I just heard a wingnut give the stupidest explanation ever for Western European type socialism

[Douglas Carpenter]

I was sitting in a local bar that does attract a pretty broad range of clientele - including some very colorful characters and some intractable dumbasses. The reason why Europeans have to put up with such terrible things as socialized medicine, and a far more extensive economic safety net and laws mandating worker input into management and long six week vacations is simple - it's because they have been disarmed and they don't have guns to fight back against the oppression and this terrible assault on their liberty. I'm not kidding you that was the explanation. If only European had guns like Americans their governments would not being doing all these terrible things to them.

I have found that usually when one right-winger says something crazy and ignorant on any subject - a whole bunch of them are saying it around about the same time and the source usually goes back to someone on Fox News or some other crazy right-wing source - and before you know it the most preposterous claims in the universe have become common knowledge and they think the people who are not in the know are the ignorant ones. I wonder who started the cycle of this one going around?