Coming around and Socialism Gets a Second Life #WSJ Op-Ed
Posted By RichC on January 30, 2016
I had an interesting text exchange with my son Taylor who is smack dab in the middle of finding his political “sense.” Thankfully he is far more rational, a questioner, independent thinker and a lover of history to be snookered into “herding” blindly with the crowd who are “Feeling the Bern.”
He has been closely watching the Bernie Sanders social network streams and picking apart the 140 character tweets that target younger voters — the ones who are frustrated with the injustice our capitalist society deals them, they perceive. Unfortunately it is another the age old “divide the country” practice and attempt of of using the power of government to take from one group to give to another … in socialism’s case, no real prosperity is created. Our exchange this morning was centered around a Bernie Sanders tweet questioning student loan interest being higher than home mortgage interest. Thankfully my thoughtful son was quick to recognized that at least a home has equity for the lender if the borrower can’t pay … a student with debt and no job has zilch. Even worse, the student loans are handed out without much criteria as to career prospects or academic perfomance.
It is a good feeling to know my political minded son can rationally see though promises made by advocates of socialism. I see hope for the next generation.
In a similar vein, the WSJ had a great op-ed this morning by Peggy Noonan. Here’s a health care snippet from a Sanders rally …
“Health care is a right of all people, not a privilege.” He asks if any in the audience have high-insurance deductibles. They start to call out: “$4,000,” “5,000,” “6,000!” Someone yells: “Nothing’s covered!”
No one mentions ObamaCare, but it seems clear it hasn’t worked here.
Mr. Sanders says people don’t go to the doctor when they’re sick because of the deductibles. “Same with mental-health care!” a woman calls out. “Mental-health care must be considered part of health care,” he responds, to applause. He is for “a Medicare-for-all, single-payer system.”
How to pay for it all? “Impose a tax on Wall Street speculation,” he says, briefly. He does not elaborate and is not pressed to.
Read the rest: Socialism Gets a Second Life
Comments