This responds to the letter, "GOP and aristocracy," on Oct. 16. The author represents the progressive extremism of "take from the producers (call everyone wealthy that you want to take money from) and give to others; society, not the individual, determines a person's outcome." The author believes our governance provides system-level benefits to all, and that Republicans need to be removed from our political system.

Our governance provides system-level opportunity not system- level benefits. Individuals make what they can with this level opportunity provided by the government -- or that is what our founding fathers established. We all want our homeless, hungry and mentally disturbed to be taken care of. Beyond that, individuals should be responsible for their own outcome.

Most individuals and companies (whether supporting either the Democrats or the Republicans) take care to pay no more taxes than is legally required. Both parties have their wealthy corporate handlers -- this is not unique to either political party.

The extremist conclusion of this author that we should remove people from our political system that we don't agree with is a disgusting mentality. Let's remove immaturity, bigotry, dogmatism and extremism from our political system.

Bill Root, Kennewick