The ol’ paratrooper got our liberal friends in a bit of a huff recently when, while speaking at a town hall in Jensen Beach, he said “I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party that are members of the Communist Party … it’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”

Other than finding out that the local Whole Foods is out of quinoa, nothing gets a liberal more hysterical than being called a Communist.

Just how pink is most of the left wing of the modern Democrat Party? To steal a line from Richard Nixon, pretty much down to their underwear. After all, as the well-known aphorism goes, communists are simply just “liberals in a hurry.”

Consider a few of the Ten Pillars of Communism from Karl Marx’s Manifesto of the Communist Party: “2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax … 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance … 5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State … 6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State … 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State.”

That’s pretty much the legislative program the Democrats have tried to pass since they took over Congress in 2007, not to mention putting the state in control of health care. And rest assured that if Marx had written his Manifesto in 1948 instead of 1848 that nationalized health care would have been included in his list.

Also of particular note is the Obama campaign trotting out “Forward” as its new slogan. As the Washington Times notes, the word has a “long and rich association with European Marxism … Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name ‘Forward!’ or its foreign cognates … The slogan ‘Forward!’ reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.”

Indeed, Friedrich Engels and Leon Trotsky used to write for Vorwärts, the official daily of Germany’s Social Democratic Party. “Vorwärts” is German for “forward.” Even East Germany named the official soccer club of the National People’s Army “ASK Vorwärts Berlin.” Vladimir Lenin also got in on the game, founding a publication called Vpered. Roughly translated, “vpered” means “New York Times.”

And would it surprise you that the grass-roots movement of the Democrat Party, those infantile mouth breathers known as Occupy Wall Street, planned a day of public protest on May Day, the high holy day of Soviet Communism? Where the Russkies were content to do laps around Red Square, parading their armored columns and missiles in front of the general secretary, the Garbage Pail Kids intended to make your life miserable through a “general strike,” pretty laughable since most of that motley crew is unemployable.

At its core, what Col. Allen West said at that town hall meeting was true: Many of his House and Senate Democrat colleagues are sympathetic to the substance of Marxism. Read the Manifesto, then check the voting records and statements of the members of the CPC. You won’t find a lot of daylight between them. There is certainly more in common between the CPC and Marx, Trotsky and Lenin than there is between the CPC and James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson.

West should be applauded twice: Once for bringing this discussion to the national stage, and again for not backing down despite the hysterical animadversions of those on the Left. Unlike most politicians who speak in euphemisms, West isn’t afraid to call things as he sees them, nor is he averse to dropping the gloves when need be.

This is exactly what I’m looking for in a congressional representative, and I’m proud that Allen West is going to represent our district.