Letter to the Editor: Stewart B. Epstein

I am a 72-year-old man who already has one foot in the grave, but I am really worried about what the future will be like in our society.

Since 1980, I’ve watched the growth of a cold-hearted “Survival-of-the-Fittest” Social Darwinist mentality among many conservative-Republicans in the conservative news media, on conservative talk-shows, in conservative “think-tanks” and “policy institutes,” and especially in the U.S. Congress.

More and more of these folks want to abolish every single federal government social program that helps the middle-classes and lower classes. I don’t think that most Americans are aware of this. These people are now much more conservative than are our Republican voters.

What also scares the dickens out of me is the growth of an over-the-top extreme and hyper individualism and libertarianism in which so many of us believe that we have no responsibilities to each other, and we are only a concern with “me-me-me” and what I want to do. And we smugly and defiantly call this selfish and self-absorbed narcissism “personal choice.”

Sincerely,
Stewart B. Epstein, Rochester, New York