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McCain Personally Slimes Obama |
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John McCain talks a good game about avoiding mud-slinging, but as is often the case with McCain, it turns out he’s all talk. In an interview this week, McCain trotted out the tired tactic of red-baiting, declaring that he “doesn’t know” if Obama is a socialist.
Socialist shouldn’t be a dirty word in American politics, just like Muslim shouldn’t be, but, unfortunately, these are loaded and negative terms in our political culture. When McCain suggests Obama may be a “socialist”, despite the fact that this claim is utterly baseless, he is speaking directly to a segment of the electorate that gets energized by the idea of defeating liberal pinko Democratic hippies at the polls.Â
This isn’t the first time that McCain has played the red card in an attempt to slime Obama and fire up his base. At a recent event, McCain answered “yes” when asked by a supporter if he is ready to “hammer away at their [the Democrats'] socialist, Marxist philosophy.” (Imagine, by the way, what would happen if Obama said “yes” to a hypothetical questioner asking if he’s ready to defeat the fascist, totalitarian Republicans).
This is not honorable stuff. We have a none too proud tradition of red-baiting in this country, most notably during the Red Scare after World War I and the McCarthy era, but it’s never entirely receded from American political consciousness. Of course it’s laughable to suggest that Obama and the Democratic party are radical socialist Marxist hippies.   But McCain understands very well that he can rev up his base by throwing them this red meat. The rest of us should see this for what it is–McCain personally sliming Obama in an attempt to gin up rabid segments of the Republican base.
It seems like characterizing a party which has been consistent in it’s attacks on economic freedom as Socialist is completely justified.
According to my Intro the Economics textbook, Socialism is an economic system characterized by massive government intrusions into the market.
The Democrats have been advocating and implementing this for years, with Socialized Medicine and Environmental Socialism just two more planks in a platform which has been failing since before the Depression — which was created by a Socialist program called the Federal Reserve.
Of course, the Republicans have not been advocating Socialism — quite as much — as the Democrats. But they have been just as active in implementing it.
On economic issues, there is not a dime’s worth of difference between the actions of the status-quo parties. They are both Socialist to the core. Only the Libertarian party proposes free market solutions which will actually work, and free our economy, making it one where productivity, and not political pull, determine sucess.
It amazes me how naive people are who believe a free economy equals freedom for people. It doesn’t. The larger a business gets, the less it sees the consequences of its actions as anything but numbers on a paper that affect their bottom line, the only thing they care about. To assume that these greed driven entities ever act in anyone’s best interest but their own is laughable.
Socialism is very misunderstood by the general populace because of all the scare tactics used by economy driven smear campaigns. Many people want to use the Nazis, U.S.S.R. and China as examples but just because someone calls their system socialism doesn’t make it so.
Socialism, or more so my preferred form of government social-capitalism, is a system that provides for the basic needs of everyone. Capitalists like to blame social status and poverty on laziness and stupidity, but can you transfer these attributes to the children of said lazy stupid people. Under social capitalism those children will get the same opportunities as Paris Hiltin had, and not be punished because their parents are losers. The money to pay for the schools, hospitals, libraries, buses, universities, farms, utilities ect…would come from taking over our money system so that we print our own money instead of paying the Fed interest to print it. Taxes would actually be lower under that system. The capitalism aspect of social-capitalism lets a free market exist under the scope of luxuries, the only real legislation being in place to protect consumers against fraud, theft, and environmental hazards. In short, every child is born with free access to health care, food, water, electricity, education and information. But if they want an Xbox360 or a trip around the world or a boob job, then they have pay for it just like now.
There is obviously more to it and its organization but you get the gist of it. I realize that this article had no opinion on political systems and was actually talking about public mud-slinging.