Seth wrote:
As an American who comes from early 20th Century immigrants from Ukraine and Poland, I grew up in a patriotic Democrat family. I left the Democratic Party after a term of Jimmy Carter, for whom I had voted, and haven't looked back.
Apparently the Democrats haven't either, because virtually everything they now embrace goes counter to the America envisioned by the founders and, in fact, seems geared toward subduing our culture, crushing our economy and deleting the Bill of Rights.
Here's something that might serve to put your accusation of my double-standard to rest. I don't support the original vision of our founders. I think they were all assholes. As someone who has until recently identified as a Jeffersonian this is an example of how I have changed as a result of debate. Something you have accused me of not being capable of.
I've come to realize that in 1772 the British government started to consider the eradication of slavery throughout it's empire and founders like Jefferson and Washington (both slave owners) didn't much like the idea. There is much evidence to suggest that preserving the slave trade was at the heart of our declaration for independence where things like the Stamp Act were mere excuses. Because of this, during the revolution itself, almost every black man involved in combat was on the British side.
Most of the Indians were also aligned with the British but for a different reason... they didn't trust the colonists to honor the land treaties, which in the end they did not.
Indeed, the founders created a system that served them as white male landowners and disadvantaged everyone else. Just within Jefferson's lifetime, America broke numerous treaties they signed with the Indian while under British rule and invaded their neighbors in 1812 in efforts to expand their territory by force. So make no mistake, I am not a believer in our foundation. I think there were some nice ideas in our founding documents that reflected intellectual thinking of the time, such as all men being created equal, but they were obviously using these lofty concepts to decorate their appeals not to actually live by. How else would you explain a man writing a letter to a king that all men are created equal while his slaves were chained up a few yards away?
Oh, that's right - slaves were only 3/5ths human. Yeah, f**k the foundation. That doesn't mean I hate America today... quite the contrary. America changed for the better. Through the courage of countless people that stood up to exploitation and selective oppression and ironically, those lofty ideas that the founders rhetorically spoke of, not thinking people would actually use them to validate social movements, America went through a slow process of becoming a more fair and just nation. That process is still happening despite the bitter complaints of those who pine for the old ways of bigotry and oppression.
So... getting back to your accusations... Yes, I strongly support the efforts to counter the original vision of our asshole founders. As for subduing our culture, that's far to vague an accusation to respond to because America is in fact a mix of many cultures. But if YOUR culture is based on bigotry and unfair advantages then yes, I am opposed. As for the economy - I think it's pretty clear. For the past 40 years we have seen Republicans trash the economy and Democrats fix the economy. I don't know how you can possibly see it any other way. I mean the economy is so easy to measure empirically and all it takes is simple math to understand how the Republican habit of cutting taxes and spending more money results in larger deficits and eventually higher debts and the historical trends illustrate that as plain as day.
Deleting the Bill of Rights, which many founders fought bitterly NOT to ratify, is not under attack by the left by any stretch of the imagination. I see the right-wing arguments all the time, especially around the 1st and 2nd Amendments but they all depend on this overstated slippery-slope notion, which means most of the argument is fictional.
To avoid an already long answer getting even longer, I will answer the rest of your unfounded charges in a subsequent post.