The Insurance Journal’s readership engages in a Cold War-era battle of ideas, complete with red-baiting!

The battle started yesterday when the Journal ran a story on State Farm chief Ed Rust’s 82 percent pay raise.

The reader comments that flooded in were what you call flaming. Some expressed moral outrage over inflated executive salaries while others offered a spirited defense of our free-market, “greed is good” capitalist system. And a few commentators simply lamented the possibility that the pay raise would damage the insurance industry’s already injured reputation.

Here are just two of the many white-hot comments:

This is sick. State Farm is rasing rates across the board because of increased risk, however, even when they paid all the hurricane claims they still made 3 BILLION DOLLARS.

SICK. SICK. SICK. IT IS CRIMINAL. [Posted By: Angry]

Don't try this, Rust has put out the goods, He deserves what he is paid. No Apologies. Welcome to the free market system, not the Free Ride system. If you want socialism, move to another country, get your commie butt the #### our of here! [Posted By: Rocket Man]

Read all of the comments here. And feel free to flame away in our comments section below, but keep it PG-rated please.

(For a definition of flaming, click here.)