How Liberals Use Emotionalism to Advance Their Agenda

Written on Monday, February 6, 2012 by David L. Goetsch

In Part Six of this series I explained how liberals use false compassion to sell socialism to gullible members of the public. In this installment I focus on how liberals use emotionalism to advance their agenda. When emotionalism is the strategy, the left’s favorite issue is healthcare. Socialists believe that healthcare should be free and universally available to everyone regardless of their ability to pay. “Free” universal healthcare is the five-hundred pound gorilla on the list of a socialist’s most important issues. On the surface, this is an appealing concept. Wouldn’t it be nice if we lived in fantasyland where healthcare and all other necessities are free? But that is the problem. With the exception of the liberals among us, Americans don’t live in fantasyland. Where we live, nothing is free.

Emotionalism, particularly about healthcare, is an effective tool for socialists. But there is a problem here that socialists conveniently ignore. Nothing is free, and especially not healthcare. In fact, few things are more expensive than healthcare, and liberal policies like Obamacare just continue to drive up the costs. Even with all of its abundance, America has finite resources. There are simply not sufficient resources in this or any other country to provide high-quality universal healthcare fully paid for by taxpayers. When economists point out this inconvenient fact, socialists quickly play the emotion card and portray them as “hard-hearted” misers who don’t care about their fellow human beings.

What emotional liberals conveniently gloss over is that in its own imperfect way, the free-market system results in better healthcare for the poor, the wealthy, and those in the middle—just as it results in better cars, homes, food, and everything else needed by human beings. This is because the free market provides incentives to be productive while socialism provides no such incentives—in fact just the opposite. On the most fundamental level, the free-market system gives people the incentive to improve themselves economically so they and their families can enjoy better healthcare, homes, cars, food, and all of the other human necessities. Socialism, on the other hand, provides no such incentives. Why should people work long, hard, and smart to improve their economic circumstances when the government will take their hard-earned money from them and give it to an unproductive person regardless of that person’s sloth, lack of effort, or ineptitude, and all in the name of fairness and redistribution of wealth?

Left-leaning politicians such as Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Harry Reid, and their fellow advocates of bailouts, handouts, and entitlements claim to be more compassionate than free-market proponents, but their emotional appeals for “fairness” are just empty words. If they really wanted to be fair, they would be more charitable in giving of their own substantial wealth rather than taxing Americans who work hard to provide for themselves and their families. It is easy to be compassionate with someone else’s money. But where is the fairness when left-leaning politicians who enjoy perquisites most Americans cannot even imagine take resources away from hard-working Americans who are just barely eking out a living and redistribute them to people who make their living playing the system? This is the hypocrisy of the left and its deceitful use of emotionalism.

This is the seventh in a 10 part series on Socialism:

What’s So Bad About Socialism? (Intro)

How Do You Define Socialism? (Part 1)

Beginnings of American Socialism in Public Education? (Part 2)

Socialism’s First Casualties (Part 3)

14 Reasons Socialism Won’t Work in America (Part 4)

Socialism’s Fundamental Flaw that Liberals Simply Ignore (Part 5)

Most Effective Tool Used to Sell Socialism to Americans? (Part 6)

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The Enemy

And, we know why more women vote for liberals than men do. It’s a matter of how we are wired. Women vote out of emotion and their natural desire for security. Men vote out of reasoning and patriotism.

Bree

Wrong, and I don’t think I would have said that if I were you Enemy. Your cavalier and stereotypical attitude puts you out in left field with your false assumptions that women vote out of emotion and natural desire for security and men vote out of reasoning and patriotism. Let me tell you how women are really “wired” ok? Our level of intelligence is not subserviant to men in any way as your implication suggests. Women didn’t put Obama in the WH, race did. To the contrary, women have an ingenious ability called intuition which is above average intelligence and not simply emotion. It’s what guides their “reasoning” and men sorely lack it. As for patriotism, I will put my “patriotism” up against yours any day. I come from a long line of military leaders and career officers. My father, my husband, my son. I gave my son to die for this country in Iraq and I don’t think you need to make such a statement as that to mothers and wives who have given their all – loved ones for America. Patriotism? That is the real Patriotism my friend. We are the very ones working hard to save America now and often alone. I hope you will retract such foolish statements as this and be a man of genuine understanding and patriotism. Liberals will use anything to advance their agenda, you don’t need to help them.

daves

Every industrialized nation in the world uses the Government to provide health care for those who cannot afford it. This author thinks it is a fantasy to think the U.S. can do it too?

So many people will fall for this and we will continue our poor ranking of health care outcomes among the industrialized world.

Retired USAF MSgt

They already have free health care. It is against the law for a hospital to turn back a patient for lack of insurance.

What libs want is perpetual subsistance. Like the lady I saw on the news last year that keeps having more children for the sole purpose of keeping her welfare.

The libs love this because it equates to perpetual votes.

Once again buying votes with public funds.

daves

So a person goes to a hospital with a horrible fever. The hospital treats and releases them. Who provides the follow up? Who cures the disease?

Granny

Daves, Daves, Daves, you’ve been drinking the Obama Cool-Aid again you bad boy.
We have or had the best healthcare system in the world and that is why people who’s countries practice socialized medicine came here for treatment. Show me in the Constitution where you are guaranteed healthcare, a house, a right to not work and live off the backs of other’s. You should only have these things if you work for them.

Ole Vet

Libs use emotion to get others roused up and agitated; this is used on both friends AND enemies. That’s when they can get people to do stupid things, or act other than when they use rational thinking. Think of the SEIU mobs which have attempted to disrupt T.E.A. Party functions! Think THESE people are acting sanely?
daves

Oh Granny, because it’s not in the Constitution then it’s not a good idea?

Show me where in the Constitution it says women cannot get an abortion?
http://patriot loriwm

Close, Granny, but it’s actually 37th. The World Health Organization ranks U.S. health care 37th in the world. LOOK IT UP.
LOL…let me guess….the numbers are false because the WHO is run by the liberal media, right?

Larry E

And daves most every industrialized nation is flat broke because of it. We’re flat broke because of handwringing idiots like you who want to provide European socialist policies while we are policing the world and defending Europe. The Europeans wouldn’t be able to afford their social welfare if they’d had to provide for their own self defense.

Wake up, yank your head out, and get a frickin’ job so that you get to help pay the taxes butthead.

daves

Not because of healthcare. We also spend far more than any industrialized nation.

Oregon Bill

The resoning that our Healthcare system is totally refuted by the fact that people of means come from all over the world to take advantage of our far superior Doctors and facilities, the only question is who is paying for Single payer Healthcare and it’s always us. Socialized Medicine will only kill all incentives to be the best, which we are, for sure. Doctors are abandoning Medicare patients in droves, most are not taking any new patients.

daves

That just means that people with lots of money can get good healthcare here. We have people dying from preventable diseases all the time.

El Lobo Solo

Thumbs Up for the thumbs up that was cancelled.

I attribute “Enemy’s” assesement about the female vote more to the state of our public education system over the last generation.
Also,
Western Europe et al do have many luxury social programs for their citizens, established post WWII after their countries were rebuilt by the Marshall Plan & Uncle Sam’s protective cold war military umbrella, that in effect subsidized thier societies. But even now, the EU is going broke & Libs in our nation want us to emulate them.
Furthermore, the Canadians & many others around the world travel to the USA to take advantage of the latest medical technology in US hospitals. How’s that for “…poor ranking of health care outcomes in the industrialized world”.
lol

El Lobo Solo

My sympathies for your loss & God Bless you & family.
Bruised, battered & even stunned in a couple of “close calls”, but by God’s Grace I am still here today keeping one step ahead of the arthritis.

“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will”
Shakespeare

PS: May this get pass the Moderation Muse.
lol

Bree

Thank you El Lobo Solo, you are so wise and I pray for you, that God will strengthen and keep you by His grace.
“A good man – has good words (fruit)” – Bree

Granny

Not this woman!
tmt

The women I know all want to vote Republican this year. No one wants a Muslim Marxist for a president. We are quite aware that obama is a pathological liar. All through history people have been misled by liars. This ultimately leads to the deaths of millions. It can happen to us if we allow it. Obama is a dangerous man. He does not like the Constitution and he has the arrogance to blame the Founding Fathers because the Constitution won’t allow him to be a dictator. There are more conservative women like me than there are liberal nutjobs like Nancy Pelosis and others.

http://patriot loriwm

LOL, funny, the women (and men, too, for that matter) that I know are voting Democratic. And, FACT CHECK: There is no “Marxist muslim” on the ticket this year. Did you just make that up?

El Lobo Solo

No I didn’t make it up, I saw it.

When the “Big O” went on his great apology tour after taking office he was videod bowing the the Saudi King when meeting.
Only a Muslim would bow to another higher ranking Muslm.

http://patriot loriwm

And George Bush held hands with him. Did you read anything sinister in that?
El Lobo Solo

@loriwm

Re: Bush’s photo op with Saudi King

That is because Bush was the unknowing “useful idiot”. Look at the video again. Bush is walking on the left side holding hands with the King. In that culture, not a favored position.

msbets

that was pretty much proved, when Komen, with drew, her $$$$, my God they acted like a bunch of scalded cats!!!NOTHING IS FREE, and they just can’t get their stupid heads wrapped around the concept, THAT THIS KIND OF HEALTHCARE WILL COST MORE THEN $$$$$, wait till these women that have children who’s healthcare, WON’T BE COST EFFECTIVE!!! do they really think it’s just old people that will get scre.wed!!! THAT JACKEL SUNSTEIN’S THEORY IS BIRTH TO 15, IF NOT COST EFFECTIVE, THEY DON’T GET THE TREATMENT,If you make it 15, you will get better healthcare till around the age of 50………..then it’s down hill again!!! I guess I’m just one of the few women, that didn’t react like a scalded cat, this will prove to big the biggest downfall of this nation!!!and the fastest way to a complete dictatorship, which is what this jackel wants, and cannot let him and that sorass do it!!
Floyd

Proverbs 17
7 Eloquent lips are unsuited to a godless fool—
how much worse lying lips to a ruler!
11 Evildoers foster rebellion against God;
the messenger of death will be sent against them.
23 The wicked accept bribes in secret
to pervert the course of justice.
Proverbs 18
2 Fools find no pleasure in understanding
but delight in airing their own opinions.
9 One who is slack in his work
is brother to one who destroys.
15 The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge,
for the ears of the wise seek it out.
17 In a lawsuit the first to speak seems right,
until someone comes forward and cross-examines.
Darla

To Enemy,

Oh no, you are WRONG….Not this woman!!!
Katie

What a dumb thing to say. Gender is a social construction. Women and men are not “wired” to vote any certain way. Ugh.

Ruth Gagne

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=H3aCfR8rmrw.
Here is one for you all to read and listen to the video and then you will know we are being treated like jerks and O.Bama is going to get his soon that is if the Senate acts on this as they should have done before. This is dynamite so watch it before it is taken off the site.
ET

The statement that no nation can provide universal healthcare in a cost effective manner is false. Many others do it quite handily and for far less cost than the system of insurance in the US. There is a reason why the US does NOT rank number one in either health CARE nor in any cost-benefit analysis and the reason is that we rely on Insurance rather than care. If we had universal health care there would be more incentive for people to work minimum wage jobs since the single biggest expense for most people is health Insurance and secondly the actual care. We could benefit economically from freeing employers from worrying about keeping costs contained while maintaining a skilled workforce. With the cost spread out across everyone, the cost of care actually goes down – as any objective look at healthcare around the world shows. The free market has never been free and saying we are near the top in healthcare is just not accurate. Our costs now are directly tied to the Insurance CARTELS that Congress allowed back in the day when health insurance was a novel idea. Those cartels now operate much like the other drug ones, by intimidation and price fixing.

Oregon Bill

You must be the ET from another planet, the Government can’t actually run anything in a cost efficient manner on this planet, without usurious tax rates and confiscation of wealth.
http://patriot loriwm

ET, what do you think this is – Politicus? Facts have no place on this site! This is apparently alternate-universe land.

El Lobo Solo

Rod Sterling is calling you back to the ‘Twilight Zone’.

El Lobo Solo

The “Free Market” is not about getting a free ride, but freedom of choice.

Check out the UK Telegraph story about patients getting poor nursing care in the National Health Service hospitals
viz: bed fast patients left in their own soiled bedding, patients unable to feed themselves being ignored.
British Govt now investigating.

We shut down health facilities in this country for lesser infractions and/or sue the into bankruptcy.

GDC

It’s called emotional blackmail.

El Lobo Solo

“Emotional Blackmail”,
often a trait of Bordreline Personality Disorders.

Larry E

Liberals only have emotionalism to put their agenda forward. They can’t use logic so they drag out some poor or disabled person who will certainly suffer greatly if those evil conservatives take over or have their way. Or it’s “for the children” that we need gun control or some new welfare program, or government provided abortions.

A liberal confronted with logic resorts to personal attacks, blubbering, or backpedalling and yammering.

El Lobo Solo

Yes!
Symbolism over substance.

Ultor

Like Obama, Romney proved his willingness to engage in coercive dictation when he was in a public position as Governor of Massachusetts by using the state approved motivation of “force,” then in his private business experience he was more than comfortable engaging in predatory activity commonly referred to as “green-mail.” His argument and the RINO establishment for that matter, that Gingrich shouldn’t raise the issue of the predatory practice of using capitol (foreign mostly from Latin America in the case of Bain) in addition to “state” and or “federal” subsidies to back Bains investments, then cooking the books, raising the assumed value, then blowing out the company sending those formerly American jobs mostly to Mexico (in the case of Bain) as somehow being “ant-business” on Newts part. The fact is, that the establishment crony-capitalists don’t want this practice exposed, after all that is how the corporations who write the bills are able to pay the politicians to maintain the statuesque. It is not the case that Bain, out of a desire to “help” small businesses lent money to these smaller companies, Bain wanted control, they were not out to protect these companies. While it is true that these companies didn’t have to borrow the money, with Bain offering the decision makers of those companies’ riches, they quickly went along for the ride. “For if it prosper none dare call it treason.”

The point is Romney is not a business man; he is a con artist, a land shark, and self promoter. Like Obama, neither of these men has been involved in the “open and honest” kinds of business that most Americans think of when they think of business. They are so close to being the same person that one could call them OBAMNEY.

Yet they are different in this regard, one came from a Church that hates white people and condemns America calling it the, “KKK of America,” while the other one comes from a Church ran by 12 white Bishops whom defend the Temples LDS founder who said, “We will trample down our enemies and make it one gore of blood from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. I will be to this generation a second Mohamed whose motto in trading for peace was the Koran or the sward, so shall it be with us.” And when this group that says they are Christian does go to the “Temple,” they must wear white, just like that other group that calls itself Christian known as the White Knights of the Ku-Klux-Klan.

So, yes they both have already demonstrated that compulsory coercive dictation is not a problem for them, and both are accomplished at using tax money to serve themselves and their friends, yet they belong to sects if not cults that are quite different in everything accept the nearly nonexistent tolerances for those whom point out that the places they warship are not very loving or peaceful once one gets beyond the vial of the PR propaganda sold to the society at large.

No, I think I will stick with Newt and the age old preference for creative productivity, peaceful exchange, and cooperation, you know like Adam Smith and the founders intended.
Larry

There is no reason for the public to support these people but they do by not reading or hearing the full story. There are to many people that vote for an idiot from what they are saying whether it is true or not so the Public needs to start learning about what they vote for or they deserve to have everything taken from them. The bad thing is that these people vote for something without learning anything about it and they hurt those that take the time to learn about what they are being told and if it is true or not.
Nick

I think if we want to have any chance in restoring this once great country and have a great leader; we must look beyond just Obama to what is behind all the chaos, corruption and media bias. That would be people like George Soros and the many others that hide in the shadows, who pull the strings and throw billions of dollars to those who are in the eye of the public to keep their agenda on track.

Soros and the others manipulate the entire media and political system. They MUST BE CRUSHED and CONTAINED if we have any chance! Once contained the puppets like Obama will fall then there must be constant monitoring of them so this can not get out of hand again. This makes complete sense!

http://patriot loriwm

No, it doesn’t!

town mayor

I believe the reason the Libs in congress and Senate want us to provide for those who do not want to provide for themselves is because they do not work or struggle for anything so they do not know or have forgotten what it is like to struggle. I want to keep what I earn and give by my choice not by the governments mandate. We need trem limits!

Oregon Bill

I’ve never known a Liberal that actually ever worked for a living, they just want to spend other peoples money, their charitable giving is indicative of exactly that. Conservatives give far more to charity year in and year out, while Obama supporters live off the crony capitalism emanating from the White House, bundle for Obama and you can’t lose any money.

http://patriot loriwm

C’mon, Bill, THINK. I thought the liberals were in control of EVERY media outlet in the country. Those elitists and their college degrees are running EVERY SINGLE newspaper and network in America, control everything we see or read, and even manage to manipulate the polls. Yet, somehow, they pulled off this amazing feat while not a single one has ever worked for a living. Hmmm….how can it be that this lazy bunch of welfare cheats has commandeered the entire mainstream media? It’s a veritable conundrum, Bill!

Shannon

Hahahaha, hilarious. Well-put
El Lobo Solo

The Main Stream Media, is the Lame Stream Media.

Chris

Like Rush said years ago, “Environmentalism is the new home of Communism”. So true.

http://patriot loriwm

This doesn’t even make sense.

El Lobo Solo

“Communism is the best form of government to save the environment”
Micheal Gorbachev

Sam

There is NO reason any sane person, male or female, would vote for Obama

El Lobo Solo

It is a sane reason to vote for Obama if one is in the 47% not paying Federal income tax.
lol

Shane

Yes, liberals use emotional arguments which explains why they get the female vote so often. Nobody has a right to free health care or free birth control, but this idea has strong appeal to women.

Shannon

You clearly don’t understand women.

Patriot Update