Democratic party should call the GOPs bluff. Bill of Rights II

[iconoclastNYC]

They supposedly love freedom so much, right?

Let's point out thier hypocricy as they fight us as we campaign for expanded personal rights.

Bill of Rights II. What's in it? I say that the state has no right to regulate private consensual sex between adults. How about some others.

I think we need to be much more up in the face of Republicans.

What else would be in Bill of Rights II?

How about privacy protections? IP reform? Universal healthcare as birthright? Higher Education too?

[inthebrain]

1. The right to

Food

Housing

Healthcare

We live in the wealthiest nation in the world. There is no reason why we can't afford these things.

[Selatius]

2. The so-called 2nd Bill of Rights is an old, inactive idea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Roosevelt%27s_Second_Bill_of_Rights

Introduced by FDR 60 years ago, the aim was to ensure economic mobility or freedom which was not possible under existing laws of the time.

In his State of the Union Address, he outlined approximately five points of the 2nd Bill of Rights that should be guaranteed to all Americans:

• A job with a living wage
  
• Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
  
• Homeownership
  
• Medical care
  
• Education
  

The Democratic Party has had mixed results with the first, failed on the second, failed on the third, failed on the fourth, and failed on the last point, in my opinion. Those failures are hard felt with the poor and minorities, especially in inner-city areas.

I do not know why the Democratic Party never truly embraced the idea, but then again, I think in our system money speaks louder than ideals, and that's what's prevented the Democratic Party from doing anything but paying lipservice to the people as "the people's party."

[Mythsaje]

3. Sounds like it needs resurrected

and reintroduced to the people.

[Selatius]

4. I wish we could, but I believe it's too late

We've drifted so far right that such notions are considered antithetical to US values with respect to capitalism. This nation has never been as collectivist as our European neighbors both culturally and economically, and there's a reason why: The financial elite consider the US as the power core of their control over the world. Abandoning Europe to the ideals of mixed economies and implementation of socialistic programs was a necessary sacrifice, but implementing them in the US would pose a direct threat to the existing power structure in society, a power structure that benefits them greatly. The 2nd Bill of Rights is intolerable to them, and they would pay big money to support Democratic candidates in the primaries who are against full implementation of FDR's 2nd Bill of Rights.

They would simply find a moderate candidate and gush about the glories of electing a moderate Democrat who can reach across the aisle to please Republicans and bring bipartisan unity to Congress and use that person to attack the far left progressive who ruffles the feathers of many politicians by criticizing the very system that has enabled many politicians to enter government wealthy and fat.

I'll tell you why I believe it's too late.

We collectively owe eight trillion dollars worth of debt. All the money spent on Iraq now is borrowed money, and most of it is coming from the future superpower of China. They say Iraq will be the two trillion dollar war, and that's with interest on top of interest. We have no money left to implement such ideas. We mortgaged our children and grandchildren's future. We blew it all away when we let the debt grow out of control, and if the world switches off the US dollar with respect to oil and uses something like the Euro instead to price and pay for oil, demand for US dollars will drop as those countries dump their dollar reserves, and that will cause the value of the US dollar to drop through the floor, and we would be destroyed as an economy, and it would be made worse as our creditors would want that eight trillion dollars paid back.

[iconoclastNYC]

5. WE have to take back the party.

Then we can be bold. My biggest fear is that the Democrats regain power with the DLC in the drivers seat. We have to vanquish the DLC and get the people back into the drivers seat before we get power again.

[Selatius]

7. I re-edited my previous post. The answer's in there n/t

[iconoclastNYC]

8. Well I see it this way.

We have to brand non-DLC democrats as "Traditional Democrats" and run against "New Democrats" we can build that brand as taking up the legacy of Roosevelt and continuing his work. We can turn "centrism" and reaching out to Republicans as dirty words.

We have to destroy centrist DLC coporate Fox News Democrats. They are the biggest obstacle to progress.

[Selatius]

9. My friend, the problem extends outside the DLC

There are many Democrats who are more than willing to take corporate contributions, and not all of them are within the DLC. The problem is much more than that. None of the lobbyists would have any effect on politicians if the politicians themselves were unwilling to be bought, and that's the crux of the problem. Just talk to Joe Biden or Tom Daschle. Both of them were more than willing to accept corporate donations from the credit card industry, and how many senate Democrats voted for the new bankruptcy laws today? Was it not also Harry Reid who said that we had to "accept" REAL ID?

They have control of the courts and Congress now, and they have majority control over the corporate news media in this country, and many here believe they now have control over the very voting machines themselves. If that's true, then casting a vote would be pointless as the outcome has already been determined.

Assuming we manage to reverse all of that and retake the federal government, where would one get the money to revive the education system, implement universal health care, reinvest in US infrastructure, etc.? We owe eight trillion dollars with interest on top of it. We've been bankrupted, driven into the ground, and we haven't the means to pay for all of it. The only thing that's preventing us from going down is that nations such as China are still willing to lend us money and the fact that the oil markets still use US dollars as the primary means of transaction, which artificially props up the US dollar's value.

[iconoclastNYC]

10. You don't take over a party in a year or 5 or 10

But you can take it back. We have to. Starting a third party is not an option because the laws are rigged against 3rd parties.

[Selatius]

11. 5 or 10 years? Even I think that's impossible, and I'm a "dreamer"

It can take upwards of 30 years to transform a party. That's how long it took for the neoconservatives with willing votes from the ultra-rightwing religious bloc to overtake the Republican Party.

I don't believe it can be done in five or ten years. That's simply impossible, but I believe that if the process started tomorrow, the country could very easily be "out of business" by the time the process is completed, and we would be like Russia is today, a bankrupt ex-superpower that owes more money than it can pay and tried reform too late, and China would inherit the title of world superpower instead.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but damn, I'd rather take a shot when the night comes than simply go peacefully into the night if that is our nation's fate.

[iconoclastNYC]

13. Well then I guess you should go join some revolutionary group

Right? Its the only alternative?

[Selatius]

14. What are you implying? That I go militant?

What kind of argument is that? Violence is the last resort, and most people are not desperate enough to resort to open rebellion. They are not desperate like the Ukrainians or the Georgians or the Venezuelans were. Extreme crushing poverty forces a population to do whatever it can to stop the pain, and the US populace has not even felt anything as bad as those people did in order to get up in arms and revolt. Compared to those desperate people, the American population is still asleep. They're comfortable compared those people in the streets of Caracas, Venezuela or the frozen streets of Kiev, Ukraine. As a result, I feel only marginal change is possible, not a radical change of course needed to soften the hard landing. They haven't listened to me or people with similar ideas like my own, and I doubt they will anytime soon until it's too late.

They call me a dreamer because my views make me a libertarian socialist like the man in my avatar, but the evidence forces me to be a realist, and I think the window of opportunity closed with Clinton. We could turn the steering wheel to hard port right now, but it's too late to avoid the eight trillion dollar debt of an iceburg from ripping a hole in our ship.

What's my stance? I think this country is heading into bankruptcy and ruin no matter what happens, but I'd rather fight to inherit a ruined, crippled, destroyed nation that's free than a ruined nation where corrupt leaders still sit on the throne.

[iconoclastNYC]

17. You say that there is no point in

Taking back our party because the country will be destroyed by then. If that's is your genuine feeling then you need to join some revolutionary group, right? Not all revolutions are violent either. Look at the Velvet revolution and the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine.

I'm not criticising your POV either. I'm just asking what the alternative to working within the 2 party system for people such as yourself who feel the situation is so dire?

[Selatius]

22. I'm still kicking around what could be done

Frankly, I haven't yet formulated what I think is the best answer, but whether we can avert another Great Depression-style catastrophe is an issue that is already too late to address or an issue that will be answered in the next couple of years. After that, there will be no turning back on the economic front. I would write this arena off as a loss fairly shortly if we don't turn around and move in the opposite direction like the world's about to end.

On the political front, however, modest proposals such as trying to do to the Democratic Party what the radical right did with the Republicans to radical proposals such as attempting to call a new constitutional convention to ratify an improved constitution (the Venezuelan approach) are all "on the table." A more traditional method would be to get people out on the streets 1960s-style, but that would require a strong campaign to counter-act the disinformation being carried by the corporate news outlets and would require something that could cut through citizen apathy and a feeling of isolation and that cynical feeling of "nobody listens to us," which, unfortunately, has a lot of basis in fact. I'm still contemplating the merits and drawbacks of several courses of action. With the first two I mentioned, the former would probably take decades to do, while the latter could be called in a shorter length of time, but both would require effort. The only question is time, and it's running out on the economic question.

[Mythsaje]

6. That's already the tactic they're using...

for what it's worth. (Not much, IMO).

I don't think the problem is the ideas themselves, but the way information has been disseminated to the people.

[meatloaf]

12. Since they never can decide that it's specifically numerated,

how about the Right to Privacy.

[AtomicKitten]

16. the Federalist society are allegedly "strict constructionists"

but their intention is to dismantle and undo all the freedoms granted in the amendments to the Constitution.

[LiberalPartisan]

21. Their error is this

among these rights are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. 'Among' assumes additional rights, rights to be defined later by following generations, or the SCOTUS. Unenumerated rights are implcit in the Constitution and the Founders left it an open question. Is it reasonable that the Founders would have assumed a right to privacy against an invasive government? You bet your ass it's reasonable.

[AtomicKitten]

15. Republicans really don't support freedom.

Progressive ideology supports freedom and life at its core.

We simply need to reframe the issues.

Examples:

Freedom of marriage ... not "gay marriage" that purposely invokes the image of gay sex.

Freedom of choice ... not "pro-abortion" Republicans aren't pro-life at all; they don't care about infant mortality or child welfare.

[ieoeja]

18. Ever heard of the "Bill of Unrights"?

Given that one Republican lawmaker authored a "Bill of Un-Rights" which has been vocally cheered by Rightwingers everywhere, they have made your point better than we ever could. They are proud of it, brag about it, and get elected on those principles.

[gavinandresen]

19. Bill of Rights: How about the right to work?

How about: Any resident of the United States has a fundamental right to work for any employer willing to employ them.


(RESIDENT, not citizen... anybody else think work visas are stupid beuracratic wastes of time?)

[yellowdogmi]

20. I like the idea!

I think we should throw in a right to privacy. Perhaps roll back draconian laws that regulate what we can ingest.