Thank you, Teresa. I'd been wondering about the oddly seductive quality of Obama's rhetoric, but until you explained it, I didn't understand that he's really a commie-pinko-bolshie, who is attempting to enslave us in a socialist state.

Good thing to know that America is still as full of loons and cranks as ever.

Well, my point was not that he was not just like Bush, but rather that his campaign theme was eerily similar to that of Bush's 2000 campaign.

My concern with Obama is precisely that he's not nearly as much of a liberal as I'd like him to be. With Clinton, I feel reasonably confident she is going to fight tooth and nail for universal health care, mandates and all. She's done it once, she'd do it again. With Obama? I am not so sure his heart is in it. These "Harry and Louise" ads were too reminiscent of the '90s anti-health care push by the GOP for my comfort. These were not the sort of ads that would be run by someone who passionately wanted to implement universal health care, to my mind. They struck me as a dogwhistle to the Right that would not be heard by anyone who was not already politically active at that time.

"distributive justice"

You can find it in Christianity. You can find it in Judaism. I have no doubt Islam as well. Buddhism too. ("socialism" may be a late comer to the party)

To me calling socialism "slavery" is to denigrate the whole concept of slavery. Do you feel enslaved by stop signs also? Do you consider yourself a "slave" to stop lights? To speed limits? Do you prefer to drive on your neighbor's lawn, because to confine yourself to the streets would enslave you?

Enough said. The lack of "recommends" speaks for itself.

What is it with all of these freepers trolling TPM? Seriously, I see a trend here over the past few days (weeks?). I used to log on here and read interesting and intelligent comments, and even though I didnt always agree, the people seem to be politically astute. Now I have to read politically retarded comments like this.

Just so that I can be sure that I am keeping current here - we Obama supporters are now latte-sipping, Prius-driving, kool-aid drunk*, misogynistic, socialist trust fund babies? Am I missing anything? Being a mindless sheep, it is hard for me to keep track of all of this.

* - Lattes and Kool-aid? We sure do consume a lot of fluids...

Being a member of the French Socialist Party, am I a slave-holder?

Those TPM banner ads at WorldNetDaily appear to be having the intended effect of helping commenters here find some common ground. Cool.

the USA has the highest standard living and freedom in the world because of its culture and economic system of capitalism where work is rewarded
Who really BELIEVES such crap?!?!
If you watch the docu "A crude Awakening", then you'll see that American wealth depends largely upon it's accessibility to cheap oil. It still has that, despite it's national oilfields being depleted.
And the American oil production industry is not exactly a "free" market, entry to it is extremely hard, there hasn't been a new player in decades.

"The sky is the limit and anything is possible unless the Obamamaniacs of the world get their way and squash the potential of humans to be the best they can be and turn us all into hopeless slaves to the State."

Do we have to listen to the shrill musings of a woman who refers to a group of politically committed as "the Obamamaniacs of the world"?

And just what are we getting with Obama, slavery or socialism? Pick one.

And when intellectual lightwwiehts lick the crumbs off the Reagan economic roundtable, you get the kind of thinker who is allergic to taxes of any kind. Doesn't the economic collapse brought on by years of Reaganomic lunacy register with you at all?

The truth is that Obama, like most modern Democrats, is (implicitly or explicitly) an economic Keynesian who believes maintaining a balance between public and private sector activity which produces the best economic circumstances for the greatest number of people possible.


The woman who posted above (and likely many other right-wingers who will trot out these false accusations) simply thinks that the entire economy ought to be an anarchic reign of whichever private interests are capable of dominating, where any role whatsoever for governing activity with a universal interest is considered demonic socialism. Like any political extreme, there is a kind of pathology. In this case a rabid fear of thinking socially in any capacity.