Bernie Sanders, First Libertarian Socialist?
Could he be two thirds of the way there?
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.
