facts and opinions

It was a poll taken by Democrats James Carville and Stan Greenburg, but respondents included everyone. So what I got out of it is that 55 percent of adult Americans who are "likely voters" think Obama is a socialist. Does that prove that he actually is a socialist, as The National Review Online article of July 9 implies?

Of course it doesn't. It proves only that a majority of "likely voters" think that he is. That's not the same as demonstrating that he actually is a real socialist, or anything close to that.

A Time Magazine poll taken in the 90's showed that 70 percent of Americans believe that angels actually exist and, presumably, intercede in their daily lives, preventing them from falling down the stairs and gently reminding them where they left their car keys. Now, whether angels actually do exist, in reality, has nothing to do with what people believe, of course. That's another issue altogether, and the same principle applies to Obama's supposed socialism.

And I'd like to remind everyone that during the middle ages, virtually everyone in Europe believed the sun revolves around the earth. It would have been blasphemous to believe otherwise. And yet, despite the universality of this strong belief and foregone conclusion, the sun never revolved around the earth even for a fraction of a second.

So if 55 percent of "likely voters" in America believe Obama is a socialist, I suppose the next question the pollsters should have asked is, "Do you know what socialism is?" And personally, I have absolutely no interest in who "likely voters" believe is a socialist, or a fascist, or an angel, or an agent of satan. Now if Carville and Greenberg were to do a poll of American socialists, and ask them whether they think Obama is a socialist, that might prove instructional as well as interesting.

But if you believe Obama is a socialist, and if you believe that for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows, I hate to tell you this, but as a debate topic this is what people and other conscious primates think of as "low-hanging fruit."