Is Bernie Really That Radical?

Bernie Sanders, a proud democratic socialist. Proponent of the kind of cradle to grave socialism popular in Europe. Bernie wants medicare for all, free college for all, housing for all, high taxes, radical environmentalism, more regulation, all in the belief that government can make us all happy, healthy, wealthy and wise. His platform is polarizing to be sure. However, those who oppose him do so from weakness, eventually reduced to complaining about the cost of all such things. Why? Because they have already conceded the premise Bernie's platform is based on.

Bernie socialism is simply the logical conclusion of our national mindset, a natural extension of our current socialist trend. Few of us question the moral validity of social security, most accept the government's role in providing health care for the poor and elderly, and when we send our kids to college they all get government grants and subsidized loans. We must realize that the criteria for participation in what is sometimes called “Boomer Socialism” and all these other programs are completely arbitrary. What makes 65 the magic number to live completely at government expense? If we assume that some can live at the expense of others just because they have reached a certain age what real argument can you make against a universal basic income? The income requirements for medicaid are arbitrary. Once you've accepted the premise that you can be forced to pay for the medical expenses of another, what argument can be made against paying for the expenses of everyone? If we are all responsible for educating the children of others, what argument can be made against continuing to pay for that education up to any level?

“Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” Frederic Bastiat

Once you have embraced the idea that it is acceptable for one man to live at the expense of another, that the government can extort money from one to give to another for any reason, then the argument devolves into into questions of how much and to whom. Cost, when a nation can print or borrow money with no apparent limit, no longer seems a restrictive factor. Citizens seek to become part of the groups receiving the largess and conflict and resentment are the result. Then the only fair thing to do is to give everything to everyone.....and poverty and tyranny are the inevitable result.

It is time to stop trying to tweak or reform an immoral system. But that means we need to stop demanding provision from the government. The real problem with the country's slide into socialism looks back at us in the mirror. We need to stop living at the expense of our neighbor, we need to take responsibility for ourselves and our lives. Until we do, as long as the argument is over how much and to whom, liberty will continue to whither away until it is only a distant memory.

“To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it” Thomas Jefferson