Socialist Party Candidate Visits U. Tampa

This story was written by Elizabeth Harrington, The Minaret

Brian Moore, the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America, paid University of Tampa students a visit Monday with unexpected conversation.

Moore began his talk by saying that although it is possible he can be elected President of the United States, it is not probable.

He was representing a platform to inform Americans of an alternative option in politics, a system he believes is better for the quality of life for mankind entirely.

Capitalism, Moore feels, is a selfish system that focuses only on the success and wealth of the individual.

Instead, he says redistributing the wealth will give Americans better healthcare, open up more jobs, provide more effective education institutions, as well as clean up the environment and develop sufficient energy sources here at home.

The Socialist Party of America was actually established prior to the early 1900s.

The corruption of Stalin and Lenins socialist interpretations led to censorship as well as reasons for the Sedition and Espionage Acts of 1916.

Moore referred to our current system of government as authoritarian democracy and feels that there is no time like the present to change things.

He claimed that the current economic situation in the U.S. and around the world is capitalism finally crumbling from its own nature of greed.

To Moore, even labeling Obama as a socialist is offending. Socialism, on the other hand, will decentralize the government and put democracy back into the hands of the people.

There will not be a small group of people on top making decisions for everyone else, Moore argued.

You will no longer be made to feel guilty by the government pressuring the idea that You are either with us or against us.

UT students asked the candidate tough questions afterward.

What about having a government owned non-profit media? One student asked.

How do you plan on eliminating the corruption that has overtaken many socialist pursuing countries in the past, another questioned.

Moore, though passionate about his beliefs in providing for the welfare of the society said that governmental plans to actually implement and transition into socialism had not yet been developed.

He blamed the lack of attention universities give the theory, as well as their lack to develop the technicalities of the idea.

Instead, he stressed his hopes of democratic socialism and its possibilities for the future.

Moore is only on the ballot in eight states, although he is also an official write-in candidate in 16 others.