Recently I have heard much discussion about fear that the United States may descend into a socialistic type government. Generally in my conversations with folks, I have found that few of them can give an accurate definition of socialism. Socialism is defined as government controlling major means of production and distribution of goods and services. We have a republic governed by the people, but it has many socialistic features which I doubt many citizens would advocate doing away with. Some governmental programs which are actually socialistic include social security, Medicare, the postal service, federal housing administration and SBA loans. I often find it amusing that my conservative business friends frequently rant about us being on the road to socialism while they are filling out their application for a Small Business Administration loan.

To quote a wise old politician, “American democracy is really a poor system of government, it’s just better than every other one in the world.” One of my disagreements with a former movie idol, Republican president was that he once said, “the problem is not with government, it is the government.” I heartily disagree with him. While American government is far from perfect and has warts on it as any other man-made creation, we are blessed with the functions of American government. Just think for a while what we would do if there was no central place to regulate aviation traffic; it would be a nightmare and a scary thing to transfer the skies without government regulation of when and where you can fly. The same is true with radio or television broadcasts. If everyone could build a radio station, only the ones who could afford the most powerful transmitter would be the one you got to hear. Another that people seem to have forgotten is the fact that we have a strong military that protects us from things such as are happening in Ukraine.

It seems grossly hypocritical to me that several conservative governors who regularly condemn the federal government as an evil menace are the first to get on the phone and contact the federal government whenever there is an impending disaster. We should all be glad we live in America for the same reason that thousands of people are willing to endure hardships trying to get here and live.

Count your blessings has a true meaning for me when I think about my American citizenship.