Really, how dumb are they?

You know, for people who claim to hate marxism and communism so much, and think it is so vile, who consider it worse or at least on par with Nazism, it is amazing to me how readily the conservatives will slap the commie label on anyone who disagrees with them.

Don't they understand that every time they call a candidate who wants to raise taxes on the wealthy a few percent a communist, it denigrates all those who died at the hands of real communists like Stalin and Mao in jus the same way that calling the police raid on the Waco compound a holocaust denigrates the memories of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis?

Don't they get that having the government oversee a public medical insurance plan is not a precursor to Pol Pot's killing fields?

Are they so thick that they don't understand that a university or other large organization telling employees it is unacceptable behaviour to use racist epithets, fondle or ogle other employees or otherwise act like a jackass at work is not the same thing as sending people to labour camps because they wear eyeglasses or went to university?

Can they not understand that requiring multimillionaires to contribute a few more dollars to keeping people made jobless by their greed-driven wheeling and dealing from starving to death while they freeze in the street is not the same as the state seizing the means of production and sending the wealthy to labour camps?

Can they not understand the difference between requiring publicly funded facilities such as schools and courts to refrain from being seen to embrace or favor one religion above another, or to insisting that science be taught in science classes and myth, legend and philosophy be taught in other courses is not the same as burning churches?

And before anyone starts accusing me of attacking strawmen, go have a look at this, or this or this or some of the gems the Sadlynauts gathered election night (and they were only joking about sending Gary Ruppert to a labour camp, at least I think they were only joking). Or the dicussions in the comments over at Treason-in-Defense-Of-Slavery Yankee of which guns would be best used to defend one's home against the coming roving masses of swarthy anarchists and gulag press gangs they deem the inevitable result of the Obama victory.

If you have a strong enough stomache go wade through the toxic crazy at Atlas Shrugs, where Pam Gellar attempts to explain that Barack Obama is literally the actual secret love child of Malcom X.

Or look at some of John McCain's remarks to the effect that because Obama wants to increase the tax rate by 3 % on people with an income of more than $250,000 and freeze or cut the tax rate for the other 95% of American citizens he is engaged in a Marxist class war to redistribute the wealth just like Mao and Stalin.

Have they at long last no shame?