Socialism

Once again, socialism has put a silver fork in itself. Standard & Poor's has downgraded France's AAA credit rating, giving the country the side-eye on its claims to have its debt under control. This means the country will now have to pay it all back at an even higher interest rate. Who are we kidding? No one's paying back any debts right now. You need money to do that. When was the last time France had any extra cash lying around? It's like raising the interest rate on the credit card of an addict who's pumping capital into his veins faster than any German, Chinese or Russian can slip him a tenner.

Doesn't anyone in this country know the difference between communism and socialism? Russia had communism, or whatever it is called now, and Sweden has socialism. I have been to both places and they are not the same by any means. Sweden has its share of CEOs who are millionaires (Ikea, Volvo), and the rest of the population lives quite well. (They have a good national health care program, too.) Russia has millionaires, too, but the majority of the people struggle to make a decent living.

I feel sorry for the neighbor who has to run his snow blower at night to avoid the freeloaders ("How about sharing that snow blower," Feb. 11). Dan Rodricks seems to have fallen victim to socialism, thinking that his neighbor has an obligation to share his snow blower. The neighbor bought it, stored it, maintained it and has the right to use it. If Dan wants to offer half the cost of the snow blower to the neighbor, he will own 50 percent of a capitalistic venture and have the privileges thereof.

Morgan Lane Arnold, an emotionally frail 14-year-old freshman, navigated the hallways of her Howard County high school each day filled with anxiety, unable because of a learning disorder to decipher the social cues, jokes and emotions of her peers. Her preferred environment, often accented by a Japanese anime soundtrack streaming through snug earplugs, featured a mix of fairies, mermaids and vampires, according to her mother. They were the protagonists of a digital realm where she said she was "practicing making friends" through role-playing games and social media.

Your phrase "irate tea party protesters regard federal civilian employees as enemies of the people" is just unbelievable ("Help for the jobless?" Feb. 20). Is this a phrase of the day from Media Matters or Moveon.org? It is so spurious that I find it hard to believe a sane person would put it in anything sent out for a million people to read. I stopped watching MSNBC due to their continuous attacks on people rather than ideas, and you are more and more doing the same thing. The U.S. cannot continuously borrow 40 cents on every dollar it spends and last very much longer (see Greece)

Doesn't anyone in this country know the difference between communism and socialism? Russia had communism, or whatever it is called now, and Sweden has socialism. I have been to both places and they are not the same by any means. Sweden has its share of CEOs who are millionaires (Ikea, Volvo), and the rest of the population lives quite well. (They have a good national health care program, too.) Russia has millionaires, too, but the majority of the people struggle to make a decent living.

It's often hard to imagine that literate folks living in the same community seeing, hearing and reading the same things can have such disparate views. I thought Tom Schaller's objective and factually based article on socialism was excellent and informative ("A far cry indeed from 'socialism,'" May 18). But here comes reader Julius G. Angelucci who ignores the facts recited in Mr. Schaller's article and rants about "the government taking over major industries, such as the auto and health care industry" ("We aren't socialist — yet," Readers respond, May 20)

A key statistic was not pursued in Tom Schaller's thought provoking essay of 18 May concerning whether we are (or should be) sliding toward socialism. He states that our economy comprises 25 percent of the worlds output. But we only make up 4 percent of the population. Apparently, something about our system works well. The idea of redistribution of wealth has been debated, and attempts to put it into practice have been a dominant theme over the last two centuries. It is hard to implement the theory because it runs counter to the laws of nature — some people are simply more gifted and productive than others, and people have a natural instinct to guard what is theirs.

Thomas F. Schaller argues in his column that the wealth disparity between rich and poor is evidence that socialism is not taking hold in this country ("Socialism: the problem that just isn't there," Oct. 3). What he ignores is that highly planned and regulated economies are the very kind that allow cronyism and collusion between government and industry to flourish, enriching the few at the expense of the many. History teaches us that socialism is never true to its stated objectives.

WHEN THE COMMUNISTS gained control in Eastern Europe, the transition from capitalism to socialism was technically easy. The new parasitic system simply latched onto existing capital and began to feed.Since the Berlin Wall came down, the ravages of socialism have become clear to even the most casual observer: antiquated factories, crumbling roads and bridges, fouled environments and impoverished workers. It is ironic that socialism, which was violently and ruthlessly imposed in the name of workers, has left the Eastern European proletariat ill-trained, unmotivated, incapable of making ends meet and disgruntled.

The Social Security Disability Insurance system is supposed to provide a financial safety net for workers and their families in the event that a serious medical impairment prevents them from working ("Judges sue Social Security over 'quotas' on disability decisions" April 29). But it's really a parachute that often fails to open in time, sending the individual into a financial free fall with years of uncertainty over whether or not they are going to hit the ground - and it only opens for about a third of applicants.

It should've been the shot heard around the world. Chances are, you didn't hear it. An ominous sort of history was made last week near Austin, Texas, but it seems to have largely escaped notice. There was some media coverage, yes, but less than, say, Lindsay Lohan's latest stint in rehab, certainly less than you'd think for something whose ramifications will likely shadow us for years. On May 2, you see, a group called Defense Distributed, led by law student and self-described anarchist Cody Wilson, accomplished what was apparently the first successful firing of a gun "printed" entirely by a 3-D printer.

The mourners followed the coffin of 15-year-old Grace McComas out of the church and into the morning sunlight of a beautiful Easter season. Christine McComas carried her child's stuffed toy in the crook of her arm. Grief made her look almost wistful. As Grace's parents and her three sisters left the crowded St. Michael's Catholic Church in Mount Airy a year ago, they weren't thinking that their journey of grief would take them to Annapolis. But the determination of that grief-stricken mother to tell her daughter's story - powered by a Ravens player, Maryland's first lady and a state legislator - resulted in "Grace's Law," which Gov. Martin O'Malley is scheduled to sign Thursday.

Administrative law judges who evaluate disability claims for the Social Security Administration want a federal court to ease a workload that they say makes errors more likely - the latest in a series of challenges confronting the Woodlawn-based agency. In a federal lawsuit filed this month, 1,400 judges said the agency's expectation that they decide as many as 700 claims per year is causing them to rush evaluations and possibly approve claims that should be denied, at a potential cost of millions of taxpayer dollars.

Susan Reimer 's recent column on Social Security Dilemma completely missed the mark ("Don't blame boomers for Social Security dilemma," April 22). Neither Baby Boomers nor the lack of new workers has anything to do with the current Social Security dilemma. The problem lies with Congress and the politicians in Washington. Social Security was originally set up in the 1930s as a "pay as you go" retirement system. Money was collected from workers and supposedly invested and saved for their retirement.

An emergency drill at the Woodlawn-based Social Security Administration is likely to cause traffic delays Friday near Security Boulevard and Woodlawn Drive. Most employees from the Security West building will be evacuated from the facilities during the drill. The public is encouraged to take a different route to avoid delays. The drill will take place in the afternoon, but Social Security declined to announce a specific time. The exercise is required in accordance with federal, state and local requirements to prepare employees for any future threats they may encounter.

Your liberties and rights are being eroded by the state and the Obama Administration. We are so complacent and ignorant to the news that sits right in front of us. Many of the European Union states are literally burning as we speak because the entitlement mentality has clouded everyone's views of what the government should be and what it should provide. Save for your own retirement (like you should), pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and live like a proud American. We have the health-care law that was passed in the dark of night (that supporters didn't have time to read)

The word "socialism" has been bandied around by all sorts of critics of the current government. Whether emanating from the lips of elite politicians or grass-roots activists, the word stirs passions, even outrage. I'm not certain how those worried about American "socialism" define the term, but it's a good guess they refer to some if not all of the following concerns: that the U.S. government is too big and becoming bigger; that the government increasingly engages in confiscatory taxation and redistributive spending; and that socialism is in general inimical to the American ideals of hard work and initiative as the keys to success.

The talk in Washington and among opinion leaders around the country's budget issues today centers on "balance" and "responsibility. " Many conservatives declare that these terms mean that there should be no new revenue, only spending cuts to programs such as Social Security and Medicare. They also propose to reduc cost of living adjustments for all Social Security recipients, a group of Americans who have seen traditional pensions eliminated and savings devastated by the Great Recession - and who rely more and more on our Social Security system, into which they paid during their entire working lives.

We baby boomers get blamed for just about every economic hiccup, because there are so many of us. And our children are particularly furious because they believe the crisis in Social Security, which may affect their ability to retire, can be laid at our feet like kindling for a burning at the stake. They are convinced we boomers, with our outsized appetites and sense of entitlement, are going to consume everything on our way to the cemetery, right down to the amount of ground we leave for those who die after us. But data from the Social Security Administration itself, provided by chief actuary Stephen Goss, demonstrates that boomers are not the pig-through-the-python that we have been described as being.