I’m not sure where the writer gets his ideas from, but I am tired of people provoking fear in a political and social system they know little or nothing about. Socialism is a continuum, and every civilized society by definition is socialist to some degree.

To state that people in “socialist” countries are slaves is ludicrous. I have many friends in Canada and several European countries. They just smirk and roll their eyes at our feeble attempts to provide basic necessities such as health care, education and transportation. Every time I return from another country I am rudely reminded of how less “free” we are.

It is about time these so-called “patriots” listened to some facts and gave some serious consideration to what could really make our country great: that is for all of us to concentrate on those things that would improve our way of life and forget the labels and prejudices of the past.

Make the rich pay, spread the wealth, force those lazy bums to work, end welfare handouts…. These political slogans have been shouted long before our country was formed, and they will continue until the demise of the human race.

Our government was formed by men who began their working careers in their preteen years. They knew the value of hard work and the consequences of bad decisions. They designed our country in a structure that gives us, the individual, an opportunity for success while maintaining the possibility of failure. Unfortunately, we now have a country that has been morphed into an entity that fabricates success by handing out money and coddles failure by handing out money.

We elect morally corrupt people that know what words to say and promise us everything, but we get instability while they attempt to inflate their own self worth. Then, we reelect them expecting to be governed into our individual sense of utopia.

If we do not demand transparency, honesty, integrity, and love of country from all our politicians, then we will soon be governed into a new form of oligarchy – or, are we already there?

Apple Inc., the world’s largest company by market capitalization, recently released the newest version of its iconic Smartphone: iPhone 5. Preorders topped 2 million in the first 24 hours. It will give a massive boost to suppliers and derivative companies; indeed, JPMorgan estimates it could add about 0.5 percent to the nation’s GDP on an annualized basis.

Should public servants determine that Apple’s executives, or any brilliant innovators who create wealth for society, have “made enough money”? Is the government more efficient than free markets in spreading wealth around?

President Obama seems to think so. Here are a few things he’s said: “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money,” “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” and “You didn’t build that.”

These sentiments thrive in community organizations and academia’s ivory towers, but the troubled history of failed socialist states shows that redistribution slows overall economic growth. Actually, slower growth adversely affects minorities disproportionately, creating even wider inequality. Just look at the current unemployment rates by race.

While government can properly foster equality of opportunity, sanctioning equality of outcomes is folly; it contradicts human nature. That’s why Marx’s infamous slogan, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” has been consigned to the scrapheap of history.

One current gospel is that President Obama is a radical socialist, if not an outright Marxist. Yet he began his term by appointing Tim Geithner and Larry Summers to steward the economy. Those two wild-eyed radicals are well-known as the Lenin and Stalin of Wall Street.

In truth, Obama, like all presidents, is in the pocket of corporate and military interests, and most progressives are dismayed by his conservative policies. That includes the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” born in right-wing think tanks and first championed by Mitt Romney.

Another fairy tale is that socialism is somehow inherently horrible. Again, the reality is different. We live in a blended socialistic and free market society, witness Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits and health care, etc. The main arguments are simply about the ratios of that blend.

All land was to be held in common, and all production was to be divided equally. Trouble was there was very little produced, so there was little to divide. Near starvation was the result.

Realizing that model wasn’t working, the Pilgrims divided the land among the settlers, allowing each family to keep the fruits of its efforts. That strategy created so much prosperity that it begot the holiday of Thanksgiving to celebrate not only the prosperity but the means of actualizing it. Thanksgiving was created to honor the free market and private property.

Now there is a strong, vocal movement to return to an economic model that has already failed on this continent. Do we have to repeat the experience of those first settlers to relearn the lesson that socialistic economics just doesn’t work? Since we have modern-day Europe to drive that home, we shouldn’t have to emulate it in order to relearn something we well know.

The disjointed and illogical attempt to attribute the Great Recession to some failed American experiment with “socialism” was a real head-scratcher.

In contemporary discourse it seems that a person’s propensity for the word “socialism” is inversely proportional to his actual understanding of the term. Ground zero for the Great Recession was Wall Street – the center of the capitalist universe. I don’t know how much further one can get from socialism than the unregulated free-for-all feeding frenzy that was Wall Street in 2008, where brokerage houses were allowed to do as they please.

In the fall of 2008, our financial markets were frozen and we were headed off an economic cliff, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Great Depression. The tools used by both the Bush and Obama administrations to bring us back from this abyss (TARP, stimulus bill, tax cuts, etc,) are standard short term fixes for a capitalist economic meltdown, and have nothing in the world to do with “socialism.”

The letter then goes on to praise the tea partiers for striving to save our country from bankruptcy by calling for more tax cuts! Bankruptcy, whether at the national or personal level is a very simple concept; it simply means that one does not have the requisite revenue stream to satisfy one’s debts. Cuts to the revenue stream will only exacerbate the debt problem.

The Republican tax cut for higher income individuals in year 2001 has produced no new jobs, and still they want to keep the tax reductions for the wealthy. The wealthy have failed to produce jobs, and conservatives are still hoping the peasants don’t figure it out.

Unions came about due to the abuses from those “who own the means of production.” Unions are no more evil than unfettered capitalism.

It must be nice to have a warm home, medical care and good food to eat and then whine about socialism. No wonder this planet and its people suffer all over the world.

The Bush-Obama strategy has come due. Trouble was brewing when Bush told us in 2008, “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system,” which is like saying “I’ve abandoned my parachute to more thoroughly enjoy my sky-diving experience.”

Truth is, everyone but a political hack realizes we are facing national bankruptcy with all its bad, bad consequences. Socialism has failed. This is what brought 6,000 “tea partiers” (aka, citizens) to the state Capitol steps on Tax Day 2009 to defeat the proposed sales tax increase.

What Olympia didn’t get was the need to cut spending and fight institutionalized corruption. Olympian politicians are buying votes with failed socialist policies. They have bowed down at the altar of the unions.

Don’t get me wrong; like Ronald Reagan, I believe in the right to collective bargaining. But like Reagan, I also believe in fairness and balance. Remember, Reagan fired the air traffic controllers when they went on strike illegally. Gregoire is no Reagan.

Socialism doesn’t work because greedy special interest groups eventually figure out how to vote themselves a pay raise and get “free” things from the government – cash for clunkers, risky home loans, Wall Street bailouts, TARP, Obamacare, etc. – until the whole irresponsible, socialist experiment comes crashing down.