Is America Communist?

Oh, yes a Freeper debate. Always brings out the best on both sides. And this one is on political philosophy. On one side, Revolting cat! thinks crying Communism is counterproductive. On the other, 2ndDivisionVet posts a nearly incomprehensible blog/rant to equate communism with non-Democracy. Then everyone else weighs in. It's loads of fun:

2ndDivisionVet sets out the initial lines of debate:

The more we scream “COMMUNISM” “FASCISM”, “NAZISM”, the less credibility we have!

Yeah, even though it’s true, right?

pallis is sure everyone knows that half the country is Communist:

The communists have convinced the witless that communism and democracy are mutually exclusive, when in fact, they work quite well together once a majority of the population votes to redistribute the wealth of a minority. Our Democratic Party is completely controlled by communists, as is our media and our educational systems. Obama is a communist. He knows it. I know it, and all but the hopelessly stupid of his apologists know it. He represents and reflects his party, and he will lead them to destroy the rest of us, any way they can.

oblomov wanks as hard as any academic:

corporatism is form of authoritarian collectivism.

One may view corporatism as a heterodox form of Marxism.

I have a preference for the term “corporatism” because Mussolini’s fascism had strong nationalist elements. The corporatism we live under is transnational

central_va always has an interesting take:

The key to the establishment of fascism in America was to to eliminate states rights and for FedGov™ be able to tax the people directly. The 16th and 17th amendments ere the fascist amendments....

Wage withholding is the most fascist thing I can think of. Hell they get it before you even touch it.

Corporations hate states rights and the republic, that is why the always cry for "we need a national law not 50 individual laws". Well that is crying for centralized fascism at it's core.

the OlLine Rebel prefers to redefine a different word:

America is and has been fascist for many years.

Communism requires “ownership” of everything. Fascism only control of it - regulation of every stupid thing.

We are there. Communism is the next step.

INVAR"

I prefer the term MarxoFascists - because I think that describes the tyranny we currently exist in a little more accurately.

Rightwing Conspiratr1"

oligarchical socialism?!

sargon explains that the trend is Communist:

Most patriots believe that America has adopted Communism in many ways. They base this on the evidence of their own eyes when compared with the beliefs of Marxists.

Personally, I believe it's inaccurate to try to reduce American domestic policy to simple "corporatism" or fascism. The Communism/Socialism/Marxism is there to be seen, and playing word games or ascribing it all to "self-serving interpretations" is either disingenuous or naive, IMHO.

The paradigm in the Patriot movement is that we are slipping further and further into the corrosive mobocratic abominations known as Marxism, Socialism, Communism, authoritarian collectivism, or whatever you'd like to call it. Calling it "corporatism" is far too oversimplified.

AlexW never meant we'd become Russia, only that we're going to be awful and bad in some other, unclear way:

I never said that America would fall to the level of the previous Communism of the Soviet Union. I certainly do not expect the citizens to be fenced/walled in.

I do not expect gun towers for shooting those that try to escape. It will, however, easily become the United Socialist States of America. The life that we had in the past will fade away.

Fortunately, I have already escaped what America is becoming.