I do not want to appear to be lecturing people, but I feel the need to educate the average American on the difference between socialism and communism.
One does not lead to the other. They are diametrically opposed.
My father was an officer in the English Air Force, RAF. He was a devout Christian and a socialist.
During WWII, he was assigned to Russia for a year with his crew, to teach the Russian pilots and mechanics how to fly and service the planes that England and America had supplied to Russia to fight the Germans.
He came home with a deep hatred for communism. He saw a little girl that he had come to know and love, die of a ruptured appendix. Because she had been small and sickly from birth, she was considered of no use. She received no food rations or medical treatment.
Old people did not receive food rations either, they subsisted on what they could grow or what family friends supplied.
When a plane was in jeopardy it had to be saved at all costs, even if it meant the death of the pilot and crew.
As a Russian officer told my father quite simply, we have plenty of men, but very few planes.
In communism the survival of the community is all important. Anyone of no use to the community gets nothing from it. No food, no medical treatment, nothing.
In socialism, the individual is all important. Each person has the right to equal treatment. The person who needs the most help gets it. The people who have the most, are expected to give the most. My father believed that communism was of the Devil, but the socialism, done right, was as close to the teachings of Christ as man could get.
I agree with my father.
Betty Chirco
Lakeport
