Bernie Sanders’ attempt for president is officially over, so I finally can write something about his campaign.
I first hear his name from John Stewart’s show, in which he defensed Bernie Sanders against people’s attack on his age. Is Bernie too old to be president? This is the first question Americans have about this man. In that show, Stewart criticized American’s obsess with youth, arguing that maturity and experience is underrated in this country. However, the debate quickly dropped after his vigorous speeches and activities. Even in his 70s, he never shows a sign of being old, in contrast, he possesses all the qualities of the youth — passion, energy and the strong desire to change. He is younger than even most young people in heart.
Thus, in a short amount of time, he gains the support from lots of young people. Especially in university, students are enthusiastic about his ideas and believe he will save the country from the ever growing gap of wealth. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer as the middle class is diminishing altogether.
Bernie’s proposals are profoundly socialism, he believes that people should have basic rights in medicare, in education, and even in the basic necessities for survival, like food and shelters. The blame of the poor’s current misery is on the rich, they robbed us, the wall street, big corporations bla bla bla. Stirling the hatred towards the rich, dividing the people into rich vs poor, is his strategy , or I might believe this is his real ideas.
However, even though I also believe the wall street need strict regulation, money in politics should be forbidden, I don’t agree with his socialist ideas. I stand by Rand Paul. The following is a short clip of video showing Rand Paul and Bernie debating on health care.
Ideally, it is nice to think that people have rights on health care, on education, on shelters. But we need to put this into context. Jobs, food, clothing, recreation, home, medical care, education etc, don’t grow in nature. They are man -made values –goods or service produced by men. How can people get them without any trade or exchange values? If all are free, who to pay for those people working in medicine, in education?
Besides, I think free education up to high school is enough, college is not necessary. College should be a luxury for people who can afford it , or be an investment for people who wants to work in particular professions. Free college education is both unpractical and unnecessary for US.
Sure, government should help the poor to prosper, but not through direct providing things to the poor. As a Chinese proverb, 授人以鱼不如授人以渔 （it’s better to teach others fishing instead of giving them fishes), the best way to help poor, also the duty of the government, should be helping industry, helping business growth, creating more jobs, educate people to adapt to new job markets, thus let everyone to prosper by themselves.
But, he is a great example of idealists, who work all the life to their dreams. Even the chance for him to win is quite dim from the beginning to the end, I am glad he still fighted to the last minute. Best wishes for him always.
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