Right on cue, we have more jingoistic claptrap from John Balentine, who goes on about the imaginary “government takeover” of our so-called freedoms by “Utopian promise peddlers.” It is unlikely that service members enlist and sometimes die for the right to return to their country and “enjoy” private health care that they cannot afford and offers inadequate coverage, or to struggle with college loans the size of many mortgages. It is offensive to lecture readers on hard work and self-reliance when it is the vaunted capitalist system itself that is failing so many and could use a great deal of adjustment. Balentine needs to emerge from the fog of the 1980s and stop using members of our armed services to prop up his nonsense.
Jim Corbin
Portland
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