spreading the wealth a bad thing?

Atrios points out:

It takes a long time to build up words and phrases which have commonly understood meanings and appropriate negative connotations. You can't just make them up 2 weeks before an election. Most voters are going to hear "wealth spreader" and think... sounds good to me! Spread some all over me, please.It takes a long time to build up words and phrases which have commonly understood meanings and appropriate negative connotations. You can't just make them up 2 weeks before an election. Most voters are going to hear "wealth spreader" and think... sounds good to me! Spread some all over me, please.

I think the words deserve a little bit more context, ad the American people deserve a little bit more credit. Phrases such as "spreading the wealth" mean more than the sum of their words because of the right wing's fetish with opposing all things socialist. When the threat of "socialism" was external (during the cold war), this fetish could be turned into a litmus test for patriotism. With the fall of the soviet union, socialism is just another idea. Some of us think its bad, some of us think its tyranny, some of us think its short term pandering and counter revolutionary, and some of us cling to the fetish that an idea can be un-american. But I think a lot of us see that other countries have had some success with raising their citizens' standard of living by mixing some "socialist" policies into their largely market economies. I think that most Americans reject the notion that an idea must be bad just because some right wing hack calls it "socialism."

At this point, the best argument against "socialism" is that its been tried and failed. But that's an old argument. Supply side economics has also failed to ensure that all Americans benefit from our nations vast wealth. What has tax breaks and privitization done for the overworked person with two jobs who still has to declare bankruptcy over medical bills? I think most people see that its not that way in Canada or England, and whatever those systems' faults are, affordibility isn't one of them. And if making our system a little bit more like theirs is "socialism" in the mind's eye of a right wing talk show host, so be it.

Think of it like this. If you are a blue based rock musician, you still should know your classical modes - injecting a classical line into a rock song doesn't make your song a "classical" song. It doesn't even make it classically inspired. But sometimes, it's just what your song needs. So why rule it out?

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_10_26_archive.html#2593164586740531465