To the editor:

I had to respond to Mr. Dyment’s letter, “Get government out of the way.”

Silence is the voice of complicity, so a few corrections may be in order.

First, I take umbrage at Mr. Dyment referring to me as a socialist as if that’s a bad thing.

I do, however, have what I would call certain empathy to the plight of disenfranchised humans, people who have a little less to say in America today because they are not wealthy, as if wealth is the only measure of worthiness.

I would guess that the writer has gained his knowledge of the Constitution from the likes of Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin, not who I would refer to as the best and brightest scholars on the subject of the Constitution, or any subject, for that matter.

In the preamble of this document it mentions “defence” (the common spelling at the time it was written) and it is the only word not capitalized. Union, Justice, Tranquility, Welfare, Liberty and Prosperity are all capitalized. Mr. Dyment refers to defense as “one of the few responsibilities the federal government has,” yet fails to mention that the Constitution is a much broader document than just to provide for the military.

The simplistic lesson on why “capitalism is great” was helpful, but what Mr. Dyment fails to mention is that capitalism is an economic system, whereas the Constitution is a document describing how human beings attempted to “form a more perfect Union.” (See above-mentioned capitalized words from the preamble of the Constitution.)

Aside from earnest attempts by corporations in America today, the last time a country instigated a purely capitalistic system was in Italy under the guidance of Benito Mussolini. Italy was run by Corporatists and, I assume, most of us may recall how that business experiment worked out.

What an impoverished world we create when we accept that “it is all about competition and the consumer,” and forget that we are human beings first, and not just consumers of cheaper and cheaper stuff to buy.

Capitalists move more and more jobs to other countries because labor is too high in America, and this cuts into stock dividends/CEO bonuses. More and more people lose their jobs because the jobs have moved overseas, so fewer and fewer people can buy the stuff that we are supposed to consume, so prices will have to go up because the jobless aren’t buying anything, so taxes for military spending will have to go up to protect and defend this miracle of capitalism.

I hope that was simple enough for you.

Dan Freeman

Clinton