The new meme:

"We are socialist already"

Yep, I have heard it 4 times now from liberals.

Once from my brother, a state away, who is not so much a liberal as a follower....His wife was an academic who had to get a job in the private sector to pay her bills, but an unrepentant liberal nonetheless.

Once from a union man. A Teamster. Salt of the earth kinda guy, but a Teamster.....He regurgitates all of the liberal cant that is repeated at union hall meetings.

Once from an academic at VU....this is the sort of thing that one might expect from an academic at a state run university, but from a Lutheran university???

And once today, Saturday....I had business downtown, and, just for fun, stopped to laugh and point at the 6 (rather pathetic looking, I might add) folks waving signs (no longer pre-printed, but actual handmade signs so that we might think that they weren't astroturf or anything...) promoting government option health care. After watching them for a few minutes, I engaged the brightest looking one in conversation, asking him how he could stand behind such a socialist agenda as government run health care....His first response was "well, we are halfway socialist anyway....Medicare, roads, military, and police and fire and interstate highways are "socialist" endeavors, paid for by all for the "common good".... so why not health care?"

I did try to discuss the ideas with him, but it became apparent that he was not willing to discuss things, but rather was just going to repeat his memorized lines, so I politely thanked him for his time and wandered off. He returned to the group, no doubt thinking and crowing that he had chased away another conservative...Let him think so. It doesn't hurt me to have him feel good about his failure.

But the point of all of this is that this appears to be the new meme....."We are halfway socialist already, so what is one more socialist program or agenda item?"

Just wondering if others have come across this meme, and have you any good way to crush the assumptions that are so erroneous? Roads are paid for (at least in my state) by fuel taxes, as are the highways. Police and fire I can sort of understand, and couldn't argue with and the same with military, (except they are all part of the "common defense" mentioned in the Constitution.)

But is this going to be their next theme that they shall use to convince a few more people that socialized medicine is a good idea? Just another step down the road to pure socialism? Am I supposed to think that that is a good thing?

Please let me know.