Friday, October 24, 2008

The Socialism Bugaboo

I've heard many Republicans say that they won't vote for Barack Obama because they believe he is a "socialist". Though I believe that he's more conservative than that, I have to wonder why such people have such horror and fear about socialism. From what I've read some conservatives consider it to be practically communism.

But is it really?

Let's take a look at the countries that have practiced socialism and those that have practiced communism. The "communist" countries, past and present, can't really be called "communist", using a pure definition of the word. Rather, they have all been dictatorships, totalitarian states.

The socialist nations, of which the Scandinavian countries are a prime example, are free societies with free elections. They all have a high standard of living and also boast the highest life expectancies on the planet (no doubt due to socialized medicine!). Doesn't sound too awful to me.

It seems as if there's not a whole lot of sameness when you compare communism to socialism, after all.

But conservatives have a long history in mixing things up, which is because of their tendency toward black and white thinking. They're the ones who are against gay people teaching young children, because they've got homosexuality mixed up with pedophilia, which is akin to saying that Arnold Schwarzenegger must be a Nazi because he was born in Austria like Adolf Hitler was.

Thoughts?

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