Barack Obama recently celebrated his one year anniversary in the White House; the year that he and other liberals are celebrating wreaked havoc on conservative values and the Republican Party.

However while things may be bad, there is still hope. With the November 2010 elections looming in the not-to-distant future and the 2012 election not horribly long after that, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Liberal (so called centrist) news publications such as Newsweek seem to like pushing things a little farther than they are in reality, a problem also shared by many conservatives.

The minor difference here is that while many conservatives hold the “gloom and doom” point of view, Newsweek holds a slightly more victorious angle.

In their Feb. 16, 2009 issue, Newsweek ran “We are All Socialists Now” as a cover story. The authors, Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas, presented their case as to how America is already practically a European-socialist nation, which is something many conservatives are fond of doing as well.

I personally am a conservative libertarian and a constitutionalist. I despise seeing our constitution trampled and misinterpreted like it is now, however I do not think that things have yet gotten to that point.

I admit I may have to separate from my ultra-conservative co-conspirators on this point.

America is not a socialist state, yet I believe that there are people (perhaps even in the federal government) who would love nothing more than seeing that happen.

While our country may be slipping more and more toward the evil that is European socialism, we are still a long way from it. The Bush administration inundated banks with money that we did not have. It appears as if the Obama administration has taken the principle and decided to run with it.

Yes, companies may have to much unnecessary government oversight, but, these companies are not under direct government control. Meaning that CEOs and shareholders still more or less run the companies, but with federal oversight.

Do not get me wrong, I in no way advocate government bailouts at all, in any way, but where we are now does not constitute socialism.

Phyllis Schlafly commented in her article in Human Events, “Obama is Remaking America Into Socialism”, on how true socialism requires a totalitarian form of government. The title, in this case, does not accurately portray the article, and she may have taken some unnecessary extremes, but she raises some good points in her article.

She discusses the true meaning of socialism and then describes that the policies the Obama Administration wants to enact do, in fact, have socialistic tendencies, as most leftist policies do.

America has not reached a true state of socialism and hopefully never will. While I may not completely agree with Schlafly, I disagree with Newsweek more. We are not a socialist nation, yet. However it is easy for republicans to fall into the pit of emotionalism and label everything that comes from the left as socialist. Leftism is not full force socialism.

Emotionalism in and of itself will not help us, as conservatives, defeat liberals.

Passion for a certain thing and the beliefs and knowledge surrounding said thing are in a dependent relationship. Passion without the knowledge to back it up sounds foolish just as beliefs without the passion or willingness to see them through will fall flat.