West: My Communist Comments Were Meant to Spark Debate

When feisty freshman Rep. Allen West said earlier this month that there are “communists” in the Congressional Progressive Caucus of Democrats, the Florida Republican was merely trying to spur a discussion of the issues, he says.

“I am pleased it has inspired so much passionate debate, for that was precisely the point,” West wrote in The Hill. “As Americans, we must bring to the fore this fundamental discussion of what we want our country to be.”

The important thing is to be true to the Founding Fathers’ attempt to protect individual liberty, free markets, and states’ rights. We don’t want to “continue to slide down this path of expanding the secular welfare state, nationalizing production, and enforcing economic equality,” West says.

As for those in the Congressional Progressive Caucus who are upset with his assertion that their principles equate to communism, West wonders why they feel this way. “Why shouldn’t we have this discussion? What part of their agenda are they trying to hide?”

He sees “our fundamental freedoms being slowly chipped away by an over-reaching nanny state that has bit by bit slipped its tentacles into every aspect of our lives, from the types of light bulbs we can use to the size of our toilet tanks.”

Conservatives yearn for “individual responsibility and freedom, limited government, a free market, and a strong defense,” West says. But liberals are working for “a collective ideal, directed, and controlled by a centralized government to guarantee and enforce social and economic justice.”