Reply #11: No hard and fast definition

[zipplewrath]

It is a collection of positions. There are some old definitions from the early 1900's that are kind of hard to make work in the 21st century.

Generally speaking they advocate the use of government for compensating for the weaknesses of the freemarkets. They don't "trust" markets to work to the advantage of the common good. It places the needs and interests of the working class above the moneyed classes. Taxes should be "progressive", i.e. the larger portion paid by the richest. They aren't "socialists" technically, but they don't mind too much if a particular function or area of vastly wide intersest is handled by the government directly, i.e. roads, utilities, education,transportation in general, large scale capital projects like dams.

They tend to be quite liberal "socially". They believe in protecting individuals, especially the "least" amongst us. They believe in equality, and don't necessarily trust either free markets, or governmental institutions to protect it without a requirement that they do, and an enforcement mechanism to make them do it.

They tend to prefer democracy over any sort of authortarian structure, although they get confused her occassionally. They tend to oppose war, especially intervensionist wars.

They can have a bit of a "libertarian" streak when it comes to psuedo social issues such as drugs, homosexuality, and the whole "family values" schtick.

Oh, and Obama says he ain't one.