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Don’t be a socialist

To the editor:

I happen to agree with The New York Times when it warned Nancy Pelosi not to give too much power to the newly elected House Democrats who call themselves “democratic socialists.” They will be a minority of the Democrats in the House of Representatives.

I don’t enjoy being unkind or insulting toward anyone — even the Republicans in the Congress, a sizeable minority of whom are really scary “survival-of-the-fittest” social Darwinists who want to abolish all of the safety-net programs — but to me, you have to be a total and complete moron and idiot to call yourself a “democratic socialist,” and that includes Bernie Sanders, whom I like and agree with 90 percent of the time.

First of all, they are not true socialists because they do not advocate abolishing our capitalist economic system.

Second of all, if you believe that anyone can be elected president of the United States who calls herself/himself a “socialist,” then you must live in DreamLand and have drunk the Kool-Aid.

Third of all, where I DO agree with them is in their belief that our federal government should do more and spend more to help the poor, the near-poor, the lower-middle-class and the middle class who are struggling to survive and to pay their bills.

They need to INFORM and EDUCATE the public to the fact that almost every single one of our traditional allies (if not all of them) have federal governments that do more and spend more (in proportion to their population sizes) to help their citizens than we do in the USA.

And, to paraphrase Al Pacino in the movie “And Justice For All,” for us in the USA to be right about this, all of these many other countries all have to be wrong.

I don’t think so.

Sincerely,

Stewart B. Epstein

Rochester

P.S. I am a retired college professor of sociology and social work. I taught at West Virginia University, Slippery Rock University and SUNY Brockport.

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