watch it: “Make Mine Freedom (1948)”

Jeez, it's like Ayn Rand meets Looney Tunes-- which is basically the description of the Libertarian Party all the way around.

Well I certainly can agree with that one sentiment at the end there. But theere are just too many platitudes and disconnects.

Such as:

Apparently "capitalism" isn't really an "ism". I suppose it's more like capitalisticness. Or something.

In fact, the only "ism" they seem all that concerned with is socialism, what with the scary "Giant Blue Hand of the State".

See also this from 1950. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/07/vigilant_citize.html

If you think your neighbor has "radical" views -- that is none of your or the F.B.I.'s business. After all, it is the difference in views of our citizens, from the differences between Jefferson and Hamilton to the differences between Truman and Dewey, which have made our country strong.

[...]

In other words, you might be wrong. In our system, it takes a court, a trial and a jury to say a man is guilty.

Ah, those were the days...

In fact, the only "ism" they seem all that concerned with is socialism, what with the scary "Giant Blue Hand of the State".

Or more specifically, Communism, especially the type that was being practiced by Joseph Stalin and company.

Having grown up hearing from my Polish-American mother about the type of life my maternal relatives in Krakow had endured thanks to that system--a system that has more than a few platitudes and disconnects of its own--I don't exactly consider that a bad message--even if it seems as dated to most people who post here as a cartoon criticizing the latest actions of Kaiser Bill.

Of course, if you wish to view it as a criticism of Fascism as well--a system which also had utopian goals and which also clamped down on unions and dissidents--I'm not going to argue.

@Tonio: Well said. In the late '40s, Fascism had been dealt a severe blow (at least in most of Europe), but the forms of socialism and communism taking hold in the Soviet bloc and elsewhere in the world were just as aggressively statist as Fascism in many cases. For a country that had just fought a massive war against totalitarianism in one form, seeing it rise in another form must have been hard to view as anything but a threat. (Even Britain spent a good long while playing with a form of socialism after the war.)

These days, socialism around the world is a much different animal, and there are very few people with any political power in the US who seriously advocate socialism, so the Right feels free to hurl it as an epithet at anyone who would dare to regulate anything.