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Peter1469
02-14-2016, 07:21 AM
IS THERE A LIBERTARIAN CASE FOR BERNIE SANDERS? (https://niskanencenter.org/blog/is-there-a-libertarian-case-for-bernie-sanders/)

An interesting article from the Niskanen Center.


Andrew Kirell of the Daily Beast has asked the question (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/09/is-there-a-libertarian-case-for-bernie-sanders.html). The answer is actually very easy, but it’s not one I’ve seen anyone give. Yes, there is a libertarian case for Bernie Sanders. Here it is.

According to the libertarian Fraser Institute’s preliminary 2015 Human Freedom Index (https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/human-freedom-index-preliminary-report.pdf), which combines measures of personal, civil, and economic freedoms, here are the top ten freest countries in the world:



Hong Kong
Switzerland
Finland
Denmark
New Zealand
Canada
Australia
Ireland
The United Kingdom
Sweden

The United States—city on a hill, conceived in liberty, beacon of freedom unto the world—ranks a humiliating 20th, just behind the island nation of Mauritius and just ahead of the Czech Republic, which was part of a communist dictatorship when I was in high school. If this is America’s “libertarian moment,” then color me underwhelmed.


The libertarian case for Bernie Sanders is simply that Bernie Sanders wants to make America more like Denmark, Canada, or Sweden … and the citizens of those countries enjoy more liberty than Americans do. No other candidate specifically aims to make the United States more closely resemble a freer country. That’s it. That’s the case.


Is it really that easy? I think so. But perhaps you’re skeptical. Let me explain myself more fully. Join me, won’t you, on a brief philosophical foray.

Find out more. Read the link.

donttread
02-14-2016, 11:34 AM
IS THERE A LIBERTARIAN CASE FOR BERNIE SANDERS? (https://niskanencenter.org/blog/is-there-a-libertarian-case-for-bernie-sanders/)

An interesting article from the Niskanen Center.



Find out more. Read the link.

This probably explains why I find myself in the position of being a libertarian who kinda likes Sanders. I thought it was just the whole rarer than a unicorn honest politician thing. I also believe that a nation of our wealth should not have so many citizens in poverty or uninsured or under employed or under educated. It's terrible in human terms, embarrassing to the nation and without addressing those issues we will never, for example, catch up to other countries in math and science. I happen to differ from Bernie in that I think the best way to run those social programs both Constitutionally and efficiency wise is at the state level.
I have long thought that a coalition congress would be much harder to manipulate that our current "one party system". I've even joked that I would vote for a combined LP/ Green party ticket , for example Rand Paul and Jill Stein. But I think we need a few Bernie's in there as well.
Thank you Peter for helping me understand my inner political conflict.

Tahuyaman
02-14-2016, 11:53 AM
IS THERE A LIBERTARIAN CASE FOR BERNIE SANDERS? (https://niskanencenter.org/blog/is-there-a-libertarian-case-for-bernie-sanders/)

An interesting article from the Niskanen Center.



Find out more. Read the link.

actually, I have talked to some libertarian types who say they would vote for Sanders under certain circumstances.

I wouldnt as we couldn't print enough money to keep up with him.

Chris
02-14-2016, 12:39 PM
There would be provided Bernie wanted the US to be like the Nordic nations as they are now and or during their rise to wealth but not their hard left failures.

No, Bernie Sanders, Scandinavia is not a socialist utopia (https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2015/10/15/bernie-sanders-scandinavia-not-socialist-utopia/lUk9N7dZotJRbvn8PosoIN/story.html)


...To begin with, explains Swedish scholar Nima Sanandaji, the affluence and cultural norms upon which Scandinavia’s social-democratic policies rest are not the product of socialism. In “Scandinavian Unexceptionalism,” a penetrating new book published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, Sanandaji shows that the Nordic nations’ prosperity “developed during periods characterized by free-market policies, low or moderate taxes, and limited state involvement in the economy.”

...Scandinavia’s hard-left turn didn’t come about until much later. It was in the late 1960s and early 1970s that taxes soared, welfare payments expanded, and entrepreneurship was discouraged.

But what emerged wasn’t heaven on earth.

That 1976 story in Time, for example, went on to report that Sweden found itself struggling with crime, drug addiction, welfare dependency, and a plague of red tape....

Sweden’s world-beating growth rate dried up. In 1975, it had been the fourth-wealthiest nation on earth (as measured by GDP per capita); by 1993, it had dropped to 14th. By then, Swedes had begun to regard their experiment with socialism as, in Sanandaji’s phrase, “a colossal failure.”

...The real key to Scandinavia’s unique successes isn’t socialism, it’s culture. Social trust and cohesion, a broad egalitarian ethic, a strong emphasis on work and responsibility, commitment to the rule of law — these are healthy attributes of a Nordic culture that was ingrained over centuries. In the region’s small and homogeneous countries (overwhelmingly white, Protestant, and native-born), those norms took deep root. The good outcomes and high living standards they produced antedated the socialist nostrums of the 1970s. Scandinavia’s quality of life didn’t spring from leftist policies. It survived them....