Centerfield

Obama is a socialist, plain and simple. The risk of his presidency is he will take as much money as possible from the people and redistribute it as he sees fit, regardless of the damage it will do to the economy. He openly states that he wants to raise the capital gains tax, regardless of the consequences, just to make effective tax rates more fair.

He associates with other socialists/lunatics, and either lies saying he didn't notice in years of personal involvement what normal people learn from a single news story, or supports their causes and beliefs.

I pray that before it's too late, people will start to listen to what Obama says, rather than just how he says them. Two words sum up the forecast of an Obama presidency: Jimmy Carter.

Justin, I can see calling someone a socialist if they advocate raising the capital gains tax above the level of the regular income tax. But it isn't entirely obvious that it is socialism to simply contend that "income is income" -- and therefore advocate raising the capital gains tax to the same levels as the taxes on wages and salaries, or interest.

And raising the capital gains tax to a level that is higher than the current level, but still lower than the taxes on other income definitely does not qualify. It may still be a bad idea, but it ain't socialism.

You know, York's article reminded me of '04, when Kerry was so easily misled into running for Lieutenant in the 70s instead of President in 04 today. Ooh, I hated that election cycle.

Are you projecting, Justin? YOUR party's Presidents are the ones that've been raising spending rates fastest for the last 30 years (check it out yourself). And they couldn't even be bothered to pay for it (deficit always goes up when Rs are in power, down when Ds are in power, again, check it out).

I call him a socialist because of the sum of his beliefs and policy proposals (regulate and redistribute as much as possible). That was just one example of a problem I have with him. And I do not identify myself as a Republican either, because I view them all as a bunch of crooks. At least theoretically, I agree with Republicans more than Democrats, though. So, what are ya gonna do?

I would call myself a non-isolationist libertarian. I was quite excited initially with Ron Paul, and then it turned out that he's nuts. It seems, to my chagrin, that the Libertarian party candidates always think that we should just leave the rest of the world alone, and then all of our problems would magically go away.

Perhaps I am off-base, and please rebut if you think so, but I view Democrats' general governing strategy as: do as much as possible. I think it should be the opposite: do only what is absolutely required. More and more it seems, as you point out, Republicans are lining up with Democrats about that, and I hate it.

Justin, you call Obama socialist because it is a convenient pigeon hole that obviates serious debate. Plain and simple. It's red meat for simpletons.

You come up with a rather outrageous idea that Obama wants to regulate and redistribute as much as posible. Both premises are false in their extremism.
Regulation is necessary and if you recall the Clinton administration regulation didn't seem to be much of a problem for economic growth, especially since the government, including emergency services, ran pretty smoothly with FEWER government workers. Contrast that to the current administration's use of political appointees to roll back years of regulations only to find that they were necessary after all. From FEA to SEC and beyond, the country is reaping the rather dubious benefits of deregulation for the sake of political iceology rather than for the reasons of real world experience. I hope you're enjoying your tomato sandwich. In another example the mostly GOP opposition to higher fuel economy standards not only made this country more vulnerable to oil disruption and pricing but look what happened to our flagship automobile companies like GM and Ford. Now our flagship auto companies are Toyota and Honda.
Can you give us a few examples of Obama wanting to over regulate, as you put it?
As for the redistribution of wealth.

Which redistribution of wealth are you talking about?

You obviously have no problem when a small minority of Americans accumulate more of the total wealth as has been the historical trend for decades. You probably don't have any problem with CEO pay going up more than 500% over the past 3 or 4 decades while joe average had 40% increases (that did not keep up with inflation). And you probably have no issue with the fact that 85% of the nation's wealth is held by a mere 20% of its citizens while 1% own about a third of this nation's wealth. Contrast that to 1949 when the 1% owned 22% of the national wealth. Ergo it is probably safe to assume that you have no problem with the current trend of redistribution of all American wealth to this rather select minority and the resulting governance by a wealthy oligarchy.
Shall I assume that you like to have sales taxes on lawn mowers chain saws and rubber dinghy's but god forbid that we should take away the sales tax exemptions for million dollar yachts? Larry Ellison is smiling....

Do you realize how stupid this all is?????

BTW, in the end, which president ended up with smaller government and more streamlined regulations, Bill Clinton or Reagan or Bush 1 or Idiot Boy 2?

Which one ended up with smaller deficits, and even surpluses?

Obama socialist? What a crock.....