Kyle Becker | On 03, Dec 2012

It’s hard not to be sensationalistic with a poll that shows that most Democrat voters have a positive view of “socialism” — but there you have it. Even as eye-opening as that figure is, so also is the number of Democrats who think the federal government is just swell: 75 percent?

There’s not much amusing about this Gallup poll, but there is something that shows people who support fiscal responsibility whom they are arguing against: while 88% like “free enterprise,” 53% see “socialism” favorably. Come again?

Socialism is directly opposed to people owning property and working when and where they see fit. Most people seem to think it means a handout from the magical never-ending stash of government goodness, which is just the intermediate stage until the economy collapses. In any event, we’re talking some serious cognitive dissonance.

And for those who think socialism is somehow compatible with freedom, why do three-fourths of Democrats also have a favorable view of the federal government? This actually explains a lot. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, the slogan was championed, “Government is the only thing we all belong to.”

While conservatives were creeped, Democrats shrugged and called anyone in favor of limited government the inaccurate epithet “anti-government.” Since the United States is supposedly a “democracy,” does that mean the one thing we share in common is bossing each other around? Wow, what an uplifting message.

Because of the nasty economic downturn people are pointing fingers at one another and class warfare is thriving like a bad case of jungle rot that not even tough-actin’ Tinactin can cure. This is because while Huffington Post readers see statistics like the bottom fifty percent of American households by net worth hold only one percent of the wealth, it’s not really explored why that paltry figure is one-fourth of what it was in 2007 — when the Democrat Party took control of Congress.

Yes, there was a housing collapse under Bush, but welfare, entitlements, and unemployment benefits have exploded since then. Income inequality is heightening while big government’s business is booming — this is not an accident. Income mobility, economic equality, and standard of living all rise with economic freedom — that “free enterprise” variable that some people are still keen on.

Here’s a crazy idea: because Democrats and Republicans obviously don’t see eye-to-eye, and people are living in what John Edwards referred to “two Americas” (though not in the way he meant it), maybe we just let people live their own lives, pass laws that mainly apply to our own states, and abide by a common set of principles that limits the ability of the federal government to coerce us all at once? We could call it a Constitutional republic — if we can keep it.