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My Fellow Democrats.
We are less than a year away from our next presidential election. We have much to do to prepare our next candidate, deciding policy and platforms and offering the best solutions for America's problems. We have a responsibility to America, to our great nation, and to our dreams of keeping our nation strong and thriving. It is with these thoughts that I write this message.
We have been disappointed by the past seven years of leadership in the White House. Very few within our party seem to want to mention this out loud, or admit this obvious position to the nation and the world, but obvious as it is, we have to do better. Our next candidate needs to have a grounded foundation in the Constitution, on the workings of the economy, and have a grasp on D.C. Politics. We can no longer afford mediocrity in our leaders, no more than we can continue with policies and platforms that have no place in American traditions.
It is my hope that our next candidate will possess a stronger grasp on the reality of the issues which face Americans today. And I would hope as well that this candidate can work with people, difficult though it may be, to further our great nation into being the best that it can be.
My fellow democrats, we have allowed misinformation and indecisiveness affect our stance on many issues. While individuals like myself believe that there are many issues on which the government should not regulate, like gay marriage, there are some pressing issues on which our party needs to strongly reevaluate it's stance.
In Education for example, the charter school/voucher program must be extended to the most possible affordability. We have seen over and over how the voucher program has strengthened school systems all over the nation by fostering competition among public and private schools. The beneficiaries of this program are not just the students, but the American people who can be offered graduates with a higher level of academic success. We must remove standardized testing, as it has been proven to be a hindrance to education. We will not cater to the lowest common denominator in standardized testing, but instead we should be looking at spending what little money education has in rewarding innovative programs that produce college ready students, as well as competitive job ready tradesmen.
In regards to gun control, we will never want to be known as the party who encouraged or passed gun control. Enforcement of existing laws is more than adequate, and the constitution foundation of gun ownership and gun rights will never be changed. We must never encourage or allow those within our party to attempt to pass more restrictive gun control and ownership laws.
If there is a problem with violence and crime in our society, then perhaps a good use of change, which is a word many in the GOP fear, would be to reevaluate what values we are teaching our youth. Are we fostering a society on the foundation of entitlement, or on opportunity? Perhaps we should focus our efforts on the how and why of a problem, because without an understanding of a disease, how can we expect to cure it?
Like many of my fellow democrats, I have been disgusted by the rampant handouts of the past 7 years, while many of our bravest disabled citizens, veterans and otherwise, go without basic needs. The Obama cell phone scandal was an example of government waste, which we as democrats must lead the fight against. Feeding our disabled veterans and citizens is charitable and right; giving expensive and unnecessary cellphones is not.
Our government has grown too large under the past 15 years of presidency. Our debt runs now in the trillions. This is unacceptable, unhealthy, and unnecessary. We must immediately start trimming the pork, so to speak, from government waste and unnecessary spending. By taxing less and allowing business to flourish, the economy will run strong on it's own. Anyone who does not understand this needs to go back to college econ class and relearn the working of the free enterprise economy.
My fellow democrats, we need to reevaluate our ideas on immigration. While it is true that immigrants made up this great nation, we must be more restrictive and more selective as to who may enter our nation. We must protect our borders and our people about all else.
We, as a nation, will not bargain with, or cater to, radical terrorists either at home or abroad. We must never allow a nation to harbor terrorists which can threaten our cities or our people. As leaders of the free world, we have a responsibility to our people and our allies, and to freedom loving people the world over. We hold the card to always use force, the American military, as a last resort, but always as an option.
Finally, we must never, ever let partisan politics get in the way of democracy. We are Americans first. We may be democrats, Republicans, liberals conservatives, populists, but we are Americans first. We will always put people first, because without our people, our nation is not the same. We have learned from our traditions of our founding fathers on to present times that he who governs best, often governs least. Our foundation of American freedom, free enterprise, industry and education must be a priority, lest our great nation will not endure.
OP---At one time democrats truly looked out for the poor, working and middle classes. Those democrats of yore would have been horrified to discover that their constituents were either seeing their wages depressed or were being displaced in the workforce all due to illegal immigration. They also would have been horrified to see the H1-B visa being abused to the point where it was being used to displace Americans in the workforce. And they would have done something about all of this, too---and I don't mean amnesty and more H1-Bs. They would have fought hard to stop this.
Today's democrats fight tooth and nail to put illegal aliens ahead of the millions of suffering underemployed and unemployed Americans. They also refuse to secure our borders and make E-verify the law of the land. In fact, when E-verify was created, Ted Kennedy refused to let it become law unless it wasn't used to weed out the 8 million no-match SSNs in the work force. The dems of yore would never have stood for that---they would have wanted those illegals gone.
Shamefully, no one on either side of the aisle has made a move to close that despicable loophole in the law that says it's okay if someone uses your SSN as long as they don't use your name with it. At one time, I would have expected democrats to champion such a law.
Look where we are now. I don't know why dems lost their way. At one time, I was a staunch democrat due to having grown up in a very blue state and listening to my parents and grandparents talk about how much dems did for the poor, working and middle classes. That ended when I saw that dems were putting illegals ahead of Americans. These days the only good democrat is a bluedog democrat. The bluedogs remember what democrats once stood for. It's a shame that there are so few bluedogs around.
Neither party is looking out for Americans. However, at one time, I would have expected much, much more from the dems. People who still support the dems need to realize that today's democrats are NOT their grandfather's democrats. What will it take to wake up people who vote the straight D line?
I have not been disappointed with the president except that he was stymied so much from the opposition who was happy to see the country flounder so long as it harmed Obama. I certainly don't blame the president for not being able to work with the other side when the other side made it plain they had no interest in doing so. And yet despite that, the country is in much better shape today than it was seven years ago, largely due to this president.
While I agree we need to put more resources into education, vouchers and charter schools do the opposite. They take resources away from the already struggling public school system. If we are going to compete in a global economy in the 21st century we need to work to improve all of our public schools, not just a select few which would leave many, many students behind.
Sorry, but I do want to belong to the party that cares enough about the ridiculous amount of gun violence in this country to do more than simply throw their hands up and say, oh, well, that's just life in America.
I'm disgusted by the rampant handouts, too, but not the ones given to the poor and the unemployed, but the corporate welfare and the huge tax breaks given to those who need it the least. The top earners have had years of low taxes while amassing unprecedented wealth. It's time for them to start giving back to the country that has given them so much.
The phone program was started under Reagan, but you only blame Obama. Why is that?
As a Democrat I welcome you to our party, but I don't really know why you want to be here. From this post it's obvious you would be much happier on the other side of the aisle.
The Dems dropped the ball when Webb ran independent their last hope for the party.
Webb has not declared as an independent. He said he was "considering" it when he dropped out of the campaign, but that was more than a month ago and he hasn't been heard from since.
This isn't your grandfather's, or father's Democratic Party anymore. It's actually older than that, bearing very much in resemblance to the Bolshevik Party. Or, see USSR, Communist Party, 1925.
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