IN A NUTSHELL

Yesterday I was having lunch with my family and inlaws and we were talking about politics. We all thankfully agree politically so the conversations rarely dissolve in to arguments and this was no exception, as we were agreeing about the current state of the democratic side of the race for president.

My 5 year old son with whom I'd had limited discussions about politics before -enough that he knows that "we" are democrats and that there are other people who are republicans- chimed in asking "why are we democrats?"

Nothing gives you a dose of "gut-check time" more than when you're forced to put your entire political belief system into a perspective that a 5-year-old can grasp. Moreover, I felt it important to give him a real answer and not just sluff it off with an "it's too complicated to get into" response.

I paused for what seemed like an eternity and finally responded with: "Because we believe that the government should help all of the people and not just the rich ones".

*whew*

That's really it though isn't it? Isn't that the idea behind "we the people"?

It's not that the republicans don't believe that the government should work for all of the people -it's that they don't believe that the government should work at all. Period. They don't believe in representative government -that's why they're perfectly happy handing over the reins of every function of daily life to private business and then letting private business follow its own agenda which is of course profit. For itself.

By definition that means that not everyone will be able to have access to those services/functions.

Therefore, since the republicans believe that business should fulfill many of the functions of government, they necessarily don't believe that those functions should be available to all of the people -but only the ones who can afford to pay a private business to do them. That is the traditional definition of "rich" -being able to afford private services: private schools, private hospitals, private security, private mail, ad infinitum.

How anyone could look at any of the actions of the republicans and the measures they support and come to any other conclusion is beyond me.

So, in 5-year-old terms Democrats believe that government should help all the people, Republicans believe the government should only help the rich.

"...and that's why we're democrats."