Has the Democratic Party moved to the left over the last 30 years & if so, do you see this development in a favorable or unfavorable light?

Poll - Total Votes: 33

Yes, favorable

Yes, unfavorable

You can only vote on one answer.

Comments and arguments are welcome. Healthy debates thrive on input.
Debates open a venue to specify where changes on policy positions can be seen or why most things stayed the same.

Definitional: The left-right axis is complicated but to simplify it “left” in the context of this poll is supposed to refer to positions that support less restrictive and traditional cultural norms on social issues and more support for active government intervention to influence the economy and control the free market on fiscal issues. Regarding foreign policy, it would mean less hawkish and more dovish positions on international affairs.

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hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

The problem with the 'left/right' debate is we can never decide which is left and which is right. I prefer to use the terms individual freedom and government control. Individual freedom means you can speak your mind. You can have a gun for defence or fun. You can start your own business or work for a big corporation. You have very few limits on what you can do with your own life. State control opposes that. You are limited in your freedoms. You can not use a gun for defence or for recreation. You must work according to someone else's rules. You are basically owned by the state and as such have limited freedoms. I lean to the former because I grew up in a time and place where such freedoms were normal. If you wanted to drill a water well you phoned a water well digging company and they came over to dig your well. Yes you could do it on your own if you wanted. Now you have to phone the government to get a permit to dig the well. It can take years to get the approval or the approval can be denied. Where once you wanted to use a 4 inch pipe in the well now you may be restricted to 6 inch pipes in the well. The increasingly petty rules that are initiative destroying is what I see coming from the Uniparty.

ViciDraco · 41-45, M

@hippyjoe1955 well digging is an extremely good example of where governance should be stepping in. I'll agree that pipe size maybe a petty regulation to deal with. But knowing that you are putting in a well and how big of a well is the business of everyone who lives in that area. Imagine if you and a hundred other people all had wells dug to get your water and then a water bottling plant comes in and digs their well. And then suddenly you and your neighbors' wells are dry. Or, what if studies have been done to show how quickly the water table recharges in an area and there are concerns that too many people are drawing from the water table in a way that will cause a water crisis in 10 or 20 years?

Some of this stuff is actually preventative to avoid much, much bigger issues down the road. Things that one person believes is petty might be sourced in facts that they do not have or do not understand.

Can you always trust the government's word? Hell no. It's important to get educated on anything you think seems off so that you can call it out from a place of knowledge.

hippyjoe1955 · 70-79, M

@ViciDraco Only in your dreams. The problem is the government is not infallible. It can only guess and usually guesses wrong. When you have a very remote bureaucracy determining what shall or shall not happen you have a recipe for disaster. I was at a gold mine that was explaining the hoops it had to jump through just to dig a bit of gold out of the ground. The permits required filled ten feet of shelving and it took over 12 years to get it all done. It wasn't enough to make sure their tailings didn't get into a nearby stream but they had to do a monthly count of the number of fish in the stream. Another company was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for disturbing a nesting site of a non endangered species of bird. The birds had built a nest in part of a road collapse. The company went to fix the road and disturbed the nest. As someone who grew up on a farm I can't begin to tell you how many bird's nests I disturbed simply by working the land. Many birds nest on the ground and as I cultivated the fields I would keep an eye open for them but I know I didn't see them all.