@ mrstickball: Great posts. Very informative stuff.
I think many people overestimate the effect the word "socialist" has. They throw it around like it its going out of style. Frankly, the American people have kind of become skeptical of labels and don't exactly have a hostile reaction to the word socialism anymore. Calling Obama a socialist isn't as effective as his critics think it is, and a higher percentage than they think like it when they hear he is a socialist.
Calling someone a socialist in a mixed economy is like a white person saying someone isn't white enough. All politicians in this country are socialist to some degree or another, and even Republicans are more socialistic than Democrats in some ways. National defense is a great example, as are farm subsidies. Not to mention Republicans (at least under Bush) parted way with their fiscally conservative ways and arguably grew the national government ironically under an anti-government banner.
Frankly, I think many Americans are open to the idea of socialism, whether or not they admit it. People love programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and people have responded very positively to the government becoming involved in the healthcare system since the private sector has completely botched everything. Americans like socialism even if they don't like the word socialism. People here are practical. If it works, they like it. If it doesn't work, they don't like it. If government gets the job done on an issue, you won't hear them complain. If they don't, you will.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
