The Socialism Ideal is popular with Intellectuals and Academics because of the apparent rightness and fairness of this ideal. This idealism conceptualized in the ivory towers of our universities has been thoroughly thought out and debated then taught to students of said institutions who then debate it among themselves. Then the rightness and fairness of the ideal perpetuates itself among student bodies of our learning institutions by idealistic advocates in rose colored glasses. Out of our universities come our journalists, policy makers and legislators.

The intellectual aspect of American Socialism is what makes the Democrat Party's position so popular with pseudo intellectuals, celebrities and nouveaux riche, it's empathetic, politically correct, and doesn't take much thought because the ivory tower guys have done the thinking for them. 89% of our journalists sucked this Democrat Socialist Ideal up like mothers milk in college resulting in retarding their instinct for objectivity, hence our biased media. Our Hollywood celebrities gravitate to this Democrat dogma in their incessant quest for popularity and political correctness, hence the popular culture endorsement. Largely lower income Americans have endorsed American Socialism, albeit not by name. Not attributable to their political analysis, but because they're the major beneficiaries of these empathetic social (ism) program safety nets.

The un-debated oversight of this socialistic idealism is the fact that socialism is top-heavy with government management (bureaucracy). If government bureaucracy was designed on computer models, then administered by said computers that strictly adhered to the perimeters of said computer model, the Socialism Ideal would have a slim but possible chance of proving it's promise. However, government is run by people, mostly lazy people with little oversight or accountability. This is what separates Socialist Idealism from Socialist Utopia. This is the reality of human nature, and it's fallibility.

Socialism so0cial0ism 1.a. A social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community. b. The theory or practice of those who support such a social system. 2. The building of the material base for communism under the dictatorship of the proletariat in Marxist-Leninist theory.

Clearly American Socialism is distinctively different from the above definition. In America where we remain a capitalistic free market society. Incrementally we're instituting social programs. Take note of the root word (socialism). Instead of a system owned collectively by the people, our system is owned privately but taxed mercilessly by the government for wealth re-distribution for our collective social good. I.E. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and Education. This results in the American Socialism Model, better known as our social (ism) programs.

The socialism paradigm penalizes success and rewards mediocrity and failure. It brings to mind an old Russian saying. "The government pretends to pay us, and we pretend to work." An apropos epithet for USSR'S Gross Domestic Product. Well folks, there isn't a one of us that haven't heard someone say "I don't want to work overtime on Saturday because all the extra money will go to taxes." We're penalizing productivity for the alleged benefit of all. All being those that can't or won't provide adequate income, retirement or medical care for themselves, and those who don't need it, but having had it extorted from them, insist on receiving their rebate as a social entitlement program.

Americans are a compassionate people, and we have always had a safety net for the needy as we should. However, as time goes on and we're taxed into oblivion everyone is starting to demand their piece of our collective safety net, and the people we elect promise us just that. And they do their best to deliver said safety net for their re-election insurance, no mater the cost! As much as we are taxed, it isn't enough to cover current entitlements (socialism programs), hence our $5.7 trillion collective National Debt.

As I listen to our politicians speak, I realize that incrementally we're becoming a nation of dependent pan-handlers. To the best of my recollection it wasn't a bunch of folks with their hands out that made this country great.

All I can say America is, "We better be careful what we ask for"!

Update 10-18-2008

I wrote this article five years ago and anyone who has read this far sees that socialism is coming to us faster than I thought. In the past week this article has been googled more than it has been in the last five year, Americans are worried.

The powers that be have deemed it important for the government to take an ownership position in our banks and we have bailed out every loser on Wall Street.

We are about to elect socialist Barack Obama to be President and he already has his rubber stamp congress in place.

Democrats think that it is a good to expand State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) a program that will give healthcare to all people 25 and under that are 2.5 times above poverty level. Don’t get me wrong, lets take care of our children in poverty that are till age eighteen and under but there really is little reason for the program to extend to me and my 9 and 12 year old children also we and millions like us are not in poverty even though we are below the 2.5% above poverty.

I don’t know if anyone has noticed but the country is broke, no, worse than that we have borrowed 10 or 15 trillion dollars, and the tally ticker is still smoking from George Bush’s stumble into socialism in his feeble effort to reverse the extensive damage whose genesis was President Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act, but that is another story.

The point is, we can’t afford one more entitlement, we are already on the road to fiscal suicide because of our financial collapse and we already have San Francisco socialist Nancy Pelosi running the House of Representatives, liberal Senate Leader Harry Reid may soon have a filibuster proof Senate.  It has been widely reported that Barack Obama has the most liberal voting record in the Senate; out of curiosity I wanted to see where the Senate’s only self declared democrat socialist was on the list. Bernie Sanders (DS) Vermont came in as the fourth most liberal in the Senate right behind Joe Biden. If you are to the left of an avowed socialist, you are in fact a socialist. Obama will rubber stamp every liberal wet dream that comes down the pike and with the liberals controlling both the house, senate and Whitehouse there is no check and balance to stop this freight train full of expensive voter pandering to a greedy and ignorant public.

House leader Nancy Pelosi says she is going reinstate the ban on outer continental shelf oil drilling which will cripple the recovery of our economy and there won’t be a chance in hell Pelosi, Reid and Obama will let us build the nuclear plants we need so badly.

The lying liberal tell us that it will take us 10 years to get any new oil out of ANWR or off the continental shelf, I worked on the Alaska Pipeline and I know different. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act was signed into law on 16 November 1973, which authorized the construction of the pipeline; Oil began flowing on 20 June 1977. The 800-mile route presented extreme challenges, as well as the harsh environment, and we were still pumping in five years time. For those of you not very good at logistics – we already have this engineering marvel eighty miles from ANWR; a spur line could be built in a year.

Rasmussen Reports Polling finds that just nine percent (9%) of "Likely Voters" give Congress positive ratings. Why in the world would we consider strengthening this body of failures by increasing the number of tax and spend liberals into congress and the Whitehouse.