Redistribution of Wealth

Good afternoon!
     I'm back for a moment and would like to begin spelling out what I believe are some of the key issues concerning socialism and America.

Redistribution of wealth:
     This is a big one! Recently, there has been much attention drawn to the belief that the Democratic economic policies are nothing more than the redistribution of wealth. That liberals would like nothing better than to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. A sort of political Robin Hood, you might say. Conservative propaganda takes it a step further and frightens the feeble-minded into believing that Democrats wish to take money from the middle-class and redistribute it to the poor, creating an ever-growing layer of societal bottom feeders that would suck the life out of all employed Americans. Conservative media contends that we would become a nation of unemployed ne'er-do-wells, lounging in socialistic comfort beside the mail box in anticipation of the next unemployment/welfare/disability check. And the tragedy is that there are many people out there across the land that believe this conservative fiction and are deathly afraid of the U.S becoming a socialistic state the likes of Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Democracy can flourish in a nation that employs socialistic principles.
     But getting back to the idea of redistributing wealth. There are many varieties of socialism, many schools of thought and many economic theories. The type of economic socialism that conservative leaders accuse of, conservative media warns of and conservative voters fear seems to be the utopian idea of economic equality, where all citizens are equal, social classes all but eliminated and wealth is distributed equally. Imagine the horror! Realistically speaking, when Democrats speak of "redistribution of wealth", their intent is for the American Aristocratic Class to pay their fair share of taxes for the betterment of the country as a whole. And some of that increased revenue would, out of necessity, go to what has become a very fashionable word: "entitlements".
     Whether one is an advocate of social programs or not, one must always keep in mind that an indication of a nation's overall strength is not the culmination of it's military might, but the srength and wellness of it's people. All of it's people. And even if taking from those with too much in order to help those with too little is considered socialism or bleeding-heart liberalism by conservatives, it is without a doubt the right thing to do. Just imagine the greatness we could achieve as a nation if helping those in need somehow became trendily patriotic, instead of the conservative's concept of patriotism through sensless and artificially manufactured wars.

ejgw