Socialism doesn't make my butthole pucker

Since the economic bailout, there’s been a lot of talk about socialism. At least one of my more liberal friends predicts the bailout equals the death of socialism’s staunchest rival: capitalism. The hinging factor in this argument is not merely that the government has bankrolled the private financial market – it is that our government is literally buying stock in the country’s largest banks. By definition, this move does amount to a socialist strategy. It certainly falls under the umbrella of “a broad set of economic theories … advocating social or collective ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.”

The Republican ticket’s VP candidate, however, doesn’t agree with this analysis. According to this CNN article, Palin answered she did not agree the bailout was a socialist move. It was simply a “shoring of banks,” she said, that was necessary for “not only the housing market but the credit markets also, to make sure that that’s not frozen.”

Palin, however, not surprisingly turned a 360 during the same Colorado Springs press conference. While defending the bailout as a purely capitalist move, she called Barack Obama’s tax plan an “experiment with socialism.”

This has yet to be proven. His plan calls for a tax increase for anyone making more than $250,000 a year and a tax credit for middle- and low-income workers. Essentially he’s helping those who need it and taxing those who don’t – and admitting that he himself is one of the few who can afford to pay more.

Maybe it is socialism, and maybe it isn’t. If his plan called for all of the extra taxes garnered from the rich to be directly distributed in the form of those lower-income credits, than yes, it’s socialism. If the two items of business remain separate from one another … well, it could still be socialism.

Here’s my question – who fucking cares? The wealthy and powerful have been demonizing socialism since the early 1900’s. It’s no surprise – the main thrust of Karl Marx’s theory is that capitalism is meant to keep the wealthy wealthy and the poor poor. A socialist agenda would see these rich legislators and their richer special interests losing out. Oh, the humanity.

That’s not how Palin and McCain argue their case, however. Instead of using the phrase “the rich,” they talk about how much this plan will hurt “small businesses.” Their argument assumes that we either make more than $250,000 a year or that we are simply ignorant. They’re counting on the uneducated, the uninformed and the traditional voters (and by “traditional” I mean “old”) to vote wildly against Obama simply because they’ve labeled him with this 20^th-century epithet. It harkens back to a time when the American people were led to believe democracy was in danger.

I’m sorry, but the fact Obama wants to “spread the wealth around,” as McCain has been so eager to point out, doesn’t instantly anger me. For one thing, Obama’s plan would see the wealth going into my pocket and not coming out of it. It would take my wife and I 10 years or more to make $250,000. For another thing, I agree with Obama – the rich can and should pay more. It’s absurd to believe that we can pull ourselves out of this recession (yes, I said it … recession) without taking a tax hit. McCain decries increased taxes as an insensitive and unneeded hardship upon Americans. Well, suck it up. If we want things in our society – like universal health care or, say, a balanced budget – we have to be willing to pay for them. And if you’re living comfortably, quit complaining about it. My wife and I cling to each and every check we make. If you don’t have to worry about whether you can feed your daughter for the next week, you’ve got no room to whine.