Anna Keppa:

Where to begin?

You wrote: “Obama’s and Democrats’ policy of income re-distribution taking bazillions from the upper 50% of wage earners who pay 95% of the income taxes, and giving it to those on the lower 50% who pay the other 5% is socialism.”

Whoa. First off, this is a wildly inaccurate description of the tax plan promoted by Obama and the Democratic party. Second, what you’re upset about, it appears, is progressive taxation. But progressive taxation isn’t socialism. Republicans, remember, believe in progressive taxation (except for the party’s few flat tax cranks). Are they socialists?

Look, Kimballites. Socialism means, at a minimum, government ownership of large, important chunks of the economy. No Democrats believe in any such thing. Why? Because the Democratic party is a capitalist party.

Then you wrote: “(If you can offer a philosophical reason as to why it is ethical and good to steal from one group and give to another, have at it.)”

Who’s stealing? If you think that progressive taxation is theft, well, I’m afraid that puts you in a very, very small group of cranks, the flat tax brigade.

Anyway, here’s the nickel defense of the progressive tax: Government serves everybody; so the burden of paying for it should be distributed as broadly as possible; a flat tax rate would put more of the burden on those with lower incomes; so go progressive.

Next you wrote: “So are their dirigiste (and crackpot) policy proposals for ending the use of oil in ten years, for carbon taxes, for thwarting development of our own oil.”

You make a good point about Gore’s loopy “ten years” comment. But last time I checked nothing like that was in the Democratic platform. And what’s “crackpot” about cap-and-trade? Do you even know what it is? And, look, the oil won’t last forever. So what’s so bad about aggresively pushing for alternatives? I guess you’d rather keep pumping money to the Saudis.

And then you wrote: “So is their proposed nationalized healthcare, something that has failed everywhere it’s been tried. ”

I’m not really sure what you mean by “nationalized healthcare”; Obama’s plan is nothing of the sort. (Anna, you really need to do your homework.) As for which healthcare systems work, look, I’m sorry, but our healthcare system just isn’t that great. Lots of other systems–the French system or the Japanese one, for instance–perform much better than ours and at less cost. All true, look it up.

Repeat after me Anna and Roger and the rest of you wingnuts: Obama and the Democrats are capitalists. Believing in a regulated market is not the same thing as believing that there shouldn’t be a market!

Sheesh!