Alright, now that Barack Obama is President of the United States, I’ve heard more than a few grumblings about the current state of things.

Indeed, many right wing media is peppering much of their discourse with hot-button, reactionary terms like “socialism”, “communism”, “revolution” and “social unrest”. According to these, government is too omnipotent and as a result, our nation is now becoming socialist.

Let’s explore, shall we?

First point: President Obama and his administration believe in redistributing the nation’s wealth from the wealthy to the not so much, essentially trying to level the playing field a bit. That’s why some of the changes that have been approved will include higher taxes for the richer citizens of the nation over time. This isn’t new, people. Egalitarian objectives is a fundamental belief of the left (in fact, that’s a key differential to the right, which believes that social stratification is the way to go). What people need to realize is that the same trend of raising taxes for the rich, and redistributing “wealth” to the poor was already happening during the Bush years and no one was calling him a socialist. True, under Obama’s administration, the stages of tax hikes is accelerated, and will impact the upper class sooner, but the point is, it was already happening.

Second point: in socialist regimes, the means of production are owned by government. In the United States, the means of production are privately owned, controlled by the corporations that bought ‘em. That’s what makes the US a capitalistic nation. To state that we’re heading into socialism is reactionary, and frankly, irresponsible.

Some may think it’s a political move to take your medical treatment business else where, others think its just nice to go on vacation while getting treatment at medical tourism facilities all over the world. What do you think?