May 16, 2006
Democratic Ideas, I
by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
I am delighted that Mark Karlin, our Editor and Publisher has so kindly asked me to become a regular columnist for BuzzFlash. It is indeed an honor that I value very highly and a responsibility that I take very seriously. Among progressives it is widely recognized that a new, revitalized Democratic Party must take the field as we head into the 2006 Congressional elections and the even more important 2008 Presidential elections. It is realized by us that if the reactionary Georgite juggernaut is to be derailed before it can destroy completely that American Constitutional Democracy of which we are all so proud such a development is essential. With this Commentary, I am initiating what I intend as a weekly series of offerings of ideas for developing the philosophy, platform, and program for such a resurgent, truly Democratic Party.
On May 9 in the New York Times Robin Toner published yet another in an ongoing series of articles that have appeared over the last 20 years concerning the Democrats’ search for a new "identity," a new "broad vision" ("Optimistic, Democrats Debate the Party’s Vision"). Similar articles have appeared in The Times in 2004 by Andrei Cherny, a former senior staffer for both Sen. Gore and Sen. Kerry (Nov. 4,) my high school classmate Adam Clymer (May 26, 2003), and all the way back to E.J. Dionne (Sept. 25, 1987) when he wrote in The Times: "All Democrats have been searching for language to call America away from the individualism of the Reagan years to a new sense of community." Of course The Times is not the only place such calls have appeared.
Ever since the New Deal, the principal political divide between Democrats and Republicans has been over the role of government in our nation and our national policy. Republicans want it as small as possible in dealing with the economy, as big as possible in controlling and restricting personal rights and liberties. Democrats generally take the opposite view. I have for some time now looked back to the beginning of our nation’s history, to its founding documents indeed, to determine just what the Founders intended as the role and function of the Federal government.
Our National Purpose is made clear by the Declaration of Independence: to demonstrate unequivocally that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness . . ."
The primary Purpose of our National Government is also made clear in the Declaration: "[T]o secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men."
The Primary functions of our National Government in achieving this purpose are spelled out in the Preamble to the Constitution: "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
In 1992 I published a book on this broad theme entitled The New Americanism:
How the Democratic Party Can Win the Presidency (progressive Democrats
haven’t done it yet). Over the coming weeks and months I look forward
to sharing with you an expansion upon these thoughts, and others as well,
as the struggle intensifies to preserve our nation as we have known it
ever since the abolition of slavery established the principle that there
is only one kind of American and that that person is entitled to all
the benefits of government protections, actions, and in-actions, as defined
above.
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) a weekly Contributing Author for The Political Junkies (www.thepoliticaljunkies.net) and a Columnist for BuzzFlash.