 By Michael Reagan May 15, 2003
You don't have to look far to discover what it is: the party of FDR - the man who told the American people "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," has altered that axiom to proclaim "the only thing we have to offer is fear itself." And it is all they have to offer. In response to a President who offers a well-thought-out series of plans and policies such as cutting taxes to revive an economy that began to falter under President Clinton, fighting terrorism with action instead of Clintonite words, getting the government's nose out of matters that are none of its business, and approaching problems with people-oriented rather than government-based solutions, the nameless nine and their threadbare party are once again trying to scare the life out of the American people. They peddle fear instead of policy, slander instead of decent political discourse, socialist programs instead of free enterprise, appeasement instead of courage, and, above all, lies instead of truth. Instead of advancing programs and policies as alternatives to those of the President and his party, these sorry examples of statesmanship as practiced in the ranks of the Democrat party are telling the American people vote for us because you'll be safe and you'll be happy and you'll be coddled from birth until death. Back the President, and you'll lose social security, old people and the poor will go hungry, children will go without decent schools, the world will turn against the U.S. because we dared to defy the toothless UN by seeking to promote freedom across the globe, and the rich will get tax cuts while those poor who pay no income taxes will get nothing and go homeless and starve. In Eugene Oregon, the fear peddlers ran a TV commercial claiming that people were selling their blood at blood banks to have enough money to be able to buy materials for their kids' schools. Jesse Jackson actually wrote an article claiming that millionaires are getting tax breaks at the cost of schools, telling the story of one woman who allegedly passed out five times while giving blood plasma so that her child would have the necessary utensils for school.  ©Mike Lane, The Baltimore Sun Distributed to subscribers for publication by Cagle Cartoons For years the Democrats have been harping on the fear factor - fear the Republicans because they want to wreck Social Security and Medicare. Fear them because they want to bankrupt the Treasury by giving tax cuts to the rich. Fear them because they are willing to endanger the nation by going to war to protect America's interests and help secure freedom for oppressed peoples. Fear them because they want to appoint judges who follow the Constitution instead of making up the law as they go along. Fear them because they want to invade your bedroom and tell you how to behave there. Fear them because they want to protect the unborn and deprive women of the right to kill their own unborn babies, and fear them because they want to burn black churches and go back to the days of Jim Crow and segregation. They hope that grownup American people still believe in the bogey man who they keep trotting out from their shabby bag of tricks to frighten us out of their wits. They are desperate, and desperate
people do desperate things out of fear. The only thing they have
to fear is using fear to frighten a people unafraid. Mike's column is distributed to subscribers for publication by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc.
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