Speaking Of Collectivism...

Would some type of socialism or Marxism really be that bad? I mean, it sounds pretty fair and all, right? Would it really be catastrophic?

In a word, yes.

James Long as more at American Thinker (emphasis mine):

The three biggest changes in United States history since WWII, all three promising to have major impact on the future of the Republic, recently occurred within a period of a few weeks.

Socially, the USA has elected a black president, fulfilling the hopes and dreams that powered the long struggles for equality and recognition dating back to the War Between the States and before. This event promises to have a hugely positive effect, in the USA and throughout the world.

Politically, the USA has elected a far-left president, fulfilling an equally long struggle and threatening to fundamentally change the nature of the United States of America and its Constitution. Racial conflict preceding the War Between the States was contemporaneous with the early struggles of the socialists in Europe and in America.

This political development is not promising; no socialist system of government has ever had the record of employment, productivity, innovation, and growth that the USA has enjoyed under a system of free-market, rule-of-law economics. On the contrary, socialist states are universally noted for functional inefficiency and institutional corruption, including the European Union (the most benign of the lot), which has suffered economic stagnation and demographic contraction since its founding in the early 1990s.

Financially, the USA has taken the greatest economic hit since at least the Great Depression. This has destroyed major chunks of our retirement and pension funds, and has essentially ended the prospect of Social Security ever being viable.

There has been remarkably little comment or connection drawn between these political and financial changes.

Investors have taken massive amounts of money out of the markets in a very short period, resulting in a worldwide markets crash in the range of $30 trillion and counting. Given the extremely poor performance of all socialist governments, no investor is willing to leave his assets exposed to leftist incompetence, corruption, or confiscation.

Obama may have thought it a good idea to spread Joe the Plumber's wealth around, but millions of investors with trillions of dollars at stake pointedly declined to share Joe's fate, and unlike Joe, they had a choice in the matter. When these investors and their money departed, pension and retirement funds were left holding a hugely reduced bag.

This markets crash is unlike any other, quite apart from the sheer size of the beast.

Markets express a level of confidence in the future of the economy, and as Obama's election prospects improved, confidence in the economic future plunged.

...

The Fed and the Treasury have been desperately taking corrective actions in today's markets, pumping mega dollars into banks and financial institutions and lowering interest rates in order to provide liquidity, because lack of liquidity and bank failures were major factors in the Great Depression. But it is now obvious that these actions are not working, and these actions have stopped. No one wants liquidity; everyone is searching for security. Investors that took their funds out of the markets were looking for a safe place to park their money, and were not looking for new investment opportunities. Banks seem to be stabilized at this point, but beyond that, corrective actions so far are having no effect in reviving the economy and businesses, and what we learned in the Great Depression has no application when confronting a socialist-led government in the USA now.

Unemployment is soaring, and will continue to soar as investment capital dries up. Investment pays for new construction, plants, office buildings, and equipment, and the massive withdrawal of cash from the markets means that investment, and jobs, will falter and fall. Borrowing money for an infrastructure-building stimulus package, as Obama proposes, is a dubious proposition at best.

Markets sometimes have an almost prescient ability to sense future troubles, and it is easy now to see that the fall of the DOW corresponds quite closely with the rise of Obama's presidential prospects...

Still, the markets do not make major world-class moves in the absence of any stimulus or provocation, and this is by far the biggest markets reaction in history, with all indications that this is just the start. The election of Obama to the presidency of the United States is a radical, radical change in direction. The election of a leftist was an assault on both our financial institutions and our defining values.

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The United States of America has had a remarkable run for over two centuries, and that run has been the product of our Constitution and a free citizenry. A citizen of the United States of America is in a privileged position in relationship to all the subjects, serfs, and slaves throughout most of the world. If you want your citizenship and your country you will have to fight for it, because socialists think they have a better idea, even though they invariably get worse results.

Read the article for more details, but this is the nutshell of it. To socialize the United States is to bring disaster down upon our own heads. Socialism has never, ever, EVER worked in ANY country it's EVER been tried in...it won't work in America, either. The only thing that will stop these radical Leftists (from Obama on down) is an informed and outraged American public. I believe the outrage will come via the informing; the critical point is to inform enough people quickly enough that the outrage will stop the destruction before it becomes too severe.

That's where you and I come in - we need to spread the word about what's happening, informing people around us and persuading them that these things will happen if they don't get involved, but there's a chance we can stop the looming disaster if they do.

So, the question is: are you in? And if so, what are you going to do today to help out?

There's my two cents.