My two cents:
Republicans believe that government in intrinsically evil and that those who get more deserve more and that the ones left behind in the rat race of life deserve their fate.
Democrats believe that government can be a force for positive change in the world and that the individual is entitled to certain basic necessities of life regardless of his talents or ambition.
In my view, the Republicans stand for evil, ignorance and insanity; the Democrats for not being Republicans. To expand a little; the Republicans in recent decades have become the party for most every nasty, ignorant, bigoted, stupid or outright nuts element in America. The Republicans are the party of racism, sexism, creationism, warmongering, xenophobia, homophobia, theocracy, free marker fundies, anti-government fanatics, doomsday cultism, kill-the-planet anti-environmentalism, and on and on in a vast mutually contradictory menagerie of malice, greed, pathology and evil. They are America’s garbage heap.
The Democrats have crazies, of course, but they have no power; just career politicians whose only goal appears to be getting elected and staying in office ( which still puts them several cuts above the Republicans ). The Democrats, as others have said, have defined themselves as the not-Republicans for a long time.
Ahem… Really?
The two both believe that society needs an engine and a safety net. The Reps focus on the engine as the means to help the greatest number of people. The Dems focus on the safety net to help the greatest number of people. Thing is, from where i stand, if you don’t do everything you can to help the engine, you will, indeed find a larger pool of people to help who need safety net. That;s the juncture where they split, anyway. I think all differences can be tracked back to the engine vs the safety net.
Doomsday cultism? What doomsday cults or other cults (i.e. non-mainstream religious fanatic groups) support Republicans? Anti-government fanatics? You’re telling me all those “Bush blew up the towers” people are actually Republicans?
I can’t really argue with the rest of your sentence there, but I don’t know about those two specific groups. I think they don’t like either the democrats or the republicans.
The Democrats will stand up for every amendment except the second one. I guess they are willing to skip that part of the Bill of Rights, because, you know, it’s not important anymore, or something like that.
The Unification Church.
The Republican Party.
The Christian Rapturist types ( who tried to get Reagan to nuke the USSR so they would retaliate and kill us all, and so terrified the Russians they considered a nuclear first strike on us just for electing Reagan ). The James Watt style kill-the-planet-and-Jesus-will-come antienvironmentalists, and the slightly less nutty ones who say we don’t need to worry about the future because the End Times are coming.
Yes; these are the same people who consistently put people in charge of government programs who oppose them. The same people who want to create so much debt that the government will have to cut social services ( ‘starving the beast’ ).
It’s not; it’s mainly a support for tyranny these days. It’s people like the doctor murdering right winger anti-abortionists who use guns politically in this country. In modern times, guns are mainly used by thugs to oppress others, not fight against oppression; they aren’t powerful enough for the latter. That’s why the Republicans like the Second Amendment; they are among other things the party of thugs. They like making it easier to murder doctors who perform abortions, gays, and so on, and they know quite well they are useless against the government.
Forward!
Stop! Hold it right there! Well, hey, at least slow down, whats the hurry? Quit shovin’! All right, all right, pushy sumbitch!
(Ahem) We Republicans have always been in favor of going forward, it is only thier obstruction that hinders our progress…
Let’s talk about the real underlying philosophy for a moment.
Republicans
Republicans tend to believe that traditional institutions which have proven to be effective in maintaining a stable society should be defended. They believe the civic life revolves around the family and the community. They believe that charity should be voluntary, and that the control over a community should be strongest at the local level and weakest at larger levels, so that strangers to not have the power to compel their behaviour.
Republicans believe that the family unit is the core of American life, and that government interference weakens family bonds by reducing the need to support grandparents, reducing the need to invest in your children’s education (and for their seeing you invest in it), and reducing the need for extended families to stay together for the purpose of being a social safety net for each other. They see the rise in divorce, the rise in the number of single parent families, and the apparent weakening of ties to extended families, and they blame government policy for doing this. Especially policies since the New Deal which have greatly explanded the role of government.
They believe that ‘social engineering’ is fraught with danger, and they see much of it being carried out by people who have values inimical to theirs. They believe there are unintended consequences of meddling in the natural order of things, much as an environmentalist might oppose genetic engineering.
They are typically believers in natural rights - that our rights are intrinsic, and not bestowed upon us by government. Therefore, the government needs strong justification before taking them. These include economic rights, and most importantly the right to property.
Republicans tend to believe that hard work is rewarded, that you have to earn your living, and that living off of charity should be a temporary, last resort while you desperately try to find a way to support yourself again.
Republicans tend to trust the market, and believe that free exchange is the best way to maximize freedom and ensure that people’s needs are met to the best of our ability. They believe in the invisible hand.
Republicans tend to respect businessmen and people who invest in business.
Republicans tend to value their culture and wish to protect it. They prefer a melting pot - immigrants to their country are expected to adopt their values.
Democrats
Democrats tend to respect the worker, and see businessmen as a threat to the worker if not kept in check.
Democrats tend to believe that there is injustice in the world, and that government can be a positive force in ameliorating the effects of injustice or removing it entirely.
Democrats believe that poor people have been less fortunate than rich people, and therefore rich people have an obligation to help them.
Democrats are distrustful of the market, because they see inequality of outcome - some people benefit more than others - and they find something distasteful about having to bid and bargain for things like medical services.
Democrats tend to believe that a society works better if there is a smaller gap between rich and poor, and that it’s worth taxing the rich and giving to the poor to achieve this result.
Democrats do not trust markets to regulate themselves, and abrogate that duty to the government, which they feel is in the control of all the people, and not just the ones with money.
Democrats prefer a cultural mosaic to a melting pot. They believe that cultures are not better or worse - just different. Therefore, they support multiculturalism.
Democrats tend to be more protectionist than Republicans. In part because of their mistrust of markets, but also because they find the gap between rich and poor in international transactions to be offensively high. It bothers them that their products may be made with 50 cent an hour labor.
Democrats tend to believe that society can be adjusted and tweaked to make it fairer, and that ‘scientific’ planning of industry can result in better societal outcomes than a market which has too much influence by the wealthy classes.
I think both Magellan01 (short) and Sam Stone (detailed) have done a good job. What I told my kids when they asked:
Do you value (economic) safety or (economic) freedom?
Both are desirable, but the weighting of one or the other helps define the core of each party, in the economic sense.
Taking this into the cultural realm:
Do you value individual liberty, or working for a better society?
Hopefully my own preferences haven’t shown in my choice of words.
Y’all are making this more complicated than it really is:
Democratic Party principles: Elected officials should be members of the Democratic Party.
Republican Party principles: Elected officials should be members of the Republican Party.
Individual politicians of either party may hold to other principles but within the party none of them tend to outweigh the above. Criticism of another politician is heavily geared to the guiding principle of “Hooray for our side”, which is a restatement of the above.
See also: “four legs good, two legs bad”
Pretty good. I thought about my own phrasing, but I like yours better.
Regards,
Shodan
I think ti’s more accurate to go with ideological labeling than party labeling.
Conservatives: What does it mean for me and mine?
Liberals: What does it mean for me, mine, you, yours, and everybody else?
Democrats
Socialists in a hurry
Republicans
Socialists not in a hurry
No…
Conservatives: What does it mean for me and mine, and how can I get you to leave me the hell alone?
Liberals: What does it mean for me, mine, you, yours, and everybody else, and how can I use government as a baseball bat to beat you into doing it?
Yeah, THEY want to be left alone, while they force everyone else to live according to the demands of their own greed and bigotry.
Translation : “WAHHH ! They don’t wanna let me be a sociopath ! They actually expect me to pay what I owe and treat other people like they matter !”
At least as demonstrated in this thread:
Republicans: think Democrats have bad ideas.
Democrats: think Republicans are bad people.
Regards,
Shodan
Wow…just…wow
First - “conservatives” aren’t necessarily “republicans”…and not all conservatives are capitalist, corporate types. Many of them are just middle-American farmers, desk jockeys, etc…
And last…a “sociopath”? “pay what I owe…?” What the hell does that even mean? What do I “owe” anyone?? Only what they owe me, I suppose…which is ZERO, ZIP and NADA.
On second thought, I don’t know why I even bother, since it’s Der Trihs, who is known for taking big, steaming dumps in threads like this one…
Hmmmm it seems to me I remember you in another thread calling Rev Wright some ugly names rather than attacking his ideas. When you look at the tactics used by pro republican pundits and groups like the swift boat jerks your concept here falls apart very quickly. Republicans have a very public history of personal attacks rather than sticking to the issues. Even when it comes to republican attacking republican.
I’d like to see a poll on how many republicans think Bush and Cheney lied to get us into this war. I’ll bet it’s a whole lot higher than it was a few years ago. How does that rate on the bad idea/bad person scale?
It will only be higher because the media and/or Democrats have been successful in propagandizing that point. There is a huge gulf between making decisions based on flawed intelligence and intentionally propagandizing. But, that debate has been had over and over, and is a highjack of this thread that should probably be taken up elsewhere if anyone has the stomach (I don’t) to hash it over again.