Sunday, July 09, 2006
Democrats Lack Ideas
I read a column in today's (July 9) newspaper. The columnist writes about receiving a letter from Senator Kennedy. The columnist reads the letter, which is four pages long. The letter urges him to contribute money to help vote those shameless Republicans out of office. The letter recounts many shameless things that the Republicans have done. The columnist agrees that these things are really and truly shameless. Nevertheless, he keeps looking in the letter for positive statements about what Democrats are going to do about the Republican mess if they are elected. He doesn't find any such statement. He concludes that the Democrats don't have any ideas other than to replace the Republicans in office.
Many pundits and even people who are not pundits have expressed the same criticism of my party over the years. After Colin Powell retired from military service he considered becoming politically active. He chose the Republican Party because, as he is quoted as having said, the Republican Party is the party of ideas. The Democrats don't have any new ideas.
Look at my previous post. I think it expresses the ideas of many Democrats. We Democrats do not have ideological beliefs. We do not believe, as many Republicans do, that cutting taxes is an appropriate cure for any economic problem: depression, exhuberant speculation, unemployment, etc. We do not believe that our economic prosperity depends on providing rich people with enough money that they will spend it on creating new businesses and more jobs for the rest of us. We do not believe in supply-side economics. In fact, we recognize that there is a glut of manufacturing capacity in the world. There are too many auto makers; too many airplane makers; too many factories of almost every kind in relation to the desire and ability of consumers to buy their products. We know that in our present condition, unregulated markets do not lead to an equitable distribution of resources. Free markets do not build mass rapid transit systems for large cities. Free markets and private enterprise did not provide adequate mail and package delivery service to all parts of the country.
We Democrats try to avoid policies based on some ideological concept or on "the way things ought to be." We recognize that our political, social, and economic system isn't perfect and we are willing to experiment, to try things that may improve matters. We know that Social Security and Medicare are two experiments that have worked well so far. They may need fine tuning and changes in the way they are funded at some future time. We accept the need for such changes, but we reject ideological arguments that they were wrong from the start and should be eliminated.
We try to remember our history. We know that many things have been tried in the past. Some worked, some didn't. Private competing fire companies proved to be a poor way to put out fires in our large cities. Private competing barber shops are an excellent way to get good haircuts.
We do not reject religion. Many of us are religious and are regular church-goers. However, we accept a dichotomy that exists between religious faith and scientific knowledge. We know that religious faith in Europe required every Christian to believe that the world was flat until the voyage of Magellan, even though the head of the great library of Alexandria was able to calculate the circumference of the earth in 200 BC with an error of no more than 50 miles based on two measurements in Egypt. We are able to know that in that same year of 200 BC people who revered the Torah (a component of the present Bible) believed in stoning to death adulterous women and homosexual men. At the same time we reject these two religious teachings as being very old-fashioned and out of date.
We believe in keeping what is good in our society and changing what is bad. We judge the goodness or the badness strictly on the actual benefit to or suffering inflicted on ordinary people, not on what some priest or preacher may say based on an interpretation of holy scripture.
We believe in improving the lot of poor people. We believe in providing good jobs for everyone. We believe in good health care for everyone. We believe in a comfortable living for our elderly retirees. We believe that our economy is strong enough and provides enough product and service to make all of these things possible. We may not have at present specific proposed programs to achieve these goals, but we are convinced that if the American public believes in them and elects representatives who believe in them, these representatives can work out suitable programs through the ordinary processes of political negotiation.
I guess that simply having noble goals makes for a hard sell. It might be more effective to have some bright-sounding and half-baked program to talk about, something along the line of the "Contract with America" that worked for the Republicans twelve years ago.
I try not to be cynical.
Many pundits and even people who are not pundits have expressed the same criticism of my party over the years. After Colin Powell retired from military service he considered becoming politically active. He chose the Republican Party because, as he is quoted as having said, the Republican Party is the party of ideas. The Democrats don't have any new ideas.
Look at my previous post. I think it expresses the ideas of many Democrats. We Democrats do not have ideological beliefs. We do not believe, as many Republicans do, that cutting taxes is an appropriate cure for any economic problem: depression, exhuberant speculation, unemployment, etc. We do not believe that our economic prosperity depends on providing rich people with enough money that they will spend it on creating new businesses and more jobs for the rest of us. We do not believe in supply-side economics. In fact, we recognize that there is a glut of manufacturing capacity in the world. There are too many auto makers; too many airplane makers; too many factories of almost every kind in relation to the desire and ability of consumers to buy their products. We know that in our present condition, unregulated markets do not lead to an equitable distribution of resources. Free markets do not build mass rapid transit systems for large cities. Free markets and private enterprise did not provide adequate mail and package delivery service to all parts of the country.
We Democrats try to avoid policies based on some ideological concept or on "the way things ought to be." We recognize that our political, social, and economic system isn't perfect and we are willing to experiment, to try things that may improve matters. We know that Social Security and Medicare are two experiments that have worked well so far. They may need fine tuning and changes in the way they are funded at some future time. We accept the need for such changes, but we reject ideological arguments that they were wrong from the start and should be eliminated.
We try to remember our history. We know that many things have been tried in the past. Some worked, some didn't. Private competing fire companies proved to be a poor way to put out fires in our large cities. Private competing barber shops are an excellent way to get good haircuts.
We do not reject religion. Many of us are religious and are regular church-goers. However, we accept a dichotomy that exists between religious faith and scientific knowledge. We know that religious faith in Europe required every Christian to believe that the world was flat until the voyage of Magellan, even though the head of the great library of Alexandria was able to calculate the circumference of the earth in 200 BC with an error of no more than 50 miles based on two measurements in Egypt. We are able to know that in that same year of 200 BC people who revered the Torah (a component of the present Bible) believed in stoning to death adulterous women and homosexual men. At the same time we reject these two religious teachings as being very old-fashioned and out of date.
We believe in keeping what is good in our society and changing what is bad. We judge the goodness or the badness strictly on the actual benefit to or suffering inflicted on ordinary people, not on what some priest or preacher may say based on an interpretation of holy scripture.
We believe in improving the lot of poor people. We believe in providing good jobs for everyone. We believe in good health care for everyone. We believe in a comfortable living for our elderly retirees. We believe that our economy is strong enough and provides enough product and service to make all of these things possible. We may not have at present specific proposed programs to achieve these goals, but we are convinced that if the American public believes in them and elects representatives who believe in them, these representatives can work out suitable programs through the ordinary processes of political negotiation.
I guess that simply having noble goals makes for a hard sell. It might be more effective to have some bright-sounding and half-baked program to talk about, something along the line of the "Contract with America" that worked for the Republicans twelve years ago.
I try not to be cynical.
