LIBERALS = SOCIALISTS = COMMUNISTS

I've come across this equivalence many times in WingNut Land and I've been puzzled at the origins of this outrageous claim. According to Nash (p. 137), it started in the 50s:

1) That contemporary Liberalism is in agreement with Communism on the most essential point -- the necessity and desirability of socialism; 2) that it regards all inherited value -- theological, philosophical, political -- as without intrinsic virtue or authority; 3) that, therefore, no irreconcilable differences exist between it and Communism -- only differences as to method and means; and 4) that, in view of these characteristics of their ideology, the Liberals are unfit for the Leadership of a free society, and intrinsically incapable of offering serious opposition to the Communist offensive.

Frank S. Meyer, "The Meaning of McCarthyism," National Review 5
(June 14, 1958), p. 566.

Speaking for myself, I recall reading Darkness at Noon, 1984 and Brave New World in highschool and I have been convinced ever since of the dangers of totalist solutions to social organization. I met one Communist when I was in college (Nixon called the student anti-war demonstrators there "bums" about a year before I arrived) but there was certainly no Marxist indoctrination in the classes I took nor did I hear of any from my friends and acquaintances. Years later, in graduate school, I ran into a couple of Marxists, one a professor, the other a bar friend, neither of whom were proselytizers. I did read a "Marx for Dummies" book, the title of which escapes me, and came away very impressed at how bad Marxist physics and metaphysics were.

Concerning point (4), there are others on the Radical Right who substitute "Islamofascism" for "Communism" but that does not make their argument any less preposterous.