Government Socialism... I'm shocked, shocked I tell ya...

When is Socialism bad? Apparently when it’s the other guys Socialism. Here’s what I mean. Since the day he was elected, President Obama has been pilloried by center right partisans as hell-bent on making America a socialistic third world country, as opposed to the free market capitalistic juggernaut our founding fathers supposedly envisioned. Obama the logic goes, wants to see everyone dependent on government so that the government can control them and save them from their inability to make good and right decisions.  It is his desire, unsaid, but certainly evident as some claim, to crush the rugged individualistic spirit that has defined America for many years and replace it with a governmental “nanny state.” We have been told that if government gets too involved in the lives of the people, freedom will evaporate, we will cease to work hard and then we’ll just take up a chair on the front porch waiting for the next subsidy check to come via the US Mail. When government intervenes fiscally on behalf of the people, instead of the people accepting responsibility for their own lives, this is socialism.  Or so we have been told by many on the conservative right.  We should, at every turn, reject this socialism, because it is bad. But let me ask this… if government aid for the individual, who can just get a job and work hard is socialism, what is government aid to corporations that are reaping record profits at a time when America’s deficit is bursting? If a government handout to an individual causes him or her to not accept the reality of bad decisions in life, don’t corporate subsidies shield businesses across America from the same responsibilities of bad decisions? Why is it that when it comes to defining who is the evil socialist in the room, seemingly only President Barack Obama is guilty? Is it because he, along with President George Bush ordered the US government to intervene on behalf of two corporations, Chrysler and GM, saving them from near certain bankruptcy? Because if subsidizing poorly run corporations is evidence of evil socialism, then surely all of the politicians and Americans decrying the potential end of US Government subsidies for the dairy, farm and petroleum industries would qualify too, wouldn’t they? You see, Americans love socialism, when it benefits them, or more accurately, us. In the recently past Presidential elections, candidate Romney was partially derailed by his famous 47% comments that implied a high percentage of Americans had become takers. My fear is that the percentage is closer to 100% than we care to admit.  To demonize one politician or another, or one class of people over another with the charge of socialism, is just our discomfort with admitting that reality and blatant partisanship, devoid of an attitude that is truly seeking solutions.