Are Democrats Really The Party Of The Common Man?

chuckn49 · 06-14-2008, 12:35 PM

Are Democrats really the party of the common man or is this one of the greatest political scams and brilliant propaganda victories of all time? I ask this question because, as I was growing up, all I ever heard was that the Republicans were the party of Big Business while the Democrats were the party of the working man.
Now that I am a seasoned adult (getting riper by the year), I have come to believe that the opposite is true. As a "working man" and a very "common man," I find myself far more comfortable, albeit not happy, with the Republicans than I do with my former party affiliation as a Democrat.
Like many here (most, probably), I love history. So, as my doubts grew I thought I'd take a closer look at the history of the Democratic Party and here is what I have concluded:
The Democratic Party, formerly known as the Democratic-Republican Party, was founded by aristocratic slave holders for the most part. While these were brilliant men, in most respects, they, nevertheless, profited off the sweat and suffering of other men enslaved in their service. Even that great Democrat, Thomas Jefferson, was waited upon by his slaves while he penned those immortal lines, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."
As one goes down the list of the so-called Fathers of the Democratic Party, one finds that almost to a man they owned slaves -- Patrick Henry, James Madison, James Monroe, Thomas Jefferson, to name just a few. Also, almost to a man, at one time or another, they all decried the horror of slavery while maintaining that they were, for economic, even patriotic reasons, unable to do anything about it. None of them, as far as I know, ever emancipated a single slave even upon their deaths. They were only too willing to pass on the benefits of slavery to their children.
For the next 60 years, the movers and shakers in this Party did everything they could to preserve, protect and, whenever possible, expand slavery in the US. Routinely, they threatened, cajoled, or just plain blackmailed the rest of the country whenever they felt their "peculiar institution" was being threatened.
When, with the election of Abraham Lincoln and the defection, for political reasons, of their usual allies, the northern Democrats, they realized that the tide had irrevocably turned against them, they conspired, with the covert support of their northern brethren, to sunder this nation into free and slave countries. In other words, they committed treason rather than bow to the will of the vast majority of their fellow citizens and plunged this nation into the most ruinous war in terms of treasure, suffering and casualties of its history.
During this terrible Civil War, the northern Democrats shamelessly attempted to undermine their own government and sabotage the war effort. In fact, their 1864 candidate, the failed Union general, George B. McClellan, ran on a platform of appeasement and a promise to end the war or, in modern terms, pull out and bring the "boys" home -- sound familiar?
Upon their defeat, the southern Democrats quickly joined hands with their brother Democrats in the North to undermine the 13th and 14th Amendments. While they couldn't overtly re-institute slavery, they came as close as possible to it with their infamous "Jim Crow" laws. They even managed to rewrite history so that the Confederacy became not a vile slavery nation but, a noble states' rights champion of the common man (excluding "niggers" of course).
For the next 100 years, the Democrats did everything in their power to keep African-Americans in bondage. One of their great Presidents, Woodrow Wilson, was an avowed racist who segregated the federal government.
Yet, I believe they have so skillfully re-written history and indoctrinated the American public that even their former victims have come to see them as their saviors. Despite the KKK, Little Rock, George Wallace and Lester Maddox, most Americans think they are the party of Civil Rights. I wonder why no one ever wonders just who it was that Martin Luther King had to march against in Selma, Atlanta, Washington, and elsewhere -- all bastions of Democratic rule.
So, my conclusion is that the Democratic Party, now commonly perceived as the party of the common man, the party of the oppressed minority and the champion of civil rights has brilliantly brainwashed most of America and almost all the rest of the world. They have hidden a history of abuse, persecution and enslavement surpassed in modern times only by Hitler's Nazis, Stalin's Communists and Mussolini's Fascists.
What are your thoughts?

syscom3 · 06-14-2008, 01:11 PM

Not since the 1980's have they been the representative for the common man.

chuckn49 · 06-14-2008, 09:24 PM

What was different about the Democratic Party after 1980 that made them no longer the Party of the Common Man in your opinion and what were they doing before 1980 that makes you feel they were the party of the common man before then?

pbfoot · 06-14-2008, 09:42 PM

If you actually looked they are no different they spout different stuff but because of EXTREME pasrtisan politics they are never able to achieve squat except to maitain the status quo.

Soundbreaker Welch? · 06-15-2008, 04:32 AM

I liked what the article said, except I don't think the Confederate South was just a vile nation. There was good people there too.

timshatz · 06-15-2008, 06:20 AM

It's a tough time to ask that question and get a balanced answer. Both Parties just finished their primary elections and primaries are won by appealing to the extreme elements of your party. The extremes in the Democratic party are the liberals. As a consequence, the Democrats appear very liberal at present.

However, as the old adage says, Primary wins appeal to the extremes, General election wins appeal to the center.

That being said, the Democrats have a big problem with control by more extreme parts of their Party. The Environmentalists have a lot of power in that party, rightly or wrongly can be debated.

chuckn49 · 06-15-2008, 08:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Soundbreaker Welch?

I liked what the article said, except I don't think the Confederate South was just a vile nation. There was good people there too.

I agree! There were good people in the Confederacy. There were "good people" in Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy or Stalin's Russia, too. But, that does not change the inherent nature of the country they served, in my opinion.
Despite the very effective re-writing of history by the Democrats, the Confederacy was created to protect the right of one man to enslave another man in order to profit from the enforced labor of that man. While there were slaves of other races, the primary targets of southern slavery were Africans. There were even Africans who were slave masters over other Africans. Several Africans worked tirelessly to save the Confederacy. Then again, there were a few Jews (according to Hitler's laws), who served the Nazis, too.
I think it is chilling if you re-frame the Confederacy in terms we normally associate with Hitler's Germany. For example, a plantation would be called a concentration camp because that is what it was. Both systems used the term "slave labor" because that is what they had. Both systems singled out individuals for enslavement based on race or ethnicity -- in the case of Germany because they were Jews and in the Confederacy because they were Africans. Both systems reserved the right to break up families, relocate people at will and, in the end, even to kill them if it was deemed advantageous.
Of course, the Confederacy was far more pragmatic than Hitler's Germany in that they viewed their slaves as valuable commodities to be cared for in the same way as other beasts of burden. Yet, even in its most dire hour, as armies encircled its major cities, most Confederates refused to emancipate their slaves or to use them to defend their country because they both feared and loathed them.
How like Hitler's Germany where he continued to order the extermination of millions of Jews, using vast resources needed elsewhere to defend the Reich, rather than utilize these valuable people to defend his country. In the end, it was more important to Hitler to exterminate the Jew than to preserve his country as it was more important to the Confederates to keep the black man "in his place" than to win the war. The difference, of course, is that Hitler exterminated his hated minority while the Confederates, to the bitter end, hoped that somehow their peculiar institution and the benefits it provided them would survive the war. In many ways, they managed to do just that.
So, we are faced with the question of why an honorable, decent man like Robert E. Lee would set aside all his moral and personal beliefs to serve such a nation or why a Rommel would do the same 80 years later. What rationalization and convolution of thought and principle did those choices require?

Njaco · 06-15-2008, 09:10 AM

Great post Chuck! As a relative of General Lee I've read alot about why he choose as he did. But putting it in terms along with Rommel is interesting.

And as a twisted circle to the original question, that is one of the reasons why I see the Democratic party as destroying America. It has taken away the right of one's personal convictions and replaced it with a white-washed feeling of emptiness. Instead of Americans living a life on convictions and character we have become a nation of entintlements and victims.

People aren't choosen for college or jobs anymore based on the qualifications of themselves but rather a racist, empty formula - so many minorities vs others. If you can't do something for yourself, let the government do it for you. Are you breaking the laws of this country? Well, we understand your plight and will help you to become a legal lawbreaker. This creep of liberal thinking has been going on since the 30s with the New Deal. You don't have to work that hard or apply yourself because you are a victim and entitled to the government making your life easier with Welfare, Social Security, Medicare, etc, etc, etc. You don't have to stand up for yourself, not as long as you're a victim. That coffee was hot and somebody should have told me so!!

So who is the common man? I don't see it as the dregs who sleep and beg on the street corners, who slither under the Texas fence, who have a fistful of food stamps for 6 children by 8 fathers. Its not these people who currently are the foundation of the Democratic party.

Its the people who work 2 or 3 jobs, who own a 10 yr old car, who don't sue GM and Ford because of a 2 inch scrape of paint gotten in a very minor fender bender, who open doors at stores for other people, who don't park in handicapped spaces, who keep yards nice and clean not so much for themselves but because the care for their neigbors, who quietly go about their life without imposing on the lives of others but who carry this country because they also pay through their nose for it. The Common man is almost invisible to the Democratic party.

Kruska · 06-15-2008, 09:20 AM