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Thanks for the response. There's a lot to think about. I just wanted to say that there were major differences between Schmidt and Honnecker or between Tony Blair and Fidel Castro, between Social Democrats who work within a basically capitalist society and Marxists who want to replace markets altogether. Put Obama beside Allende and he doesn't look Marxist at all.

Much of what gets people angry is the thuggishness that they see in the unions and in groups like Acorn. I don't deny that it's there, but it's still a long way from what goes on in communist societies, and I don't see it as truly marxist.

At times in history, you can see things like that get out of hand. Mobs and thugs take over. But so far it looks like Obama will be taking his appointees from the same types who always get government positions. They may be worse than those who've held such jobs in other administrations or they may not, but they aren't going to be the KGB. So far there's still a difference between an office thug like Rahm Emanuel and a real street thug.

It makes a difference where the left starts from and how far they want to go. Maybe people are exaggerating how socialist America already is, how much power unions and machine politicians have, and how far Obama is willing to go. I don't know. I doubt half the population is going to try to expropriate the other half.

I am aware that the dangerous time for societies is when they try to change things, though. Too much gets promised. People start to demand more and more. So there is a real danger.

But I do know that America's a tougher, more stable society than a lot of others in the world. The odds are good that we're going to survive the next four years.

[fightinJAG]

I think we’re on the same page, it’s just that you are looking at the effects of Obama in the next four years, I am looking much further down the road.

For the foreseeable future, things (I think) will continue pretty much business as usual. Except the socialist programs will pile up, and they cannot be completely undone in the future.

The problem is not in simply imposing the programs, it’s that as these programs grow and get their tentacles throughout society, they become unsustainable.

If that happens, and at that point in time America does in fact have more than 50% of its citizens on the dole, that’s when the government starts having to deal with civil unrest or starts becoming ever more confiscatory and coercive in an attempt to keep the gig from being up.

But, yes, that’s the potential down the road. Worth thinking about, though.

Thanks.