Obama isn’t a socialist or a communist. He’s a neo-communist.
Now, before you think I’m calling him names, I am using these terms in their true sense. I’m not trying to put Obama down as if he’s a “commie”, or even criticize him, but the correct terminology of his political philosophy and practice is neo-communism.
Socialism and communism are close enough that people get them confused. They do overlap to a degree, but there is a significant difference between them.
Socialism is, simply, a political belief that it is the job and responsibility of the government, the state, to provide basic amenities for its citizens, especially for those that have not. Things like housing, food, clothing, education, and now health care are all in this mix. As many conservative Christians might find it hard to believe, many Christians were involved in the early stages of what socialism looked like in the West, i.e., the Social Gospel.
Communism differs on a couple key points. While communism also sees the role of the state to provide, it goes even further to guarantee complete equality of station. One person possessing more than another is inherently wrong, in their view. In order to insure this, the state must have an inordinate amount of power to enact these changes and force compliance with their view, including the suspension of many of what are human rights, or the rights inherent in any free society: free speech, free press, freedom of religion, etc. Communism is completely atheistic. Communism believes it takes a revolution, usually violent, to achieve at least begin down the path towards utopia.
After WWII and through the Cold War, the initial manifestation of communism has utterly failed. it’s been a failure everywhere it has been attempted. Some of the most dismal places on earth are communist countries.
What about China and Vietnam? you might ask. Good question. Those two countries were extremely depressed economically until they began to embrace capitalistic ideas and morph them into their own. In an ironic turn of events, China recently encouraged our current president to enact some free market solutions. Hopefully he listens.
So as traditional communism failed worldwide, communists in democratic nations adjusted their methods, but not some of the basic belief system. Gone are the notions of violent revolutions and atheism. Communists realized they could slowly, step by step and without making a big deal about religion, achieve their goals by working within the system to overthrow it from within. And as long as religion can be manipulated to move them down that path, all the better.
This is not, then, traditional communism. So calling Obama a communist is not accurate. But neither is he simply a socialist. He is of this newer philosophy that I call neo-communism. Others might use the term, but I haven’t heard it used before.
While the focus on a violent revolution, a revolution is still the goal, however evolutionary the revolution might be. Behind this evolution are still very strong communist beliefs: the increased power of the state over individual freedoms that will insure equality of station.
The first liberal/leftist response is to call such a notion paranoid or some sort of conspiracy theory nonsense, but it doesn’t take much digging to see that the extreme left, while offended to the public eye, admits such things openly among themselves. In an unprecedented time in history when everything is recorded and put on youtube, you can hear much of it from their own lips, or read it from their own books.
Obama and the extreme left believes, wholeheartedly, that it is in the best interest of the nation to have more control over the banks, private corporations, and the health care sector. If there is a problem, or more specifically, if they feel there is a problem, the solution is always more regulation and government control and spending. In spite of evidence of the failings of such things, things like public education and health care are sacred. All dissenting opinion is dangerous and must be marginalized as much as possible.
This belief does not make Obama and other neo-communists evil or bad people, necessarily. They act according to a strong conviction and their own perspective.
But if it looks, talks, and acts like a Marxist, it’s a Marxist. And no amount of outrage at the term, which is Cold War loaded, i agree, changes the facts. Obama and the extreme left are neo-communists.
And while the notions themselves are held by more of a minority in our country, because the bulk of the media and the entertainment industry is on board with these principles and the direction, it seems more prevalent than it is … and cooler than it is.
But despite the propaganda to the contrary, many still oppose these principles, both citizens and elected officials. Even people within Obama’s own party oppose the most extreme of them.
Which is the beauty of a republic. Differing opinions can exist freely. And dissent keeps a republic healthy. The pendulum will swing again and dissent will be healthy then, too.
Peace.