Letters: Socialism isn’t communism
October 16, 2012 7:28PM
Updated: November 18, 2012 6:11AM
In the heat of the “political season,” we are hearing the term “socialism” being thrown about like a dirty word because most politicians know many people relate it to communism.
It definitely is not. About 30 years ago, the United States was rated number one in the world for standard of living. That’s no longer true, as we fall between sixth and 10th place.
The countries listed ahead of us include Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium (all well known socialist countries). Also ahead of us is Canada, our neighbor to the north, with its socialist medical system (which costs much less than ours but gets better results). Please note that these are all democratic not communist countries.
Ask people from these countries to define socialism and they generally say it means programs for the common welfare of all their citizens. It sounds a little like Social Security, Medicare, police and fire departments, public schools, roads and highways, doesn’t it?
But our model of socialism is our military, which feeds, clothes, schools, trains and treats all medical problems. It even pays all its members.
Next time somebody says “socialism” in a derogatory manner, ask them to explain what is bad about it.
Ronald Wood
Malden
Politicians work for us
A satirical comment credited to Jay Leno states, “A new study published by the ‘British Medical Journal’ found that inactivity can kill you. I mean, these are the kind of findings that just scare the hell out of Congress.” Humorous, but so true.
We employers elect (hire) state and federal representatives (employees) to do their jobs to work together and help the governments to work to benefit the employers (taxpayers).
We hire them full-time vs. part-time, pay them well, and then give them outstanding health and retirement benefits. In return, we expect them to do their job, not take off more than normal vacation vs. taking time off to campaign.
State and federal representatives want to kick the can further down the road, not do their work. We can’t afford this inaction anymore.
Since our employees haven’t changed their ways, we need to replace them. Any government employees, no matter what party — of over two years of service — that doesn’t do their job needs to be replaced. Vote them out! Hopefully, new brooms sweep clean.
Mark Turk
Joliet
