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"A Party of Mantras" - By J. Myrle Fuller

July 29, 2004

There is a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives in America. Conservatives talk about issues, such as national defense, spending control, and public morality. They have well thought out solutions to the problems that we face. Liberals, including most of the Democratic Party, rely on mantras, those little catch phrases used over and over again, as the basis of their political agenda. They are, for the most part, not well thought out, short, and dealing with unrealistic dreams. Below are a few of them, and why either the mantra is wrong or impossible to fulfill.

Mantra #1: "Universal Health Care"
John Kerry has made the "universal health care" mantra a cornerstone of his presidential campaign. He has repeatedly stated that "The United States is the only developed nation in the world that hasn't discovered that *universal health care* is a fundamental right for all, not just for the wealthy." (The 'for the wealthy' statement is another mantra, I'll get there.) However, what the leftists don't realize (or, if they do, admit) is that universal health care, as it stands now, would place far too heavy of a burden on the federal budget. Most of this expense would come from the price of prescription medication, an over-advertised industry that probably causes the over-medication of United States citizens. Bringing in so-called "cheap drugs" from Canada won't help for long-- Canada subsidizes their prescriptions through taxpayer dollars, and U.S. citizens buying them will cause a drain on their resources, which in turn will cause Canada to go back to full-price prescriptions.

Mantra #2: "Jobs"
Democrats (as well as the mainstream media) love to throw this word around. When the economy was in recession, they focused on the layoffs. When the economy started to recover, they still focused on "still no jobs being created." Now that the economy is adding jobs, John Kerry has found a way to complain: "[The numbers say that the economy is adding jobs.] But what the numbers don't tell you is that the jobs being created have a salary that is $9,000 less than they were before." [First of all, John, don't use numbers to say that numbers lie.] This is just a political ploy: the fastest way to raise a laborer's salary is to join a union, especially in the case of government workers. In case anybody hasn't been noticing, these tax cuts have (because of transfer payments, i.e. bribes) been putting the squeeze on state and local governments, making them trim their public service employee budgets-- the schools, police, and paid firefighters. This is where John Kerry gets this idea. He wants public service union mob rule. Living near Buffalo, NY, I have seen this in action: the police union, teacher's union (headed by a corrupt president named Phil Rumore), and firefighter's union all control the city's purse strings and squeal whenever the city or the new emergency control board try to cut spending. Public unions are out of control here, and this is exactly what the Democrats want. Besides, these public "jobs" will inevitably raise taxes on the usual suspects (see below), hurting business and causing job cuts.

Mantra #3: "Taxes for the Wealthy"
Democrats still think that the wealthiest one percent pays fewer taxes than the rest of the American public. Our system is progressive taxation, meaning that the wealthiest one percent pays a higher tax per dollar than the lower incomes. Taking into account all of the low-income tax credits and family exemptions, the U.S. tax code is very poor-friendly (perhaps too much so). The truth of the matter is that the wealthiest 1% pays 37.4% tax share on 20.8% income share. The lowest 50% pays a paltry 3.9% tax share on 13% income share. This means that the wealthiest one percent pays, on average, 6 times more taxes per dollar earned than a member of the lower middle class.

Mantra #4: "Environmental Protection"
So-called 'environmentalists' almost always intend on never touching anything in the wild and saving every Tom, Dick, and Harry species in the world. What they don't realize is this: leaving everything untouched allows it to grow old and stagnant, causing forest fires and eventually killing far more of what they were trying to save in the first place. American land needs to be managed in a hands-on policy. Besides, these environmental laws are what cause this massive exodus of manufacturing to places like China far more than cheap labor. To prove it, take a look at which side of the polar ice cap is melting faster. It's not the Can-American side.
Mantra #4b: "Energy Control"
The Democrats, including Sen. Kerry, scream about our supposed "oil dependency" on places such as Saudi Arabia. The truth of the matter, however, is that we take in as much oil from Saudi Arabia as we do from Canada's tar sands. Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and the rest of the American continents account for as much oil as the Arab states combined. Plus, the United States is the greatest stockpile of underwater oil, and nearby Canada a great source of tar sands. Yet environmentalists gripe and complain when we try to dig for oil in Alaska. True, we will eventually need to switch our source for energy, and we are on the verge of generating practical new sources (e.g. hydrogen) for the general public.

Mantra #5: "Equal Rights"
The members of the far-left community (especially those in our courts) insist that every person, without regards to the choices one makes on their sexual partners (yes, ultimately, it is a choice) or religion (or lack thereof) receive the same "civil liberties" as everyone else. These are the people that want to force their will on other states by forcing states to perform gay marriages or performing the marriages against existing laws. They are the people who wish to eradicate any presence of the suggestion of the Christian "God" in anything considered public, but will force the views of Judaism or Islam (and most favorably, atheism) on everyone else in the name of diversity. These are the people that support "affirmative action," "educational opportunity programs" and racial quotas. (Allow me to digress for a moment: when then-President John F. Kennedy coined the term "affirmative action," the year was 1961. There was no such thing as a Civil Rights Act at the time, and Jim Crow laws were still in effect.) Allow me to clarify things for those who insist that the races have forced "equality" while equally qualified whites are passed up in favor of less qualified Afro-Americans (or whatever the term of the week is): RACE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO MATTER; you are all trying to tip the scales in your favor! Quoting a federal judge, "racial diversity does not necessarily mean the same as intellectual diversity." To the atheists, I say this: whether you like it or not, this country was formed in the principles of Judeo-Christian values. That little "establishment clause" merely says that government cannot restrict or oppress any "establishment of religion;" a church, diocese (or equivalent), or whole religion. The "free exercise clause" protects the rights of any person to express their religious beliefs. To the pro-gay marriage movement, I say this: homosexuality is a CHOICE-- a dangerous choice-- and those of you that insist on saying that you were somehow born gay need to realize that THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU and your reproductive functions are pointing in the wrong direction. To allow the propagation of homosexual marriage defies the whole purpose of family laws: to produce functional families and households (although no-fault divorce laws are seriously undermining this). I have seen no proof that a gay couple can do as well as a traditional couple. Lastly, one thing I would like to add is that sodomy continues to be the most prevalent cause of HIV transmission and AIDS in most developed countries.

Mantra #6: "Education"/"Money for our Children's Future"
This mantra is mostly used in local politics; however, most money raised for education goes directly to teacher salaries.

As you can see, when each of these mantras are analyzed and broken down, their bases are immediately eroded upon the revelation of reality. Yet the left-wing nuts of the Democratic Party continue to insist on using these mantras in their speeches. I could go on and on (for example, I could write a whole article on the mantra "Bush is bad" and its derivatives), but the result is still the same: the Democrats have absolutely no basis for their platforms.

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J. Myrle Fuller is owner/operator of the web site domain Fullervision Enterprises News.