Socialism is not communism; has brought good things to the world
It isn’t my job to defend socialism as I’m a traditional Liberal at least what it meant to be liberal before it was corrupted by political correctness. But Ms. Diane Moen needs a reality check as to what socialism is about and how our world has benefited from it.
But first, to be fair to Ms. Moen’s assertions about the evils of socialism, let us all pity those poor, wretched citizens of the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, who must toil and suffer under the highest standards of living in the world, consistently rank as living in the happiest nations, must contend with being leaders in environmental protection laws, and equality between men and women. The horrors that these people must have to endure daily in their safe, secure borders, free of the joys of poverty that other people around the world — and in America — get to enjoy daily. The horrors, Ms. Moen, the horrors of what socialism in Scandinavian has inflicted upon its populations.
Our universal health care is socialism, Ms. Moen. So is our Canadian pension plan. I hope you don’t take advantage of those systems, which people advancing the common good among the labour unions and socialist politicians achieved. Surely you are no hypocrite, right? Tommy Douglas, you rule!
You really have no idea what socialism entails, preferring to regurgitate the old idea of socialism being communism, which it is not. You don’t seem to have a grasp on why socialism even developed. It developed out of the misery inflicted upon people during the Industrial Revolution when unbridled capitalism drove millions across Europe into abject poverty in Victorian slums with no hope of a better life for themselves or their children.
Out of socialist movement came those who advanced the rights of women to vote or to even be considered as fully human and not just chattel. And linked with socialism is a subject close to my heart which is Humanism; it was fellow atheists who championed human rights, pushed our laws and education systems to evolve and not those blathering on in the pulpits or the ruling elites who wanted to cling to the status quo. To be a Humanist, is to believe that we can and must do what we can to make this a better world and not accept the trickle down economy that President Ronald Reagan inflicted on the U.S. which has spread like a virus through the developed world.
Lastly, Ms. Moen, you throw out ludicrous claims like a televangelist which have no basis in facts. History does NOT show that socialism drives society and the average person into an inevitable sense of apathy and mediocrity. That is just foolishness talking and nothing more then pushing the vile political and economic agenda of Libertarians and those at the top pushing us back into a feudal economy where the lords live in their castles and the peasants have nothing.
The idea that in this pandemic there is an ideological struggle between socialism and social conscience is entirely bogus. While one doesn’t need to be a socialist to have empathy for others it in no way implies that those two concepts are mutually exclusive, as we have empathy hardwired into our very genes; you are simply wrong to think that they are.
Robert T. Rock
Mission City