I despise all politicians equally.

That is the context from which I write, I think it's important, because I want to be clear that I don't take "sides" on political issues, as I've removed myself from the arena completely.

That being said, even if 1848 had marked the beginning of recorded history, I am of a mind that the social, political, and otherwise anthropological data available should be enough to convince anyone that there are ZERO good ideas in Marxist doctrine.

Clearly, my mind is a minority.

R.J. Rummel is a scholar out of the University of Hawaii who has compiled massive amounts of data about 20th century government, to the end of writing an excellent book, "Death By Government." In this book, Rummel calculates that more than 250 million people died in the 20th century at the hands of (as a result of the policies of) their own governments - not including casualties of war (he calls it "Democide").

And before you say anything: the U.S. is not exempt from this tally.

There's an interesting relationship discovered when compiling this data and reading the work: the more socialist (i.e. marxist) policies adopted by a given government, the higher the body count. Naturally, communist countries are the bloodiest - even though their greater secrecy obfuscates most of the data (until, that is, the regime topples, and information finally gets out).

And now we have the U.S. in 2008. Major financial institutions are being nationalized, with talk of other industries being brought fully into the government fold by and by (note: once the government starts financing your business, you're nationalized), the most popular U.S. presidential candidate proposes mandatory universal health-care, high-school students are being required to "volunteer" for community service, and people all over the country are eating it up. Meanwhile, Halliburton has been building internment camps for at least the last 6 years (as part of the Patriot and Military Commissions acts): http://www.libertyforlife.com/jail-police/us_concentration_camps.htm

Worried yet?

The good news is, all it takes to end this nonsense is a spine.

Or:

Sow, sow socialism.

You will reap it.

You will reap it.