Sarah Palin’s Alaska = Model Socialist State. Seriously.

This one seems so damn obvious I’m a bit irked at myself for not twigging to it before somebody had to tell me. (Big thank-you to Marshall at life is a thrill for pointing this out, btw…)

Yes, Sarah Palin, the much-loathed (and rightfully so, to my mind, for making being ignorant and closed-minded popular once again, if nothing else) GOP veep candidate, is the Governor of a socialist state. Hell, she’s even admitted as much to (badass) New Yorker writer Philip Gourevitch, speaking about her supposed “battle” against those gosh-darn-greedy oil companies (and if you believe she was really fighting on the side of The Common Man, I’ve got a Bridge to Nowhere to sell you):

“…[W]e’re set up, unlike other states in the union, where it’s collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs.”

And here’s the first definition of the word “socialism,” straight from Merriam-Webster:

“1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods”

Those two statements sound at all similar? The more I think about it, the more ludicrous Palin’s whole attempt to tar-and-feather Obama as a “socialist” seems — pot, meet kettle. Lady, you come from Alaska, which is the only state in the union that actually pays people to live in it, out of oil royalties that go into the Alaska Permanent Fund. This year, for example, each eligible Alaskan — which apparently includes children — will get $2069 from the state.

Any guesses what supposedly-despicable, evil, America-hating (according to Fox, anyway) foreign country does something like this? Venezuela. Yep — in Venezuela, windfall oil revenue goes to impoverished Venezuelans. And here I was under the impression Ms. Palin hated Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, even going so far as to call him (incorrectly) a “dictator”; turns out they’ve got more in common than she thought…