"Econimic Democracy", a.k.a. Communism: You have a right to everything that the government thinks you should have, except for the fact that everyone quit producing it because there's no incentive to work harder to develop anything better. The government itself will find a way to get these ammenities for its members via non-communist countries that still produce them. Human nature will never allow communism or socialism to work--Everywhere it has been tried, it has evolved quickly into a two-tier system in which the government doesn't play by the rules it wrote, but rather abuses them to assure that they have the best food, clothing, houses, health care, and other necessities of life.

Even in early America it was tried: The pilgrims noted that during their first year they divided the harvest equally, regardless of who had grown what--The harvest was adequate, but not bountiful. Discouraged by this, they revised the rules to allow everyone to keep what they grew, or trade it with others for what they needed, rather than having it taken from them with no compensation. The crop was much more abundant--It's pure human nature--Let me keep what I work for, and I will harder work for more things to keep.

The au natural version of Communism some speak of in this thread is a great concept if you don't mind living as one with nature by the rules you made, and don't mind the side effect of lowering a nation's average life expectancy back to the point where a midlife crisis happens post-mortem. No system is perfect, but a system based on a somewhat regulated capitalism does a much better job of lifting the quality of life of all its citizens than any form of socialism or communism ever seen in the world; Those experiments always fail, and do so because they attempt to distribute misery equally to all citizens rather than freeing citizens to succeed on their own.

We're all musicians in here: How many of you have a Cuban guitar? Do you plug into an East German amp? How do those North Korean strings sound? Uh huh... In addition to being the world's worst producers, let's don't forget that communist countries are historically the world's worst polluters, too. (Yes, even worse than the US). Because there's no private land ownership, the government has no incentive to clean up its own messes. When private citizens own some of the land, belive it or not, they'll actually keep it cleaner so it remains a commodity that can be resold. Yes, there are abusers of this concept, and they should be punished if they pollute.

On a final note, the one-world communism theory is basically already in motion: It's an ongoing attempt by the UN to overstep the bounds of the U.S. government, and make its own laws and taxes paramount to the U.S. system. Remember, this is the body which granted the Soviet Union 3 votes to the US's 1 vote on all measures during the heart of the cold war. Their charter is even identical in many aspects to the Soviet constitution.

Ok, everyone, begin the name calling and personal attacks in 5...4...3...2...1....

(Which reminds me, our space program kicks the crap out of every commie program, too.)