Opinion: When words like “socialist” lose their meaning

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Reader John Lieto made a good point on the previous blog post about John Murtha, but obscured it within a contention that’s just not valid. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s editorial board, Murtha predicted that Barack Obama would carry Pennsylvania on Election Day, but added that racism in the western part of the state (e.g., the area he represents) would diminish Obama’s margin of victory.

Like many on the right side of the political spectrum, Lieto was rankled by the suggestion that when people oppose Obama, racism is the explanation. There are plenty of reasons not to vote for ‘that one,’ including his lack of experience, his flirtation with protectionism, his eagerness to raise taxes on the upper brackets, and his apparent willingness to violate an ally’s sovereignty in pursuit of U.S. military objectives. Add to that his stance on abortion and other social issues, and you’ve got a pretty full dossier of Things Conservatives Don’t Like About Liberals.

But Lieto didn’t cite those reasons. Instead, echoing a point I’m seeing in a growing number of comments on our blog, on our website and in stories from the campaign trail, he wrote:

The ‘avowed socialist’ meme springs from Obama’s ‘spread the wealth around’ comment. But that’s even more of a leap than saying John McCain’s a socialist because he wants to nationalize troubled mortgages, or that George Bush is an imperialist because he ordered the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Remember what socialism is: an economic and political philosophy that rejects free markets and private ownership in favor of government control of the systems of production. You can’t honestly look at Obama’s positions on the economy and call him an ‘avowed socialist.’ You can complain about the degree to which his tax plan would redistribute wealth, but such redistribution lies at the heart of America’s progressive income tax, Medicare, Social Security and many elements of the farm program. (For a nice review of industrialized nations’ tax codes, check out this New Yorker blog post.) Campaigns are filled with hyperbole, but sometimes an exaggeration is so great, it makes it hard to acknowledge even the kernal of truth at the core of an argument.

Sorry to pick on you, Mr. Lieto. If you were the only one posting comments like that, I’d let it go. But there have been so many in recent days....