The Creeping Scourge of 'Socialism'

It is fascinating that even as newspapers decry the imposition of bloggers into their traditional domain, stealing "content," they continue to liberally quote from them. Maybe it's creeping socialism.

Today's NYTimes, for example, has a thoughtful opinion piece, heavily reliant upon bloggers, on the nation's sudden interest in socialism, noting along the way that just 53 percent of us believe capitalism to be a superior system, then pointing out later that most people likely can't define either system. (The Oxford English Dictionary says socialism is, in part, "... any of various systems of liberal social democracy which retain a commitment to social justice and social reform, or feature some degree of state intervention in the running of the economy." That's not exactly Karl Marx.

The quote I love is from conservative blogger Mark Thompson of the League of Ordinary Gentlemen: "When you falsely complain that every single thing your opponents try to do is socialism and absurdly hold your bloviating, unpopular selves up as bastions of capitalism, you probably shouldn’t be surprised when people start thinking socialism doesn’t look so bad, and capitalism doesn’t look so good. Let the record also reflect that I, personally, remain firmly with the 53 percent; I just don’t blame the other 47 percent for thinking otherwise."