Asian-Americans — on behalf of under-represented groups — blacks and Latinos. In other words, these committees of academic functionaries not only should have the power to engage in “good” racial discrimination, and they can be trusted to wield that power in the public interest.

Now the solidarity liberal will ask: Who elected these people? To whom are they accountable? Who voted for university admissions committee members? When did they subject their criteria for allegedly benevolent racial discrimination to public debate and criticism? If college admissions really choose the future elite of the country, shouldn’t they be subject to transparent, fixed rules, not arbitrary, secret exercises of discretion by establishment insiders?

For charity liberals, this question misses the point. Charity liberals believe that democracy – at least democracy in formerly white supremacist America — is incapable of furthering racial progress, because of the irrational prejudices of the non-Hispanic white majority. Racial progress must therefore be imposed from above by enlightened officials who are insulated from direct democratic accountability, including appointed judges and officers of private and public universities. Like early 20th-century Progressives, today’s charity liberals have a touching faith in the wisdom of mostly white, mostly affluent, mostly middle-aged, highly educated elites to do the right thing for the nation on a purely altruistic basis. According to charity liberalism, we should grant this elite extensive discretion, including the power of discretionary racial discrimination, and trust that they will do the right thing, because … well, because they are wise and selfless and public-spirited.

Today in 2013, as it did back in 1913, outside of labor union circles, the mentality of charity liberalism prevails among center-left activists, journalists and academics, practically without any opposition. Members of the college-educated minority are naturally drawn to a doctrine that flatters them as the major force for good in society.

What has happened in the century since 1913 is that the institutions which once provided a voice for the rival center-left tradition of mostly downscale solidarity liberals — farmer’s organizations, labor unions, and local political machines — have almost completely collapsed. But while solidarity liberalism has few representatives among elite pundits and professors, it remains a powerful strain in the American electorate — a strain that conservative populism has managed to manipulate successfully in the last generation. If today’s progressive majority is going to endure, the American center-left will need less charity and more solidarity.

Michael Lind is the author of Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States and co-founder of the New America Foundation.




SOCIALISM AND SOCIAL DEMOCRATS


http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/03/bernie-sanders-democratic-socialism/471630/

Bernie Is Not a Socialist and America Is Not Capitalist
MARIAN TUPY
MAR 1, 2016

Scandinavia is, by one measure, a freer market than the United States.

Whether you like it or not, socialism is back in fashion and it is gaining support among America’s youth. A recent YouGov survey found that 43 percent of respondents under the age of 30 had a favorable view of socialism. Only 32 percent had a favorable view of capitalism.

Another recent survey, this one by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, found in the words of U.S. News’s Ken Walsh that “[58] percent of young people choose socialism over capitalism [which was chosen by 33 percent of young people] ... as the most compassionate system. Sixty-six percent say corporate America ‘embodies everything that is wrong with America,’ compared with 34 percent who say corporate America embodies what's right with America. A plurality of 28 percent say the most pressing issue facing the country is income inequality—one of [Senator Bernie] Sanders’ top themes.”

In the meantime, Sanders beat Hillary Clinton by 70 percent among young people in Iowa, and leads Clinton among young people nationwide.

As someone who grew up under socialism and is still, barely, in his 30s, I hope to relate a few ideas to the young people who are “feeling the Bern.” First, Sanders is not a socialist, but a social democrat. Second, the United States does not have a strictly capitalist economy, but a mixed one. As such, it combines a high level of private ownership of capital and the means of production with relatively onerous regulation and taxation. Third, to the extent that what anti-capitalist Sanders supporters really want is a Scandinavian-style social democracy, with its high level of wealth redistribution and income equality, they should consider that even some of the most socially democratic countries on earth are, in one crucial way, more capitalist than the United States.

Bernie Sanders is not a socialist, but a social democrat.

Let us start at the well of the socialist renewal, the Vermont senator. Sanders, as everyone knows, calls himself a “democratic socialist.” The word “democratic” is fundamental here, because historically socialism has not, typically, come about as a result of free and fair elections. In most socialist countries, like the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic where your humble author was born, socialism was imposed at the point of a gun. Sanders, therefore, is wise to distance himself from the socialists of yesteryear and insist that socialism in America should be chosen, freely and fairly, by the electorate.

As many of Sanders’s supporters have repeatedly and rightly pointed out, socialism is not communism. In fact, for most of the 20th century, socialism was understood to be a halfway house between capitalism and communism. The latter was a utopian vision of the future characterized by classless, stateless, and moneyless communal living. Strictly speaking, therefore, no communist country was ever “communist”—not even the Soviet Union (a.k.a., the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).

What then was socialism? Socialism was an economic system where the means of production (e.g., factories), capital (i.e., banks), and agricultural land (i.e., farms) were owned by the state. In some socialist countries, like Poland, small privately owned farms were allowed to operate. In other countries, like Yugoslavia, small mom-and-pop shops also remained in private ownership. Strict limits on private enterprise limited accumulation of wealth and supposedly provided for a relatively high degree of income equality.

Two important caveats need to be kept in mind. First, lack of private enterprise resulted in low economic growth and, consequently, low standards of living. Thus, while income equality was relatively high (if party bosses and their cronies were excluded from the calculations), people in Soviet-bloc countries were much poorer than their counterparts in the West. Nobody has yet figured out a way of combining genuine socialism with high rates of growth over a long period of time.

Second, top members of the communist parties, which ran socialist countries, were generally exempted from limits on wealth accumulation. As such, communist leaders from Josip Broz Tito in Yugoslavia to Kim Il Sung in North Korea enjoyed luxuries unimaginable to the rest of the populace. Most importantly, top members of the government were above the law. They could not be accused, arrested, or convicted of ordinary or even extraordinary crimes (e.g., Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot). As such, inequality of status between the governing class and the governed masses in socialist countries was as great, if not greater, as it was under feudalism.

CHART -- GDP per Person in the Former U.S.S.R. and the United States, 1917-1991

Values in 1990 International Dollars, via HumanProgress.org. (Data: The Maddison Project)

Sanders is not a typical socialist. Sure, he believes in a highly regulated and heavily taxed private enterprise, but he does not seem to want the state to own banks and make cars. Considering the negative connotations of “socialism” in America, it is a bit of a puzzle why Sanders insists on using that word. It would be much less contentious and more correct if he gave his worldview its proper name: not “democratic socialism,” which implies socialism brought about through a vote, but social democracy.

In a social democracy, individuals and corporations continue to own the capital and the means of production. Much of the wealth, in other words, is produced privately. That said, taxation, government spending, and regulation of the private sector are much heavier under social democracy than would be the case under pure capitalism.

Capitalism means different things to different people. To many people on the left, unfettered capitalism implies individual greed, vast income inequality, and lack of government protections for the poor. Capitalism is often confused with “crony” capitalism—an odious nexus of corporate and political power that crushes the worker and cheats the consumer. Close linkages between big business and the government have existed before (e.g., fascist Italy, national-socialist Germany, Peronist Argentina, etc.). However, most academics do not refer to such systems as exhibiting “crony capitalism,” but “corporatism.”

In any case, few would argue that the power of big business in the United States today is comparable to the power of big businesses in, say, fascist Italy, though it might be argued that “crony capitalism,” if left unchecked, could one day lead to “corporatism.”

It would be much less contentious and more correct if Sanders gave his worldview its proper name: social democracy.
Many people on the right eschew using the word “capitalism.” According to the economic historian Robert Hessen, capitalism is “a term of disparagement coined by socialists in the mid-nineteenth century, [and it] is a misnomer for ‘economic individualism,’ which [the founder of economics] Adam Smith earlier called ‘the obvious and simple system of natural liberty.’”

Thus, people who favor Smith’s system of natural liberty tend to refer to it as “economic freedom,” “laissez-faire” economics, “private enterprise,” a “free market,” or “competitive enterprise.” Competition is fundamental to the system: Productive firms should be allowed to grow, while unproductive firms should be allowed to go under, giving rise to an aphorism, “Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. It doesn’t work.”

To make matters more complicated, when supporters do refer to “capitalism,” they mean the exact opposite of what people on the left sometimes mean by crony capitalism. To the advocates of economic freedom—and this needs to be stressed—capitalism means the strictest possible separation of the economy and the state. As such, I will use “economic freedom” and “capitalism” interchangeably below.

A purely capitalist economy ought to have the following characteristics: private ownership of the means of production and capital; low levels of taxation and regulation; competition unfettered by subsidies, bailouts, and protectionism; and the free flow of goods, services, and capital both domestically and internationally. Lastly, and here the government does have a crucial role to play, a capitalist economy ought to have an independent and efficacious judiciary that protects life, liberty, and property, and punishes fraud and theft.


To be sure, there has never been a fully free economy. By that measure, both communism and capitalism refer to ideals that have never existed in practice. All governments play some economic role. It is, however, possible to ascertain relative levels of economic freedom, which is to say that we can measure how different countries stack up against each other. The Economic Freedom of the World index, for example, measures economic freedom in individual countries by looking at, among other things, the size of government (i.e., taxing and spending); the strength of the legal system and private-property rights; freedom to trade internationally; and the burden of government regulation (e.g., on businesses and labor).

The EFW has ranked Hong Kong as the world’s freest economy since 1970. In 2013, in contrast, the United States came in the 16th place out of 157 countries surveyed—behind such countries as New Zealand, Switzerland, Ireland, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia.

CHART -- Economic Freedom in the United States and Hong Kong, 1970-2013

In order to understand how capitalist America is, consider some of the most important features of the American economy.

First, aside from a small number of government-owned enterprises (e.g., Amtrak) and government-sponsored enterprises (e.g., Fannie Mae), the vast majority of enterprises in America are privately run and owned. As a consequence, almost all of the wealth that is created in the United States each year (i.e., gross domestic product) is privately produced. That part’s capitalism.

But, much of the wealth produced by the private sector each year is not spent by the private sector, but by the government. Today, local, state, and federal governments spend 39 percent of the gross domestic product. Some government expenditures enjoy broad public support (e.g., policing and courthouses) and some are more controversial (e.g., big-bank bail-outs and subsidies to companies favored by the government).

Contrary to what the advocates of economic freedom might wish, taxation in America is neither particularly low nor easy.
Thus, while production in America is dominated by the private sector, spending is dominated by the government. Or, to put it differently, the government is by far the single most important spender and, consequently, the single most important economic actor. In fact, many of the most important financial decisions made by ordinary Americans during the course of their lives, such as the purchase of healthcare, social security, education, and housing, are heavily influenced by the government.

Second, to obtain and redistribute outlays amounting to 39 percent of GDP, the government relies on borrowing as well as a myriad of taxes, including: individual and corporate income taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, sales and excise taxes, property and estate taxes, etc. Here I am deliberately avoiding the question of an appropriate level of redistribution. Total government spending in Switzerland is about 34 percent of the GDP. In Denmark, it is about 57 percent. Both countries are good places to live in.


Rather, my point is that contrary to what the advocates of economic freedom might wish, taxation in America is neither particularly low nor easy. According to the World Bank, the totality of the tax burden (i.e., the level of taxation and the difficulty of compliance with the tax code combined) in the United States is more onerous than in many other countries. That includes the relatively economically free Hong Kong and the socially democratic Denmark.

CHART -- Burden of Taxation and Tax Compliance in the United States, Denmark, and Hong Kong, 2006-2015

Third, consider the government regulation of the private sector. Again, capitalism is supposed to be characterized by a low level of regulation. The total number and economic effects of regulations in America are subject to a vigorous debate, though some economists have tried to estimate both. That said, the World Economic Forum in Davos ranks 140 countries according to the total burden of government regulation. According to the WEF, the United States ranked in the 51st place in 2016. It ranked below Sweden, but just above Denmark.

CHART -- Total Burden of Government Regulation in the United States, Denmark, and Sweden, 2007-2016

Thus, if capitalism is defined as an economic system characterized by the maximum possible separation of the private sector and the government, and easy taxes and regulation, the United States does not have a strictly capitalist economy. In fact, economic freedom in America has been declining so precipitously that, to quote Hessen again, “the United States, [which was] once the citadel of capitalism, is [now] a ‘mixed economy’ in which government bestows favors and imposes restrictions with no clear or consistent principles in mind.”

The Scandinavian social democracies are, in one important way, more capitalist than the United States.

Overall, the United States is still somewhat more economically free than Sweden and Denmark. As noted, out of 157 countries surveyed by the Economic Freedom of the World Index in 2013, the United States came in the 16th place. Denmark came in the 22nd place, and Sweden came in the 42nd place. (Note that this discussion excludes Norway, which has a small population and lots of oil. Oil revenues allow the government to spend more than other countries in the region.)

CHART -- Economic Freedom in the United States, Denmark, and Sweden, 1970-2013

That ranking is in large part the result of a massive gap between taxation and spending in the United States and some Scandinavian countries. Total government spending in the United States, as I have mentioned, was 39 percent of the GDP in 2013. In Denmark and Sweden it was 57 percent and 53 percent, respectively.

CHART -- Size of Government in United States, Denmark, and Sweden, 1970-2013

But, consider free trade. A vast majority of economists agree that free trade is a crucial driver of economic growth. In fact, there has never been a country that has become prosperous in economic isolation. And, as noted, unimpeded global flow of goods, services, and capital is an essential component of capitalism.

Free trade is also one of the most important elements of agreement between Sanders and Donald Trump—both oppose it. Both are also critical of previous free-trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was concluded by President Bill Clinton, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was negotiated by President Barack Obama’s administration.

It is, therefore, paradoxical that both Sweden and Denmark have freer trade with the rest of the world than the United States. So, in that sense, some Scandinavian countries can be said to be more capitalistic than the United States.

CHART -- Freedom to Trade Internationally in the United States, Denmark, and Sweden

The debate over Senator Sanders’ socialism is rich with paradoxes. Senator Sanders is not a proponent of socialism, and that is a good thing, for true socialism, whenever and wherever it has been tried, ended in disaster. Nor is America the bastion of capitalism that some make it out to be. In fact, U.S. taxes, spending, and regulation are quite high when compared to truly economically free countries. America’s is a mixed economy and so are Scandinavian countries’. It is the mixture that differs.



http://www.watchblog.com/democrats/archives/006471.html

Democrats and Liberals Archives
The Free Market: What's The Real Debate Here?

Posted by Stephen Daugherty at March 13, 2009 9:02 AM

Did we defeat Communism with Communism? Marxism with Marxism? I think the most salient test of the Republican and Conservative rhetoric at this time is to ask whether we considered the policies they’re attacking as socialism, when they were in effect before in this country. For virtually all the Cold War, New Deal economics and big government were there. This WAS capitalism, when we made those comparisons. What made Free Markets free wasn’t liberty from regulation but from the economic controls that typified Soviet Economiic [sic] Policy.

In the Soviet Economy, everything was planned out. It wasn't government encouraging this or that, it wasn't government setting a standard. It was government making all the decisions, from the distribution of materials to the value of the currency, to the pushing of certain products. You didn't have thousands of individual companies making decisions under the protection and policing of a set of laws and regulations, you had the government literally giving the orders on everything, for everything.

Not even in the heaviest days of New Deal economic policy did we see America approach this level of Central Planning. Our system rejected much of that, and what we ended up with was an economy where we all had freedom, within reasonable limits to make our own economic decisions. We could make national plans and go for national goals when we had to, or wanted to, but most choices were left up to the consumer, to the capitalists.

The Republicans want to talk about Liberal economic policy as if it's the opposite of the Free Market, as if putting restrictions on dangerous financial practices is the equivalent of Stalin's Five Year Plan, or Mao's forcing people to smelt metal in their front yards. What reasonable argument can be made for that? What about the deceptive practices and shoddy bookkeeping that got us into this mess is indispensible to the free market? What makes a market a free market is that people are free to decide what to buy and sell. I don't see how forcing people to tell the truth about how their companies [sic] is doing is contrary to the spirit of that. I don't see how allowing monopolies to form, allowing companies to become so big that their failure guts our economy is in the spirit of the free market. I mean, isn't the point of a free market that there be enough participants so that not everybody's taken down by the same boneheaded decisions? That people have enough choices of who to shop with that if one guy lowers his prices or improves his service, the others feel compelled to follow suit?

Part of the reason we can have a free market economy at all is the success of the New Deal in stabilizing the market, the success of generations of good regulations which have cut down on the fraud, the overconsolidation, the abuse of labor and the underpayment and undercompensation of workers. We raised the education level through public schools, to the point where we had a decent, thriving middle class, where people could get ahead and get out of poverty. Republicans grumble about punishing success when they speak of the coming phase out of the Bush tax cuts. Some even talk about "Going Galt", a bit of silliness I'll cover later on in another post. But what success can most people realistically aspire to? What's the greater chance, moving up from poverty to the middle class, the lower middle class to the upper, or each of us getting rich? If you're ambitious enough to become rich, I don't think a few percentage points of the top bracket of your income is really going to get in your way.

But what about the policies of the last few years have been good for the milder, more realistic ambitions that most people will have some likelihood of acheiving? [sic] The Middle Class has shrunk under the previous administration, and millions have descended into poverty. This has been the Republican Party's rewarding of success.

We have to decide whether Capitalism is meant to be a vehicle for the rich to get richer, or a means for an entire society, rich and poor, middle and working class alike to prosper. I think the logical position to take is that an economy that only works well for the ambitions and needs of the few is not an efficient economy, nor a stable one. The capitalism, the free markets that won the Cold War won that cold war because it proved that you didn't have to resort to a centrally planned collectivist economy in order to do the most good for the most people. By keeping the system fair to the middle class and poor, Liberalism smothered socialism in the cradle, prevented the need for more heavy-handed intervention and long term economic centralization.

The Republicans must realize that their laissez faire economics paved the way to this current situation. They led the charge to give the banks the ability to consolidate, making the economy less robust in the face of their failure. They led the fight to prevent the new, emerging financial instruments from being regulated, to keep those markets dark and opaque to regulators and investors alike. They led the fight to change accounting rules so that businesses could mark up profits they hadn't even truly made. They trusted that the markets would take care of the cheaters and the financial morons, that competition would cleanse the pondscum out automatically.

They didn't allow that businesses practices would simply take the shape of their container, flowing anywhere they were allowed to flow in their quest for profit, and that if that allowed cheating and fraud to occur, well that would be what would happen. They didn't realize that the market doesn't really judge beyond the balance sheet, and that some, in their competitive zeal, hide things from the market or engage in certain trickery in order to manipulate it.

So we've come to this: a point where the most dangerous question you might ask of your financial asset is " what is this damn thing really worth?"

Any market where a due-diligence attempt to establish the worth of an asset can lead to such devastating upheaval is not a stable or sustainable economy. It's not unlike those ungainly, unsightly stacks of furniture and miscellaneous items you see in the cartoons that the characters build in the attempt to get some place high, and the results of this, much of the time, aren't much different: Crashes and resounding thuds, much to the disbelief of those involved.

In no real world market can you prevent all fraud, all deception. There will always be hidden corners of corruption and double dealing. There will always be those who won't keep just one set of books. The question is, do you create an environment that encourages and rewards their misbehavior, or do your raise the risks for their behavior, raise the disincentives?

We need to restructure this economy so that it's no longer so fragile and top heavy, to where a sector or a corporation can fail without taking out half the country with it. The capitalism and free market economics of the nineties and the Bush years proved definitively that they weren't up to the challenge. Hopefully, we can bring about a new version of our old Free Market economy that can get us prosperous on a more sustainable basis, and once again save capitalism from itself.




http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-deep-dive-into-party-affiliation/

APRIL 7, 2015

A Deep Dive Into Party Affiliation
Sharp Differences by Race, Gender, Generation, Education

Democrats hold advantages in party identification among blacks, Asians, Hispanics, well-educated adults and Millennials. Republicans have leads among whites – particularly white men, those with less education and evangelical Protestants – as well as members of the Silent Generation.

A new analysis of long-term trends in party affiliation among the public provides a detailed portrait of where the parties stand among various groups in the population. It draws on more than 25,000 interviews conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2014, which allows examination of partisan affiliation across even relatively small racial, ethnic, educational and income subgroups. (Explore detailed tables for 2014 here.)

The share of independents in the public, which long ago surpassed the percentages of either Democrats or Republicans, continues to increase. Based on 2014 data, 39% identify as independents, 32% as Democrats and 23% as Republicans. This is the highest percentage of independents in more than 75 years of public opinion polling. (For a timeline of party affiliation among the public since 1939, see this interactive feature.)

When the partisan leanings of independents are taken into account, 48% either identify as Democrats or lean Democratic; 39% identify as Republicans or lean Republican. The gap in leaned party affiliation has held fairly steady since 2009, when Democrats held a 13-point advantage (50% to 37%).

Why Look at Party Identification Among the Public – Not Just Voters?

This report examines partisan affiliation among all adults, providing an in-depth look at subgroups of the public and tracking trends over time. To be sure, party identification also often differs by level of political engagement. For instance, the balance of leaned partisan identification among those who say they are registered to vote (72% of the public) is more Republican than among the overall public: 48% of registered voters identify as Democrats or lean Democratic compared with 43% who identify with the GOP or lean Republican. Among the general public, Democrats have a wider lead in leaned party identification (48% to 39%). Narrowing the electorate to those most likely to vote in 2014, 47% affiliated with the Democratic Party or leaned Democratic while 46% identified as Republicans or leaned toward the GOP, based on Pew Research Center midterm polling.

But with the 2016 presidential election more than 18 months away, this report is intended to give a broad perspective on party identification. The demographic patterns among the general public seen throughout this report are mirrored among registered voters. For example, among the general public there is an eight-percentage point gap in the proportion of men and women who identify with or lean to the Democratic Party (44% vs. 52%); among registered voters that gap is nearly identical (43% vs. 52%). As the presidential election grows closer, we will update this 2012 report on trends in partisan affiliation among registered voters.

A closer look at …

Race and ethnicity. Republicans hold a 49%-40% lead over the Democrats in leaned party identification among whites. The GOP’s advantage widens to 21 points among white men who have not completed college (54%-33%) and white southerners (55%-34%). The Democrats hold an 80%-11% advantage among blacks, lead by close to three-to-one among Asian Americans (65%-23%) and by more than two-to-one among Hispanics (56%-26%).

Gender. Women lean Democratic by 52%-36%; men are evenly divided (44% identify as Democrats or lean Democratic; 43% affiliate with or lean toward the GOP). Gender differences are evident in nearly all subgroups: For instance, Republicans lead among married men (51%-38%), while married women are evenly divided (44% Republican, 44% Democratic). Democrats hold a substantial advantage among all unmarried adults, but their lead in leaned partisan identification is greater among unmarried women (57%-29%) than among unmarried men (51%-34%).

Education. Democrats lead by 22 points (57%-35%) in leaned party identification among adults with post-graduate degrees. The Democrats’ edge is narrower among those with college degrees or some post-graduate experience (49%-42%), and those with less education (47%-39%). Across all educational categories, women are more likely than men to affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic. The Democrats’ advantage is 35 points (64%-29%) among women with post-graduate degrees, but only eight points (50%-42%) among post-grad men.

Generations. Millennials continue to be the most Democratic age cohort; 51% identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, compared with 35% who identify with the GOP or lean Republican. There are only slight differences in partisan affiliation between older and younger millennials. Republicans have a four-point lead among the Silent Generation (47%-43%), the most Republican age cohort.

Religion. Republicans lead in leaned party identification by 48 points among Mormons and 46 points among white evangelical Protestants. Younger white evangelicals (those under age 35) are about as likely older white evangelicals to identify as Republicans or lean Republican. Adults who have no religious affiliation lean Democratic by a wide margins (36 points). Jews lean Democratic by roughly two-to-one (61% to 31%). The balance of leaned partisan affiliation among white Catholics and white mainline Protestants closely resembles that of all whites.

Party Affiliation 1992-2014

Share of Political Independents Continues to Increase The biggest change in partisan affiliation in recent years is the growing share of Americans who decline to affiliate with either party: 39% call themselves independents, 32% identify as Democrats and 23% as Republicans, based on aggregated data from 2014.

The rise in the share of independents has been particularly dramatic over the past decade: In 2004, 33% of Americans identified as Democrats, 30% as independents and 29% as Republicans. Since then, the percentage of independents has increased nine points while Republican affiliation has fallen six points. Democratic affiliation has shown less change over this period; it rose to 35% in 2008, fell to 32% in 2011 and has changed little since then (currently 32%).

Most of those who identify as independents lean toward a party. And in many respects, partisan leaners have attitudes that are similar to those of partisans – they just prefer not to identify with a party. (See this appendix to our 2014 polarization report for an explainer on partisan “leaners.”)

The balance of leaned partisan affiliation has changed little in recent years: 48% identify with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, while 39% identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP. Democrats have led in leaned party identification among the public for most of the past two decades.

Gender Gap in Party Identification Persists Among both men and women, increasing percentages describe themselves as independents. Men, however, continue to be more likely than women to identify as independents (45% vs. 35% in 2014).

When partisan leanings are taken into account, men are divided (44% Democratic, 43% Republican). That is little changed from recent years, but in 2009, 45% of men affiliated with the Democratic Party or leaned Democratic, while 40% identified as Republican or leaned toward the GOP.

Since 1990, women have been consistently more likely than men to identify as Democrats or lean Democratic. Democrats hold a 16-point advantage in leaned party identification among women (52%-36%, based on 2014 data).

Party ID by Race, Education

More Whites Lean Republican Than in 2009; Blacks Overwhelmingly Align with Democratic Party There continue to be stark divisions in partisan leaning by race and ethnicity: Fully 64% of blacks identify as Democrats, compared with 25% of whites. Whites are far more likely than blacks to describe themselves as independents (40% vs. 26%) or Republicans (30% vs. 5%).

As is the case with whites, Hispanics are more likely to describe themselves as independents (44%) than Democrats (34%) or Republicans (13%). More than twice as many Hispanics either affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic than identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP (56% vs. 26%), based on interviews conducted in English and Spanish in 2014.

Party identification among Asian Americans has shown little change in recent years. Nearly half of Asian-Americans (46%) are political independents, 37% identify as Democrats while just 11% affiliate with the GOP. When the partisan leanings of independents are included, 65% of Asian Americans identify as Democrats or lean Democratic compared with just 23% who identify as Republicans or lean Republican. This data is based on interviews conducted in English.

More College Graduates Lean Democratic Differences in partisan identification across educational categories have remained fairly stable in recent years, with one exception: Highly-educated people increasingly identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party.

About a third (34%) of those with a college degree or more education identify as Democrats, compared with 24% who identify as Republicans; 39% are independents. In 1992, Republicans held a seven-point lead among those with at least a college degree (34% to 27%), while 37% were independents.

Democrats now hold a 12-point lead (52% to 40%) in leaned party identification among those with at least a college degree, up from just a four-point difference as recently as 2010 (48% to 44%). There has been less change since 2010 in the partisan leanings of those with less education.

Democrats’ Growing Advantage in Party Identification Among Post-Grads Currently, those who have attended college but have not received a degree lean Democratic 47% to 42%; Democrats hold a 10-point lead in leaned party identification among those with no more than a high school education (47% to 37%).

The Democrats’ wide lead in partisan identification among highly-educated adults is largely the result of a growing advantage among those with any post-graduate experience. A majority (56%) of those who have attended graduate school identify with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic, compared with 36% who align with or lean toward the GOP.

Among those who have received a college degree but have no post-graduate experience, 48% identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, while 43% affiliate with the GOP or lean Republican.

Party ID by Generation

Generation Gap in Partisan Affiliation Millennials remain the most Democratic age cohort: 51% of Millennials (ages 18-34) identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, compared with 35% who identify as Republican or lean Republican. This is little changed in recent years; in 2008, Millennials leaned Democratic by a wider margin (55% to 30%). (For more on Millennials’ political attitudes, see “Millennials in Adulthood,” March 7, 2014.)

The Democrats’ advantage in leaned party identification narrows among Generation Xers (49% to 38%) and Baby Boomers (47% to 41%). And among the Silent Generation, Republicans hold a four-point lead in leaned party affiliation (47%-43%).

In 1992, the Silent Generation leaned Democratic by a wide margin: 52% affiliated with the Democratic Party or leaned Democratic while 38% aligned with or leaned toward the GOP.

White Millennials Are Divided in Partisan Leanings; Older Generations of Whites Lean RepublicanThe Democratic leanings of the Millennials are associated with the greater racial and ethnic diversity among this generation. More than four-in-ten Millennials (44%) are non-white, by far the highest percentage of any age cohort.

Among white Millennials, about as many identify as Republican or lean Republican (45%) as affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic (43%). Older generations of whites lean Republican by about 10 points or more. Among non-whites, all four generations lean Democratic by wide margins, including by 61% to 23% among non-white Millennials.

[NOTE: See generations defined in Wikipedia and Pew Above.]

Religion and Party Identification

White Evangelicals Increasingly Lean Republican Since 1992, the share of white evangelical Protestants who align with the GOP has never been higher. About two-thirds (68%) of white evangelicals either identify as Republicans or lean Republican, while just 22% affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic. Since 2007, the percentage of white evangelical Protestants who lean Republican has increased 10 points, while the share who lean Democratic has declined nine points.

The partisan leanings of white mainline Protestants mirror those of all whites: 48% affiliate with (or lean toward) the GOP, while 40% identify as Democrats or lean Democratic. Similarly, black Protestants – like blacks generally – overwhelmingly lean Democratic; 82% identify as Democrats or lean Democratic compared with just 11% who align with the GOP or lean Republican.

Partisan Affiliation Among Catholics Little Changed Party affiliation among all Catholics is similar to that of the public: 37% describe themselves as independents, 33% as Democrats and 24% as Republicans. About half of Catholics (48%) affiliate with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic while 40% identify as Republicans or lean toward the GOP.

White Catholics lean Republican by about the same margin as all whites (50% to 41%). Hispanic Catholics lean Democratic by more than two-to-one (58% to 25%). This is little different from the balance of leaned party identification among all Hispanics (56% Democrat vs. 26% Republican).

Mormons Remain Solidly Republican; Jews and Religiously Unaffiliated Lean Democratic Nearly half of Mormons (49%) identify as Republicans, compared with just 12% who identify as Democrats; 35% describe themselves as independents. Fully 70% of Mormons identify as Republicans or lean Republican; fewer than a quarter (22%) lean Democratic.

Jews continue to mostly align with the Democratic Party. Nearly twice as many Jews identify as Democrats or lean Democratic (61%) than identify as Republicans or lean Republican (31%).

People with no religious affiliation increasingly lean toward the Democratic Party. Currently, 61% of those who do not identify with any religion lean Democratic – the highest level in more than two decades of Pew Research Center surveys. Just 25% of the religiously unaffiliated identify as Republicans or lean Republican.

About the Party Identification Database

The analysis of changes in party identification over time is based on a compilation of 279 surveys and over 450,000 interviews among the general public conducted by the Pew Research Center from January 1992 to December 2014. These surveys are combined into one large data file that can be sorted according to a range of demographic characteristics, with comparisons made across different time periods. Yearly totals are calculated by combining all surveys for the calendar year, with appropriate weights applied. The table below shows the number of surveys and interviews conducted each year as well as the margin of error for each yearly sample.




https://guyus.wordpress.com/my-political-views/democrats-vs-republicans/

Democrats vs Republicans

The essay below is not an exact transcript of the video, text has been added or edited, and the video does not cover the entire essay, exactly, but it comes very close. Enjoy!

Guyus Seralius

I am one among many, but at the same time, I am unique and alone. I am a reflection of all that which surrounds me and all that deep within. I am a perceiving mind in human form. I am a metaphor for life itself, a representative of all things, and I am doing as the universe dictates. I am the forever traveler who wonders upon all grounds at all times. Though, I rest upon a rock that never moves. I am the infinite, cosmic tree, whose branches and roots never end, whose fruit is uncountable. I am the personification of The Forever All. In short, I am an artist, writer, philosopher, pantheist, and centrist, who hopes to make a positive change in the world.


Go to the Seralius website to see the Nolan Chart, created by Guyus Seralius, © 2012. All Rights Reserved. Adobe Illustrator.


I would like to explain the fundamental difference between the two most prevailing political parties, the Democrats and the Republicans, also referred to as the liberals and the conservatives. Because, believe it or not, most people actually don’t know the difference. If you were to approach most people on the street and ask them why they’re a Republican or why they’re a Democrat, their best answers would likely be quite vague and broad. If you asked them why they were voting for a particular Republican or Democratic candidate, they would likely mention things like I think he or she is a good speaker or trust worthy. They may even be able to regurgitate a few party catch phrases, sound bites, or slogans, but they will usually not provide any specific reasons in terms of the issues or party ideology, simply because they don’t know them. Studies have shown that most people vote the way they do primarily because its how a family member or friend of theirs is voting. Studies have also shown that people often cast their vote towards a candidate who they think is going to win, regardless of their political philosophy.

Here is the core difference between Democrats and Republicans, which is actually quite easy to remember. Republicans crave more economic freedom but fight for social and moral regulation, whereas Democrats desire more social freedom, yet fight for economic regulation. You can see that these two parties, or rather political forces, have a Yin-Yang type relationship. This two-party system, regardless of what each may actually be called, is always inevitable to form within any democratic political system and can never be truly lost. These two parties help to provide many of the checks and balances our government needs.

One of the biggest debates between the two parties is how big should the central government be. How strong of a role should government have in our lives? This question has been struggled with as far back as the Founding Fathers and well beyond. The problem is, both parties are in part correct and both are in part incorrect. We need more government in certain areas and less government in other areas. It’s a delicate balancing act.

I should also point out that being a Democrat or a Republican is not as black and white as many may think. There is a whole spectrum of variations between the two—a gradation that extends from one extreme to the other, from the far left pole to the far right. For example, far right-winged Republicans believe in an extremely free market society, but moderate Republicans do not. Far left-winged Democrats believe in a very free socially expressive society, but moderate Democrats do not. Most rational thinking people fall somewhere in between, believing some economic and social restrictions are necessary, and that some social and economic freedoms should be allowed.

Some of you may be familiar with the Nolan Chart, which diagrams and illustrates the two main scales of freedom; one being the economic scale and the second being the social scale. When combined, you get a chart with four main quadrants, usually viewed in a diamond configuration. The left quadrant indicates liberal or Democratic views, the right indicates conservative or Republican views. If you believe in a lot of economic and social freedom, then you are a libertarian, indicated in the upper quadrant. Thankfully, pure libertarians are becoming extinct, because we’ve all basically learned that we humans need some rules and restrictions to actually better our lives. If you believe in a lot of government control, in all areas, whether economic or social, then you are a statist or an authoritarian like Hitler or Stalin, indicated down below. Everyone, based on their beliefs, falls somewhere on this chart. This may be upsetting to those of you who hate to be labeled, but try not to let it get to you, because it’s simply meant to show where you may stand on the issues. I am personally somewhere in between, making me a moderate or centrist, but I do lean much more strongly towards the Democratic philosophy and I do believe in some government regulation as long as it’s in the right areas and as long as it’s not overdone.

Since Republicans prefer more economic freedom, then it goes without saying they also support capitalism and the free market system. Democrats on the other hand tend to support socialism or at least socialized services and programs like public schools, public fire departments, public libraries, public broadcasting, and Social Security and Medicare.

Unfortunately, most Republicans seem to think that capitalism, competition, and free markets solve all problems and have an “every man for himself” type philosophy, whereas Democrats tend to think government spending solves all problems, but thankfully, hold an “all for one and one for all,” type philosophy. Republicans celebrate financial independence, self-reliance, and individuality whereas Democrats more often celebrate interdependence, cooperation, and community.

Republicans also frown on the idea of the government raising taxes on big businesses and on high income citizens, while providing a tax relief for smaller businesses and lower income citizens, especially when a percentage of that revenue goes towards helping the sick, the needy, and the poor. Republicans call this “redistributing the wealth,” and view it as a great injustice. Apparently most Republicans feel that every dollar is truly and justly earned, as well as every empty pocket. They also claim that taxing the rich to give to the poor slows down the economy by causing large business owners, who they believe are the main job creators, to stop hiring and eventually to start downsizing and laying off workers. But history has repeatedly demonstrated, time and time again, that government spending towards the middle class and the poor helps everyone, including the rich, by strengthening our economy. Most respected, well educated economists will correctly tell you that this type of government taxing and spending is the best way to boost the economy during a recession and historical statistics confirms it. I think its good that the Republican party helps to prevent the government from over taxing and over spending, but there are times when the distribution of wealth becomes suspiciously offset, indicating economic injustice or corruption, and it becomes necessary and justified to redistribute the wealth. Let’s face it, the upper class does stand on the backs of the middle class, who ironically work the hardest, yet get paid the least. And believe me, the wealthy class have found many sneaky, covert, and in many cases, unethical ways to unjustly redistribute the wealth of America. Too often the dice are loaded and the tables are rigged. So, since the relatively free market system is nowhere near perfect and never will be, “we the people” must use government to help justly redistribute the wealth. Keep in mind, if the foundation of the middle class falls, so will the upper class, and they will have the longest fall to endure.

Republicans usually advocate Trickle Down economics, believing the better off the wealthy class is the better off everyone else will be, since they believe the wealthy are the main spenders and job creators. The idea is that wealth will “trickle down” to the lower classes. But that philosophy has already proven many times in the past not to work. Wealth almost never trickles down, and instead, almost always trickles up. Large corporations and wealthy CEOs have been shown historically to sit on their money out of fear and/or greed, especially during a recession, and kink the circulation of money, which harms our economy. Statistics have shown that small business owners collectively invest more than large business owners because they do not have the luxury not to. They also usually keep a more responsible watchful eye on their business in order for it to survive and thrive, and they are known for taking better personal care of their customers. The large business owners don’t have the same incentives or desperation to do so. Also, large businesses eventually reach a maximum thresh-hold and can’t grow and so they end up seeking cheaper labor and sending American jobs overseas in order to remain competitive. It turns out that the better off the middle class is the better off everyone else is, at least up until the point of reducing the excessive power, control, and wealth of the super rich. So if the government raises taxes on the wealthy class and on larger business owners, while at the same time, providing a tax relief for the middle class and smaller business owners, then the middle class, which is the main backbone of our economy, will be in a position to spend more, expand their own businesses, and hire the workers that the big corporations can no longer afford to hire. Overall, the economy will prosper and be better off.

There also seems to be a cultural dichotomy when evaluating these two main political parties. Republicans tend to share a common personality profile with each other and so do Democrats. For instance, Republicans are usually Christian whereas Democrats, if not Christian, often study Buddhism or some form of new-age spirituality. The irony here is that the Democratic way should actually appeal to all Christians, because that party believes in sharing the burden to help all citizens as though we are all one family. Jesus could be described as a Democrat. He believed in helping the poor, healing the sick and giving aid to the elderly at his expense and respected those who did the same. Many Republicans have explained that they are not against giving to those in need, but have argued that it’s more noble to give voluntarily instead of everyone being forced to give by the government. However, I can’t help but to believe they conveniently hide behind this logic because statistics have shown that the more money one has the less percentage they tend to give and that people simply do not donate enough. During the great depression of the 1930s, President Herbert Hoover tried a program called “volunteerism,” but it failed miserably. There simply weren’t enough Dudley Do-Rights or Mother Teresas in the world to make it work. It’s also extremely embarrassing to seek charity and could leave a needy citizen to be branded for life. Now as far as the Republicans are concerned, this humiliation helps to serve as a great disincentive to ever rely too strongly on charity as well as a lesson not to ever fall financially behind, but this pressure can too often be too much and frequently leads to domestic abuse, theft, murder, or suicide. Public aid is genuinely needed at times and the recipients are often not to blame. What would be most charitable and noble is for us to all agree now to permanently volunteer to aid those who are truly in need.

There are other important differences like how Democrats usually seem to show more concern for the health of our environment than Republicans do. For example, Democrats tend to believe global warming is a real threat primarily caused by man’s over production of carbon emissions, while Republicans tend to believe man-made global warming is just a myth or at least turn a blind eye to protect special interest groups. Republicans usually make a lot more money and are said to cater to the wealthy, upper class while ignoring the minorities. Democrats are usually not as financially well off and are said to cater to the middle class, the poor, the impaired, and the elderly. The Republican party is often viewed as racist and sexist, which of course does not include all Republicans, and the Democratic party is known to support all kinds regardless of race, age, or sexual preference. Republicans are usually more ego-driven, whereas Democrats are usually more humbled and passive. In fact, the further to the right one is, politically, the more self-centered, selfish and stingy one tends to be, like an immature child who hates to share. The further to the left of the political spectrum, the more laid-back, tolerant, and giving one usually is, even to a fault. Therefore, far right-winged Republicans are often viewed as heartless, intolerant, and uncaring and far left-winged Democrats are often viewed as gullible, naïve and overprotective. To continue the comparison, Democrats usually root for gun control, while Republicans usually fight for the right to bare arms. Republicans are usually pro-life and Democrats are usually pro-choice. The list of course goes on.

Aside from the more important distinctions, there are some more trivial but still interesting personality traits that seem to be shared by members of each party. For instance, Republicans are more likely to watch Fox News, American Idol, The Apprentice, and Survivor, whereas Democrats are more likely to watch MSNBC-News, The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, and Star Trek. Republicans tend to prefer Jay Leno and Democrats tend to prefer Conan O’Brien. It’s not always the case, but if you live in the South or the Midwest, or love country western music, or really love to hunt, or believe the Apollo moon landings were faked, then you are very likely a Republican. Again, it’s not written in stone, but if you live up North, or live in a big city, or love New Age music, or believe in extra terrestrials, then there is a really good chance that you are a Democrat. Remember though, there are no guarantees. It’s possible to run across a Republican who can’t stand the site of blood and you can find a Democrat who loves to wear cowboy boots and lives on a farm.

But to get back to the main difference between the two parties, Republicans seek economic freedom and Democrats seek social freedom. In my opinion, both forms of freedom are good as long as they are not in the extreme. There is such a thing as too much freedom. When there is too much freedom, then people are free to unjustly take from others, free to take advantage and manipulate others for their own selfish needs, and free to behave any way they want even if it annoys others. True freedom is to be free to walk down our neighborhoods without fear of being attacked or mugged. True freedom is the freedom to have a descent job, and the freedom to learn, and the freedom to save money. Ironically, we have to have fences in order to have true freedom.

Currently, we are in an economic recession, a problem caused by both Republicans with their desire for less economic regulations and Democrats with their endless wasteful spending. So I strongly recommend to all Republicans and to all Democrats, become a moderate or a centrist. Move towards the center of the overall political spectrum. If we can all find a middle ground and a healthy balance between rules and freedoms, I believe our nation will prosper in every way. I believe man kind will finally live the way man was intended to live—in balanced comfort, with true freedom.

Added note: No political party is ever without flaw, but if you wish to know which party to support, look to the one that truly struggles for those who truly suffer. Whenever there is great corruption within any system, there are always those who benefit from that corruption, usually an elite few who gain at the expense of all others. Use multiple, reliable sources and accurate, statistical facts and figures to find the party that is being paid and/or deceived to support those who wish to preserve this unfair imbalance. They are the ones who will lie, cheat, and distort the truth in order to maintain the status quo.

One of my recent blog posts below:

Hillary in Back to the Future II

I really like Bernie Sanders, in fact most of his political views are in line with my own, but I have to lean more towards Hillary Clinton, because I think she would make a better president in terms of her presidential presence, her diplomacy skills, her overall knowledge and experience, and I think she has a far better chance of actually beating the Republicans, which is paramount!

So here’s a fun little Back to the Future II image I created in Photoshop to express my support for Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. I also made this to commemorate the movie Back to the Future part II. Tomorrow is the day that Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel into the future to arrive on October 21, 2015.