Is Obama a Socialist?

[DuncanONeil]

Steelish did not limit herself to Obama's parents. Nor even only those that raised him.
Although you are going to great lengths to include only those sources.
The vast majority of Obama's mentors, associates, confidants, advisers, and friends are members of the radical left. Unapologetic, at that, of the violence they did.
The totality, that you ignore, makes the conclusion of Obama being socialist appropriate. Add to that his blatant disregard of the will of the people means we need to see the end of an error Jan 20 2013.

Socialists are not communists. Just how do you propose to go about making a "fairer wealth redistribution". Any plan to do so is going to confiscate from those that produce in favor of those that do not. Yes that is concrete but you know full well what is meant.
Obama is not socialist, answered that already!

The lesser of two weevils are what got them into office. This is one of the only Presidential candidates that actually had was actually composed of no planks. His entire campaign was "change"! Each and every person heard that and believed that he was going to change their personal peeve. This campaign, that has yet to end, was the most egregious in promising everything to get the power to not govern but rule.
We tossed King George! We will toss King Obama - and his nobles & barons!

People are no doubt influenced by their upbringing but it can go either direction. Some people rebel and are the opposite of the parents, others follow in the footsteps. My point was we should discuss Obama's politics not the politics of the parents or what church his mom went to.

Angela Merkel - chancellor of Germany - was raised in communist East Germany and an active member of socialist political parties. By your logic with her socialiast background and leanings Germany should be in chaos but Germany is doing a lot better than USA.

Jack Straw - UK Home Secretary - is a socialist whose father was imprisoned as a consciencous objector in WW2. Yet Straw and his pal Tony Blair made UK the only power to join repulican Bush to invade Iraq and Afghanmistan. America had no problem with Tony or Jack's socialism.

You see it in such black and white terms. Anybody who wants fairer wealth redistribution is a socialist, a socialist is a communist and communie bastards are the enemy. I don't see it that way. In the UK the entire Labour party are socialist, Sweden has cradle to grave welfare programs and Canada, as Lion points out, has socialists policies. These countries are not in chaos and manage to tick over okay.

To address your question. No Obama is not a socialist. He would be laughed out of a socialist convention. He would be considered right wing in Europe. Yes he has been influenced by socialist thinking and the poverty and corruption he has undoubtely seen in Africa and Asia. Yes some of his policies and thoughts are closer to socialism than those of the Republicans but that does not make them socialist.

Wow - you guys are lucky. In UK all our Prime Ministers ignore the majority. This is how it works. You get a majority vote by hook or by crook and then when you are in office you claim you have the mandate of the people and do whatever you want to do. Then fours years later the people vote you out or decide that maybe it was not so bad after all and at least you are the lesser of two evils and vote to keep you. That's politics in a two party system.