The Ronald Reagan quote that Andy Caldwell (“Why I’m running for Congress,” Nov. 28) led off with—” … one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free,”—was spot on. Reagan first gave this speech in 1961, in his fight against the establishment of Medicare, because he knew that it would enslave tens of millions of senior citizens to free health care for the rest of their lives.
His vision was that the elderly would have the freedom to pay out-of-pocket to private, for-profit health insurance companies, and the freedom to die if they could not! Medicare, that socialist program, has for almost 60 years shackled our septuagenarian, octogenarian, and nonagenarian fellow citizens. They need to be unchained and stand on their own freedom-loving feet. As Andy wrote, “Socialism strips away freedom and dignity.”
I’m sure that most of us, as I do, have the same sense of imprisonment and utter shame when we drive on the socialist (public) roads, see children walking into socialist (public) schools or see fires being extinguished by the socialist (public) fire department. Save us, Andy!
Michael J. Costello
San Luis Obispo
This article appears in Dec 5-15, 2019.
Do you want The US to become another Venezuela? Socialism always fails! (And if it doesn’t fail quick enough, we can train right wing death squads to hasten the process.)
Michael Costellos’ letter is very effectively amusing, thank you for communicating your viewpoint in such a lighthearted style. We all need to remember that Americas’ version of socialism is just helping each other out, working together to solve common problems. None of us are able to do everything on our own, ie deliver our own mail, perform our own heart surgeries, grow all our own food, make our own electricity, etc etc. Cooperation is the way we get things done efficiently, and we’re all better off because of it. Let’s have constructive talks about how to cooperate better, and improve our lifestyles together.