GOATMILK: An intellectual playground edited by Wajahat Ali

October 25, 2008 10:53 PM

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/10/palin-charges-a.html

In Iowa today, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin charged that if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., wins, he would usher in an era of “government as part of your family, taking care of us, making decisions for us.”

“That philosophy of government taking more, which is a misuse of the power to tax — it leads to government moving into the role of taking care of you and government and politicians, and kind of moving in as the other half of your family to make decisions for you,” Palin charged in Sioux City this morning, per ABC News’ Imtiyaz Delawala.

A member of the audience twice yelled “He’s a Socialist!”

But really, in many ways what Palin was describing sounded more Communist.

(She never came close to using the word, I should underline, though McCain and Palin have both used the word “Socialist” quite a bit to describe their opponents. But if you listen to how she describes the Obama-Biden plans, she seems very much to be describing that form of government.*)

“Now they do this in other countries where the people are not free,” Palin said. “Government as part of the family, taking care of us, making decisions for us. I don’t know what to think of having in my family Uncle Barney Frank or others to make decisions for me.”

“See, under a big government agenda, what you thought was yours, your income, your property, your inventory, your investments, really would belong to somebody else, to everybody else,” Palin said. “And it would be shared with everybody else.”

– jpt

* Updated for clarity — to underline that Palin never used the word “Communist,” though she compared an Obama-led U.S. to other countries “where the people are not free,” the government would make decisions for citizens, your property and income would become the property of the state, etc. etc.