Geez, I hate to say that. I've lived my whole life believing that a free market, capitalistic economic system is best.

But I guess the events of the last few weeks prove that even a system as strong and desirable as capitalism is not capable of withstanding the incompetence of our governmment, the unbelievable greed of our business community, and the willingness of Americans to ignore what was going on even though cursory attentiveness would show that the financial crisis we find ourselves in was completely predictable and avoidable.

Now our government continues to prove to be so disfunctional that the socialist countries have had to bail us out. We've been socialized whether we like it or not. And it'll be awhile before we can claw our way back to a capitalistic free market system. But if we don't begin to pay attention and demand responsible governance by those we elect and send to Washington, we may never get back to a pure free market system.

We don't have to wait and wonder whether Barack Obama will lead us toward socialism. George Bush has already done it.