I have respect for Bernie Sanders, the U.S. Senator from Vermont. Why? Because he’s honest about what he is. He says “I’m a socialist and proud of it.”
How can you not admire that honesty, even if you disagree with his economic philosophy?
But how can you have any respect for liberals and conservatives, who share the exact same philosophy as Sanders but are ashamed to call themselves socialists?
Liberals profess to be the “savers of free enterprise,” claiming that the welfare state and regulated economy that Franklin Roosevelt imposed on America “saved free enterprise.”
For their part, conservatives proudly post on their stationery and websites their old mantra, “free enterprise, private property, and limited government” but at the same time support the same programs and philosophy that Bernie Sanders supports.
In essence, here is what both liberals and conservatives are saying: “We oppose socialism and believe in free enterprise and limited government … except for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, the drug war, economic regulations, trade restrictions, immigration controls, occupational licensure, welfare, subsidies, government-business partnerships, public housing, SBA loans, the FDA, the SEC, the minimum wage, price controls, the Federal Reserve, paper money, and all the various departments and agencies of the federal government.
How can anyone have any respect for that?