George Pyle's "Two right wings in American politics" (Opinion, Oct. 21) was long past due. He got it smack-on in calling out the dittoheads for ignorantly calling President Barack Obama a socialist.
As Pyle wrote: "Obamacare, roundly and falsely decried as a 'government takeover of health care,' has not nationalized a single hospital or put a single doctor on the government payroll."
If Obama were a socialist, he would have done or attempted these things:
• He would stand with labor unions, public and private.
• He would have health care be independent of Wall Street profit demands.
• He would have renegotiated the North American Free Trade Act (a campaign promise) and refused to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
• He would end the Social Security tax cap on incomes above $110,100.
• He would advocate reinstatement of the 1933 Glass–Steagall banking act.
• He would reverse outsourcing military combat to private mercenaries.
Nothing Obama has done is remotely socialist. Those accusing him of such should read literature by real socialists, instead of blindly repeating thought-stopping nonsense.
C. Paul Ames
Eureka