Dear Editor,

Where to even begin an honest critique of the Letter to the Editor entitled “Political Basics 4”? The real definition of superior writing is that it be (1) effective, (2) clear, and (3) correct. This piece fails on the first two criteria but gets a pass on the last. The writer spent over 600 words without answering the pivotal question: are communism and socialism synonymous? Aside from the presumptuous tone of the writing which reads as if by a Ph.d professor talking down to high school freshmen: e.g., “last week we noted, etc.” and “we explored, etc.” the material presented as fact seems a rehashed version of 9th grade civics. Fairfield readers are not dim-witted so as to be misled by inaccurate political terminology further flawed by high-fog content writing.

Correction: Communism is socialism on steroids. It denies the right of ownership of real property, embraces central planning [by gov’t hacks], sustains itself by suppressing free press, controls education, maintains a police state, strongly restricts citizens’ travel/emigration, has ownership of all means of production, e.g., airlines, mining, railroads, energy, agriculture, etc. It always ultimately fails because it doesn’t work.

Socialism is to communism as skim milk is to whole homogenized. It means living in a welfare state. Real property is allowed; personal freedoms are normal (within limits), the means of production are severely governed by restrictive legislation, a safety net of social services (housing, healthcare) are subsidized by government which sells them as “free” to citizens but which are actually paid for by exorbitant taxation, e.g., current English taxes on $45,000/year approximate 57%. It works only if a person accepts that the state can manage the product of his work( his money) better than he can.

Lastly, socialism is a bacillus that drains man’s incentive to excel, to work, to create, to sacrifice today for the future’s reward, to save, to stay self-sufficient with earned dignity instead of spending days to stay alive with federal handouts. It is corrosive to the values that made us a magnet for people less fortunate than Americans.

I hope we are spared more future empty rhetoric posing as academic political insight, but if not, I look forward to exposing its failures.

God bless America.

El Sellers
Fairfield, Texas