In the heat of the “political season” we are hearing the term socialism being thrown about like a dirty word because most politicians know many people relate it to communism. It definitely is not. Thirty or so years ago the United States was rated No. 1 in the world for standard of living. No longer ... as we fall between No. 6 and No. 10 depending on whose list you look at. The countries listed ahead of us include Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium (all well known socialist countries). Also ahead of us is our neighbor to the north, Canada, with their socialist medical system (which costs much less than ours but gets better results). Please note these are all democratic countries and not communist.

Ask people from these countries to define socialism, and they generally say it means programs for the common welfare of all their citizens. Sounds a little like Social Security, Medicare, police departments, fire departments, public schools, roads and highways, etc. ... doesn’t it? But our model of socialism is our military which feeds, clothes, schools, trains, treats all medical problems and even pays all its members.  Next time somebody says “socialism” in a derogatory manner, ask them to explain what is bad about it.  

Ronald Wood