What is your opinion on communism/socialism?

While I do not sympathize with it, I don't believe it is as bad as everyone makes it out to be. The basic principle behind it is equality (much like in our own government). With communism the government tries to create equality by taking out the choices and therefore evening out the playing filed. In America we gave everyone choices to do much the same thing. While in practice it quite obviously doesn't work, in theory it makes sense. That is how I see it but I would like to know others' thoughts on it.