What's Wrong With Spreading Wealth Around?

I will be so glad when November 5, gets here. Every time I start feeling good about the polls and start to envision a Obama presidency, I remember that this country voted for George Bush a second time after they had seen him, listened to him, and experienced the effects of his policies for four years. It could happen again, and I can't relax for another five days. Never underestimate the stupidity and shallowness of the American voter.

McCain's last ditch effort to label Obama a socialist and a marxist is an indication of the mental laziness of the audience to which they're appealing. After the bank bailouts, if you're going to label one person a socialist, then you must label us all socialists . . . if you have any kind of intellectual honesty. You can't condemn Obama for "spreading the wealth" after you know the facts about Palin's redistribution of wealth in Alaska. And what's wrong with spreading a little wealth around, if it means . . . .

-everyone can have decent health care . . .
-a college education is within reach of anyone who wants it . . .
-singe mothers have access to dependable child care so they can earn a living . . .
-more public funds are available for finding new sources of renewable energy . . .
-narrowing the gap between the highest and lowest paid people un companies by a few percentage points?
-getting this country out of the financial black hole that we're in.

That's a question that hasn't been asked.

How can the Republicans consistently get so many people to vote against their own economic self-interest? The people at McCain's and Palin's rallies are not wealthy, yet they boo on cue at the mention of "spreading the wealth." They cheer on cue at the mention of "creating wealth." I honestly believe that they don't have any idea of what those two concepts mean.

We need to have a good discussion on socialism, marxixm and capitalism. A place to start is the dictionary:

cap·i·tal·ism – an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, esp. as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

so·cial·ism – a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

Marx·ism – the system of economic and political thought developed by Karl Marx, along with Friedrich Engels, esp. the doctrine that the state throughout history has been a device for the exploitation of the masses by a dominant class, that class struggle has been the main agency of historical change, and that the capitalist system, containing from the first the seeds of its own decay, will inevitably, after the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, be superseded by a socialist order and a classless society.

McCain is setting himself up as the defender of capitalism against socialism - a tired old Republican argument. One of his heroes, Teddy Roosevelt, described what Obama is doing - he said his main job was to defend capitalism against the capitalists.