Allen West: Hey, (Insert Name Here) is Marxist!

At this point, pointing out that Allen West's provocative statements are factually wrong only helps his fundraising efforts.

However, sometimes West makes comments that are so absurd that they cannot be ignored. Here is what he said to Glenn Beck on his radio show on Friday, April 20 (starting at the 4:30 time mark):

Rep. Allen West: When you look at the Woodrow Wilson administration, the creation of the Federal Reserve, that's a part of Marxist ideology with a centralized bank. When you look at how we took taxation from being on consumption to production. And the income tax was only supposed to be temporary, at low levels and at low rates, but now we have a President who is talking about using the tax code as a weapon of mass destruction and a tool for socio-economic divisiveness.

Glenn Beck: You are Penthouse Magazine for conservatives right now. This is conservative porn. This is good stuff man.

Oh where to begin! Lets start with:

1. Central banking being a core tenant of Marxist ideology would have been news to the 17th century founders of the Bank of Amsterdam, the Swedish Riksbank, and the Bank of England. There is a transitive principle of talk radio logic at work here: central banks are bad, all bad things are Marxist, therefore central banks are Marxist.

2. But we must make sure all good deeds go unpunished. In the middle of West's critique of the income tax, he says that we used to tax consumption. This is a good point! Taxing consumption is a sensible policy that should be adopted.

3. When Beck calls West "conservative porn" I think he is correct in more ways than he wants. Arousing and not like reality at all? That sure fits.

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Noah Kristula-Green

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