-- "You go ahead and do that, Vin." (vote for McCain-Palin, presumably.) "The rest of us pinkos will be busy running every branch of government and redistributing your juicy assistant editor paycheck."

That's perhaps the one refreshing thing about this race. The socialists were at least out of the closet, admitting precisely what they plan.

-- "Hey Vin, Look in the mirror if you want to see a real dirtbag. I can't wait until tomorrow night when the 'communist sympathizer' kicks your ass -- and the ass of everyone who thinks like you. Welcome to the 21st century. Asshole."

Numerous correspondents ridiculed my Nov. 2 reference to Barack Obama as a "communist sympathizer." For details on Obama's associations with communist poet Frank Marshall Davis, and with Weathermen bomber William Ayres, visit www.vinsuprynowicz.com/?p=121 and scroll down about halfway -- or simply do some Googling. In addition to this, the closest thing to a "real job" Barack Obama ever had was training people to become "community organizers," employing doctrines and methods developed by the infamous Saul "The Red" Alinsky, who was not so named because he had orange hair.

And the "father" mentioned in "Dreams from My Father" was Nairobi collectivist Barack Hussein Obama Sr., who favored government seizure of the farms of a racial minority (white people) and who enthusiastically wrote, "There is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100 percent of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed."

Frankly, despite his tax and socialized medicine schemes (he has told supporters he needs to start slow; he can't get us to "single payer" immediately), his extremist desire to ban and confiscate all non-police handguns, and his surprisingly well-reported "spread the wealth around" comments, I doubt Sen. Obama is a communist.

But there is no stable "mix" between property rights and forced redistribution. The thieving class will always vote themselves more. Sen. Obama's instincts, training, and associations will lead him to drive us further in that direction.

In newspapering we only write what we can demonstrate, and I felt on far safer ground simply observing there is little doubt Obama feels great "sympathy" toward the political and economic doctrines of his father, of Frank Marshall Davis, of William Ayres, and of Saul "The Red" Alinsky. He is thus, demonstrably, "a communist sympathizer."

-- -- --

Sen. John McCain was gracious in defeat Tuesday night, urging his fellow Americans to now unite in supporting Sen. Obama, chosen by the voters to be "the next president of the country we both love."

In these remarks, Sen. McCain made clear why he lost the election. One is tempted to say "why he and his party" lost the election. But unfortunately, his concession remarks also revealed what some pundits have been saying for months: John McCain has no party.

So far as Sen. McCain is concerned, he was pleased to submit his resume in application for "The Big Job." He received a fair interview; the election went to the better orator with the better turn-out-the-vote organization, and thus he could in good conscience shake hands when the job went to someone else: Better luck next time, old fellow.

Sen. McCain did not merely "do a poor job" articulating the philosophy of expansive liberty and limited government. He failed to articulate it at all, because he is not an adherent of this philosophy, and could thus play no role in calling forth the forces of freedom to do battle on behalf of this philosophy, as articulated down through the centuries by Jefferson, Bastiat, Nock, von Mises, Hayek, R.A. Taft, Rand, Goldwater, Ron Paul, et al.

Those who suffered a year's worth of frustration waiting for John McCain to sound that rallying cry are now criticized for acting "bitter" about the Nov. 4 results. We are expected to act like the losing team after a sporting contest, lining up to shake hands with the victors.

The problem is, socialism is not a game played on a 60-minute clock within the "out-of-bounds" markers, where you're free to come back and try again, with the scoreboard set back to zero-zero, next season.

In the 20th century, socialism -- which comes in many forms, but always involves the use of armed force or the threat of force to seize wealth from the productive class and redistribute it to the less creative, the less innovative, the less industrious -- murdered millions, and impoverished hundreds of millions more. The socialists never enter the next round with the scoreboard "reset to zero" -- they consolidate the gains of 1912 and 1932 and 1964 and 2008, digest their new powers and all the wealth they've confiscated from their victims, and then -- swollen with all they have devoured -- ask, "Play again?"

For 100 years, our battles have almost all been holding actions and "fighting retreats" before the expanding forces of government tyranny. But we're supposed to smile, fund the opposition with our confiscated earnings, and be good sports about it.

Since they can tantalize the ill-schooled masses with promises of "free stuff, seized from the greedy rich," the socialists nearly always defeat us. Even during our temporary "victories" -- the Reagan years, for instance -- the rhetoric may swing our way, but the power and grasp and size of the state continue to grow. Yet that is not enough for them. Oh no. They proceed to get quite irate if we fail to shake hands and join with them in celebrating their latest victory over the outnumbered forces of freedom!

We're not "good sports" about it!

Socialists are thieves. They are worse than thieves, because they assume a pose of high moral dudgeon if we call them what they are, proceeding to claim the authorization of "majority support" for their crimes. They are in fact slavers, insisting we not only pay up, but do so with a smile and a happy little minstrel song.

They ridicule us, saying, 'What do you mean, 'socialism'? We already have Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. Are you calling those wonderful programs 'socialism'?"

Of course I am. And the government schools -- the youth propaganda camps where new little legions of socialists are bred -- those are socialist programs, as well.

With Jefferson, we have pledged eternal enmity to these ongoing crimes against human energy, ingenuity, and decency. This is not "a game." With these forces of darkness, which will eventually ruin this once-proud nation, casting us broken and bankrupt on the mercy of the enemies of freedom, we do not shake hands.

We nearly always lose. But while we breathe, we fight.

Vin Suprynowicz (vsuprynowicz@reviewjournal.com) is the assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of "The Black Arrow." See www.VinSuprynowicz.com/.