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Bernie Sanders, First Libertarian Socialist?
Reason ^ | 09/15/2015 | Terry Michael

Posted on 09/20/2015 8:12:21 PM PDT by ScottWalkerForPresident2016

Ground-breaking research by political science experts (actually me, Googling) reveals that a new breed of American politician has been discovered, the first ever "libertarian socialist." And it has a name: Bernie Sanders.

Oxymoronic, you say? Call me crazy, but the senator from the Peoples' Republic of Vermont is at least two-thirds of the way there on the road to free minds and free markets.

There are three issue frames in politics. Foreign. Social. Economic. Sanders is as non-interventionist as Ron Paul on foreign policy. He is as pro-choice and pro-gay rights as Yahweh on social issues (Yahweh has come a long way in the past several decades). And like most of us libertarians who despise crony capitalism, Bernie eschews the big three rent-seeking lobbies: Big Investment Banks, Big Pharma Drug Dealers, and Big War Profiteers.

Granted, he wants free health care, free day care, free college tuition, and free scoops of Ben and Jerry's. But hey, nobody's perfect.

However, when you compare and contrast Bernie with the only other possible, and most would say presumptive 2016 nominee for the Donkey Party, the distaff half of The Westchester Hillbillies, Ms. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sanders looks downright Ayn Rand-ish. The Warrior Queen, who voted for the Iraq War, which Bernie opposed, and who sees America as the "indispensable nation", flies the flag for the Neo-Con Lite wing of the Democratic Party on foreign policy. When Hill and Bill last occupied 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that piece of real estate was virtually owned and operated by their Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin and his Goldman Sachs investment banking house, an oligarchy capitalist outfit against which Sanders frequently inveighs.

And when you put Sanders up against the Trump Circus, also known as the Republican primary field, he is practically the headmaster of the Austrian School of Economics, though he often takes the wrong exit and gets onto the road to serfdom. But correct me if I am wrong, wasn't it Jeb Bush's older brother W who gave us Part D, the biggest socialized medicine gambit since LBJ 's guns-and-butter fiscal policies saddled us with the Texas-sized taxpayer bill for Medicare and Medicaid? And wasn't it the House of Bush/Cheney that gave us the huge, really the hugest elective war since Vietnam, to benefit their friends in the House of Saud?

Sanders certainly supported the costly federal drugging of old people, but that price tag pales in comparison to the trillions in taxpayer dollars the Bushies doled out to Halliburton and the other war profiteers for the Mess-in-Potamia. But it should be noted that Sanders thinks we should have the liberty to buy our drugs at the cheaper prices paid by our neighbors to the North, those American wannabees, those Molson-swilling Canadians.

So, when it comes down to what increasingly seems to be the only three realistic possibilities for Leader of the Free World in 2016—Hillary, Jeb, or Bernie—who would libertarians feel most comfortable with, for four more years?

I'm just asking.


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: 2016election; berniesanders; election2016; kentucky; libertarian; paultardation; paultardnoisemachine; randpaul; randpaulnoisemachine; randsconcerntrolls; reason; ronpaul; sanders; sanders2016; scottbot; scottbots; texas; vermont
I used to respect Reason too.
1 posted on 09/20/2015 8:12:21 PM PDT by ScottWalkerForPresident2016
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

Trump needs to take a Course on the US Constitution from Hillsdale, and quick.


2 posted on 09/20/2015 8:16:44 PM PDT by Paladin2 (u)
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

I used to respect Reason too.


Underneath the veneer of “Reason” the Liberaltarians are a bunch of kooks. Just do a search on the site for “restrictionists.” By this they mean anyone who is not for totally open borders like they are. Also, anyone for traditional marriage is a bigot by their “reason”


3 posted on 09/20/2015 8:16:58 PM PDT by fifedom
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

Sanders has done nada to shrink the government. He is not a Libertarian. He’s just a whackjob Communist who thinks he’s railing against the establishment when he IS the establishment.


4 posted on 09/20/2015 8:23:35 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (Resist We Much)
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

Isn’t that an oxymoron?


5 posted on 09/20/2015 8:27:04 PM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

What a joke. Like people called the Nazis right wing. Nothing could be further from the truth.


6 posted on 09/20/2015 8:30:14 PM PDT by Sea Warrior (Who's the enemy?)
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

Alright I wasted a couple minutes on this nonsense. It is not even slightly persuasive. And who is the “Yahweh” he is talking about?


7 posted on 09/20/2015 8:31:27 PM PDT by The Ghost of FReepers Past (Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light..... Isaiah 5:20)
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

Libertarian Socialist? I’m pretty sure that’s just a Democrat that likes to get high.


8 posted on 09/20/2015 8:40:38 PM PDT by FroedrickVonFreepenstein
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past

It is the oxiest of morons.


9 posted on 09/20/2015 8:42:55 PM PDT by sparklite2 (Voting is acting white.)
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

Ah Bernie sanders-libertarian really? Bernie is as are all progressive, socialist, commie, Nazi, sympathizers slavists. At least true libertines want no gov, not just less. To understand the political economic structure of any given state draw an oval. draw a vertical and horizontal line threw the middle. label one freedom and the other private property. Where freedom is maximized and private property is maximized is Anarchy. You’ll note that no Gov and property rights can’t exist unless you live alone on an island (why its an ellipse)


10 posted on 09/20/2015 8:43:10 PM PDT by waynesa98
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

No such thing. Socialism is totalitarian in nature.


11 posted on 09/20/2015 8:49:04 PM PDT by heights
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016
This is beyond the pale.

And it comes from big "L" Libertarians.

It should not reflect on the little "l" libertarians that align themselves with supposed-to-be Republicans.

12 posted on 09/20/2015 9:24:44 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18 - Be The Leaderless Resistance)
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To: waynesa98

Bernie said we have too many people in our prisons the other day.

He said we have more people in US prisons than China does in their prisons with a much greater population over there.

Sanders also said that China was a “communist authoritarian country”.

I can agree with Bernie on that but then he swung into the racial composition of our prison population without making reference to the guilt of the prisoners or the crimes they committed to land them in prison.

Rudy Giuliani (a man I often don’t agree with) got smacked around some years ago when he tried to make the point that more African-Americans just happen to be the perps than their proportion of the population.

Its a fact, its not racism to say it.

But back in the 1940’s, 70 or so years ago, there were stats indicating that the leading religious affiliation of our prison population was Roman Catholic and an anti-Catholic author who was an associate of Socialist Norman Thomas actually put this into print around 1950.

The socialist author, Paul Blanshard, spent much of his life after that in Vermont where another socialist named Bernie Sanders would wind up living in.


13 posted on 09/20/2015 9:25:18 PM PDT by Nextrush (FREEDOM IS EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS, REMEMBER PASTOR NIEMOLLER)
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016
Granted, he wants free health care, free day care, free college tuition,

Stop calling it free unless the doctors and teachers and day care workers are toiling for nothing.

And they're not. It all comes from money extracted by force from taxpayers. There is no such thing as free unless it's a donation.

14 posted on 09/20/2015 10:15:20 PM PDT by Lizavetta
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

Many libertarians have evolved in to socialist

Original concept of libertarian was that natural law protected them from government law

but now they want goverment law to protect and provide to them what natural law might preventing them from


15 posted on 09/20/2015 11:30:41 PM PDT by tophat9000 (King G(OP)eorge III has no idea why the Americans Patriots are in rebellion... teach him why)
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

In order to become a Libertarian Socialist....years of pot then meth then crack


16 posted on 09/20/2015 11:34:50 PM PDT by RginTN
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To: Paladin2

You are talking about the man who does not make mistakes. He might offer them a lesson, that man takes lessons from no one.


17 posted on 09/21/2015 12:19:38 AM PDT by exnavy (Common sense seems to be uncommon these days.)
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

Terry’s a moron.

Bernie wants into you back pocket like no other candidate, including the Hildebeest. Bernie is therefore a fascist worm, not a libertarian!


18 posted on 09/21/2015 12:37:39 AM PDT by cynwoody
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To: Nextrush

We do have too many prisoners. On the state and local level the reason for most of the incarcerations are mental health and the liberal take over of schools. If you want to fix the issue you need to reduce the freedom of those with mental health and drug issues and force them to deal with their problems. Terminating teacher unions and letting parents determine what’s best for their kids would fix the education issue.

On a federal level something like 40% of incarcerations are illegals. Shutting the flow would have a major impact on more then just the prison population. All Illegals crossing the boarder are required to pay the traffickers or carry drugs. This has lead to the massive heroine problem hitting the middle class.

The upshot is we have more freedom, but with freedom comes responsibility, to reduce the prison population people need to be empowered with education and held to high standards.


19 posted on 09/21/2015 5:37:32 AM PDT by waynesa98
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To: ScottWalkerForPresident2016

This is what happens when you sit on your ass eating giant buckets of your own BS - you start to like the taste.

Someone actually thought this vacuous, vapid exercise in mental masturbation is intelligent?


20 posted on 09/22/2015 8:43:42 AM PDT by Tzimisce
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