CNN's Soledad O'Brien got a much-needed education about political ideologies from Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) Thursday.

◼ "I've had to give quite a few people a tutorial about the political spectrum of ideologies, and there's a thin separation. And at the turn of the century here in the United States of America, American Communists renamed themselves Progressives, but the strategy and the tactics and the ideology still remains the same.

"And when you're a member of a caucus that actually wanted to have a Constitutional amendment to redistribute wealth in the United States of America, I don't think that's in keeping with the principles and values of this country." - Noel Sheppard/Newsbusters

"You can call it whatever you want," answered West. "I'm talking about their beliefs. I'm calling it this: Communist, Progressive, Marxist, Socialist, Statist - which is another term that's been used - I'm looking at the ideologies, I'm looking at the things that they believe in, and if you don't think that we have to stand upon truth and be able to identify and clearly contrast the different principles and values and ideologies and principles of governance here in this country, then we're never going to get to the fact of accepting the true debate that's happening in America."

"We don't need a bureaucratic nanny state. We need to stay a Constitutional Republic. I think a lot of people need to study that and understand what it is."

Can anybody argue with that?