THE CLASS EXPERIENCE IS A GREAT ILLUSTRATION OF THE RESULTS OF WEALTH DISTRIBUTION OR AS HEARD IN WASHINGTON LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD. MOSTLY BY NON-PLAYERS WHO HAVE A HABIT OF WRITING THEIR OWN RULES, PAY LEVEL, HEALTHCARE PROGRAM AND LIFETIME RETIREMENT BENEFITS. EVEN IF THEY ONLY SERVE (WORK?)ONE TERM, AS LITTLE AS 2 YEARS. AND WE SENT THEM ALL THERE..
REFER TO JEFFERSONS COMMENT AT THE CLOSE OF ARTICLE.
GOD BLESS AMERICA & GIVE US A HELPING HAND BJB

We already have a capitalist system containing a great deal of socialism. What we don't want to do is to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Extreme socialism can bleed an economy to death; extreme capitalism can result in boom and bust economies. I don't think the extremes are desirable in either case.
Social security is an aspect of socialism. I like getting my social security retirement check each month and I don't want it taken away from me by some dynamic, yet ruthless, capitalist. So, to me, a degree of socialism is a good thing. We currently are in a financial crises in this country brought on by unbridled capitalism. Well, we have had a coalition of
government looking the other way and money sharks looting the cash register. For the most part, the gang of government types that were bought-off, intimidated or suckered into caving-in to big money, are now out of government (I think). It appears that, under the Obama administration, the government tinkering which is being done is working to our good advantage. I believe the government intervention had to be done. What's going on certainly is not very pretty or fun for many folks but to have done nothing certainly would have been catastrophic.
I do think that private interests could stand to have some government competition for awhile--like in health care, eh?
I don't think taking all the wealth and dividing it equally amongst all the people works. It never has before and won't now. But, in this country, we have all experienced sharing a portion of our income for the common good in the form of taxes. Yes, I know, we all have different notions of what the common good is. With the graduated type income tax, the bigger fish have contributed more money than the little fish.
Those who have done well, pay more taxes than those with slimmer pickens. Has it really been such a hardship? I don't think so. Annoying, yes, of course.
I don't know for sure what the repurcussions will be with all the deficit spending. In order to save our selves now, we may have to deal with some knotty problems in the future. Isn't life always like that?
When has it ever been smooth sailing all the time, anyhow? The point is, we don't want to sink the ship.
Democracy may be a leaky vessel, but, by gum, she floats! Happy sailing!

Neighbors,

I was turned off by this when I saw the phrase "President Obama's socialism", and was sorely tempted to get off this mailing list and avoid its advertisers.

Obama is a thoughtful moderate, his liberal streak fed by street-level experience in Chicago seeing what neglect by government really does to people's lives. The example shown here of grade distribution "equality" is thoroughly bogus, and no country in history has operated that way; I've worked with programmers from Russia who were taught well, earning their grades in demanding Soviet academies and universities like students do in good schools here.

Because of collective bargaining agreements in my workplace, I have good health coverage. My neighbor had to rely on benefit dinners at his family's pizza restaurant to pay for his surgery. This inequality is deeply wrong, so I support Obama's plan to extend health coverage through a public plan. I've had friends die young because they had no coverage at all.

Insurance companies' lying commercials, and their thugs who disrupt town hall meetings, are disgusting. Downstate recently, I watched Canadian television news commentators baffled at protesters against health coverage "that Canadians have taken for granted for decades". Our nation must no longer lag so far behind Canada, Europe and Japan in health care. To neglect sick folks (and have health care tied to employment--we know how permanent that is) drags our whole economy down.

It seems like every time America's tried something "socialist"?the post office, public schools, the GI Bill, Veterans' Hospitals, the interstate highway system & Mackinac bridge?it's been a success.

Now look around Michigan, for God's sake, if you want to see the results of under-regulated capitalism under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II: the great crime of the deindustrialization of the United States, and the subsequent end of the good manufacturing jobs that were the base our state's, and so much of our nation's, prosperity. Can anyone in Michigan (who's not a top GM exec selling plenty cars in China) seriously keep defending that fraudulent "free market"???

So this former Gerald Ford Republican asks all citizens and especially all legislators to ignore the noisy health profiteers. And for the GOP side of the aisle to find some Gerald Ford decency in their hearts to support the public option in the President's very necessary health care legislation.

Thanks,

--Mike M.