Dear Editor:

In response to the letter headlined “Patriot hypocrisy” in the Nov. 19 edition. Let me state that the writer seems to be confused about socialism, an economic system, and “theocracies,” systems of government. One can have a socialist economic system with, for example, a monarchy, e.g. Great Britain. As I recall from ninth-grade civics, a socialist economic system exists when the means of production are privately owned, but the fruits of labor are seized by the government for distribution.

Communism, another economic system, exists when the government owns both the means of production and the products. In short, economic systems within a given country have little to do with the system of government.

Totalitarian regimes tend to develop communist economic systems, but one could have a dictatorship in conjunction with free enterprise, as we are seeing more and more in mainland China.

All of us “patriots” (as if those who are “progressives” are not) are well aware of creeping socialism since at least the days of FDR. What we oppose is complete takeover of our economic system by a government that has demonstrated a disturbing lack of competence, as evidence by what has happened to the education system, the incredible waste and mismanagement in Social Security, Medicare, etc. There are many of us who still cling to the remnants of the ideals that made this country great, i.e., individual responsibility and individual freedom. There are still vestiges of the free-enterprise economic system being strangled by a new system of government - a kakistocracy.

Julian A. Mack

LaGrange