(partially
reposted from blog)
Modern Democratic thought has been propelled by the Great Depression and the New Deal, though many people today fail to realise this. The Great Depression, and Pres. Hoover's handling of it, proved a number of things.
1)Business and the private sector at large cannot be trusted to self-regulate.
2)What regulations business can come up with will be self-interested and likely detrimental to the public good.
3)Private, non-governmental institutions are, by themselves, unable to meet the needs of the public in any crisis, sudden or prolonged.
4) Government, especially the Federal Government, is the only entity with the resources, power, and mandate to actively persue the public good, either by providing public services or regulating other entities.
The short and sweet version of this is, "Democrats believe that things can always be better, and that Government is a key tool in making this so." It seems to me that the inability of the party to communicate this key idea is what is hobbling it: rather than focusing on this core set of ideas, the Democrats have become very issue-centric. Our platform shouldn't be a list; rather it should be an expression of our thought that government is a source of good.