jeffmiller:

southpol:

I don’t see FDR or LBJ as socialists either. I imagine you do … .

I do.

Here are a few of the most socialist, radical things about Obama:

1)   His support for comparable worth.  (I don’t believe that Kerry, Gore, or Clinton supported anything like this in their campaigns).

2)  Incredibly high marginal tax rates.  Again, I don’t think a Democrat has supported taxes this high on the rich since Carter, at least.  You can include Obama’s reworking of Social Security with this … by lifting the cap, Obama has dispense with all pretense that Social Security isn’t purely redistributive.

3)  Suppression of speech.  Obama has signaled that he would enforce an aggressive antitrust approach, and has hinted just enough to make use think he’d use it on  conservative media.  He’s already threatened television stations that have run ads against him, and rallied supportive prosecutors to threaten political speech.  

4)  There’s some FDR in Obama, and you see it in his judicial philosophy:  ”Today, at a time when American families are facing more risk and greater insecurity than they have in recent history, at a time when they have fewer resources and a weaker safety net to protect them against those insecurities, people of all backgrounds in America want a nation where we share life’s risks and rewards with each other. And when they make laws that will spread this opportunity to all who are willing to work for it, they expect our judges to uphold those laws, not tear them down because of their political predilections.”  The bold part?—that’s socialism.

5)  Health Care.   Under Obama’s plan, the Government will run a “National Health Insurance Exchange,” and will force employers to either fund it or provide alternative coverage.  This seems like socialism to me.

6)  Compulsory national service.  I don’t know what I find more sickening—that Obama supports compulsory national service, or that Americans don’t seem to care.

7).  Trade.  I know, I’m a free trade zealot.  I worry about the dangers of isolation and think those against trade are xenophobic and racist.  But trade does more than almost anything else to make the world better and lift people out of poverty.  I thought Democrats were on board with free trade, but apparently Obama is not.

Now, you can argue that people aren’t upset about these policies, that they are even supportive of these policies, and that makes Obama a centrist.  I suppose you could extend this to suggest that everyone who is elected is a centrist since most people obviously endorsed the candidates agenda.  Under that reasoning, Reagan was a centrist, and I don’t think that makes any sense.  People are buying into Obama because (1) he is very skilled at making rather radical proposals seem innocuous (“shouldn’t women be paid fairly” and “for 95% of you, it’s a tax cut”) and (2) people are scared and no one is making a case for markets and freedom right now.