I use the term "socialist" to define those who believe the State should be in control of just about everything, but particularly the economic system. To believe that this massive state control of the means of production requires actual physical ownership is naive in the extreme. I've discussed this, with examples. And admit it, isn't that the ONLY thing about socialism anybody can come up with where there's any significant difference with so-called "progressives?"

"Progressives" are socialists. If I put a progressive and a socialist in the same room and asked them fifty questions about how to run things, they would essentially agree on all of them, especially off-the-record. Economics, foreign policy, culture, social issues, you name it.

If you track them back they used to call themselves socialists, and they still do if you catch them away from the public. Hell, if you go back far enough they used to be proud Marxists. The Congressional Progressive Caucus used to have a lot of links with socialist websites before they realized the problem. They haven't changed their belief system, though. Just scrubbed away the tracks and hoped their base constituents aren't big on abstract thinking.

Barack Obama, to name just one current Democratic leader, is basically a European socialist. Stanley Kurtz wrote a book detailing the evidence. All Obama's defenders have is denial, and the firm refusal to look at Obama's background. Obama was elected largely because the media badly wanted him to be, which is why as far as most voters were concerned Obama appeared fully formed from the head of Zeus about four years ago. Contrast that with the anal probes on every conceivable part of their background that Republicans (like Palin) got from the same news organizations.

It doesn't really require deep analysis though. Just your eyes. Obama hasn't done one thing in office that a socialist would not have done, given the limits of political opposition and the need to be re-elected. Unlike Clinton, who "re-triangulated" when the clue was shoved up his nose, I don't expect Obama to change one bit. I know a "true believer" when I see one, and a key characteristic is the refusal to let reality get in the way.

In this country we are in a conflict between two basic visions about the relationship between the citizen and the government. It's coming to a head, because the choices have become so stark. What's interesting lately is that this is becoming apparent even to people who don't normally do a lot of thinking about such things.

Will that do for a diatribe?