American Thinker | Lance Fairchok | Jun. 21, 2008
We all knew it even though Democrat spokespersons denied it. Worried that the negative connotations would affect their electability and their eyes glued to the capricious winds of public opinion, they invented new words for the old ideology such as progressivism and communitarianism. Apparently, the camouflage is no longer needed. The masks are off. They now openly call for the nationalization of private business, the establishment of universal entitlements and increased taxation to pay for them. Why worry about socialist labels? The electorate is complacent, prosperity has numbed our senses and the left has worked diligently for many years to sap our national pride and deface our self-image.
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.” – Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948
Eight years into the twenty-first century, Mr. Thomas’ prediction is coming perilously close to fruition; the presidential elections of 2008 may well validate his faith in “liberalism” and its Trojan horse delivery of Socialism. After decades of slow yet persistent desensitization to Socialism in our schools, in our media and in government policy, Americans are blind to its ramifications for our prosperity, our individual freedoms and our national identity. Political candidates and legislators espouse openly socialist policies without eliciting the slightest outrage or significant comment, so successfully have the philosophies of Marx and Lenin permeated the national psyche.
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Anticipating the consequences of what they do for political expediency is not a skill the Democrats nurture. Their refusal to support the development of domestic oil reserves, for decades has left us beggars on the world market, susceptible to the whims of theocratic tyrants and Marxist thugs. The record is clear, Republicans voted to develop domestic resources, the Democrats voted against development, by wide margins. Democrat party leaders are now feverishly shifting blame, developing public distracters, claiming their remarks are taken out of context and, as always, counting on the fickle memory of the electorate to kill the issue.
Our Democrat-Socialists invariably support polices that end badly. Bio fuels have removed important food surpluses from markets, raising food prices worldwide. The energy and water required to produce it is far greater to an equal measure of gasoline. This is an example of the solution being worse than the problem. Their anti-Iraq war hysterics have failed; Iraqi democracy moves forward against all odds, a remarkable achievement. The accusations of administration malfeasance, in the war on terror, in diplomacy, in a dozen other areas are proving unsupportable.
Even global warming has turned up a hoax, at best a wild exaggeration more to do with ideology and money than science. Temperatures are dropping, CO2 does not seem to affect global weather and the sun is gone into a natural dormant phase, which means decades of cooler temperatures. Another inconvenient “truth” falls away. Yet new ones are always being born, America’s Socialists are ever mutable, shifting and accommodating in the winds of political change. They are clever when inventing new causes and convincing the American people that their record is not their fault.
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