A few quick comments about “What really defines socialist country,” a letter to the editor in the March 1 Reporter. <\/p>\n
First, the writer got one thing right: the existence of a Social Security program does not make America a socialist program. If you live long enough, you will get some of your money back. Socialists don’t typically do that.<\/p>\n
That was the only thing he got right. If, in “true socialism” the means of production are run for the good of the people, then why has it been such an abject failure down through history? The problem, of course, is that without checks and balances, government inevitably becomes totally corrupt, and “the good of the people” becomes a tagline for government theft on a grand scale.<\/p>\n
“Income equality” is an appeal to one of mankind’s worst traits: jealousy. Who cares how much somebody else makes? They’re not stealing it from you or me. The question should be “do you make enough to have a decent life?” If not, then learn a new skill that leads to a better job … or start a business … there is a place where government can help, in training and in the ease of starting a new enterprise. It is much easier here than in any other country in the world.<\/p>\n
– Ted Reinhart <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few quick comments about “What really defines socialist country,” a letter to the editor in the March 1 Reporter. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-39512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39512"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=39512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}