On 05 Nov 2004 04:05:32 GMT, (David Hall) wrote:

The leftists? Are you ****ing nuts? The DLC is centrist. Kerry and Edwards
are centrists. Don't believe Karl Rove's propaganda about them being
liberal. Check their voting records. Clinton is a centrist. If the party
truly is left wing then Dennis Kucinich would have been nominated. Go back
to ****ing civics class.

This is about the 4th or 5th response that says Democrats are centrists or
conservative and Republicans are right wing or "neo-cons" (whatever in the
world that means). By any reasonable historical perspective at all, the United
States is a socialist redistributive society with a leftist socialist
government virtually at all levels. While it may be true that most other
western countries are far more socialist, pretty much beyond Karl Marx's
wildest dreams, that doesn't make our degree of socialism "centrist" or
"right-wing". The classic liberals of the 18th century would be absolutely
agast at how little personal freedom we enjoy. We have as a society given up a
tremendous amount of personal social and property freedom to redistribute to
others to meet what we percieve to be a moral obligation to the less fortunate.
But seemingly the more that is given the more that is expected and what would
once have been seen as outlandishly generous social benefits are now seen as
gross social darwinism that would make Silas Marner seem a philanthopist. When
will it be enough? I do not see the election as a win for conservatism. I see
it as merely a slight braking of our rapid movement deeper and deeper into
socialism.


I fear you are correct. Only time will tell whether the braking can be
turned into a halt, followed by a swinging of the pendulum the other way.
It would be a shame to see the Republic that was founded based upon
personal freedom turned into a society of slaves to a dependency class and
government regulators.

David Hall