The events of last week have prompted me to reach across the aisle to get things done for the people of Montana. Since politics is the art of compromise, I have adopted a more diverse and open platform. (Why do I gag every time I say that?) The following are my new, enlightened core beliefs:

• As it is unfair for some to have more while others have less, private property rights should be discouraged. Carbon taxes and clean energy programs are great equalizers of property.
• Progressive income taxes rightfully force those who have received the most, to pay the most. Make the rich pay their fair share.
• Restoration of the inheritance tax is for the common good; government should redistribute wealth upon ones death.
• Individuals opposing the charitable programs of the federal government should have their property confiscated, such as the levying of hefty fines or taxes for individuals refusing to buy health insurance.
• Loans to businesses should be tightly regulated through a strong central bank, such as the Federal Reserve.
• Fairness doctrines are one example of the many benefits to government control of communications.
• Old fashioned mom and pop businesses should be replaced by government ownership of factories, as was recently done with GM and Chrysler.
• Obviously, the government should control our national labor pool by teaming up with organizations like the SEIU.
• Life is better for the greater whole through regional planning directives such as the Northern Montana Prairie National Monument.
• Since education is critical for the common good, it should be controlled by the central government through No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

Surrendering your rights for the common good seems so warm and fuzzy. With social justice being the ideal, government can give hard working families and undocumented workers generous benefits like free universal healthcare, free education and affordable housing. Is that not utopia?

Actually, the above is the progressive platform of those who control Congress, the Whitehouse and the majority of our state governments. Setting aside the references to today’s programs, would it frighten you to learn the aforementioned ten bullet points originated from Friedrich Engels’ 1848, Communist Manifesto? It should. You have been fooled twice: Once here on this first day in April (write the first capital letter of each bullet point) and second, every time you believe teachings of the Communist Manifesto disguised as progressive enlightenment. The left is wrong. It is God’s gift of freedom, not the Communist Manifesto’s gift of the common good, which has made America great! Liberty is the ideal.