Letter to the editor: We the people ... surrender?

When “democratic socialism” comes, we’ll deserve forfeiting America’s signature quality. Not just liberty itself, but our understanding that effort, pride, motivation, failure and success are as essential to the joy of freedom as the outcome.

With socialism, effort is secondary. Obscenely taxed workers fund communal support and $93 trillion Green New Deals while politicians and lobbyists prosper.

Scandinavian nations aren’t socialist. The Green New Deal absolutely is. It gives government control of industries like energy, transportation and health care. Joe Biden vows to eliminate fracking jobs. The GND’s architect advises him.

Rebrand all you want, socialism remains failed Marxist policy known only for oppression and death. It’s unfiltered dependence on government, a wicked goal for Democrats to have for our children’s future. Have World War-era descendants honestly forgotten?

America was crafted to give all citizens their best shot at independent lives as free from government control as possible. It’s the greatest application of liberty ever conceived by imperfect humans, ultimately ending entrenched slavery. Its exhilarating essence is the chance to succeed solely on personal effort, not bloodline. That’s the dream. Socialism crushes it, seeking cookie-cutter lives for workers, and wealth and power only for ruling elites.

When it comes, we’ll deserve it.

Oh, sure, we’re outrageously superior to the abrasive yet effective president soon expelled over personality warts. Virtue signaling alone proves our infinite (self-) worth. We’re faultless. We “cancel” inferiors. And, yet, for all our magnificence, it’s the insufferable boor who fights like a wolverine for America. Who knows liberty requires effort. And that only fools trade it for chains.

Robert Szypulski

Penn Township, Westmoreland County