Compare and Contrast Part One

    I would like to compare the big 2 [Democrats and Republicans] with my party [Libertarians]. We shall see on the surface whose better so to speak. By on the surface I mean by what they put out from their websites and such not from actual record of past and present candidates/elected officials. This is the first part in a three part series highlighting the three parties.

    First in alphabetical order we have the Democratic Party. I was finally able to find some of the stances of the Democratic Party. I went through and simplified it for easier reading.

Economic issues:

Minimum wage – Raising it

Renewable energy and oil – Oppose incentives to oil companies and favors local renewable energy

Fiscal responsibility – They think they are the best in fiscal responsibility and they try and match taxes with the budget.

Health care and insurance coverage – For affordable and quality healthcare, For a national health insurance system

Environment – For Environmentalists

College education – For having low-cost, publicly funded college education with low tuition, Increase grants

Trade agreements – Against globalization

Alternate Minimum Tax – For progressive tax structure

Social issues:

Discrimination – For everyone, For affirmative action

Same-sex marriage and LGBT rights – Left to states to decide, uncertain on stance

Reproductive rights – For birth control, For controlled limited abortion

Stem cell research – For it

Foreign policy issues:

Invasion of Afghanistan – Was for the authorization of military force
against "those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States" in Afghanistan in 2001, supporting the NATO coalition invasion of the nation

Iraq War – They are Mostly against it, Divided on use of force in '02 (81 for, 126 against), Congressional Democrats overwhelmingly supported military funding legislation which included a provision that set "a timeline for the withdrawal of all US combat troops from Iraq" by March 31, 2008, but also would leave combat forces in Iraq for purposes such as targeted counter-terrorism operations. After a veto from the president, and a failed attempt in Congress to override the veto, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007 was passed by Congress and signed by the president after the timetable was dropped.

Unilateralism – Oppose it.

Legal issues:

Torture – Against it

USA PATRIOT Act – For the original, Split in '06

Right to privacy – For it

Crime and gun control – Against crime and for gun control

 

History:

The party was founded by Andrew Jackson in the 1820's. The Democratic Party evolved from the Anti-federalist factions that opposed the fiscal policies of Alexander Hamilton in the early 1790s when Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party. The party's favored states' rights, strict construction of the Constitution, opposition to a national bank, and opposition to moneyed interests. It ascended to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812, the party's chief rival, the Federalist Party, disbanded. The party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles was later led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, and the Whig Party became the chief rival of the Democrats until the 1850s. As the Democrats became increasingly associated with "The Slave Power," and the Whigs splintered over the issue of slavery and faded away, the Republican Party emerged in the 1850s in opposition to the expansion of slavery and in support of modernization.

The Democrats split over the choice of a successor to President James Buchanan along Northern and Southern lines, while the Republican Party gained an ascendancy in the election of 1860. As the American Civil War broke out, Northern Democrats were divided into War Democrats and Peace Democrats. Most War Democrats rallied to President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans' National Union Party. The Democrats benefited from white Southerners' resentment of Reconstruction after the war and consequent hostility to the Republican Party. After Redeemers ended Reconstruction in the 1870s, and the disenfranchisement of African Americans took place in the 1890s, the South, voting Democratic, became known as the "Solid South." Though Republicans continued to control the White House until 1884, the Democrats remained competitive. The party was dominated by pro-business Bourbon Democrats led by Samuel J. Tilden and Grover Cleveland, who represented mercantile, banking and railroad interests, opposed imperialism and overseas expansion, fought for the gold standard, opposed bimetallism, and crusaded against corruption, high taxes, and tariffs. Cleveland was elected to non-consecutive presidential terms in 1884 and 1892.

Agrarian Democrats demanding free silver overthrew the Bourbon Democrats in 1896 and nominated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency (a nomination repeated by Democrats in 1900 and 1908). Bryan waged a vigorous campaign attacking Eastern moneyed interests, but he lost to Republican William McKinley. The Democrats took control of the House in 1910 and elected Woodrow Wilson as president in 1912 and 1916. Wilson led Congress to, in effect, put to rest the issues of tariffs, money, and antitrust that had dominated politics for 40 years with new progressive laws. The Great Depression in 1929 that occurred under Republican President Herbert Hoover and the Republican Congress set the stage for a more liberal government; the Democrats controlled the House of Representatives nearly uninterrupted from 1931 until 1995 and won most presidential elections until 1968. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, elected to presidency in 1932, came forth with government programs called the New Deal. New Deal liberalism meant the promotion of social welfare, labor unions, civil rights, and regulation of business. The opponents, who stressed long-term growth, support for business, and low taxes, started calling themselves "conservatives."

Issues facing parties and the United States after the Second World War included the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement. Republicans attacted conservatives and white Southerners from the Democratic coalition with their resistance to New Deal and Great Society liberalism and the Republicans' use of the Southern Strategy. African Americans, who traditionally supported the Republican Party, began supporting Democrats following the ascent of the Franklin Roosevelt administration, the New Deal, and the Civil Rights movement. The Democratic Party's main base of support shifted to the Northeast, marking a dramatic reversal of history. Bill Clinton was elected to the presidency in 1992 and 1996 and governed as a New Democrat while the Democratic Party lost control of Congress in the election of 1994 to the Republican Party; the Democratic Party regained majority control of Congress in 2006. Some of the party's key issues in the early 21st century have included the methods of how to combat terrorism, homeland security, labor rights, environmentalism, and the preservation of liberal government programs.

Information found here:
    Wikipedia

Democrats.org

So there is the Democratic Party. Next we will look at the Libertarians then the Republicans and do a final analysis on the three. Comments, suggestions, and questions are welcome.