In a struggle between Capitalism and Socialism, which will Americans choose?

Capitalism is "an economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market." Socialism is "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods."

There’s a new war going on and unfortunately it began with the previous administration. Just five months shy of leaving office, President George W. Bush signed into law the TARP bill to bailout the banks. President Bush said at the time he "abandoned free market principles to save the free market system." That’s a "bushism" that not even many Republicans could stand behind.

Five days before the election, then Senator Obama warned us that we are "five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America" but we didn't listen. While America does have her flaws, she doesn't need transforming. People come to America to live in a society based on freedom, prosperity and peace.

Norman Thomas, U.S. Socialist Party presidential candidate in 1940, 1944, and 1948 once said "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

At a Business Roundtable meeting in March, President Obama said "I am a strong believer in the ability of the free market to generate wealth and prosperity that’s shared across the board." Shared across the board? That’s interesting; the definition of free market doesn't include any use of the words "shared across the board." Yet this administration will try and convince you that trickle-down economics ("the theory that the entire country benefits as the nation’s richest amass and spend") is a fantasy. I don't remember a single job being created from someone at the bottom of the income ladder, do you?

The left, as exemplified by Obama, firmly believes all of life is a zero-sum game i.e. if someone is rich; it’s always at the expense of the poor. Socialists believe a person, business or country is only successful because they hijacked success from those less fortunate. Socialism leads to severely limited freedoms and to enormous, almost entire, state control. It leads to suppression of free speech, suppression of religion, and suppression of all things we hold dear. We need to stop these preliminary steps, if we are to avoid a very bleak future.

Since the beginning of the Obama administration, liberals have attacked Wall Street executives for making money, doctors for making money, and insurance companies for making money. Just an FYI, insurance companies have a 3.3 percent profit margin while the average business in this country has a 4.6 percent profit margin. Where is their outrage at the actors who make $20 to $30 million for one film or at former Vice President Al Gore who makes millions on the claim of "global warming"?

The administration needs to keep in mind that Americans still believe in Capitalism. A May, 2009 Rasmussen poll found that 77 percent of Americans believe that a free market system is better than socialism. Politicians need to remember that the majority of Americans still see America as a "special and unique country."