President Obama: Socialist or Facist?

Economist
Thomas Sowell is one of the most clear-thinking conservatives on the
scene today. As such he often sees things others of us do not, and he
has done it again. In a recent column for Townhall, Sowell questions
the practice of calling President Obama a socialist. Sowell is not
defending the president. Rather, he is making the point that
conservatives—myself included–have been using the wrong term to describe
Barack Obama. According to Sowell, President Obama is not a socialist,
he is a fascist—an important distinction. I, for one, am willing to
accept Sowell’s gentle slap on the wrist and admit that he is right.

Allow Dr. Sowell to explain the distinction in his own words: “It
bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a ‘socialist.’
He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and
bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But
that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of
production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.
What President Obama has been pushing for…is more insidious: government
control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That
way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead
to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the
private sector.”

If the issue in question happened to be baseball rather than
economics, we would say that President Obama wants to control the rules
of the game, not own the team. Then, when his rules make it impossible
for a given team to win, he can blame the team, not the rules. This, of
course, is fascism and I should have seen it a long time ago. But
then, when it comes to political commentary, Thomas Sowell is the master
craftsman and I am the budding apprentice.

In retrospect, fascism is a much “wiser” economic philosophy for
President Obama to adopt than socialism—at least in the scheming
nefarious sense—because it is ideally suited to accommodate his
propensity for deflecting blame. Having run out the string on blaming
President Bush for the continuing failures of his administration, Barack
Obama needs another approach, an approach that allows him to blame
others for his failures without the restrictions of time, logic, or
common sense. In fascism, he has found that approach.

Sowell uses the example of insurance companies to demonstrate how
controlling the economy while leaving company ownership in private hands
suits President Obama perfectly: “…the Obama administration can
arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their
customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates
favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other
government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is
something that can be blamed on the ‘greed’ of the insurance companies.”

In this example of government tampering with insurance policies,
President Obama can falsely portray himself as a kindly father figure
trying to help struggling Americans get by when, in reality, he knew all
along that premiums would have to rise to accommodate the extended
coverage. The president’s perfidy notwithstanding, nothing in life is
free. Additional insurance coverage costs additional money in the same
way that buying additional gasoline costs additional money.

I will give the last word in this discussion to the estimable Dr.
Sowell: “Back in the 1920s…when fascism was a new political movement, it
was widely—and correctly—regarded as being on the political left.
Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in
Europe and America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist
ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. DuBois, as a man
of the left.”