by Christine Whitmarsh

Created on: August 20, 2009

Socialism... Idiocra-cized

The most heated American political arguments sometimes fall off the tracks early in the public debate and nobody notices. For instance, within all the heated passion and anger of the pro-life vs. pro-choice debate, it's astounding to me that nobody has realized that these are not antonyms. The opposite of pro-life is anti-life, not pro-choice and the opposite of pro-choice is anti-choice, not pro-life. These are not phrases that cancel one another out. It seems that the media and perhaps the government have really suckered us into a battle based on fake pretenses.

The latest demonstration of a semantic magic show by the media started towards the end of the presidential campaign and just like the abortion smokescreen was quickly stripped of its complex societal, historical, cultural, economic and political layers. After all, anything deeper than a clever 20 second marketing bite doesn't play well to the electorate (ask Ron Paul). Unfortunately most of the voting public seemed desperate to make the fastest decision possible with the least amount of time spent thinking about it. That's how the introduction of the complex concept of socialism was effectively Idiocra-cized (my own made up word based on the film) to the following stream of consciousness: The big bad Republicans are calling Obama a socialist but we really like Obama (the leader is good, the leader is wise, all hail the leader) so that must mean socialism is good so the question at hand is do you like socialism?

Okay, so here's where that whole thought process fell off the Taggart Transcontinental railroad tracks. First, I am not in a position to determine whether Obama is a socialist. Although I will say that he has managed to spend more in less than a month than Bush did in 8 years and through two wars. Seriously, the monopoly money printing press is working overtime to keep up with both of these guys.

Second, comes the issue of socialism itself. The happy, sunshine, politically correct, campaign speech friendly implications of socialism include the government helping us, kind of like good Samaritans assisting a little old lady across the street. It's about redistributing the wealth to those who need it because we're all in it together so why should one man be more successful than the other, right? Please refer to my quote at the top of the blog for some hints on the difference between politically fabricated socialism and the real thing. Don't let them fool you America,

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