Can a liberal be a Democrat?

[troublemaker]

An earlier post asked what independents believe and that got me thinking about what I am. I KNOW I'm a liberal, but am I a Democrat?

To paraphrase Will Rogers, "I don't belong to any organized political party; I'm an anarchist." Ha, ha. Actually he said "I'm a Democrat." Well, I'm a Democrat too for as long as they remain the comparatively unorganized party. I'd guess that about 75% of people at DU would, if given the power, institute a dictatorship the first time the people voted "wrong." (so would all condominium committees, rotary clubs, volunteer fire departmnents... give any group of people enough power and they will institute a totalitarian state.) But 99% of people at Free Republic would institute a dictatorship without even a trial election, so I am a Democrat. But I am first and foremost a liberal.

Political parties are bad--at best a sophisticated stylization of a lynch mob. Since there's gonna' be a lynching no matter what, the informed voter should pick the party that wants to lynch the worst people and/or the fewest people.

Our Constitution was designed to limit government as much as possible by setting up a state where the people exist in opposition to the government. I like our Constitution!

It's true that without government there can be no freedom. Even fascism is better than no government at all! Yet our founders were hostile to government... It's not that they were too stupid to see that some government is necessary, but rather that they knew that no constitution is required to maintain a minimum of government because government springs up like weeds wherever people congregate. We are political animals.

It's a Faustian delusion to become fixated on the government's potential power for good. The increase in Russian industrial production between 1920 and 1940 was unbelievable. It could not have happened under any other system... doubling every few years even during the depression. Amazing stuff. And that 1920-1940 increase was what really doomed Hitler, as dearly as we Americans might like to think otherwise. So Stalinism was a good thing, right? Lines of thought like that used to be fairly common among leftists; many of them very humane people. That's what happens once one stops thinking of government as at best a necessary evil.

I doubt a complex system like a society can ever be fully understood by we humans... it's like the weather but even harder to grok because we have so little information about people to rely upon--the weather in a thimble involves more interacting parts than the total political motivations of everyone who has ever lived. We would need to observe human behavior for billions of years to even begin to understand politics as well as we understand weather... and we *do not* understand the weather very well.

Since governments seem inclined to behave terribly and no human can begin to understand the dynamics involved the right answer is harsh limitation of government. Our Constitution is as sweepingly unfair to government as can be; heads the people win, tails government loses.

Right-wing nuts have hijacked the language of limited government but that shouldn't distract us from the fact that limited government is 90% of liberalism. We invented limited government. Keep in mind that liberalism wasn't invented to oppose libertarianism or to bring order from chaos. It was invented to oppose monarchy.

The civil rights movement wasn't a struggle between black people and red-necks. It was a struggle between black people and the government. If no white person was willing to hire or marry a black person then the south wouldn't have needed laws to prevent such things. The State governments were imposing a racial theory on people. George Wallace wasn't just some guy; he was the embodiment of the government of Alabama. He got beat down by a bigger governement and a right-wing mythology developed wherein Wallace oposed government intrusions. But what's more intrusive than the government telling you which water fountains to use? That sounds like an extraordinary level of government control over your life.

When movement conservatives started fixating on government inefficiency it resonated with people... everyone likes efficiency, right? Well, everyone except our founding fathers. Our government was designed to be inefficient. It's not an accident... it's not because Democrats are stupid or lazy. Congress is comical because it was designed to be comical... a bunch of assholes bloviating and not getting anything done.

That's the point... our system was designed to make it difficult for the government to act. It's a wise system. IMO.

[Pale Blue Dot]

1. Yes I can. nt

[BillZBubb]

2. I suggest you get a copy of "A Necessary Evil"

by Garry Wills. It will open your eyes about the real intent of framers of the Constitution. You believe the myth that the government was designed to be inefficient and weak. That is not the case. It is a conservative meme that is pushed at every instance. You have been misled.

In fact, the Constitution was created to make government more efficient--AND TO MAKE THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT MORE POWERFUL. This is contrary to every conservative utterance.

And yes, a liberal can be a Democrat. The Democrats with all their faults are still light years better than any Repug on virtually all issues that liberals support.

[I thought so.]

3. Yes indeed my friend.

n/t

[Senior citizen]

4. Only just prior to an election. (n/t)