The Right Ideas Kevin Croswhite's blog is part of our Purple Wisconsin project. Croswhite works to promote free-market reforms in the energy sector as the Wisconsin State Director of the Energy & Enterprise Initiative. SHARE

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On December 2nd, 1954 when the United State Senate condemned Wisconsin’s own Senator Joseph McCarthy, our country was fighting real actual honest-to-God communists. And Wisconsinites know all about fighting extreme left movements. No state has elected more Socialist mayors than Wisconsin. Wisconsin has even had communist candidates for State Assembly. The first president of the United Auto Workers, Local 248 of the Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company in West Allis was convicted of six counts of perjury from his appearance before a Congressional subcommittee (which included Congressman John F. Kennedy before his time in the White House or even the US Senate, but that’s a whole other post) that was investigating the UAW in Milwaukee for Communistic influence.

So when talk radio host Charlie Sykes was accused of being a communist, I had to chuckle. I mean Sykes has written books like A Nation of Moochers where he criticizes government dependency and The End of Privacy, which is about the loss of privacy Americans have endured in recent years. Sounds like a pretty conservative guy to me, but maybe I’m wrong. I made sure to tune into his show to listen for hidden communist messages and low and behold, no communism to be found. So maybe he hides his communism in his writing. I headed over to his new website Right Wisconsin and all I could find were conservative perspectives. I’m pleased to report the following results from my fact-finding mission: Charlie Sykes – Not Communist.

I thought I could rest easy knowing that one of Wisconsin’s most popular talk radio hosts was in fact about as American as apple pie, but then I checked twitter and it hit me: Lawmaker: Chamber in the pocket of Communist China. The US Chamber of Commerce is not only communist, but in the pocket of the Chinese. Well that just will not do. It’s the US Chamber of Commerce; I wouldn’t think anyone would be more in support of free-enterprise than them. It didn’t take long to realize that the United States Chamber of Commerce is communist the same way Charlie Sykes is: it's not. They even run a website dedicated to promoting free-enterprise. Case closed: US Chamber of Commerce - Not Communist.

Admittedly this post is a little more political and lot more facetious than I like to write, but when bonafide conservatives are accused of being communist, it hurts the conservative movement and we all look stupid. I'm assuming I did't need to tell you that Charlie Sykes and the US Chamber are not communist. You knew already. These accusations are isolated incidents, right? Wrong. The deep fringe right apparently thinks everyone who does not fit their exact ideology is communist. Everyone from Rep. Paul Ryan to Sen. Lindsey Graham, from Gov. Mike Huckabee to Sen. Mitch McConnell. On the other hand we have the likes of US Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont who identifies himself as an independent socialist. There is a Communist Party of Wisconsin with members. There are real live communists out there so why do some on the far right have to make that accusation of conservatives? Lets stop being so cavalier with that word and save the communist accusations for actual communists.

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