Dear Editor,

On or about the year 1284 in the town of Hamelin, Saxony, in what is now Germany, there appeared one day a man who charmed the town’s elders in that he could rid the town of all rats. They agreed to his fee, and he reputedly charmed and led the rats out of the village. This much is an actual historical fact. The town elders reneged on their promise and refused to pay the fee. In anger, the man supposedly then magically charmed the town’s children out of the village as well; this second part of the story is likely a myth. Charlatans were as prevalent then as today, and they are just as seductive and dangerous.
Human nature compels most people, especially the young, to wish for good things and to believe them if told by a credible, convincing charlatan [see Bernie Madoff who promised 20% return on money investments when actual returns were going around 6%].
Recently Congresswoman Octavia-Cortez was quoted as saying that “today’s young people have never experienced prosperity”! She referred to young Americans in air-conditioned living quarters, watching big-screen TV’s, ordering meals delivered to the doorsteps with the click of their smart phones. Incredible.
This being said, the setting seems tailor-made for today’s charlatan, Bernie Sanders [herein afterwards referred to as B.S.]. His large win in Nevada caucuses may likely propel him to capture the democratic nomination. His popularity with young, impressionable voters should not be discounted; his message is as false as Madoff’s. The socialism-welfare state he is peddling is unrealistic, unaffordable, unfair, and un-American. But mainly it doesn’t work; to his voting bloc, socialism is an abstraction. B.S. is old enough to have seen it tried and failed all over the world: failed in Russia; failed in East Germany; failed in Cuba; failed in China; failed in Venezuela. It even failed in Great Britain which was the world’s predominant economic and military power until their postwar welfare state bankrupted the country. We must defeat these socialists at the polls or suffer the consequences for four years. B.S.’s snake oil, however attractively packaged, would fail in America if he and his leftist agenda were in place. Responsible voters will value our American way of life or suffer at least four years as we have not suffered since the 1930’s depression.
God bless America!

El Sellers
Fairfield, Texas