<"If the military teaches the true nature of communism, it must necessarily teach that communism is fundamentally socialism. When socialism, in turn, is understood, one cannot help but realize that many of the domestic programs advocated in the United States, and many of those adopted, fall clearly within the category of socialism." The social changes of the last generation were thus – ‘objectively,’ as the communists themselves would have put it – a communist plot.

Well, aside from the snide bit added by Schlesinger about it being a "communist plot," the quote from Thurmond is, of course, totally correct. Interesting that the writer would consider objectivity a "communist" concept.

Many of the social programs and massive wealth redistribution efforts undertaken by the Federal government this past century, with no real Constitutional precedent other than the massive twisting of the concept "promote the general welfare," * are in fact socialist in nature.

That is, it's based on the concept that wealth is not the property of its owner, but belongs to "society" as a whole (the state), and that the state is empowered to confiscate and redistribute it at will.

The editors of my local paper, The Mercury News, obviously are solidly in favor of this concept, stating with smug pride that not only is it necessary, but it is right and moral to loot the wealth of our citizens, provided they have more than the looters arbitrarily think they should, and that there are not enough of them to make a major electoral stink about it.

Anyone who thinks this kind of mugger's philosophy will stop at the upper income levels has a rude awakening coming. There are always those with less than you who will decide that you have more than you need, too.

As an aside, Kennedy would probably be shocked at how far left his party has moved since his administration. Then again, he might have just rotted into a fat rich leftist like Ted did. Who knows.

* Some quotes on "general welfare:"

- James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson: With respect to the two words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the "Articles of Confederation," and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted.



- James Madison wrote disapprovingly of a $15,000 appropriation for French refugees: "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

- "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson



Of course, what the hell did they know.