The Creed of the Democrat

As a score of Democrats vie for advantage Mad Dog has stumbled across Thomas Paine, the 18th century thinker whose ideas now find a new life in the 21st century moment of Trump.

These words flitted across my Twitter screen and Mr. Paine spoke to me from the 1770's as if a fresh voice reached across time to find me, from the big bang of American thinking:

"When it shall be said in any country in the world my poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want; the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of its happiness: When these things can be said, there may that country boast its Constitution and its Government."

Mad Dog can think of no more concise enunciation of what the Democratic Party of 2019 should stand for, and what separates us from the snarling dogs of the Republican Party and Fox News.

1. Neither ignorance nor distress:  Are you listening Betsy DeVos, and all those who sail with you, intent on traveling back to the time before public education?

2. Jails are empty of prisoners:  When America incarcerates more citizens than any other nation, and for crimes of drug possession and use, which result in one of four Black males spending time in jail.

3. My streets of beggars: And we have homeless from LA to Seattle and in every city, and we have no clear thinking about the causes of this blight or any real idea about how to ameliorate it?

4. The aged are not in want: Thank Democrats for Society Security and Medicare, which the Republicans, though they claim to only want to improve these systems, take every action to kill.

5. The rational world is my friend: When we have our President saying he's the best thing to every happen to the community of color, while he decries brown immigrants as criminals and rapists but yearns for more immigrants from Norway?

We do not need another Democrat in the ring: We need some Democrat who can think and write and speak with the clarity of Mr. Paine.