Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Dan Proft: Embracing Socialism
Urquhart Media, LLC ^ | Feb 23, 09 | Dan Proft

Posted on 02/23/2009 12:32:05 PM PST by illinoisgop438

"We Are All Socialists Now."

That is not some RNC talking point. Rather, it was the title of Newsweek magazine's cover story last week.

If there is anyone who knows socialism when they see it, it's Newsweek and other such old media outlets run by second-generation Red Diaper babies.

And so what was ridiculed by old media high priests jealously guarding the Oracle at Hyde Park is now embraced.

Free market conservatives were laughed at when they argued that then-candidate Obama was little more than an old school socialist in a fancy new wrapper. Such accusations were treated as little more than schoolyard name-calling.

Now that federal government spending is approaching 40% of our country's gross domestic product (GDP), the Left's argument has shifted to, what else, schoolyard rationalizations: "Bush started it with his $700 billion bailout last year." And so he did. But, children, two wrongs don't make a right. They make America into a stagnant, Euro-socialist land of mediocrity.

We have predictions of economic Armageddon with a 7.6% unemployment rate in America. That rate would be a 15-year low in trendy western European countries that Obama would have us emulate like France and Germany.

With the confirmation that Obama's "Yes We Can" really meant "Yes, the Federal Government Can," Republicans have the re-branding opportunity they need.

Republicans must stand up for what works (including those who work) and stand against what we know does not work.

Let the Obama Democrats make the case that socialism will now work because finally the "right people" are in charge. Let them contend, as they do implicitly, that the intellectual candlepower of Team Obama is more than enough to overcome such trivialities as innate human behavior. Republicans must make Team Obama own their neo-socialism.

Republicans and traditional Republican constituents must resist the temptation to be bought off by the neo-socialists. Who wouldn't want to live in a world without consequences financed by other people's money? It is an attractive proposition until you play out the implications writ large.

The good news/bad news is that socialism does not work, no matter the academic pedigrees of its practitioners. Thus, the Democrats' economic stimulus gambit will fail to live up to its stated purpose. If Obama lets the Bush tax cuts expire and if he gives in to his protectionist tendencies, things will get significantly worse for greater numbers of Americans who played by the rules only to have their government use their money to bail out those who did not.

On the other side of this there will be the 60% of Americans who pay the freight in this country; there will be the job-creating small businesses who don't have Wall Street friends or politicians in their pockets and thus don't get bailed out of their bad decisions or bad luck; and there will be the people that budgeted for the home they bought who will not be enjoying the benefit of the federal government's intervention to renegotiate their mortgage.

Who speaks for these Americans? The Republican Party can again if they recognize the opportunity before them.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: danproft; newsweek; socialist

1 posted on 02/23/2009 12:32:05 PM PST by illinoisgop438
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: illinoisgop438

YES FOLKS! NOW YOU TOO CAN ENJOY THE SYSTEM WITH THE MOST FAILURES SINCE FEUDALISM! ITS FAILED EVERYWHERE IT IS TRIED, IT HAS LEAD TO THE DEATHS OF 100+MILLION! BUT LET'S GIVE IT ANOTHER TRY ANYWAY!


2 posted on 02/23/2009 12:36:26 PM PST by mainestategop (MAINE: The way communism should be)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: mainestategop

“Oh, they just didn’t do socialism right. If we try again we’ll get it right THIS time...”


3 posted on 02/23/2009 12:49:48 PM PST by Mark319 (The U.S. fought Marxism throughout the 20th century and now Americans have voted it right in.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Mark319

Just think of the ego involved in thinking YOU (not “you” but proverbial “you”) can get socialism right, this time.

Not only do you have to believe YOU are smarter than the typical person in getting what that person wants but that YOU are smarter than all the other failed socialists before YOU. I mean, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc., for all their faults, were smart people. But YOU are smarter.


4 posted on 02/23/2009 1:07:10 PM PST by MeanWestTexan (Beware Obama's Reichstag fire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson