In response to Karen Clay’s Aug. 7 letter, “Is socialism such a terrible thing?” I can only answer an emphatic, “Yes, it is.”
Socialism, progressivism, communism and monarchism all share a common bond in that they are top-down forms of governing in which change — if any —comes from a goveming elite.
This is a critical difference from our system.
We are governed by a free enterprise democracy in which change flows spontaneously from the bottom up from “We the People.”
Our system results in a variety of changes daily, as we make personal decisions free from state control.
The statists, believers in centralized authority, hate that with a vengeance because they lose the one thing they desire more than any other — control.
You encounter government control in your life daily, like traffic rules. But that control originated from your choice because laws and regulations are promoted from the bottom up rather than imposed upon us by a top-down, statist government.
Indeed, as Ms. Clay states, our govemment can be self-serving.
However that is a problem common to all governments.
In fact that is the basic problem of any government regardless of form.
But if you think government based on a free enterprise democratic model, such as ours, in which we the people are the source of change can be self-serving, then just try socialism (or any other form of statism), in which change comes from the governing elite.
Change is the magic word. If we the people are not the source of change, then the governing elite are — and we are doomed to serfdom.
If we vote statists into office, and if our elected representatives relinquish their duty and responsibility to take command of all legislation, then we will lose our right to make change in our lives.
In other words, we relinquish our freedom.
And we appear to have done that.
If you think not, contemplate this: We have just witnessed several pieces of legislation imposing major change on us from the top down.
These very important legislations were rushed through by the statists before we, or even our elected representatives, knew their content.
The statists have treated us all like we were mushrooms — kept us in the dark and fed us manure.
The shock is that our representatives were complicit, or mute.
Thankfully, the last statist effort to force through a purported health reform hill in the has stalled for now, but only because our elected representatives have realized there is massive public alarm about how they are (or are not) conducting themselves.
This time we can see the content of that legislation much to the dismay of its perpetrators.
The horror of that legislation is now on the Internet.
Read it — at least the first few hundred pages, or as much as you can stomach.
You’ll see the results of top-down change in full bloom.
It’s your life and that of your heirs that hangs in the balance. Our founding fathers faced this same kind of threat.
When they used the term “We the People,” they were speaking of our freedom to make our own choices, our own changes.
Don’t let the statists take your freedom away in the name of their change.
ARTHUR DROUGHTON
Port Orchard
