No, socialism to me sort of sounds like Western European countries, like France and England, where they have free health care, free professional childcare (not paid baby-sitters from Hell), and free college. My niece in France even got an extension on her paid maternity leave due to medical problems.
That’s what socialism is to me.
It is communism where you only have one dept store, Goom, and only one fabric with which to make dresses and shirts – polka-dot – and endless gulag archipelagoes. Now we really wouldn’t want that.
The problem is that “free” isn’t actually free. All of it comes at another’s expense.
One figure has Bernie’s “free college” program adding $18 trillion to the national debt. Sorry, but just because my fellow millenials want something does not make it a human right. Those calling for “free” college are demanding an $80 Grand gift from the taxpayer, and the don’t even have the courtesy to say “please”.
Never mind the fact that a college degree does not automatically guarantee you a job. Bernie’s plan would end with a flooded market of grads with degrees in art, sociology, literature, underwater basket weaving, and everything else employers don’t want.
And take it from a recent college grad: most 18-year-Olds don’t go to 4-year, Division I universities to get an education. They go to get away from their parents and sow their wild oats, or because their college has a good sports team they can brag about.
I went to community college and then took distance classes while living at home and working. Many in my generation see that as below their dignity.
I don’t oppose Bernie on moral grounds as much as I do practical ones. He doesn’t understand:
- Why banks charge higher interest rates for college loans than for houses and cars (because the latter two are backed by collateral);
- Why banks charge you $5 to use an ATM (that’s only at banks that aren’t yours)
He also believes in Marx’s labor theory of value: that the amount of time and capital spent on an item determines its worth. So according to Bernie, a laptop made by a recluse in his basement is worth more than one made by teams of professionals, not even considering its functionality or supply and demand.
Finally, it’s the mark of the truly gullible when someone says he won’t support the military-industrial complex. He voted to fund the Iraq War and the NSA, and said he would continue Obama’s drone strikes.
Did we learn nothing from all that hopey-changey baloney spouted by Obama in 2008?
