Why “Not Feeling The Bern” (for these reasons) is misinformed, at best

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our parents’ generation, a high school diploma was sufficient to earn a family a decent living, but that standard is outdated.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 12^th 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.

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