Hitting the nail on the head:

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Another prominent Republican told the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday that the president’s spending plans are pushing the country to the brink of socialism.

Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, the only member of the senate to earn a perfect rating from the American Conservative Union, called President Obama “the world’s best salesman of socialism” on Friday in describing his prime time speech earlier this week.

DeMint, a fierce opponent of government expansion, told the CPAC crowd that conservatives might have to “take to the streets to stop America’s slide into socialism.”

And socialism does, in fact, need a salesman.  Because in order for people to give government the sort of massive amounts power it takes for the government to run just about everything they have to be sold.  Convinced.  Cajoled.  Tricked and fooled, frankly.

Freedom, on the other hand, is simple.  People take care of themselves.  Government is kept to a bare minimum.  As Robert Heinlein once said, “The purpose of government shouldn’t be to do good, but simply to refrain from doing evil.”