I would like to respond to Dr. Hal Sobel’s letter (March 1, “A better life for all by any name”). I quote Vladimir Lenin, “The goal of socialism is communism.”
Since there are no Scandinavian countries that nationalize their means of production, it is incorrect to refer to Scandinavian countries as “socialist.”
On the other hand, what is being proposed by the likes of Bernie Sanders and his fellow Democratic socialists is identical to South American “socialism.”
As currently in Venezuela, the results of a totalitarian system that attempts to correct economic inequalities by redistribution or other kinds of direct state intervention are economic ruin and dire consequences for the people.
A reading of the following articles offer a different view of European socialism:
Forbes: “European Socialism: Why America Doesn’t Want It,” by Lars Christensen, October 25, 2012 and The Federalist: “Scandinavia Isn’t A Socialist Paradise,” by Kelly McDonald, Aug. 11, 2015.
Like most Americans, I prefer being allied with the liberty, freedom and values that our American patriots and soldiers fought and died for than siding with the demagogues who will lead us to a 1984 Marxist style totalitarianism.
In conclusion, I quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s warnings to the naive youth of America of the horrible realities of socialism, stated in Washington, DC on June 30, 1975:
“In pre-revolutionary Russia… there were attempts on the tsar’s life… During these years, about 17 persons a year were executed… The Cheka (Lenin’s communist secret police)… in 1918 and 1919… executed, without trial, more than a thousand persons a month. At the height of Stalin’s terror in 1937-38… more than 40,000 persons were shot per month. Here are the figures: 17 a year… 1,000 a month, more than 40,000 a month.”
Solzhenitsyn explained how government-run healthcare, (i.e. single payer healthcare) provided a cover for Stalin’s political opponents to be “diagnosed” with psychiatric problems and given compulsory “treatment”:
“It is not detente (a lessening of tension) if we here… can spend our time agreeably while over there people are groaning and dying and in psychiatric hospitals. Doctors are making their evening rounds… injecting people with drugs which destroy their brain… There are tens of thousands of political prisoners in our country… under compulsory psychiatric treatment.”
Walter Jaworski
New Hyde Park
