Some Facebook friends of mine shared this brief articlehttp://theodysseyonline.com/ole-miss/why-im-not-feeling-the-bern/321355 about why some dude is "Not feeling the Bern" and I wanted to reply there, but Facebook just ain't the place for real conversations. The following is a little more info than you're likely to hear on Fox, or in a 140-character-limited exchange. I've quoted the dude's headings, then added my response.
“I’m not a Socialist”
Bernie’s not a Socialist, either. He’s a Democratic
Socialist. It’s a lot like the system of government our founding fathers
had in mind wherein some pursuits just make more sense to manage collectively:
military, police, fire, roads, eventually railroads, power grids, water and
sewer…these are all "socialist" provisions of our current system. Even the economist Adam Smith, oft-cited by conservatives, clearly
made the case for pursuits best handled by government, not for profit. At
its simplest distillation, why form a nation at all if you don’t agree there
are some things worth doing as a society?
Sadly, the system our founding fathers established has been
twisted into something more like a Corporate Democracy wherein our government
serves corporations rather than people. The establishment candidates from
both parties perpetuate this system because the money they need to campaign
comes from those corporations. Bernie is the first guy to make a
legitimate challenge to that system. He embodies the non-violent
revolution our system so desperately needs.
1. "College shouldn’t be free" ("education is not an entitlement")
By most state charters (after the
first 13 colonies) education IS an entitlement. The founding fathers knew
the value of an educated electorate and they specifically included state-funded
education in the conditions for statehood. When states fail to meet these
requirements, the federal government must step up.
In addition, up until our parents’ generation, a high school diploma was sufficient to earn a family a decent living, but that standard is outdated. Today, an associate degree, or a technical school certificate is the bare minimum required to join a professional workforce. Bernie is not the first candidate to propose community colleges find ways to make this bare minimum achievable to all, he’s just saying we finally accept the reality of it and raise the bar officially…and stop pretending the free education public schools provided for everyone up to this point is sufficient in stopping at 12th grade.
In addition, up until our parents’ generation, a high school diploma was sufficient to earn a family a decent living, but that standard is outdated. Today, an associate degree, or a technical school certificate is the bare minimum required to join a professional workforce. Bernie is not the first candidate to propose community colleges find ways to make this bare minimum achievable to all, he’s just saying we finally accept the reality of it and raise the bar officially…and stop pretending the free education public schools provided for everyone up to this point is sufficient in stopping at 12th grade.
2. " Please don’t raise taxes"
Bernie won’t,
at least for most Americans, and certainly not for Criminal Justice majors, as
you note. Only those who have seen a dramatic decrease (since the Great
Depression) in the taxes they pay will see them go up. I know there are
candidates (usually Republican, but not always) who like to say they won’t
raise taxes, but they all have. Reagan did. Bush 41 did after
promising he wouldn’t. The average middle class citizen pays around 20%. Shouldn’t the folks with the most to spare contribute at least that much as
well? http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/04/09/15-Fortune-500-Companies-Paid-No-Federal-Income-Taxes-2014 The only taxes Bernie will raise will be on those who have played
our corporate-leaning system to NOT pay that share. The rest of us will pay the same or less than we've always paid, and we should
demand more for our money, not less. (for real - read his plan...and notice Trump still doesn't have one available, and for pete's sake, stop getting your info from Facebook!)
3. "I
don’t like big government"
Neither does
Bernie, and he wants it to stay out of your life as much as possible, but your
argument here is basically a repeat of your item 2 (taxes). Again, only
the absolute wealthiest, whose teams of lawyers and tax accountants can’t show
they’ve reinvested that wealth into capital or labor, would ever pay the 52% you cite.
(remember that idea about reinvesting wealth into capital and labor – it will
be important later) Seriously, Addison, have you ever read anything about New Hampshire or Vermont? They don't like big government either, and they've elected Bernie for a looooong time.
4. " Social
Security shouldn’t exist in the first place…"
Social Security
Insurance is insurance. Why should insurance not exist? If properly
managed, it will be there for you. Most who propose doing away with it
don’t want to do the work of managing it. That’s no excuse. Others
prefer the management of it go to for-profit entities wherein chunks of the
premiums end up in already rich folks’ pockets, making it even less likely that
the fund will survive. (because when profit is the #1 priority, you are not) This is simply another case of something that
makes more sense as a non-profit, collectively, in order to serve the interest
of all. Social Security is a minimum insurance program. You’re free
to invest in commercial insurance or retirement programs that go beyond this minimum, but this one provides a
safety net for those who were disabled, or for their widows/widowers or
orphans. Tell me again why the richest country in the world shouldn’t provide
this self-funded, bare-minimum insurance for its citizens?
5. " I
don’t believe in wage regulation."
How then should
wages be established? Before you answer, keep this in mind: since the Great
Depression, the minimum wage, if left to its own market devices, adjusted for
standard inflation, should/would currently be hovering somewhere between $15
and $20 per hour. That’s IF LEFT TO THE MARKET, “unregulated” so to
speak. So how has the minimum wage remained so artificially low?
Government doesn’t LIMIT wages, so the de facto cap must be coming from
somewhere else. If the market wage hasn’t borne itself out, and government
hasn’t regulated a cap, then some other force must be “regulating” wages.
What could that
force possibly be? Here are some observations: some of the same companies who
posted profits during the 2009 recession laid off thousands of workers. When these companies “recovered” (even though they posted
profits throughout) they hired back these skilled laborers, but at drastically
reduced wages. Skilled technicians who lost $20/hour jobs are now lucky
to get them back for $10/hour. Same jobs, same consistently profitable
corporations, lower wages. That doesn’t sound like market forces.
In addition,
since President Reagan fired those air traffic controllers for trying to
negotiate their wages and conditions (eliminating one natural force in a free
market) more and more lobbyist-written legislation has been passed by politicians (whose campaigns were funded by the employers of those lobbyists) resulting in
the biggest attack on and subsequent decline in union membership in our
nation’s history. Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin all fell to lobbyist
influence and legislated away the rights of state employees to negotiate their
wages and conditions. The trend is obvious – labor’s input is no longer a factor, no longer a market force in establishing labor’s wages. The vast majority of Americans lost their voice. This
leaves large corporations an artificially large influence in “regulating”
wages. An individual can either accept the offered wage, or be
unemployed. (any other job an individual accepts will also be for an
artificially low wage due to the standard set by corporations, so “get another
job somewhere else” doesn’t change the equation) If labor can’t negotiate
as a group against the corporations whose lobbyists now write the laws, then
INDUSTRY REGULATES WAGES. (oh, and for those of you with short attention spans...it has done so by shrinking the expense of labor! A day's work used to be worth a day's wage, but it's not anymore, according to these companies who still manage to pay their CEOs 7 figures) These companies claim that taxes have eaten into their profits, so they can't afford to pay decent wages anymore, but most of them find ways to pay NO taxes at all. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/04/09/15-Fortune-500-Companies-Paid-No-Federal-Income-Taxes-2014 (in case you forgot) Can you or I do that? Wanna know a great way to avoid paying taxes? Post a HIGHER LABOR EXPENSE, or REINVEST IN CAPITAL EXPANSION AND CREATE JOBS!
Anyhoo...Since you oppose wage regulation, you actually side with Bernie in preventing this artificial regulation of the market in which those wages would otherwise be naturally set. The establishment candidate from both sides is too wrapped up in corporate money to ever challenge this tilted system.
Anyhoo...Since you oppose wage regulation, you actually side with Bernie in preventing this artificial regulation of the market in which those wages would otherwise be naturally set. The establishment candidate from both sides is too wrapped up in corporate money to ever challenge this tilted system.
Look, do I believe Bernie can wave a wand and fix problems
slowly created over the better part of the last century? No, but I do
believe he’s the only candidate who might actually try, and most importantly, he
will try because he’s beholden to NO ONE…for more than about $35 anyway! He
works for US, not his anonymous superpac sponsors. His fundraising alone
has revolutionized our process…even while the wildly inappropriate Citizens
United/Corporations are People/Money=Speech=Votes bullshit still stands!
Bernie is running the way ALL candidates for public office should run.
I suppose you could make the argument that Trump is too, but
there’s a YUGE difference between using your own money to bully people into
supporting you and convincing people with your ideas to support you with their
money $25 at a time.
Luth
Out
