What Do Democrats and Republicans Believe?

When I was in college a question came up that went something like this: Should we vote for the man or the party? My professor said that the more educated (and we assume intelligent) voter votes for the party. Why? Because few of us have time to know all the candidates in great detail, but we do have time to know what the party stands for, and IF we aren’t sure about the beliefs of an individual candidate we can assume the candidates do, in general, support the tenets of their party.

But what do the parties believe? What do positions, and issues, and paths do Democrats and Republicans support? Finding out is difficult, especially now, because most of the information on the issues is coming from Republican and/or Democrat Zealots. The information is slanted when the information comes from fanatics. Getting calm, unemotional, step by step logical information is almost impossible when we have two candidates running for President and when each one has about 50% of the voters on their side.

In this election year, with feelings strong, and the mud flying back and forth, I want to pause and consider the belief base for both of the major parties. I feel free to do this because it is going to help me think, this is my blog, and I have very little evidence that anyone reads my blog, so I’m not likely to offend anyone. I do not pretend that what I am presenting has any weight, since I am not an expert about anything, but I am exploring the questions to benefit myself, and, if it helps anyone else fine.

What Do Democrats Believe?

In general, I think Democrats believe in rights of the individual citizen. This is often called Liberal, because by standing up for the rights of all individuals the rights of bad people are sometimes protected as well. Democrats tend to support the rights of life, liberty, dignity, security, equality of opportunity, justice, privacy, and private ownership of property.
In general Democrats believe that the government has the duty to provide services to the citizens, when it would be impossible for those individuals to provide those services for themselves. Individual can’t always protect themselves (so they need a police force), they can’t put out fires (so they need a fire department) and following this logic we end up with a government involved in Interstate highways, water supply, children’s services to protect abused children, teachers and school buildings to provide education for all, and on and on it goes.

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The original sin of Republicans is greed. Everyone understands greed. Everybody wants to get theirs. The original sin of Democrats is pity. Greed is more attractive, and a better motivator, than pity. ~JOHN SCALZI, quoted in Ted Rall's Wake Up! You're Liberal!

What Do Republicans Believe?

In general Republicans believe. that the United States was founded on the fundamental principle that individuals have certain rights and freedoms which cannot be infringed upon and may be restricted only to the degree necessary to preserve the rights of others.

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"Too often, my party has confused the need for limited government with a disdain for government itself" ~GW Bush

In general Republicans believe that the money you earn is yours and that government in a free society has the right to take only as much as is needed to perform those limited functions, which are appropriate to it.

Republicans believe that the traditional family and the values it fosters are the foundation of American society and their preservation is essential to our Nation's continued success.
The Republican Party officially supports the Right to Life, and they oppose Gay Rights and Gay Marriage. This may seem in conflict with their general belief that individuals should be able to live as they wish without interference from the government.

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"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidise it. " ~Reagan

The Unofficial Views

Unofficially Democrats are viewed by many as being Liberal, and without moral/religious convictions, who place secular law over logic, and morals.

Unofficially Republicans are seen as being dominated by Evangelical (fundamentalist) Christians and they want to use government to advance their religious and moral objectives.

Compare and Contrast

Democrats believe government is often the solution to the problems and needs of our citizens.

Republicans believe that government is often the problem, and that the solution is to have less government, less restrictions on what the individual wants to do.

Democrats tend to believe that government has an obligation to help people who are too weak, or made bad choices and find themselves in trouble.

Republicans tend to believe that the individual is responsible for himself, or herself, and if they are in trouble, if they made bad choices, then that is their problem and the rest of us should not be forced to help by having our hard earned money taken from us to assist the irresponsible, the lazy, or the foolish.

National Health Care:

Democrats tend to believe that there are too many people without health care and so we all should chip in to provide health care to everyone.

Republicans tend to believe that it is the individual personals responsibility to take care of their own health needs, and if they fail to do so, that is their problem and fixing their problem should not be shifted to the tax payers.

The Democrat says that people with cancer, and no health care should be provided with the chemo and care needed to cope with their disease.

The Republican says, “why should I have to pay for stupid people who smoked and caused their own cancer?”

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The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. ~John Kenneth Galbraith

THEREFORE

When Obama or McCain say something it does not always have the impact the speaker things it is going to have. In a recent McCain ad they said that Obama wants to raise taxes to provide health care for everyone.

The Republican viewer would object to Obama for that position, but to a Democrat that sounds good. When Obama said in his acceptance convention speech that the Republicans would leave you “on your own,” the Democrat says, how terrible, and the Republican says, “so? that’s how it is suppose to be.”

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The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. It is the freedom to refrain, withdraw and abstain which makes a totalitarian regime impossible. ~Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, p 176, 1955