To the editor:

In the Oct.24 letter under the heading “Love of America” the writer says we must choose between socialism and capitalism. I’d like to suggest that we can have some of both. The countries of Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland) manage to have comprehensive social safety nets( universal medical care, free or inexpensive college, child day care, and much else ) while maintaining flourishing capitalistic economies. By some measurements, they are the happiest societies on the planet

The writer suggests that we are taxed for healthcare for able bodied adults who choose not to work”. Many of those are not able bodied or they do work as mothers.

The letter goes on to raise fears that prisons would be abolished, including, I suppose, the burgeoning institutions of the private prison industry. America has the largest number of incarcerated people of any nation, including China. The Chinese imprison people for their Uighur separatism. We use prisons for racial control.

The writer charges that teachers unions are interested in political power . Of course they are, because their jobs are under political control on the national level, state a local level.

After some ill informed and biased remarks about political violence and protest in France, the writer asks if we love America more than we hate Trump? What should we say?

Wilfred Joseph Bisson,

Lawrence