No, my argument is not that it “could lead” to something. My argument is that it is wrong, even in lesser forms. What Obama said about the capital gains tax is morally wrong and bad for everyone, including the poor.

You and I have different views of what “justice” and “just society” mean.

I have no fear that conservatives who believe in less governmental power, decentralized power, and more liberty as their driving force will lead to a fascist state. But again, none of this was about fear about what something could lead to.

Political ideologies are generally weak in the united states. Your using of labels such as left and right are not the same here as they are in other societies. Bill Clinton saw some of the greatest gains of wealth in the US, and yet his ideology falls in line with Obama.

I’m not saying it’s the government’s job to regulate greed, but to (and i agree with you) to create a just, stable society… Our current economic system and tax policy is not just and puts most of the burden on the poor. So I agree with you, I want my government (and I think that Obama could spearhead it) to create such a society.

I suppose you have fears that under “rightist” administrations, our country may end up in a fascist state since “the root of the ideology is the same, an extreme example more clearly illustrates the harm that results.”

California is another great example of this. I hear people in the film industry make statements all the time about how the industry is dying in this state because of taxes–people are losing their jobs, and this is very bad for California. They then beg for tax breaks. It never occurs to them to realize that this doesn’t just happen in the film industry but applies to every industry. Instead, they continue to want to take money away from everyone else except themselves, because they actually see the harm it does when it relates to them, but only when it relates to them.

It is not the government’s job to regulate a person’s greed. It’s the government’s job to create a just, stable society where people can work as hard as they like and do what they want with what they have, where contracts are honored, and where people aren’t cheated. It’s the church’s job (or any non-profit organization, religious or secular) to encourage charity and generosity. If the left spent 1/4 of the time they spend trying to get the government to take money from some to give to others and instead spent that time creating non-profits to help others in the way they want them to be helped, they would solve many more problems. Not only is this the moral option, it’s much more effective than government bureaucracy.

However, you take the extra step to link soviet style managed economy to American economics as perceived by those who are just left of center. It is unfortunate and wrong to make that link. Democrats in office will not pave the road to create a Soviet America. (And as much as the Weekly Standard, Townhall.com, and others would like us to believe)

What Obama and others rightly observe is that the tax system in our country is more advantageous to the rich than it is to the poor. It sucks to be poor in America because you will see a larger portion of your money taxed. The rich do pay a larger portion of the tax revenue in terms of raw numbers, but a smaller one when it comes to percentage of worth or income. I won’t go into the data or the evidence in that I know we’ll get caught up holding one set of data against another set of data.

Obama is not and in time his presidency will prove that he is not as far left as the right would like to paint him. Likewise, GW was not as far right as the left would like to paint him. I have criticized those who have linked the neo-cons and the previous administration to fascism.

Envy is a powerful force that will destroy people. But so is creating a system that puts undue economic burdens on the poor and excuses the greed of the rich.

You have to wonder, though, unless they are pursuing this type of equality themselves, freely divesting themselves of their own wealth so that the poorer might benefit. But why would a person want to see funds extorted from the wealthiest and to trust an untrustworthy government to distribute that wealth, unless to preserve their own standard of living?

There was an experiment in communal farming/sharing similar to the Soviet one at the early Plymouth settlement. It also failed – see Of Plymouth Plantation pp. 216-217 (“torne” is corn)