Don’t blame socialism, blame dictators

To the Editor:

Recently a guest columnist spent a couple of issues attacking “socialists,” without shedding much light on what that term might mean. He repeats the idea that socialist governments always fail. Apparently no one has told him about the socialist mayors of Milwaukee, in the first half of the 20th century, who did so much good for that city (without apparently harming the beer industry). 

The point isn’t what label you put on it, it’s what a government is doing for ordinary people. 

We’ve come through many years of fighting left-wing dictatorships — it may be hard to adjust to the fact that in our present world right-wing dictatorships now out-number them. Isn’t it obvious by now that it’s the dictators, not the labels, that are the problem? Labels aside, leaders of any stripe who are working only for themselves are not what free citizens deserve.

Speaking of labels, have you ever wondered why majority-Republican states have for decades been called “red states?” Surely, someone could come up with a good conspiracy theory about that! 

Gerald Anderson, Rhinelander