Column for June 28, 2007

Propaganda often needs translation

I just read an open letter propaganda piece that was written by a Vice Chair of the Johnston County Democratic Party in favor of our Congressman, Bob Etheridge. As I find with most Democrat perspectives, there is translation needed in order to comprehend what is actually being said. I am including the propaganda my common sense, paragraph by paragraph, real world translation. Keep in mind that I am a registered independent, not a Republican. I just happen to be rather conservative in my admittedly biased yet accurate translations.

"Bob Etheridge…has stood consistently for [Johnston County] values and for programs that benefit our citizens."

Democrat translation: He stands for liberal, Democrat values and that is how everyone should vote. If you don't, you are a retard. He has stood to take money away from those who are productive members of society and give it to those who wish to suckle off the government teat with no accountability or requirement of repayment or even labor in order to obtain our tax money.

"He supported legislation that would require greater fiscal responsibility from the federal government and that would help to stem the outrageous deficit being left for our grandchildren by this administration."

Democrat translation: Bush is a moron. Forget our Democrats in Congress supported the spending. We don't want the facts to stand in the way. Even Republicans do agree that under the Bush administration, spending is out of control and we fully intend to take full political advantage of that every chance we get. We really don't have much else to claim in our favor other than the situation in Iraq. This now gives us two weapons in our arsenal.

"Bob Etheridge strongly supported passage of an increase in the minimum wage urgently needed by many of our hardworking citizens."

Democrat translation: Forget the fact that nobody is really supporting a family on minimum wage. We like the fact that labor unions have wages that are indexed to the minimum wage and labor unions are huge Democrat supporters. It may be true that only underachieving losers will remain in minimum wage jobs, but we like to control business and industry. Obviously, evil corporations are to blame for the low wages. We may have unprecedented economic growth at the current minimum wage and nobody at McDonald's starts out at that lowest wage because the market dictates otherwise. However, we as Democrats do not trust evil corporations to treat workers fairly. We will not let the fact that the majority of businesses that pay minimum wage are small, family owned companies that may be struggling to make ends meet and that workers may be laid off as a result of a higher wage scale. That does not matter, since we feel good about sincerely pretending to care.

"He has proposed and supported legislation that would make this country more energy-independent by using alternative sources of energy and advances in technology that would create much-needed new jobs."

Democrat translation: He has no scientific background, but we as Democrats feel really good about appearing to actually do something. We realize that Al Gore is a crackpot who is pushing junk science as fact. We buy into it anyway, since it gives us a way to take more money away from evil corporations and the American tax payers. This is a way of exerting more control over everyone's lives, property, and help keep us in power by looking like we actually care.

"And Bob Etheridge has supported legislation that would build a partnership of state and federal resources to assist local education systems with the building of enough new schools to accommodate rapid growth."

Democrat translation: We don't care that the Constitution does not allow the federal government to spend money on education. A previous paragraph may have just praised Etheridge for stemming the tide of government spending, but this increase in government spending is for a good cause. After all, what better cause is there than being "for the children"? Everybody should realize that a government school system is not really an indoctrination system or really a part of the Communist Manifesto. If you believe that they are, you must be for freedom, actual accountability for tax money being spent, and must be some whack job. You can not possibly think that you would know how to better raise and educate your own children than a bloated bureaucracy that wields taxation power over you to teach values that contradict your own.