I would like to commend the News and Sentinel for publishing the article entitled "Following the steps to socialism," by the eminent professor Walter Williams. His column appeared in the Aug. 12 edition of the paper.
In his article, Williams pointed out communists in the USSR were responsible for the deaths of 62 million of their own people. In China, according to Williams, communists murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese. And in Germany the Nazis, also known as the National Socialist German Workers Party were responsible for the deaths of more than 20 million people.
According to Williams, "one does not have to be in favor of death camps to be a tyrant. The only requirement is that one believe in the primacy of the state over individual rights. The unspeakable horrors of Nazism didn't happen overnight. They were the evolution of ideas leading to consolidation of power in central government in the quest for "social justice." Today's Americans are similarly accepting the massive consolidation of power in Washington."
As I read many of the comments in the letters column, and engage in conversations, it appears there are folks who view Nazism, socialism and communism as simply alternative, and acceptable forms of government.
If Williams is correct in his numbers, the murder of over 150 million people is certainly cause for all Americans to be alert to the fact that these "isms" pose as much danger to the people of America as they did to the people of all those other nations.
Jerrold V. Murphy
Vienna
