"Obamer's a Socialist" - Why you shouldn't listen to Charlie Daniels.

I'm bothered by the lack of question mark, too.

As a general rule, I love it when celebrities get behind a cause and help shed some light on little-known charities or stand behind politicians that they believe are making the world better, but I have recently discovered that Charlie Daniels is an ill-informed hillbilly who needs to keep his fucking mouth closed.

Now, what bothers me, and this is my #1 complaint about politics as a whole, are the over-arching and terribly inaccurate statements that the esteemed fiddler spouts off.

“You cannot enforce socialism without some force,” Daniels told WND. “It’s a very top-heavy society, and every society that’s ever tried it has fallen..."

Now, this is both wrong and, well, wrong. I know, I know. Here's what I mean:

It's an inaccurate statement to say that every society that's ever tried socialism (just that phrase makes it sound like drug use, doesn't it? "Hey, Korea, wanna try some socialism?" "I don't know, China, it looks pretty brutal, man.") has failed. I am not sure if you've ever heard of a country called India, but it is listed in it's constitution as a socialist state. Sure, there's a fuckton of people there and as a result it's got a whole lot of people, but it's not a failed country by any means. 

But what was REALLY wrong with Chuck's statement was alluding to the idea that having socialized programs made the country as a whole a socialist state. Schools, police departments, fire departments and our freaking streets and freeways are all examples of (GASP!) SOCIALISM! It's the idea of pooling our resources together in the name of efficiency and cost-control. 

Socialism has a Cold War-era stigma about it being un-American which is, frankly, moronic. 9-11 has re-fuled the "Let me show you just HOW patriotic I can be" mentality that McCarthyism was so good at. 

Now, I'm not trying to say that Charlie Daniels is any less America for hating on Socialism (I know you have your red, white and blue shower curtain, Chuck!), but he is an ill-informed twat about it. 

Now, he DOES actually have a point in something he said about the Chick-Fil-A business: elected officials should not threaten to oust a company from their area because a private citizen is a complete fuckwad. 

YES the dude from Chick-Fil-A is a homophobic asshat, but his right to say that he is a homophobic asshat is protected by our constitution. We shouldn't be allowed to say "If you don't agree with me, we'll shut you up." What we CAN do is write the company's board of directors and bitch, we CAN choose not to buy dried-out chicken sammiches, and we CAN choose to write on Facebook that "Chick-Fil-A is run by a homophobic piece of dog turd and I hope none of you buy food there."

That's our recourse, one that is protected by that really cool constitution of ours.