A sad new survey

I just read a sobering piece in The American Spectator. Might as well depress you too.

A survey that focused on government was released  last week by Gallup. A majority of people -- 53 percent -- who describe themselves as Democrats or leaning Democrat, admit to Gallup's pulse takers that they have a positive image of socialism. Only two percent more -- 55 -- say they are positive about capitalism. A robust 75 percent of Democrats say they have a positive image of the federal government. Hard to believe . . . Nah, I guess it isn't after seeing the results of this past election.

These numbers should not surprise anyone who has talked to a Democrat over the last couple of decades. A majority of the political party currently in the ascendancy in America holds a positive view of an economic system that has been tried countless times in countless places, has never delivered prosperity, but has always diminished personal and economic freedom.

Were the numbers any better when Republicans were asked the same questions in the survey?  Of those who identify themselves as Republican or leaning Republican, 72 percent say they have a positive image of capitalism. A surprising 23 percent of Republicans tell Gallup they have a positive view of socialism. Yikes!

I blame several things for these results. There's the educational system, the media, Hollywood, and the lack of concern among many religious folks.

In the same survey, Gallup probed attitudes toward other institutions. The numbers suggest that while a significant fraction of Americans have a positive view of socialism, they have no understanding of how it works. The majority pro-socialist Democrats, when asked about small business, free enterprise, and entrepreneurs, say they approve of these things by 94, 88, and 84 percent, just slightly smaller numbers than Republicans.

Hard to believe.  The same group, 53 percent of which hearts socialism, also says it approves of capitalism by 88 percent. This strongly suggests that an unknown but large percentage of this group has no idea how either economic system works. It also easily explains the high level of support for our current president (54 percent job approval in the latest Rasmussen, sigh . . .) who has demonstrated clearly and repeatedly that he not only doesn't know how wealth is created, but doesn't care, so long as his statist and class envy policies are adopted. He also says he respects capitalism and American business, which his tax and regulatory policies are undoing at an alarming rate. Fewer and fewer Americans see the blatant inconsistency between Obama's rhetoric and his actual practices.  What's wrong with our critical reasoning skills these days? Guess the answer is the same as a previous one--our educational system, the media, . . .