"You are a socialist"-email comment from a reader

Call me Ishmael, or better yet, call me a progressive, the label that I prefer. I never understood why so many shrunk from being labeled the "L" word, that is, a liberal. I'm proud to be a disciple of "fightin' Bob" LaFollette and everything he stood for, in fact fought for. Lately, in the true spirit of "only the name's been changed" propaganda, the new pariah is the socialist. Pre-election rhetoric was full of allusions to our president-elect as a socialist.( Is this what you want for our great democracy?). The warriors of Bill O'Reilly et al have been convinced that they alone pay their own way and that the scofflaws of our society have been nothing short of an anchor tied to a noose around the head (if not the dick) of America. It would be very easy to cite hundreds of examples of how these folks are indeed socialists. With my limited time and abilities I'll try to point out just a couple. Do you participate in a health insurance program? Don't confuse this with a health savings account, which is definitely not socialist, except for tax savings incentives. Why do you contribute to a fund that is distributed to others based upon their "needs"? Let them take care of themselves.All the insurance premiums paid over a lifetime will not begin to cover the cost of what you call a "much needed" heart transplant. Pay for it yourself, or get out of our way. The ditto-heads must be fed up with paying for schools that they don't use, airports that the elite overuse, national and state parks that they can't afford to use,