While much is made of the Federalist Papers, that were an attempt to explain the thinking behind the Constitution, less focus is on that collection of opposing columns published at the time, often called the Anti-Federalist Papers. In these writings you will find warnings about the loopholes in the legal architecture of our founding document that would inevitably lead to abuse. The Anti-Federalists have been maligned as states' rights bigots, but much of what they tried to caution us about has come true, just as they predicted. They warned how sweeping generalizations such as "general welfare" opened the door to uncontrollable government expansion, just as one example.

A simple way to understanding why socialism/communism don't work is to look up "Parkinson's Law" and "The Peter Principle." Without all of the profound philosophical ideas that takes philosophers and economists to write several hundred page books about, there are two immutable laws that arise whenever certain events occur. A bureaucracy tends to expand into the space available for it and persons will rise to the level of their incompetence. The first is illustrated by the examples above and the second by Mr. Obama.

Most of the above would not exist in a government following Objectivistic political principle.

We would have Departments of State, the Treasury, Defense and Justice. That's all.

Department of Agriculture that does not grow anything.
Russia had that, it is called Socialism and the small family farms outproduced the government.

Department of Commerce that does nothing but hinder commerce.
Russia and China have that, it is called State Run Commerce. That is communism

Department of Education that does not educate.
Russia, China and all dictatorships have that, and it’s called brainwashing and propaganda.

Department of Energy that produces no energy.
Venezuela has that and they are Socialist/Communist and their people live in complete poverty and squalor

Department of Health and Human Services that does not heal.
We have Obamacare that is now totally destroying the economic fabric of this country.

Department of Homeland Security... need I say more.
Can we say Hello Comrade?

Department of Housing and Urban Development that has not built a house.
We could go on and on however, everything our politicians are moving toward by compromising to the middle, which is ironic, since the left keeps dragging that proverbial “middle” further and further left is a quote from a communist.

Three months before his visit in 1959 to the US, a man by the name of Nikita Kruschev, one of the all-time butchers of human beings in the world, made the following quote:
"We cannot expect the American people to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism until they awaken one day to find they have Communism".
A Socialist and a Communist both made a quote, and it was the same thing. So, if you have Socialism, you have Communism. Socialism is only a stepping-stone to Communism.

I enjoyed parts of the interview this morning. He showed a correct understanding of the leviathan and its nature to expand.

Hope I can take home some of his money during the week ahead. Look out Vegas, ISank cometh.

we have forgotten that these bureaucrats are
OUR EMPLOYEES. instead, they have become
instruments of vote-bribery. -- j

I'm more afraid of a condition I like to call libtard than I am of ISIS, ISIL or whatever you want to call that pseudo-nation. Most of those crazy Muslims are over there. We have enough not as quite as mentally ill libtards to elect the socialist Liar-In-Chief twice. .

And a tweak to one of the above... it would have been more accurate to say:

Department of Health and Human Services that is more interested in the taking of unborn life than preserving it.

IMHO we got here from 1 simple action that has happened over & over again. It is called compromise. Every single compromise in government has moved us farther and farther from the values that this country was established under. When enough compromises were made it allowed all the useless departments that you mention to be created and they have taken over our governance.

It is a frightening and distressing time when one can argue about the comparisons of the US and China any way you slice it.

If you knew what happened in China, I don't think you'd be saying this.