If Obama's not a socialist, who is?

Phil Williams in his Dec. 5 Fence Post letter is laboring under the common delusion that socialists and Nazis are different. “. . . the far left is communism and socialism and the far right is Nazism and fascism,” he writes.

These two philosophies were placed on opposite ends of the political/social spectrum at the end of World War II when liberals sought to distance themselves from the universally despised Nazis. But in every important and practical detail Nazis and socialists far right and far left are identical.

Under a Nazi government (Hitler's Germany) and a socialist government (the Soviet Union, China, North Korea) the state is supreme, the individual is nothing. The good of the state overrides the good of the individual. Under both the state controls the press, unions, the arts, the means of production, the national goals.

Nazism, beyond genocide and slave labor, is socialism. The official name of Hitler's party was the National Socialist German Workers' Party. That was shortened to National Socialism, which was further shortened to Nazi.

Hitler hated the Socialists, but only as competitors, just as rival street gangs hate each other. Socialism vs. Nazism is a family dispute.

To suggest that President Obama shares anything in common with Nazism is wrong only in that he does not advocate genocide. But he does share with Nazis and other socialists an unshakable belief that it's wrong for anyone to earn more money than anyone else. As he said during the 2008 campaign that brought him to power, he was greatly disturbed by “the growing income inequality” among Americans.

Is Obama a closet socialist? Believe the actions, not the words. If it waddles like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

Don Frost

Rolling Meadows