Look. Rand Paul is a libertarian. Bernie Sanders is a socialist. A socialist is pretty much the polar opposite of a libertarian. A libertarian is pretty much the polar opposite of a socialist. And there’s at least one major difference between the two, aside from ideology: libertarians are, by and large, not drooling idiots.
So good luck with that, Bernie.
I mean, this is a fascinating moment:
Ezra Klein
You said being a democratic socialist means a more international view. I think if you take global poverty that seriously, it leads you to conclusions that in the US are considered out of political bounds. Things like sharply raising the level of immigration we permit, even up to a level of open borders. About sharply increasing …
Bernie Sanders
Open borders? No, that’s a Koch brothers proposal.
Ezra Klein
Really?
Bernie Sanders
Of course. That’s a right-wing proposal, which says essentially there is no United States. …
Continue reading I dunno, folks. What *do* you call a socialist who ISN’T an internationalist?
…the Federation is definitely portrayed as at least a socialist state. You can tell because Voyager enthusiastically developed a barter economy the moment that they were cut off from the Alpha Quadrant, and its infinite energy (which meant infinite matter, thanks to the replicator). This, by the way, doesn’t bother me: I’ve long understood that you absolutely NEED magic spells in order to make socialism actually work.
And that’s why our celebrities tend to flirt with socialism; it’s because celebrity is linked with various art forms in modern Western civilization, and artists are stereotypically accomplished moochers*. It’s easy to rationalize following an economic philosophy that is fundamentally respectful of something that you’re good at.
Discuss.
Moe Lane
*I speak from personal experience as an English major: they didn’t teach you in class how to find parties where free food and drink could be found, but only because everybody already knew how.
Contra Gateway Pundit (and Hot Air), I am not certain that Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) actually meant to imply that the Democrats were going to destroy private health insurers. Given that he is in fact a socialist, it may be that being one has finally killed enough brain cells to make him not notice that he answered the question so poorly.
Look, it’s not my fault that intellectually speaking being a self-identified socialist in this day and age is much like being a self-identified Flat-Earther*. It just is. And it makes you do dumb things, like tell private insurance companies that the United States Senate is coming after them with a mad gleam in its eye. Given that, true or not, this is precisely the impression that current Senate leadership does not want to create… well. To use the terminology of the guy that the Senator spent the last eight years ineffectually fighting: heckuva job there, Bernie.
Moe Lane
PS: More seriously, please remember: no matter what happens with the health care plan, neither Senator Sanders, his family, nor his close associates will ever suffer from the more onerous aspects of it. Because while all animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others.
*Well, except for the former’s higher historical body count.
Crossposted to RedState.
