I feel compelled to respond to the Sound Off letter by D.Bruce Roberts Ph.D. that appeared in the Tribune on April 4th. He wrote in response to my earlier column about the Democrat party becoming the Democrat Socialist party. Dr. Roberts is all in on Democrat Socialism. This is understandable when doing some research on Dr. Roberts’ background. He is a professor emeritus (retired professor) from a Christian Seminary. His expertise is in religious education and development.
Frankly, he is of a mind that those of us who favor capitalism and free enterprise warn about. He was in a position in a college to influence young minds toward the goals of socialism. Those goals are skillfully masked goals similar to those of communism. It is crystal clear that neither works to benefit citizens. I don’t believe Dr. Roberts could name a single country on the globe where socialism or communism have in the long term worked.
Further, given his background, I doubt Dr. Roberts has had any experience or exposure to private enterprise where new ideas and services are created and payrolls have to be met. A significant motivation in private enterprise is the profit motive. He is a creature of academia which is supported financially by taxpayers, grants, and student tuition; not profits.
In what Dr. Roberts wrote, I see claim democracy and socialism go together. What he may not realize is that the United State of America is not a democracy. It is a republic as defined in the US Constitution. God help us if everything is run by pure democratic vote. We elect representatives to our state legislative bodies and the US Senate and House of Representatives. They make the decisions and promulgate law and direction.
He talks about worker-owned cooperatives and publicly owned enterprises. Nothing in our current system prevents these from existing now, but they must compete with private enterprise. He complains about big corporate bureaucracies controlling our society. We do have some level of agreement in that I do not favor unbridled capitalism. Reasonable regulation is required. That is what our legislative bodies are responsible for doing without killing motivation.
He claims corporate executives answer only to themselves and a few wealthy stockholders. I guess he has not yet heard of such as 401(K)’s. Millions of citizens participate in these and other forms of investment across the country. And now under our current system, we have the lowest unemployment ever for African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans. More people are employed in our economy now than ever in history. Times are good.
I did not read in what Dr. Roberts wrote any correction of fact of what I had written. None. The Democrat party is on a spiral downward. They have offered no creative policies or plans. They only engage in destruction politics with endless “investigation”.
Dr. Roberts says we have rule by the wealthy. I wonder who he thinks the smelly Walmart folks and the deplorables are? They are the ones who elected President Donald Trump, a strong capitalist. They are the meat and grit of this country. They are the ones who are ruling this country.