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How appealing Bernie Sanders must be to someone who doesn’t understand economics.

Everything will be free! Well, it won’t really be free, but he’ll stick it to millionaires and billionaires by raising their taxes to pay for it.

There’s just one problem: even they don’t have enough money to pay for everything Bernie promises them.

So just how expensive would a Sanders presidency be? The estimates vary, but none paint his fiscal policies in a good light. The Wall Street Journal estimated that a Sanders presidency would require the federal government to spend an additional $18 trillion over the next ten years on top of the excessive amount we currently spend.

Health analyst Avik Roy calculated that Bernie’s health plan alone would cost $28 trillion – and that’s just one program.

The truth is, even to make a dent in the fiscal hole his policies will create, Bernie is going to have to raise taxes on everyone. The Tax Foundation’s analysis of the 13.6 trillion in tax increases Bernie has proposed so far has found that it would cost the economy six million jobs.

Bernie is going to stick it to the rich, but he won’t be sparing the rest of us.

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1) Politicians, like Bernie, and bureaucrats who think they can spend other peoples money better than the people who earned the money can.

Bernie is the latest in a long line of liberals who believe that the people lack the ability to decide for themselves how they are to live. People like Bernie believe that the enlightened few, such as him, have a responsibility to save the people from themselves.

2) People who think that politicians and bureaucrats can spend the people’s money better than the people can.

There are probably not too many people who have money and who honestly think that the government will better know how to spend their money. If there were you’d see a lot more rich folks voluntarily donating money to the government.

3) People who think that politicians and bureaucrats will take money from other people and give it to them.

It’s fairly easy to understand how people who don’t work or who don’t pay taxes would be enthused about a socialist who promises them even more “free” stuff than they’re already getting since in their minds there is no downside for them.

4) People who believe in magic or that companies print money.

Essentially these people believe that there is no end to “other people’s money”. They haven’t learned the lesson of Greece mainly because the MSM and our educational system fail to point out the connection.

Margret Thatcher said: The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

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The fundamental political conflict in America today is, as it has been for a century, individualism vs. collectivism. Does the individual’s life belong to him—or does it belong to the group, the community, society, or the state? With government expanding ever more rapidly—seizing and spending more and more of our money on “entitlement” programs and corporate bailouts, and intruding on our businesses and lives in increasingly onerous ways—the need for clarity on this issue has never been greater. Let us begin by defining the terms at hand.

Individualism is the idea that the individual’s life belongs to him and that he has an inalienable right to live it as he sees fit, to act on his own judgment, to keep and use the product of his effort, and to pursue the values of his choosing. It’s the idea that the individual is sovereign, an end in himself, and the fundamental unit of moral concern. This is the ideal that the American Founders set forth and sought to establish when they drafted the Declaration and the Constitution and created a country in which the individual’s rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness were to be recognized and protected.

Collectivism is the idea that the individual’s life belongs not to him but to the group or society of which he is merely a part, that he has no rights, and that he must sacrifice his values and goals for the group’s “greater good.” According to collectivism, the group or society is the basic unit of moral concern, and the individual is of value only insofar as he serves the group. As one advocate of this idea puts it: “Man has no rights except those which society permits him to enjoy. From the day of his birth until the day of his death society allows him to enjoy certain so-called rights and deprives him of others; not . . . because society desires especially to favor or oppress the individual, but because its own preservation, welfare, and happiness are the prime considerations.”1

Individualism or collectivism—which of these ideas is correct? Which has the facts [though that’s not a word I would use here] on its side?

Individualism does, and we can see this at every level of philosophic inquiry: from metaphysics, the branch of philosophy concerned with the fundamental nature of reality; to epistemology, the branch concerned with the nature and means of knowledge; to ethics, the branch concerned with the nature of value and proper human action; to politics, the branch concerned with a proper social system.

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ORIGINAL: blnymph

no need for four types - you have obviously not the slightest clue about any one "socialist"

"americanthinker" ... contradictio in adjecto

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

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ORIGINAL: blnymph

no need for four types - you have obviously not the slightest clue about any one "socialist"

"americanthinker" ... contradictio in adjecto

another in a long line of liberals whose reason for being on the forum seems to be primarily to insult those with whom you disagree, as opposed to accepting differences, seeking understanding or critiquing positions analytically.

happy about that? feel better about yourself now?

while im here, great piece about the political left and right:

https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2012/06/political-left-and-right-properly-defined/

sorry this is so big...

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How appealing Bernie Sanders must be to someone who doesn’t understand economics.

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Margret Thatcher said: The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

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ORIGINAL: bounty44

have posted this before:

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The fundamental political conflict in America today is, as it has been for a century, individualism vs. collectivism. Does the individual’s life belong to him—or does it belong to the group, the community, society, or the state? With government expanding ever more rapidly—seizing and spending more and more of our money on “entitlement” programs and corporate bailouts, and intruding on our businesses and lives in increasingly onerous ways—the need for clarity on this issue has never been greater. Let us begin by defining the terms at hand.

Individualism is the idea that the individual’s life belongs to him and that he has an inalienable right to live it as he sees fit, to act on his own judgment, to keep and use the product of his effort, and to pursue the values of his choosing. It’s the idea that the individual is sovereign, an end in himself, and the fundamental unit of moral concern. This is the ideal that the American Founders set forth and sought to establish when they drafted the Declaration and the Constitution and created a country in which the individual’s rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness were to be recognized and protected.

Collectivism is the idea that the individual’s life belongs not to him but to the group or society of which he is merely a part, that he has no rights, and that he must sacrifice his values and goals for the group’s “greater good.” According to collectivism, the group or society is the basic unit of moral concern, and the individual is of value only insofar as he serves the group. As one advocate of this idea puts it: “Man has no rights except those which society permits him to enjoy. From the day of his birth until the day of his death society allows him to enjoy certain so-called rights and deprives him of others; not . . . because society desires especially to favor or oppress the individual, but because its own preservation, welfare, and happiness are the prime considerations.”1

Individualism or collectivism—which of these ideas is correct? Which has the facts [though that’s not a word I would use here] on its side?

Individualism does, and we can see this at every level of philosophic inquiry: from metaphysics, the branch of philosophy concerned with the fundamental nature of reality; to epistemology, the branch concerned with the nature and means of knowledge; to ethics, the branch concerned with the nature of value and proper human action; to politics, the branch concerned with a proper social system.

This entire statement is based on the logical fallacy of "False Choice", that is first, collectivism and individualism are the only two options and second, that they are mutually exclusive and cannot exist together. Fact is that we are surrounded by both because society functions best in that manner and we've made those choices. Any form of nationalism can be considered a form of collectivism, as can public roads, public education and public parks. Even your local homeowner's association is a form of collectivism. The definitions provided in the above statement represent only the extremes of the collectivism position and is just another logical fallacy (Argument Ad Populum).

(in reply to bounty44)

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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How appealing Bernie Sanders must be to someone who doesn’t understand economics.

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Margret Thatcher said: The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

Margaret Thatcher's understanding of economics was always feeble. Her degree was in Chemistry and she learned about economics little after that. And she was wrong in that quote: 'The problem with capitalism is that you eventually run out of other people's wealth' is much more accurate.

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ORIGINAL: MrRodgers

Not with this socialism shit again. The guy wants to take on the still unregulated greed on wall street, a much more balanced tax code, strengthen Soc. sec. and a few other public service ideas on the fringe and the right would have you think he's right out of the Gotha Program.

Seems the 40 year capitalist propaganda machine surely has been very successful.