Found here. Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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I enter this article with the hope that some cogent, logical points will be made without dissembling or obfuscation. It is so rare that we get an analytical, on-topic analysis from the Left.
Maybe today?
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Last night’s first gotcha question from Anderson Cooper about whether the American people would ever elect a socialist to office was one that Bernie Sanders was no doubt expecting. (Maybe it's me, but it doesn't seem like a "gotcha question" at all. We have a single admitted socialist in Congress, a crusty, withered old man spouting rhetoric from a way of thinking derived from a political philosophy that is responsible for the deaths of tens of millions. Why shouldn't we ask this man why he thinks he's electable?)
Progressive historian ("Progressive historian?" Aren't historians supposed to be non-ideological?)
and BillMoyers.com contributor Bernard Weisberger didn’t think his answer was altogether bad (watch above), but he took time today to write out the response he wishes the other Bernie had given. He also included a response to Hillary Clinton’s later statement about how “Denmark wasn’t the United States.
(I presume that what follows is what Mr. Weisberger wrote, which apparently means I will be refuting him rather than Senator Sanders.)
”Well, first of all, the last I heard Vermont was still an American state and the people of Burlington elected me as mayor four times and were satisfied because I gave them an honest and efficient administration. Then the people of the state as a whole sent me back to the House of Representatives several times, and next to the Senate. They responded to substance, not labels. I think we’re still smart enough to do that. (The underlying assumption is that voters in Vermont are smart because they voted for Sanders. In fact, they are so smart that we should simply follow their lead and vote for Sanders ourselves. Really?)
[As for our not being Denmark, I am not trying to turn the United States into Denmark or any other country in the world. (First, deny the assertion...)
But if we look and see that Denmark has a health care system that treats its people better than ours at lower cost, (...then affirm it by advocating the adoption of Denmark's health plan...)
just as an example, are we forbidden to try it because it hasn’t got a “Made in America” label on it? We’re a lot smarter than that — and saying otherwise is a slander on our people.] (Thus saying we are not as smart as we should be about health care, because Denmark.)
I consider myself a social democrat, yes. And for me, what social democracy simply means is a system that leaves room for small enterprises and individual liberty (Really? How innocuous and fuzzy. Having read Wikipedia's description of social democracy, I don't feel quite so comforted.
So, who is it that makes decisions like leaving room for "small enterprises and individual liberty," government? Do you like the idea of giving the government power to decide what liberty is and isn't? And when it changes its mind, who will stop it? Because right now, in accordance with the First Amendment, government is forbidden to pass any laws regarding certain enumerated liberties. And it already violates this every day.
And what do we make of leaving room for "small enterprises?" What does this even mean? Is Bernie going to shut down big, eeevil corporations, or maybe take them over? And if a small enterprise gets too large, well, they're suddenly a target?
This kind of statement betrays a faulty understanding of the principles of how America is structured. The author thinks that government ought to have the power to draw the lines, while the Founders believed The People have that power. We have seen the results of too powerful government, both here and across the world. We have witnessed the devastation wrought by mere men who were entrusted with [or who appropriated] large amounts of power.
But typical for the socialist/utopian, the author believes it will work this time, if we just do it right.)
but also recognizes the fact that we’re all part of a larger community, and what hurts any one group of us eventually hurts us all. (Watered down socialist rhetoric. The "community" is the class struggle. It is a tenet of generic socialism that people are identified by class and groups. Central to this is the antiquated and failed idea that it is about the struggle between the proletariat [the worker] and the bourgeois [eeevil big capitalists].
Though disguised in its American expression, we see this fundamental principle permeating leftist thought. It is expressed in more conventional terms, like "income inequality," "living wage," the "greedy rich," and "CEO pay." This makes it more palatable, but it's only window dressing. As descriptors like these lodge in the consciousness of Americans, the way begins to be paved for socialistic change, the kind of change that grows the power of government and diminishes the idea of individuality.)
So there are some things we don’t leave to the so-called free market. We don’t want people going hungry or suffering from sickness or at the bottom of the ladder in educational attainments because they can’t afford them (More barely-disguised socialist rhetoric. Common among the Left is a palpable disdain for the free market, invariably a result of misrepresenting it.
It isn't the job of the free market to feed the hungry or heal the sick. Compassion belongs to individuals to choose the timing, the amount, and the recipient of their generosity. Again, we have seen the results of Big Government compassion. There are record numbers of the sick, the poor, and the oppressed filling the ghettos of big cities, despite trillions of tax dollars spent on "compassion" programs. It hasn't worked!)
— especially when in economic downturns millions of us lose jobs through no fault of our own. (Big government was a central player in the economic downturn. Even Denmark suffered, despite its so-wonderful social programs.)
So we tax ourselves to put money into a common kitty to make sure those things don’t happen and we’re all the better off for it. (From the time of the Great Depression there have been many programs, regulations, and laws put in place to regulate the market and help people in need. Yet between then and today there have been 13 recessions. Yes, despite the controls, despite the programs, despite all the good intentions, government has not been able to stop the downturns. People still lose their houses, their life savings, their jobs. Yet despite the total failure, the author wants more?)
In other words we agree to bear each others’ burdens and make others’ suffering our concern, bound in “brotherly affection.” (Note the use of language. The author imputes to government the characteristics of human emotions couched in biblical rhetoric. In other words, in government office buildings thousands of miles away from you there are hundreds of cubicles where people shuffle papers around, cutting checks to people. That is "brotherly affection.")
A far cry from the virtues of unrestricted and unregulated winner-take-all competition. (Remember when I made the claim that Leftists misrepresent the free market? Here's your example. There is no such thing as "unrestricted and unregulated winner-take-all competition." It flat doesn't exist. It cannot exist, for the free market requires that government prosecutes thieves, swindlers, and cheats. That is, government must punish the violators of the free market.
And we quite clearly know that "unrestricted and unregulated winner-take-all competition" doesn't exist in America, because the market is highly regulated. Manipulated, even. The Fed regulates the money supply to achieve its objectives. Congress and/or the President have put entire industries out of business. Corporations buy government influence. Unions spread millions around.
Our government and its cronies permeate the "free" market. Government is the 600 pound gorilla in the room, passing thousands of regulations and laws, while The People reel under its weight.
Thus the idea of an "unrestricted and unregulated winner-take-all competition" is a gigantic red herring, upon which the whole of socialism rests.)
And do you know that that’s a basic American idea? What I just said comes straight from a sermon preached by minister John Winthrop to the band of fellow Puritans landing in Massachusetts in 1630. (The author appeals to religion? He wants religious principles implemented in government? Really? Does he also like the Puritan's ideas about manifest destiny? The author is simply cherry-picking topics to add a veneer of legitimacy to his case.)
And it’s an idea picked up again and again throughout our history, from early state laws providing for public health and safety and punishing fraud, right on through to the Progressive period and the New Deal when we provided security for our elders, strengthened the bargaining power of workers, created public works programs to stimulate employment and spending, opened space for small business by breaking trusts, and reduced inequality to reasonable levels (None of which actually succeeded.)
— without touching the basics of capitalism. (That's a preposterous claim. As soon as government intervened in the economy the very first time, the basics of capitalism were touched. This is the second example of how the author misrepresents the free market.)
That’s the American way and always has been, and I could name a long list of American heroes who embraced it if there were time. So let’s move past labels (In other words, stop calling me a socialist!)
and start addressing the crises we face now. (Which have been "addressed" multiple times over multiple decades by government program after government program. But today is a new day, and "we" must do something because nothing is being done.
So, I was hoping for a thoughtful, intellectual treatise, but got agitprop instead.)
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