Tag Archive for: Bernie Sanders

‘Feelin’ the Bern’ Hillary Blames Vermont for New York Crime

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Hillary Clinton apparently wants to make sure that no matter how her current campaign fares, she will at least retain her title as the least trusted person in American politics. In campaign-panic mode on Monday, having lost the last five state caucuses to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton made another statement to be added to her ever-lengthening list of lies and misrepresentations.

The New York Post reports that Clinton falsely attacked Sanders by implication, telling a group of Democrats, “It’s going to be coming out in the very near future that many of the catastrophes that have taken human lives in the state of New York have been the product of guns coming over the border from Vermont.”  The implication, of course, is that Vermont’s lack of restrictive gun laws – as in New York – is to blame for New York’s crime woes.

Clinton must really be “feelin’ the Bern,” because her statement is preposterous, for at least three reasons.  First, ATF firearm tracing data show that crime guns don’t come from Vermont. In 2014, the most recent year for which data are available, only 0.7 percent of guns recovered by police in New York had first been sold at retail in Vermont.

Second, the average time between a firearm’s original retail sale, and its recovery by police in New York, is 15 years. For all Clinton knows, the exceedingly small number of guns from Vermont made their way to New York legally. A person may have moved from Vermont to New York and subsequently sold a firearm to a firearm dealer in the state, for example.

Third, Clinton’s attack upon Sanders isn’t even rational. Vermont’s gun control laws are established by its state legislature and governor. Sanders, a U.S. senator, serves in Congress. And Clinton and Sanders are running for president of the United States. It shows how desperate Clinton is, when she thinks she can beat Sanders on the basis of issues that have no relationship to the presidency.

Vermont’s governor, who has a role in determining his state’s laws, is reportedly a Clinton supporter. But maybe less so now, after what Clinton said. Speaking as diplomatically as possible, Gov. Peter Shumlin said, “things are sometimes said by all the candidates that sometimes aren’t entirely accurate. . . . I think you’d have a hard time convincing Vermonters that New York’s crime problems are coming from Vermont.”

A McClatchy-Marist poll released on Wednesday, the day after Sanders trounced Clinton in Wisconsin (by 57-43 percent) finds that 25 percent of Sanders’ supporters wouldn’t vote for Clinton in November, while only 69 percent would do so. The poll also finds that Sanders edges Clinton among Democrats nationally.

Clinton certainly cannot expect to improve those numbers by hurling unfair and dishonest accusations against Sanders and the state from which he hails. To the contrary, if she persists in the dishonest style that have become her trademark, she only adds to the numerous reasons voters already have to keep her out of the White House.

The Trumpian Motto: ‘Never Give Up, Never Surrender!’

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The “Trump insurgency” has breathed new life into the Republican Party. It has created Trumpians, Trumpites, and Trump4 Facebook pages for every state in the union.

Because of Donald Trump, Republicans are turning out in record numbers in the presidential primaries. Many see a new Republican Party emerging like a phoenix from the ashes of the heated primary season. It is now down to two candidates in both parties. Bernie versus Hillary. Donald versus Ted.

There’s no separation between the Democratic presidential candidates. In contrast, there is a world of difference between the last men standing for the GOP nomination. If you don’t think so just read Twitter and Facebook posts by Cruzers and Trumpians.

The  GOP primary reminds me of a phrase used in the 1999 film Galaxy Quest, a parody of Star Trek, which has a cult like following and has spawned numerous conventions. In the film Tim Allen, who plays Jason Nesmith/Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, states “Never give up, never surrender” (in the below video clip). Nesmith/Taggart faces a deadly alien enemy, insurmountable odds of survival and impending doom if he is not successful.

This feeling of impending doom is what is driving the 2016 presidential primary. While there is some fear, even anger, in the electorate, there is a growing realization that over the past eight years America has been fundamentally changed. Changed in a way that ordinary Americans cannot relate to. An America that is far too politically correct, a U.S. Congress that has lost the trust of its citizens and a president who ignores the founding documents of the nation for political gain.

This has created what some may call a “cult.” But its not Donald Trump who created this cult. Rather it is Donald Trump who speaks truth to power and the people love him for it.

Senator Ted Cruz began as the anti-establishment candidate. That was the motto of “Cruzers.” As the race for the GOP nomination advanced the rhetoric became more divisive and vitriolic. The Trumpians began to do battle with the Cruzers. Perhaps words were used that should not have been used by both sides. But that is the nature of politics.

As Steve Chabot noted, “Politics is a contact sport.”

After the New York and California primaries we will know who will be the major combatants D versus R for the presidency. It is important for Republicans to understand that no matter who wins the GOP primary, they must support the nominee. If they do not then they will face a deadly enemy, insurmountable odds of survival and impending doom for another four years.

On November 8th Republicans must activate the Omega 13, a weapon that takes America back to its future, making it great again. Never give up, never surrender!

American Jewish Committee to Sanders: Clarify Your Remarks on Israel and Gaza!

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NEW YORK, NY /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The American Jewish Committee (AJC) today acknowledged the correction by Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, D-VT, of his statement that “over 10,000 innocent people were killed in Gaza” in 2014. At the same time, it called on the Senator to clarify his charge that Israel’s self-defensive response to deadly Hamas rocket fire and tunnel attacks that summer was “indiscriminate.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has reported that 2,104 Palestinians were killed in the 2014 war; Israeli authorities estimate that some 1,000 of those killed in its defensive operations were terrorists, while the UN figure is 642. The candidate offered his correction in a phone conversation with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt, the organization reported.

Senator Sanders made his comments about Israel in an April 1 interview with the editorial board of The New York Daily News.

“Senator Sanders, in repeatedly calling Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘indiscriminate,’ has leveled a serious charge against Israel,” said AJC CEO David Harris. “This accusation flies in the face of everything we know – and military leaders around the world have testified – about Israel’s extraordinary care in fighting terrorists embedded in civilian populations.

“In Gaza in the summer of 2014, the use by Hamas of residential areas, schools, mosques and hospitals to store and deploy weapons, and launch thousands of terrorist attacks against Israel – wave after wave of rockets and mortars fired against Israeli civilians – made Israel’s response excruciatingly challenging. Indeed, the harsh reality is that, because of the terrorists’ use of the Palestinian population as human shields, innocent lives were lost.

“But Israel’s response was anything but indiscriminate. It repeatedly warned the Palestinian population about imminent strikes. It incurred casualties among its own forces in exercising care to avoid harming civilians. Time and again, it called off strikes when civilians came into view. And, in the fog of war, when soldiers and officers made tragic misjudgments, the IDF command responded appropriately.

“We look forward to Senator Sanders’ clarification of this stinging and unjust accusation against Israel.”

ABOUT THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE

AJC is a 501(c)(3) organization that neither supports nor opposes candidates for public office.

RELATED ARTICLE: Bernie Sanders campaign hires anti-Israel campaigner as new Jewish liaison

Welcome to the World of the Bernie Sanders Liberal

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A Bernie Sanders Liberal is anti-God, intellectually dishonest, unprincipled, mentally immature, and in search of a world without moral consequence all for about $15 an hour plus tax.

There is no God in their mind and the Bernie Sanders Liberal worships THE STATE and demands that Christians do too.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal attempts to use the statist government to eliminate all moral consequences for their immoral behavior.

In the name of “Social Justice,” the Bernie Sanders Liberal attempts to make individuals a collective of the State.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal imagines that all freedoms are gained with no moral consequences for their actions all secured by a collectivist, totalitarian state.

The single moral principle that Bernie Sanders Liberals adhere to is the continual accumulation and centralization of all power as was the case in the former Soviet Union.

The enemy of the Bernie Sanders Liberal is the U.S. Constitution and specifically the support for rugged individualism which is evident in the Bill of Rights.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal believes that abortion is necessary to guarantee sexual freedom and eliminate moral consequence and we the tax payer must fund this slaughter of unborn Americans.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal creates an atmosphere of crisis and fear that is used to justify their collectivist oppression. For example: Moveon.org, Black Lives Matter. The Black Panther Party.

The Liberals in our past history took pleasure in going to war against other nations for it is during this time they are most successful in getting tyrannical legislation passed in Congress.

In 1990 we invaded Iraq without any constitutional reason. We put US ground troops into a Suni – Shia Civil war. Result. War on Terror, loss of World Trade Center, Patriot Act, Biometric ID’s. etc. etc. etc. Trillions of dollars wasted.

Bernie Sanders Liberals want to completely control and dominate public schools, child abuse agencies, pediatric associations, welfare departments, social service agencies and all NGO’s that feign concern for the welfare of children.

This allows Liberals to impose socialism upon a people, they must undermine the ability of the people to govern themselves according to God’s moral law.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal mission is to weaken the main support of morality. Strong families are one of the greatest threats to the final goals of Liberalism. and ultimately Communism.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal applauds the imprisoning of home-schooling parents who dare to raise their children outside the control of collectivist public schools.

Bernie Sanders Liberals despise the private ownership of guns and the 2nd Amendment is the single greatest symbol of individual power against them, and therefore is despised by them. The 2nd Amendment is the only thing keeping us free at this time in our history.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal despises national sovereignty because the best protection of individual freedoms is found in small decentralized governments.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal promotes the growth of multi-national and international governments such as the European Union and the United Nations.

These organizations advance the cause of socialism. These tax payer funded Communist – Muslim organizations seek to destroy the very individualism that is best protected by sovereign states.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal seeks total control over all forms of media such as newspapers, print media and the satellite and cable networks.

Did you know that the George Soros stock holdings company in New York manages Direct TV stock. ? Arabs control a large portion of Fox News stock…………

Bernie Sanders Liberals want to get control of the Internet because they fear that more people will start thinking for themselves and demand limited decentralized governments in nations around the world.

Obama has tried for 7 years to censure the Drudge Report and other Internet news outlets free of New World Order censorship using the FCC as his weapon of choice.

The Eighth Commandment, states “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” which presupposes the right of individuals to own private property. The Eighth Commandment is therefore the foundation of Western Capitalism and the engine of our prosperity. Agreed? Think about it.

For this reason Bernie Sanders Liberals hate the Bible.

If Liberals are successful at transforming America into a totally multi-cultural, i.e., multi-religious, non-Christian society, we will lose our freedom. Donald Trump will put in place a team that will stop them.

The New World Order supporters in the GOPe should spend more time trying to stop Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton not Mr. Trump. What does that tell you about the GOPe?

The Bernie Sanders Liberal seeks to criminalize any speech that promotes morality or individualism as “hate speech.”

Thus we see Liberal Judges and Liberal Courts outlawing the Bible and gutting the free speech provisions of the first amendment of the constitution. We see the Ten Commandments being removed from court houses.

Liberal Judges are now declaring that the Bible’s proscriptions against homosexuality are illegal “hate speech” and scripture is now in the process of being outlawed from any appearance in public discourse or the public square.

You may recall a police officer arresting a man for reading from the Bible on a public sidewalk in California.

The Bernie Sanders Liberals team up with the Environmentalists and lie as a matter of course.

They create a false god too of the state where the environmental extremist worships “the creation,” rather than the Creator.

The Bible teaches that “Man was created in the image of God.” Thus human life is profoundly sacred and highly valued far above that of any animal or wilderness or wetland.

I see these Bernie Sanders tree huggers as “Watermelon” Environmental Extremists that have no right to tell a man how to use his own private property unless it can be proven that the owner is doing damage to his neighbors property.

A “Watermelon Environmentalist” is a person who is GREEN on the outside and claim to care about the environment, but they are COMMUNIST RED on the inside and do not really care about the environment. at all.

The Al Gore’s and the George Soros Communists are just using the moral cause of preserving the environment as a means of consolidating their power and advancing the cause of Socialism and One World Government.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal wants to replace a Godly world-view with an emotional statist world-view.

A Bernie Sanders Liberal will protest that it is perfectly ok for them to steal your money via confiscatory taxes, forcibly collected to support they unconstitutional welfare programs against your will and give it to persons that may not deserve it.

A Bernie Sanders Liberal typically chooses a career in a field that produces nothing of value. A Liberal will look for employment in field such an “activist,” lawyer, or a bureaucrat in a tax free foundation or an NGO devoted to advancing Liberal goals or a Community Advisor.

Then the Bernie Sanders Liberal will use government to extract wealth from others by force via the power to tax.

The Bernie Sanders Liberal do-gooder programs enrich Liberals and do little to actually help the poor.

Bernie Sanders Liberals are perfectly willing to destroy you financially, remove your children, and imprison you for what you believe.

Bernie Sanders Liberals are not open-minded and tolerant. They are viciously intolerant of any divergence from the left-wing ideology determine good and evil for all mankind, apart from and without respect to Almighty God.

Bernie Sanders Liberals fear technology and change – because neither can be centrally controlled. Thus we get people like Ted Kasinsky the Una Bomber.

Bernie Sanders Liberals know that a man of sterling character and discipline who is a moral, God fearing family man has no need of state support in the form of welfare programs.

Bernie Sanders Liberals know that such a man is a dedicated and formidable enemy of those who are determined to foist socialism upon the nations of the world.

Bernie Sanders Liberals despise marriage and family because they say they are “patriarchal institutions” that oppress. women and children.

The real reason they despise marriage and family values is because these institutions oppose, disapprove and limit promiscuity thus undermining one of the principal supports for Liberalism.

Bernie Sanders Liberals are never satisfied with the power they have gained over the lives of individuals.

They are compelled and internally driven to control every thought and detail of human activity until they create a slave camp, under the heel of a socialist bureaucratic boot otherwise known as One World Government.

Bernie Sanders Liberals want to control public schools and force all children into them, in order to foster promiscuity and instill collectivist ideology into their minds.

When a Bernie Sanders Liberal expresses concern “for our children,” they are using and targeting children to expand their own power, promote promiscuity, advance collectivism and enlarge their personal income at the expense of the taxpayer.

ALL Liberals in our government are elitists who have exempt themselves from the oppressive rules they impose on the general population. For example Obama-Romney Care. Social Security Taxes etc.

Bernie Sanders Liberals embrace Agenda 21 and they are actively working towards a return to a centralized, 1940’s urban environment.

They would have us all ride a bus from a small, dirty, big city apartment to an 8-5 union job as it was in the old USSR or a bullet train that costs billions of dollars to ride us 200 miles and never gets up to full speed.

Perhaps now you will understand why Liberals support every form of “public transportation” whether buses or subways.

Its time to remove these people from local, state and federal govt. starting with the Santa Rosa County Commissioners in the panhandle of Florida. YOUR FIRED !

Bernie Sanders Liberals believe that anyone who makes money must be stealing it from someone else.

Bernie Sanders Liberals do not understand that in a free market, wealth is created and is constantly expanding.

Bernie Sanders Liberals do not understand the simple dictum that “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Bernie Sanders Liberals do not understand that the free market lifts the economic conditions of all Americans.

Bernie Sanders Liberals do not understand that it is the creativity, ingenuity and hard work of the self-made millionaire’s who created better products or a better service and thus a better life for all mankind. Millionaires love the Senior Chief because I ask nothing from them only knowledge.

Bernie Sanders Liberals claim to be against violence, but make excuses for Liberals like Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Castro who murdered and tortured political dissidents. Now we add the government of Venezuela to that list.

Bernie Sanders Liberals claim to be against violence, but they try daily through legislation to disarm individuals and render them powerless against the Muslim vermin terrorists, thugs, thieves and murderer’s who rule the inner cities.

Just as the Mayor of Los Angeles did a few weeks before the Muslim vermin attacked San Bernardino.

Liberals only oppose violence when it fits their agenda, but they are perfectly willing to use violence to advance theirs.

For example the arming of the IRS and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to allow the federal forces to control state lands and oppress the free market use of said land.

The execution of Mr. Finicum the rancher was an act of murder by federal forces shutting down a threat to their unconstutional control of state land. Obama was embarrassed. I believe he ordered the HIT. Just my opinion.

Bernie Sanders Liberals have enormous compassion for criminal predators and child molesters and murders and rapists, but none for the victims.

In the Bernie Sanders Liberal world, all problems stem from individualism, and all solutions are collective and believe that passing religious values to children is a form of child abuse.

Ladies and gentleman we have a choice to make in November 2016.

Do want to be free under a capitalist system adhering to the U.S. Constitution? Or do we want to be Bernie Sanders Communist slaves with a boot on our neck?

Hillary can vote absentee from jail…..if not in 2016 in 2017 when Mr. Donald Trump is elected president of the United States and will make this nation great again.

Good night America I’ve got your back.

Not much longer folks and some Communist behind is about to be kicked.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. REUTERS

Brussels: What the U.S. Presidential Candidates Had to Say

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As Clarion Project follows each candidates remarks on Islamist extremism, we take a look at how they reacted to news of the March 23 terror attacks.

Presidential Candidates respond to the Islamic State terror attacks in Brussels

See Clarion Project’s profile on each candidate’s position on Islamic extremism

Democrats

Hillary Clinton

I think it’s a mistake – George W. Bush said it – that to do anything that implies that we are at war with an entire religion … with 1.4, 1.2 billion people. It is not only wrong, it is dangerous. You know, right here at home, we need to be reaching out and including Muslim Americans and communities where they live in our first line of defense. We don’t need them to feel that “if they hear something or see something” that they can’t report it. WE want them to be part of our protecting the United States, and the same goes for Europe.

Bernie Sanders

We are not going to undermine the Constitution of the United States of America in order to effectively destroy ISIS.  We can do that, so our goal in this issue is to destroy ISIS in coalition with Muslim nations on the ground with the support of the United States and other major powers. I think we can do that. We are making some progress. We have more to do … We are fighting a terrorist organization, a barbaric organization that is killing innocent people. We are not fighting a religion.

Republicans:

Ted Cruz

 “It is way past time we have a president who will acknowledge this evil and will call it by its name and use the full force and fury to defeat ISIS … We need a president who sets aside political correctness.  We don’t need another lecture about Islamophobia.

“For years, the West has tried to deny this enemy exists out of a combination of political correctness and fear. We can no longer afford either. Our European allies are now seeing what comes of a toxic mix of migrants who have been infiltrated by terrorists and isolated, radical Muslim neighborhoods.”

“We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.”

John Kasich

The wave of terror that has been unleashed in Europe and elsewhere around the world are attacks against our very way of life and against the democratic values upon which our political systems have been built.

We and our allies must rededicate ourselves to these values of freedom and human rights. We must utterly reject the use of deadly acts of terror.

We must also redouble our efforts with our allies to identify, root out and destroy the perpetrators of such acts of evil.

Donald Trump

“We need to be vigilant and smart. We [need] to strengthen up our borders … be very careful who let into our country … we have a people in our country right now that probably and definitely have the same feeling of hate as the people in Brussels … The police don’t have control of [Brussels and Paris] right now.

“You have to hit ISIS and you have to hit them so hard and not play Tiddlywinks like they are doing right now.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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Senator Proposes Bill To Take in Christian Refugees from ISIS

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Bill to Designate Brotherhood as Terror Org Gains More Support

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Socialism Is Harder than You Think by Scott Sumner

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Suppose you wanted to switch to socialism — what would be the ideal place to do so? You’d want a country with extremely high quality civil servants.

That would be France.

You’d want a country where socialism is not a dirty word, and capitalism is.

That would be France.

You’d want a country with the Socialist party in power, a party that was committed to enact the ideas of Thomas Piketty.

That would be France.

So how did things work out in France, when they tried to adopt a Bernie Sanders/Thomas Piketty approach to taxes?

IN THE eyes of many foreigners, two numbers encapsulate French economic policy over the past decade or so: 75 and 35. The first refers to the top income-tax rate of 75%, promised by François Hollande to seduce the left when he was the Socialist presidential candidate in 2012. The second is the 35-hour maximum working week, devised by a Socialist government in 2000 and later retained by the centre-right.

Each has been a totem of French social preferences. Yet, to the consternation of some of his voters, Mr Hollande applied the 75% tax rate for only two years, and then binned it. Now he has drawn up plans that could, in effect, demolish the 35-hour week, too.

Mr Hollande’s government is reviewing a draft labour law that would remove a series of constraints French firms face, both when trying to adapt working time to shifting business cycles and when deciding whether to hire staff. In particular, it devolves to firms the right to negotiate longer hours and overtime rates with their own trade unions, rather than having to follow rules dictated by national industry-wide deals.

The 35-hour cap would remain in force, but it would become more of a trigger for overtime pay than a rigid constraint on hours worked. These could reach 46 hours a week, for a maximum of 16 weeks. Firms would also have greater freedom to shorten working hours and reduce pay, which can currently be done only in times of “serious economic difficulty”. Emmanuel Macron, the economy minister, has called such measures the “de facto” end of the 35-hour week.

At the same time, the law would lower existing high barriers to laying off workers. These discourage firms from creating permanent jobs, and leave huge numbers of “outsiders”, particularly young people, temping.

For one thing, it would cap awards for unfair dismissal, which are made by labour tribunals. Laid-off French workers bring such cases frequently; they can take years and cost anything from €2,500 to €310,000 ($2,700 to $337,000) by one estimate.

Unfortunately, while France is moving away from these polices, the US is like to move some distance in their direction. Of course there are differences. Our minimum wage is still lower than in France, and our top income tax rate is closer to 50% in states like California and New York. But all the momentum is with the socialists, who are especially numerous among the younger voters.

Socialist ideas are superficially appealing. Paul Krugman (who favors very high income tax rates on the rich) often says that reality has a liberal bias. Actually, reality has a neoliberal bias, and if you don’t take incentive effects into account, you may end up disappointed.

Back in the US, Sander’s single payer approach also has problems:

A costing of Mr Sanders’s plans by Kenneth Thorpe of Emory University, using more conservative assumptions, found that the plan was underfunded by nearly $1.1 trillion (or 6% of GDP) per year. If Mr Thorpe is right, higher taxes will be required to make the sums add up. In 2014 Mr Sanders’ own state, Vermont, abandoned a plan for a single-payer system on the basis that the required tax rises would be too great.

Vermont is one of the most liberal states in the union. Now think about the fact that they gave up on the idea, despite it having been previously approved and signed into law. Then think about the concept of rolling out a multi-trillion dollar plan at the federal level, soon after the only experiment at the state level failed to get off the ground.

Is that evidence-based liberalism, or wishful thinking?

This post first appeared at Econlog.

Scott SumnerScott Sumner

Scott B. Sumner is the director of the Program on Monetary Policy at the Mercatus Center and a professor at Bentley University. He blogs at the Money Illusion and Econlog.

Why Students Give Capitalism an ‘F’ by B.K. Marcus

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bernie sanders half of a sign socialismNot only are young voters more likely to support Democrats than Republicans, they are also more likely to support the most left-wing Democrats. In recent polls of voters under 30, self-declared democratic socialist Bernie Sanders beats the more mainstream Hillary Clinton by almost six-to-one.

Former professor Mark Pastin, writing in the Weekly Standard, acknowledges some of Clinton’s flaws as a candidate, but concludes that “the most compelling explanation” for young Democrats’ overwhelming preference for Sanders “is that young voters actually like the idea of a socialist revolution.”

I’m embarrassed to confess that when I was a young voter, I probably would have been among the “Sandernistas.”

I don’t think Pastin is right about the revolution, though. Much of Sanders’s success in defanging the word socialism is in pairing it with an emphasis on democracy, as George Bernard Shaw and the Fabians did in an earlier era. Democratic socialists — at least among my comrades — preferred the idea of evolutionary socialism, and we tried hard to distance ourselves from the revolutionary folks.

Whether by evolution or revolution, however, what we all sought was less competition and more cooperation, less commerce and more compassion. Above all, we wanted greater equality.

“When I asked my students what they thought socialism meant,” Pastin writes, “they would generally recite some version of the Marxist chestnut ‘from each according to ability and to each according to need.'” That sounds about right, but add to that the assumption that it’s government’s job to effect the transfer.

My father, gently skeptical of my politics, pointed out a problem confronting American socialists: we tended to imagine ourselves on the receiving end of the redistribution — rob from the rich and give to the rest of us. “However poor we may think we are in the United States,” he told me, “we would have to give up most of what we now have in order to make everyone in the world equal.” This was strange to hear from someone always behind on the rent and facing ever-growing debt.

Pastin makes a related point: “I’ve always thought that socialism appealed to students because they have never not been on the receiving end of government largesse.”

As an informal test of his students’ egalitarian beliefs, Pastin “would offer to run the class along socialist principles, such as the mandate to take from the able and give to the needy.” Specifically, he proposed subtracting points from the A students and transferring them to those who would otherwise earn lower grades.

Even the most ardent socialist students balked at this arrangement. In fact, according to Pastin, the highest-performing students were both more likely to be self-declared socialists and more likely to meet his proposal with outrage: grading, they argued, should be a matter of merit.

Is it pure hypocrisy on the part of these rhetorical radicals, or is there a logical consistency behind this apparent contradiction in their values?

Trying to recall the details of my own callow political folly, I seem to recall three main issues behind my anti-capitalistic mentality:

  1. “Capitalism” was just the word we all used for whatever we didn’t like about the status quo, especially whatever struck us as promoting inequality. I had friends propose to me that we should consider the C-word a catchall for racism, patriarchy, and crony corporatism. If that’s what capitalism means, how could anyone be for it?
  2. Even when we left race and sex out of the equation, our understanding of commerce was zero-sum: the 1 percent grew rich by exploiting the 99 percent.
  3. For whatever reason, none of us imagined we’d ever be business people, except on the smallest possible scale: at farmer’s markets, as street vendors, in small shops. Those things weren’t capitalism. Capitalism was big business: McDonald’s, IBM, the military-industrial complex.

I don’t know how many of today’s young socialists hold these same assumptions, but a question recently posted to Quora.com sounds like it could have been written by one of my fellow lefties in the 1980s: “Should I drop out of college to disobey the capitalist world that values a human with a piece of paper?” (See Praxis strategist Derek Magill’s withering advice to the would-be dropout.)

Even if a different array of confusions drives the radical chic of millennial voters, what is clear is that they see American capitalism as rigged. “Crony capitalism,” from their perspective, is redundant — and “free market” is an oxymoron. They’re not necessarily opposed to meritocracy; they just don’t see what merit has to do with the marketplace.

Grading that would penalize the studious to reward the slackers is obviously unfair, and a sure-fire strategy to kill anyone’s incentive to do the homework. It’s not that the socialist students are applying the principle inconsistently; it’s that they don’t see what merit has to do with commerce. Some of that may be intellectual laziness, some is the result of indoctrination by anti-capitalist faculty, but much of it is also based in the reality of America’s mixed economy.

Not only have young voters spent most of their lives sheltered from the productive side of the commercial world, schooled by men and women who are themselves deliberately insulated from the marketplace, but time spent in the reality of the private sector is hardly an education in what the advocates of economic freedom have in mind when we talk about the free market.

If my own experience is any guide, today’s democratic socialists will have to spend a lot of time unlearning much of what they’ve been taught.

Pastin’s informal experiment is an illuminating first step, and it’s a powerful way to expose the conflict between his students’ understanding of merit and the socialists’ understanding of equality. But there’s also a danger in comparing the economy to the classroom. By offering his grade redistribution as an analogy for socialism, Pastin seems to imply that the merit-based grade system better resembles a free market. But that’s silly.

For one thing, studying hard for your next exam may improve your own GPA, but it probably doesn’t help your classmates. In contrast, an unhampered marketplace makes everyone better off, however unequally.

More significantly, in a free economy, there is no one person in the role of the grade-giving professor. In the absence of coercion, power has a hard time remaining that centralized. Yes, wealth can be seen as a kind of grade, but in the free market, an entrepreneur’s profits and losses are like millions of cumulative grades from the consumers. A+ for improving our lives. F for wasting time and resources.

That kind of spontaneous, decentralized, self-regulating prosperity is every bit as radical as the visions of young socialists, minus the impoverishing effects of coerced redistribution. It’s almost certainly not what they imagine when they say they oppose “capitalism.”

B.K. MarcusB.K. Marcus

B.K. Marcus is editor of the Freeman.

Who’s Driving The Trump Train?

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WASHINGTON, D.C. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Wondering who the key players are in the Clinton, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, Sanders and Trump camps are? Qorvis MSLGROUP’s “Influencer2016” digitally shows the connections between the candidates and his or her staff.

“Hate them or love them, the 2016 presidential candidates have proven to be some of the most fascinating personalities we’ve ever seen,” said Michael Petruzzello, president of Qorvis MSLGROUP, “We think voters are curious about the people behind the scenes and, with Influencer2016, you can see who’s involved in the campaigns, where the spheres of influence are, as well as the extent of those links.”

CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHO IS BEHIND EACH OF THE CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT CAMPAIGN.

About Qorvis MSLGROUP

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With more than 3,000 people across close to 100 offices worldwide, MSLGROUP is also the largest PR network in Europe, fast-growing China and India. The group offers strategic planning and counsel, insight-guided thinking and big, compelling ideas – followed by thorough execution.

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Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris FR0000130577, CAC 40] is a global leader in marketing, communication, and business transformation. In a world marked by increased convergence and consumer empowerment, Publicis Groupe offers a full range of services and skills: digital, technology & consulting with Publicis.Sapient (SapientNitro, Sapient Global Markets, Sapient Government Services, Razorfish Global, DigitasLBi, Rosetta) – the world’s largest most forward-thinking digitally centered platform focused exclusively on digital transformation in an always-on world – as well as creative networks such as BBH, Leo Burnett, Publicis Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi, public affairs, corporate communications and events with MSLGROUP, ad tech solutions with VivaKi, media strategy, planning and buying through Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia, healthcare communications, with Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG), and finally, brand asset production with Prodigious. Present in 108 countries, the Groupe employs more than 76,000 professionals.

Muslim Brotherhood Fomented Arab Spring like revolt at Trump Chicago Rally?

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The visceral response Trump is getting as he continues his campaign for the Republican nomination for President of the United States is beyond what I have ever seen in my lifetime. The message is abundantly clear, he has struck fear into the heart of Islam, as well as the elite and establishment Republicans.

IMG_2987-2

Courtesy Cathy Hinners: National Security Analyst, Public Speaker.

As it becomes likely that Americans will place Trump or Cruz into the White House, the Muslim Brotherhood is responding out of a necessity. It appears they have strategically  joined forces with Black Lives Matter in order to bring about their Arab Spring here in America. The protestors who showed up to Trump’s rally in Chicago Friday night were definitely not there for a peaceful protest.

From the day Trump stated he would ban Muslims from entry into the country through resettlement until the process proved safe to Americans, he has worried Islamic leaders here and around the world. He also made a simple statement to Anderson Cooper in a recent interview that drew much attention. Trump stated,

“I think Islam hates us. There is something there that-there’s tremendous hatred there. There’s tremendous hatred. We have to get to the bottom of it.”

It is apparent they do not want him to hold the high office of our land, nor would they want a Ted Cruz, and since Cruz is not the front runner Trump is getting the brunt of their hatred.

At a December Muslim American Society (MAS) Conference this past December in Chicago, several prominent Muslim Brotherhood affiliated individuals said some things that should jolt the authentic American awake from any political correct sleep they are under. Watch the Conference Video:

For example Nihad Awad, National Director for Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) stated this about the 2016 elections,

“You can change the reality of our time. This is the time for American Muslims to be at the front and not to retreat. In 2016 minorities will play a major role, African-Americans, Latinos. We have to help those people in their causes, because their causes are our causes. Black Lives Matter is our matter. Black Lives Matter is our campaign.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is essentially using the thugs of the BLM movement to do a lot of their dirty work, the nitty gritty work on the streets that they would rather leave to the grunts. Those in the BLM better wake up to the fact that they are being used as slave labor for the Muslim Brotherhood and other rich and powerful entities like Soros.

I would imagine the BLM likes to think other movements are coming along-side to help them in their cause for “justice”, but they are simply pawns in a chess game. It is known that Arab Muslims hate black people. Ask any black person in Morocco for confirmation of that, because it is the Arab Muslim who is full of racism, not your average American.

At the same conference, Khalilah Sabra, Executive Director and Project Developer for MAS said this of their motives and of using the BLM,

“We are prepared to unite for struggle, for blacks, for Hispanics, for Muslim. If we are not prepared to wage this struggle, we will fail, but first we need to make a conscious admission to ourselves that black lives matter.”

It sounds like she is admitting joining with blacks may go against what her audience feels, but that they have to decide that black lives matter, because in her heart she doesn’t believe it to be true. She is simply encouraging the union because it is a means to an end. The end is a revolution in America that would give Muslims a bigger foothold in our country with the end result being an Islamic America ruled by Sharia.

She continues,

“That we are a community that staged a revolution across the world. If we can do that, why can’t we have that in America?”

So, I guess it wasn’t caused by the video after all.

One prominent Imam from Chicago thought it would be a good idea to encourage mayhem at the Trump rally in Chicago. Abdul Malik Mujahid was born in Pakistan and apparently has been included in a list of the Most Influential Muslims. He is very involved in coaching Muslims on how to vote.

His tweet from March 4th at 5:57pm

“Trump is going to be in Chicago on March 11th at UIC. Any ideas what Muslims, Blacks and Latino should plan on doing. I am quite sure that Chicago media will cover the protest well.”

Consider if this kind of tweet came from a Christian Pastor or a Rabbi and was targeted at a Hillary or Bernie rally. It would ruin their reputation, not to mention the coveted 501c3 status of their church or Synagogue. More importantly this tweet reveals a strategy of using Black Lives Matter and Latinos to cause active revolt and a desire for violence.

The Muslim Brotherhood and Black Lives Matter pose a threat to our personal security. This is not some movement for “civil rights”.  They are infringing on the rights of Americans to peacefully gather and express their first amendment rights. Those same rights that gave the BLM protection as they marched down a street in Minnesota last year chanting, “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.”

One group, the Muslim Brotherhood, is already being considered by our House of Representatives to be designated as a Foreign Terrroist Organization, the other, BLM, needs to be investigated as well as they are now linked to that organization, and pose threats to the American public.

For those reader interest in contacting their Congressman concerning these Issues ma do do.

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EDITORS NOTE:  During the Obamacare protests, the Democratic controlled Congress amended Federal law H. R. 347 to make it illegal to protest at Federal campaign events. ALL of these anti-Trump rallies, be they violent or not, are FELONIES under this law that the U.S. Congress passed!

You may read the full text of H.R. 347 here: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr347/text

The featured image is of Rose Hamid (Left) at a Donald Trump (Right) rally on Friday, January 8, 2016. According to Shoebat.com: Ms. Rose Hamid is president of the nonprofit Muslim Women of the Carolinas. Their Facebook page is here. She and is associated with several groups, including the Muslim American Society(MAS) of NC, CAIR, and the Islamic Society of Charlotte. We reported several years ago on Shoebat.com that the MAS is a front for the terrorist group Muslim Brotherhood. CAIR is an internationally recognized terrorist organization. The Islamic Society of Charlotte has ties to the infamous Holy Land Foundation Terrorist Financing case, as has been reported by the Carolina Journal Online

Why Bernie Sanders [and Donald Trump] Matter

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why bernie sanders matters book coverWASHINGTON, D.C. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Bernie Sanders’ appeal to young, often first time voters, is not a mystery to Harry Jaffe, whose recent book “Why Bernie Sanders Matters” was the subject of a Focus Washington interview with Chuck Conconi. Jaffe said the youthful voters are “attracted to” the VermontSenator’s authenticity.

In that, Jaffe explained, Sanders has “a commonality with (Donald) Trump” in that neither are part of the establishment. The comparison between the two maverick candidates, however, Jaffe points out is that Sanders is a “Populist Socialist,” while Trump is “Populist Fascist.”

In a comparison with the campaign style of Hillary Clinton, with whom he is vying for the Democratic Party nomination to run for president, Jaffe said Sanders says what he thinks and if you don’t agree with it, don’t vote for him. Clinton, on the other hand, he continues, first factors what her handlers think, then what her husband, former President Bill Clinton, thinks and then what she thinks before making a statement. Jaffe said younger voters can detect that difference.

Jaffe also said that the black vote is not monolithic and that southern African Americans — largely rural, more religious and conservative — are quite different from their northern counterparts, who are urban and prioritize good jobs and making a living. The contention is that while Clinton runs exceptionally well with African Americans in the southern states, she might not do as well among northern blacks in the upcoming Ohio and Illinois primaries.

A Washington Magazine editor at large, Jaffe, who has worked on books by educator Michele Rhee and former congresswoman Gabby Gifford, said that pollsters and much of the media were surprised by Sanders upset victory in the Michigan primary. Jaffe said he wasn’t surprised and doesn’t think Sanders was surprised either. He contends that Sanders will also do well in the upcoming Ohio and Illinois primaries because Sanders, who consistently votes against international trade agreements, has always been a spokesman for the working class who see their jobs outsourced overseas, and that they are not getting paid as well as they once were. They like his opposition to trade agreements, a factor that political pundits said was a major part of his Michigan victory.

Harry Jaffe provides interesting insights on democratic voters, upcoming primaries and even some surprises about the candidate himself as a college student during the 1960s. Bernie Sanders champions voters who feel like they don’t matter in Washington; and because he lets them know that they do matter, Bernie Sanders’Presidential bid matters.

See the full interview: http://www.focuswashington.com/2016/03/11/why-bernie-sanders-matters/

To learn more about the author, see his website at: http://www.harryjaffe.com/

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About Publicis Groupe

Publicis Groupe [Euronext Paris FR0000130577, CAC 40] is a global leader in marketing, communication, and business transformation. In a world marked by increased convergence and consumer empowerment, Publicis Groupe offers a full range of services and skills: digital, technology & consulting with Publicis.Sapient (SapientNitro, Sapient Global Markets, Sapient Government Services, Razorfish Global, DigitasLBi, Rosetta) – the world’s largest most forward-thinking digitally centered platform focused exclusively on digital transformation in an always-on world – as well as creative networks such as BBH, Leo Burnett, Publicis Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi, public affairs, corporate communications and events with MSLGROUP, ad tech solutions with VivaKi, media strategy, planning and buying through Starcom MediaVest Group and ZenithOptimedia, healthcare communications, with Publicis Healthcare Communications Group (PHCG), and finally, brand asset production with Prodigious. Present in 108 countries, the Groupe employs more than 76,000 professionals.

Does Democracy Lead to Socialism? by B.K. Marcus

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Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has brought “democratic socialism” out of the shadows of fringe ideologies and into the spotlight of mainstream American politics. Nevertheless, many find Sanders’s self-description perplexing. Is socialism seriously still in play? Didn’t the horrors of the 20th century finally bury that ideological monstrosity?

No, that’s communism you’re thinking of. To quote the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA),

Socialists have been among the harshest critics of authoritarian Communist states. Just because their bureaucratic elites called them “socialist” did not make it so; they also called their regimes “democratic.”

If the communists weren’t really socialists, then what the heck does socialism mean?

The basic definition of socialism, democratic or otherwise, is collective ownership of the means of production. The DSA website says, “We believe that the workers and consumers who are affected by economic institutions should own and control them.”

But the DSA keeps the emphasis on democracy:

Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically — to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few. To achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary Americans can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives.

Socialism, then, as the democratic socialists understand the term, is just the logical consequence of the democratic ideal:

Democracy and socialism go hand in hand. All over the world, wherever the idea of democracy has taken root, the vision ofsocialism has taken root as well.

On this point, at least, many in America’s free-market tradition would agree.

Anti-democratic Anti-socialists

Ludwig von Mises may have been the most radical classical liberal in 20th-century Europe, but when he came to the United States, Mises found himself at odds with American libertarians who felt that his liberalism didn’t go far enough.

Some of these disagreements would strike most of us as highly abstract, such as the question of whether or not the philosophy of freedom is based in natural law or utilitarianism. But at least one practical point of contention was the issue of majoritarian democracy. Mises had defended both capitalism and democracy in his book Liberalism. American libertarians such as R.C. Hoiles and Frank Chodorov shared Mises’s appreciation of the free market but were far less sanguine about majority rule. The harshest language came from Discovery of Freedom author Rose Wilder Lane:

As an American I am of course fundamentally opposed to democracy and to anyone advocating or defending democracy, which in theory and practice is the basis of socialism.

It is precisely democracy which is destroying the American political structure, American law, and the American economy, as Madison said it would, and as Macauley prophesied that it would do in fact in the 20th century. (Letter from Lane to Mises, July 5, 1947; quoted in Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism)

Why would Lane argue that democracy is “the basis of socialism”?

Majority Fools

Voting turns out to be a particularly bad way to make economic decisions. Mancur Olson’s book The Logic of Collective Action wouldn’t appear for another 18 years, but some version of his thesis was probably already familiar to Lane and her radical allies. Olson argues that majority rule separates the benefits and the costs of decision-making.

Elections aren’t just a poll of everyone’s opinion; they are organized campaigns by different groups fighting for their interests. A voter doesn’t go into the booth having studied the controversy in question. He or she brings to the polls an impression of an issue based on how different organized groups have presented their cause during massive advocacy campaigns prior to Election Day. Every such campaign is a case of a special-interest minority trying to persuade a voting majority.

And it’s not a level playing field, to borrow one of the political left’s favorite metaphors. Olson explains how the incentive for group action decreases as the size of a group increases, meaning that bigger groups are less able to act in their common interest than smaller ones. Small groups can gain concentrated benefitswhile the rest of us face diffuse costs.

The textbook example is sugar tariffs (“or what amounts to the same thing in the form of quota restrictions against imports of sugar,” as former Freeman editor Paul Poirot put it). Why is Coke sweetened with corn syrup in the United States and with sugar everywhere else in the world? Because sugar is cheaper everywhere else, while the US government keeps sugar artificially expensive for Americans. The protections responsible are a huge benefit to a small group of domestic sugar producers (and, as it turns out, also to corn growers) and a burden on the rest of us.

Ignore the corn-syrup issue for a moment and pretend that Coke is still made with sugar. Let’s imagine that government price supports make each can of Coke, say, 5¢ more than it otherwise would be. That difference adds up, but at the moment you’re buying the can of soda, it’s an irritation, not a hardship. Even if you bother to figure out how much extra money you have to spend on sweet drinks each year, the figure probably won’t be enough to stir you to petition the legislature to repeal the sugar lobby’s protections. In fact, the loss isn’t even enough to prompt you to learn the cause of the higher price.

That’s what economists mean when they talk about diffuse costs. (And the Coke drinker’s very reasonable cluelessness about the cause of his lost nickel is what economists call “rational ignorance.” See “Too Dumb for Democracy?” Freeman, Spring 2015.)

On the other hand, the sugar producers will make billions from lobbying and campaigning to explain why their favorite barriers are good for the economy.

Take this example and multiply it by all the special interests seeking government favors. Even if you do understand what’s going on, even if you know how this hurts the economy and consumers and yourself, it’s not like there’s ever one plebiscite, a big thumbs-up or thumbs-down for free trade in sugar. Every issue is addressed separately, and every issue faces the same logic of collective action we see in the case of the sugar. (And as with the case of sugar, where the corn industry has its own interests in promoting higher sugar prices, many issues have multiple special-interest groups with their own reasons for supporting socially harmful policies.)

Now replace agribusiness in this example with teachers unions or the AARP or anyone else who benefits from a government program, even if that program hurts the rest of us.

The democratic system is rigged from the outset to favor ever more interference from ever-bigger government. From this perspective, Rose Wilder Lane doesn’t seem quite so polemical for equating democracy and socialism.

Democratic Socialists for Crony Capitalism

But is big government the same thing as socialism? The DSA denies it. They insist that they prefer local and decentralized socialism wherever possible. How long an elected socialist would keep his hands off the bludgeon of central power is a reasonable question, and a chilling one, as is the question of how long asocialist democracy would honor the civil liberties that the DSA claims to support.

But even if we reject the DSA’s claims as either naive or fraudulent, there is still a compelling reason to reject the equation of big government and socialism.

Government doesn’t grow to serve the poor or the proletariat. Democracy spawns special interests, and special-interest campaigns require deep pockets. None come deeper than the pockets of established business interests.

Real-world capitalists, despite the rhetoric of the socialists, rarely support capitalism — at least not in the sense of free trade and free markets. What they too often support is government protection and largess for themselves and their cronies, and if that means having to share some of the spoils with organized labor, or green energy, or the welfare industry, that’s not a problem. Corporate welfare flows left and right with equal ease.

“Democratic socialists,” according to the DSA, “do not want to create an all-powerful government bureaucracy. But we do not want big corporate bureaucracies to control our society either.”

If that’s true, then democratic socialists should aim to reduce both the size of government and the scope of democratic decisions. Unfortunately, they’re headed in the opposite direction — and trying to drag the rest of us with them.

B.K. MarcusB.K. Marcus

B.K. Marcus is editor of the Freeman.

Trump the ‘Unifier’, Trump the Individualist, Trump the Republican

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Super Tuesday voters gave Donald Trump clear wins in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia and Vermont. Senator Ted Cruz won in his home state of Texas and the neighboring state of Oklahoma. Senator Marco Rubio won in Minnesota.

trump supporters youngTrump made a short statement at his Mar-A-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida following the super Tuesday primary results:

I will say this, we have expanded the Republican party. When you look at what’s happened in South Carolina and you see the kind of numbers that we got in terms of extra people coming in. They came from the Democratic party… and they were never going to switch and they all switched. They were Independents. We’ve expanded the party. Look at the number of votes we had in that area as an example. Four years ago they had 390,000 or so votes. We doubled it. We’re almost 800,000. The Democrats went down.

There’s much less enthusiasm for the Democrats. I’m a unifier. I know people will find this hard to believe. Once we get this finished, I’m going to go after one person on the assumption she is allowed to run. I don’t know if she will be allowed to run. I don’t think Marco will be able to beat her. I think Ted will have a very hard time… I just tell you this, we are going to be a much finer party, a much — we’re going to be a unified party. We are going to be a much bigger you can see that happening. We’re going to be a much bigger party. our party is expanding.

All you have to do is take a look at the primary states where I’ve won. Much larger number. I think we’ll be more inclusive and more unified. I think we’ll be a much bigger party. I think we’re going to win in November.

It is clear that Donald Trump has energized the electorate, driving voters to the polls to support the Republican party in record numbers.

Ayn Rand wrote a short nineteen page paper asking: What is the basic issue facing the world today? Rand, in her paper makes the case that, “The basic issue in the world today is between two principles: Individualism and Collectivism.” Rand defines these two principles as follows:

  • Individualism – Each man exists by his own right and for his own sake, not for the sake of the group.
  • Collectivism – Each man exists only by the permission of the group and for the sake of the group.

It is becoming clearer that on November 8th the battle will be between a Collectivist (either Hillary Clinton or Senator Bernie Sanders) and an Individualist, Donald J. Trump.

French historian Alexis de Tocqueville  (1805-1859)  wrote, “The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.”

Let the people chose which path they will follow. Will they follow those who “bribe the people with their own money” or those who remain dedicated to preserving the Republic? That is the basic issue facing America today.

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Will a ‘Socialist’ Government Make Us Freer? by Jason Kuznicki

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“Socialism” is a weasel word.

Consider that the adjective “socialist” applies commonly — even plausibly — to countries with vastly different ex ante institutions and with vastly different social and economic outcomes. Yet Canada, Norway, Venezuela, and Cuba can’t all be one thing. Does socialism mean substantial freedom of the press, as in Norway? Or does it mean the vicious suppression of dissent, as in Venezuela?

We need more clarity here before we decide whether socialism is a worthwhile social system, and whether, as Will Wilkinson recommends, we ought to support a socialist candidate for president.

An approach that clearly will not do is to apply the term “socialism” to virtually all foreign countries. Shabby as that definition may be, some do seem to use it, both favorably and not. The result is that “socialism” has grown popular largely because a lot of people have concluded that the American status quo stinks. Maybe it does stink, but that doesn’t endow “socialism” with a proper definition.

Let’s see what happens when we drill down to the level of institutions.

Now, we might personally wish that the word “socialism” meant “the social system in which the state owns the means of production and runs the major industries of the nation.”

This is a workable definition: It has a clear genus and differentia; it includes some systems, while excluding others; and it’s not obviously self-referential. It’s also the definition preferred by many important political actors in the twentieth century, including Vladimir Lenin.

Lenin’s definition was not a bad one. But it’s far from the only current, taxonomically proper definition of socialism. As Will Wilkinson rightly notes, socialism also commonly means “the social system in which the state uses taxation to provide an extensive social safety net.”

And yet, as Will also notes, “ownership of the means of production” and “provision of a social safety net” are logically independent policies. A state can do one, the other, both, or neither. Of these four possibilities, there’s only one that can’t plausibly be called a socialism — and not a single state on earth behaves this way!

Better terms are in order, but I know that whatever I propose here isn’t going to stick, so I’m not going to try. Instead I want to look at some of the consequences that may arise from our fuzzy terminology.

One danger is that we may believe and support one conception of “socialism” —only to find that the agents we’ve tasked with supplying it have had other ideas all along: We may want Norway but get Venezuela. Wittingly or unwittingly.

Before we say “oh please, of course we’ll end up in Norway,” let’s recall how eager our leftist intelligentsia has been to praise Chavez’s Venezuela — and even declare it an “economic miracle” — until the truth became unavoidable: The “miracle” of socialism in Venezuela turned out to be nothing more than a transient oil boom. Yet leftist intellectuals are the very sorts of people who will be drawn, by self-selection, to an administration that is proud to call itself socialist.

There’s some resemblance to a “motte-and-bailey” process here: they cultivate the rich, desirable fields of the bailey, until they are attacked, at which point they retreat to the well-fortified motte. The easily defensible motte is the comfortable social democracy of northern Europe, which we all agree is pretty nice and happens to have quite a few free-market features. The bailey is the Cuban revolution.

This motte-and-bailey process does not need to be deliberate; it may be the result of a genuinely patchwork socialist coalition. No one in the coalition needs to have bad faith. An equivocal word is all that’s needed, and one is already on hand.

Even when we look only at one country, the problem remains: We may only want some institutional parts of Denmark — and we may want them for good reasons, such as Denmark’s relatively loose regulatory environment. But what we get may only be the other institutional parts of Denmark — such as its high personal income taxes. (Worth noting: Bernie Sanders has explicitly promised the higher personal income taxes, while his views on regulation are anything but Danish.)

Will thinks that electing someone on the far left of the American political spectrum could be somewhat good for liberty, but I’m far from convinced. Remember what happened the last time we put just a center-leftist in the White House: By the very same measures of economic freedom that Will uses to tout Denmark’s success, America’s economic freedom ranking sharply declined. And that decline was the direct result of Barack Obama’s left-wing economic policies. We got a larger welfare state and higher taxes, but we also got much more command-and-control regulation.

Faced with similar objections from others, Will has already performed a nice sidestep: He has replied that voting for Sanders is — obviously — just a strategic move: “Obviously,” he writes, “President Bernie Sanders wouldn’t get to implement his economic policy.” Emphasis his.

To which I’d ask: Do you really mean that Sanders would achieve none of his economic agenda? At all? Because I can name at least two items that seem like safe bets: more protectionism and stricter controls on immigration. A lot of Sanders’s ideas will indeed be dead on arrival, but these two won’t, and he would be delighted to make a bipartisan deal that cuts against most everything that Will, the Niskanen Center, and libertarians generally claim to stand for. Cheering for a guy who would happily bury your legislative agenda, and who stands a good chance of actually doing it seems… well, odd.

There is also a frank inconsistency to Will’s argument: The claim that Sanders will make us more like Denmark can’t be squared with the claim that Sanders will be totally ineffective. Arguing both is just throwing spaghetti on the wall — and hoping the result looks like libertarianism.

Would Sanders decriminalize marijuana? Or reform the criminal justice system? Or start fewer wars? Or spend less on defense? Or give us all puppies? I don’t know. Obama promised to close Guantanamo. He promised to be much better on civil liberties. He promised not to start “dumb wars” or bomb new and exotic countries. He even promised accountability for torture.

In 2008, I made the terrible mistake of counting those promises in his favor. We’ve seen how well that worked out.

It’s completely beyond me why I should trust similarly tangential promises this time around — particularly from a candidate like Sanders, whose record on foreign policy is already disturbingly clear. None of the rest of these desiderata have anything to do with state control over our economic life, which would appear to be the one thing the left wants most of all. (Marijuana: illegal in Cuba. Legal in North Korea. Yay freedom?)

Ultimately, I think that electing someone significantly further left than Obama will not help matters in any sense at all, except maybe that it will show how little trust we should put in anyone who willingly wears the socialist label. The only good outcome of a Sanders administration may be that we’ll all say to ourselves afterward: “Well, we won’t be trying that again!”

Now, I am prepared to believe, exactly as Will writes, that “‘social democracy,’ as it actually exists, is sometimes more ‘libertarian’ than the good old U.S. of A.” That’s true, at least in a few senses. Consider, for instance, that Denmark isn’t drone bombing unknown persons in Pakistan using a type of algorithm that can’t seem to deliver interesting Facebook ads. (One could say that, as usual, Denmark is letting us do their dirty work for them, with their full approval, but I won’t press the point.)

Either way, that’s still a pretty low bar, no? Meanwhile, there remains plenty of room for us to imitate some other bad things — things that we aren’t doing now, but that Denmark is doing, like taxing its citizens way, way too much. The fact that these things are a part of the complex conglomerate known as northern European social democracy doesn’t necessarily make them good, exactly as remote control assassination doesn’t become good merely by virtue of being American.

In short: Point taken about social democracy. At times, some of it isn’t completely terrible. But that only gets us so far, and not quite to the Sanders slot in the ballot box.

Jason KuznickiJason Kuznicki

Jason Kuznicki is the editor of Cato Unbound.

Trump and Sanders Win Presidential Bumper Sticker Poll

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TREVOSE, Pa. /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and  Republican Donald Trump should sweep Super Tuesday primaries, according to the Presidential Promo Polls on bumper sticker preferences released today by the Advertising Specialty Institute® (ASI).

With an eye on Tuesday’s primaries and how promotional products are used in elections, ASI asked residents in primary states this question: If you received a bumper sticker from each of the presidential candidates, which one would you be most willing to put on your car?

“We purposely chose to ask people about bumper stickers because it is an iconic election promotional product that’s also very personal,” said ASI Editorial Director Andy Cohen. “While you might accept and use a branded pen from a candidate you don’t necessarily support, no way would you put a bumper sticker on your car if you didn’t really endorse a candidate.”

In the lead-up to Super Tuesday, ASI released results from voter polls taken in nine, non-caucus states participating in primaries. More than 600 people from each state participated in each survey that was fielded among the Google Consumer Survey Network. All responses were collected between February 20-25.

In all nine states, voters ASI polled chose Trump and Sanders by wide margins.

When asked about the popularity, in particular, of the Vermont senator with Democrats, versus former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ASI’s Director of Market Research Nate Kucsma said, come Tuesday, voters ASI polled may end up voting with their heads instead of their hearts. “Although our poll tells us lots of people love Sanders enough to put his bumper sticker on their car, they may end up voting for Hillary because they think she has the best chance to win in November,” Kucsma said. “Whereas Republican voters truly believe that Trump, or whomever else they support, can win it all in November.”

Below are results from ASI’s Presidential Promo Poll:

  • Alabama: Trump 53%, Sanders 58%
  • Arkansas: Trump 51%, Sanders 59%
  • Georgia: Trump 46%, Sanders 61%
  • Massachusetts: Trump 50%, Sanders 62%
  • Oklahoma: Trump 43%, Sanders 64%
  • Tennessee: Trump 50%, Sanders 56%
  • Texas: Trump: 40%, Sanders 53%
  • Vermont:  Trump 45%, Sanders 91%
  • Virginia: Trump 43%, Sanders 58%

Promo products, also known as swag, freebies and giveaways, are items like pens, T-shirts, caps, coffee mugs and high-tech electronics imprinted with a logo or slogan used by companies, schools and non-profits to advertise their brand and events and to thank employees and clients.

In 2012, ASI estimated total election-related promo product spending fueled by giveaways like bumper stickers, yard signs and candidate brochures hit $870 million.

About ASI
The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI®) serves a network of 25,000 suppliers, distributors and decorators in the $22 billion promotional products industry.

Who in the Congress funded the U.S. Embassy in Communist Cuba?

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The Congress of the United States has still not voted to fund the U.S. Embassy in Cuba. The Senate still has not confirmed restoring diplomatic ties with Communist Cuba.

So who approved this restoration of diplomatic ties? John Kerry? He does not have this authority without Congressional approval and Senate confirmation.

Who is paying for the Embassy ? What budget is the money coming from?

In January 2016 over 1,451 pro-freedom anti-Communist Cuban dissidents, including 512 women, were arbitrarily arrested and detained by the Cuban police forces.

These folks all had their homes and personal property raided, confiscated and their families investigated. (Much like what the Obama Bureau of Land Management did to ranchers cattle in 2014).

Why? For speaking out against Communism and oppression.

This is the Bernie Sanders ideology of the dumbed down college kids who are promoting this Communist blindly across this nation that is a mirror image of the Castro’s family mind set. Also endorsed by Pope Francis.

This mind set of oppression and tyranny is not welcome in these Cuban freedom loving dissident groups. Bernie Sanders and the Pope would be run out of town.

All this while President Obama is stepping in to “strengthen relations” with Communist Cuba. But under whose authority?

Obama is also going on a visit next month to Havana on Air Force One. Who is funding this? Did the Congress approve this appropriation to pay for the fuel for this trip? Let us see the signed appropriation documents.

Why is Obama visiting this Communist island after the arrests of over 1,400 pro freedom dissidents by Raul Castro’s government in January alone? Why are tractor companies setting up business deals with the Communist regime?

Will these American companies donate some of the profits to the legal defense funds of Cubans currently in jail for speaking out against Communism? Why are U.S. Airline companies negotiating flights in and out of this Communist nation?

Will they too offer a legal defense fund for said political prisoners held in Castro’s jails under the charge of “just wanting to be free men and women.”

You cannot visit Cuba unless you first pay for health insurance in advance or face fines and jail for non compliance. Sound familiar? Cuba implemented Obama/Romney care in 1959. Fact.

Obama said he that he’ll promote human rights during his historic visit, the first by a sitting American president since 1928. This is all propaganda. Obama lies.

In all reality Obama may set up a Black Lives Matter rally, he may pin up some targets up on a state owned Communist barn showing the silhouette of police officers and have some range practice with his Communist friends.

The Congress of the United States currently serve no purpose and have voted themselves as irrelevant by their inaction on most matters concerning the US Constitution and Obama’s blatant disregard for it.

They the congress, by not defunding this US Embassy in Cuba and all fuel funding for US government employees and politicians to said country on US military and chartered aircraft, including AF1 make this much worse of a problem than Obama himself.

The GOPe led Congress are spineless and do not have the guts to put President Obama back in his Constitutional place.

Its time to replace all this in November with real Americans. Not much longer my fellow patriots.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Obama’s Radical Decision to Cozy Up to a Brutal Dictatorship

Obama’s Visit to Cuba Betrays America’s Commitment to Freedom

EDITORS NOTE: Learn more at TheRealCuba.com.