The first things young people are taught about Communism are "Red Scare" and "McCarthyism." That is, it's a bogeyman made up by fear-mongering conservatives; communism is actually a reasonable alternative to capitalism.

Are you serious? This is a well-known anecdote.

Are you here to show us what a useful idiot looks like?

But this is just wrong. Look, I agree with you politically, but you're really misrepresenting the arguments of classical political philosophy. I understand it's an attempt to find roots for your characterization in antiquity, but it's dishonest. It's probably not possible to go beyond the Enlightenment thinkers for any real parallel. Conservatives do their movement a disservice when they show their ignorance this way. Thomas Sowell (who is otherwise brilliant) characterizes Plato and Aristotle the same way.

It's not that you are oversimplifying. That's fine if it's a useful hermeneutic. It's that your simplification is wrong. Look, if Plato is more "cosmic" and starry-eyed, while Aristotle is "logic-based," where does this leave them in the scheme of modern politics. Were the partisans of the French Revolution "idealistic" or "logic-based"? They, following Rousseau, wanted to tear down the institutions of monarchy and religion, which were keeping men in chains, and set up the rule of reason. The central conceit of modern progressivism is that it is a rule of the ones who know-- experts who do the logically necessary thing-- removing the influence of fear and passion and instituting impartial reason in its place. Does this correspond to the "logic-based" or "idealistic" view? Both, obviously.

Where I think a dichotomy might be possible, and where you would have it exactly wrong, is that Plato recognized the need for traditional institutions in society more than Aristotle did. Thus Aristotle would be more sympathetic to the modern progressive project while Plato would see its folly. Ultimately, however, both understood the limited possibility of politics, and neither corresponds to modern liberal statism.

I agree (see below) but I wonder what your take is.

I agree (sort of), the Plato and Aristotle distinction is laughable.

Democrats are corrupt? Come on, everyone knows that it is Republicans who are corrupt! This stretches credulity, sir!

Wrong video.

Here is the correct one: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-23074567...

As the world's foremost expert on Yuri Bezmenov (not really, but close), I think it is my duty to point out that calling him a "KGB operative" is highly misleading and sort-of wrong. "Operative" is non-specific, but Bezmenov was neither a KGB agent or a KGB officer; he was an employee of Novosti Press Agency, a news service in the Soviet Union like Reuters, AP, or Groupe Press. The difference, of course, is that Novosti is state-controlled and its objectives are entirely controlled by the KGB's ideological departments.

The West naively treats Novosti (for they are still around today, called "RIA Novosti") as an independent news service. They are not. Every employee of Novosti (or any major newspaper in Russia for that matter) can be considered a "co-opted agent" of the KGB, but most are not in any real sense "KGB operatives." Their work is far less exotic and far more mundane than what that suggests.

The problem with attributing current attitudes in the West to Soviet propaganda, or what Bezmenov calls "ideological subversion," is that the process is long, drawn-out and vague; no direct causation can be seen. it just sounds paranoid to say it. Of course, that doesn't mean it's false. We just have nothing but anecdotes and feelings to back it up.

For instance, where are the movies decrying the evils of socialism, Communism, and statism? They don't exist. Instead, "Nazis" stand in for state-power bogeymen; and if they are looking for something else, "capitalists" will do. Evil intelligence agency? Easy-- the CIA, even though the KGB is and was hundreds if not thousands of times larger, with infinitely greater resources relative to the state and of course no sanctions or prohibitions on its scope and function. How is the KGB portrayed? As comical and non-threatening.

"Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t believe that somebody’s sexual preferences should define them."

I agree with this wholeheartedly (minus the grammatical error). It is the single most important but most undiscussed aspect of the gay marriage question.