Enough about "Socialism" already!

I read two very interesting articles in Time magazine. One was by Fareed Zakaria entitled "The New Challenge From China" (October 18, 2010). In addition to Mr. Zakaria being a superb writer and journalist, the article illuminates the tremendous success that China has had in the last decade alone with improving its education system. It easily rivals and even surpasses the United States. Another article by Joe Klein, from the same issue of Time, called "America from the Road" interviews a number of people who are extremely displeased with the direction they feel that President Barack Obama is taking the country. One person was quoted as fearing that we are headed toward a "..'European' style of Big Government..." This is another way of saying "Socialism."

I feel particularly tired of hearing this argument. First, we have carried the term "Socialism" over to the present day from the years of fear of Communism. The Communists employed a "Socialist" government. Their form of Socialism was extreme and brought about the demise of the Soviet Union. However, there is a big difference between being concerned for the welfare of the citizens of your own country and imposing autocratic rule. For starters, it depends very much on who is at the helm, who your leaders are. We happen to have elected a president who is not only brilliantly intelligent but also truly cares about the American citizens. That is certainly being socially compassionate but it is a far cry from Socialism. It's time that we cease the use of the term "Socialism" as a derogatory term to avoid the fact that we as a country do not have enough compassion for our poorest citizens. (I don't recall ever hearing the funding of the Iraq war or campaigning for criminalizing abortion as "Big Government" or "Socialism." That strikes me as a very subjective and hypocritical categorization of the issues.) If we did, we would not hesitate to promote and vote for higher taxes for domestic issues such as education, health care, affordable housing, and other large-scale issues that do indeed need support from the federal government. Though China has certainly been guilty of suppressing human rights, it is also an example of a country that is apparently not concerned about whether their improved education looks like Socialism. Clearly, their Premier, Wen Jiabao, is more concerned with the education of his country's citizens.

Frankly, aside from the fact that the word "Socialism" conjures up the former Soviet Union and Joe McCarthy, I simply don't understand the vehement desire to not want to help our poorest citizens. This is what Vice-President Joe Biden meant when he referred to "fairness." If I could be pretty sure that a portion of my tax dollars would go toward providing universal health care for every person from birth to death, I would gladly agree to my taxes being raised (an additional $100 or $200 a year, for example) as long as that tax increase was applied to everyone who could afford it. That way, I would know that if I ever lost my job and was unemployed that I would be covered under universal coverage until I got another job in which my employer paid toward my health insurance. This, to me, is just normal common sense and compassion.

So please, let's stop referring to valuable governmental assistance with domestic issues as "Socialism." It prevents us from doing on the national level what we would all do in private if faced with helping someone in need.