For much of his life, Bernie Sanders was (let’s just say it…) a bum

[mystery-ak]

http://hotair.com/archives/2016/02/17/for-much-of-his-life-bernie-sanders-was-lets-just-say-it-a-bum/

For much of his life, Bernie Sanders was (let’s just say it…) a bum
posted at 8:01 am on February 17, 2016 by Jazz Shaw

   

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, currently charging hard against Hillary Clinton in their third straight match-up in Nevada, has raised his national profile by roughly one bazillion percent since kicking off his presidential bid last year. In the process he’s become known for many things, not least of which is his fight against big money. This includes big money in politics, big money on Wall Street, big money in the pharmaceutical industry and, most of all, the big money in the pockets of all those rich people who simply don’t pay enough in taxes. Sanders really seems to have it in for money and you have to wonder where the grudge comes from.

In an editorial at Investors Business Daily, we get a glimpse of one possible source of Bernie’s unrelenting war on dollars: he’s never really had many of them. Not that there’s anything wrong with coming from modest beginnings… in fact, many voters find the idea of an American success story to be very appealing. But that’s the problem when you look at Sanders’ story a bit more closely: he never really achieved that success. As the IBD editorial describes it in the sub-header, Bernie is, “an angry radical and agitator who never accomplished much of anything.”

    One of his first jobs was registering people for food stamps, and it was all downhill from there.

    Sanders took his first bride to live in a maple sugar shack with a dirt floor, and she soon left him. Penniless, he went on unemployment. Then he had a child out of wedlock. Desperate, he tried carpentry but could barely sink a nail. “He was a shi**y carpenter,” a friend told Politico Magazine. “His carpentry was not going to support him, and didn’t.”

    Then he tried his hand freelancing for leftist rags, writing about “masturbation and rape” and other crudities for $50 a story. He drove around in a rusted-out, Bondo-covered VW bug with no working windshield wipers. Friends said he was “always poor” and his “electricity was turned off a lot.” They described him as a slob who kept a messy apartment — and this is what his friends had to say about him.

continued

[Sanguine]

He gives me the creeps.  I can't understand why anyone finds him compelling. 

[musiclady]

He gives me the creeps.  I can't understand why anyone finds him compelling.

Probably because he's nicer than Hillary and he's promising to give people everything for free....

[GourmetDan]

He gives me the creeps.  I can't understand why anyone finds him compelling.

Most of his supporters are bums just like he is... and that is very creepy...

[Bigun]

Probably because he's nicer than Hillary and he's promising to give people everything for free....

We have an entire generation of people in this country who have been raised to believe that the government CAN give you everything for free!

They have absolutely NO understanding of even basic economics!

[Wingnut]

As Little Enos Burdette once said to Big Enos:

Big Enos: Son, you're looking at a legend.
" I guess a legend and an out-of-work bum look a lot a like, daddy."

Kinda sums up bernie to a tee.   

[jmyrlefuller]

He gives me the creeps.  I can't understand why anyone finds him compelling.

Desperation. All the promises of a comfortable middle-class existence that my generation received all through the 90s and even into the 2000s went right out the window in '08. So now Sanders is promising to fulfill those promises, even though his plan is totally unworkable. We're so frustrated that a lot of us (not me, but many of my peers) are just blindly accepting it, simply believing that he can raise money from the evil rich as if their resources are some bottomless pit that can be mined for whatever expense they can imagine.

That, and Clinton is rightly recognized as a snake.

[truth_seeker]

Why waste time finding fault with him? He is honest about his beliefs.

Why not make a stronger argument for free market capitalism, if you can? (I do not see much of that btw)

[Bigun]

Why waste time finding fault with him? He is honest about his beliefs.

Why not make a stronger argument for free market capitalism, if you can? (I do not see much of that btw)

How about the FACT that free market capitalism is the ONLY system which has EVER worked on a long term basis anywhere on this planet!

[Sanguine]

Why waste time finding fault with him? He is honest about his beliefs.

Why not make a stronger argument for free market capitalism, if you can? (I do not see much of that btw)

What kind of argument is that?  Would you say the same for a pedophile?  A rapist?  A transgender other-kin?  That "they were honest about their beliefs?"

[truth_seeker]

How about the FACT that free market capitalism is the ONLY system which has EVER worked on a long term basis anywhere on this planet!

The economic systems practiced today in both Europe and in the United States are "mixed economies," which rely on taxation of privately owned free market capitalism enterprise to fund government administered social programs.

The variable is percent government ownership and control. Neither approach anything like Soviet or Chinese style communism of the 50s and 60s.

Standards of living are roughly equal for the US, Canada, Denmark, for example.

So the case needs to be proving the US is better off than Denmark or Sweden.

Just making claims without evidence, does not convert a young voter from Sanders to Rubio for instance.

I see little effort going into this argument. It takes work, and it is more entertaining to listen to Glenn Beck and call Jeb Bush a Mexican or worse, or call George W. Bush a homosexual which has been the focus here, of late.

If I was a 20 something and looked at the discussion on this site lately, I wouldn't waste my time.

[Bigun]

The economic systems practiced today in both Europe and in the United States are "mixed economies," which rely on taxation of privately owned free market capitalism enterprise to fund government administered social programs.

And THAT is one of the primary reasons our Republic is failing!

[truth_seeker]

And THAT is one of the primary reasons our Republic is failing!

Where do we find "pure free market capitalism" enshrined in the United States' Constitution ??

Did the slavery era fit that categorization ??

[jmyrlefuller]

Why waste time finding fault with him? He is honest about his beliefs.

Why not make a stronger argument for free market capitalism, if you can? (I do not see much of that btw)

Because this generation doesn't understand arguments and logic. They can't tell the difference between sodomy and reproduction, for crying out loud; how is anyone going to explain the dangers of long-term sovereign debt load to them?

[HonestJohn]

Well, for those just hanging on, they see Bernie as having gone where they might soon end up. So when he speaks of the hardships, it's the voice of experience.

And so they think that just because he knows the problem... that he knows the solution.

Of course, Bernie is aided by the fact that no other politician is really talking about the issues he brings up.

---

And this illustrates, to me, the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Liberals easily identify problems that need to be addressed... but their solutions don't work and exacerbate the problem.  Whereas Conservatives have a harder time identifying problems (with the 'everything is great for me' view), but when convinced that there is a problem that needs addressing, THEY SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

[truth_seeker]

And this illustrates, to me, the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

Liberals easily identify problems that need to be addressed... but their solutions don't work and exacerbate the problem.  Whereas Conservatives have a harder time identifying problems (with the 'everything is great for me' view), but when convinced that there is a problem that needs addressing, THEY SOLVE THE PROBLEM.

Conservatives rightly believe most problems are for individuals and communities, and liberals want government solutions, for the many, many problems in the world.

One pair of my great grandparents were incentivized to go to a place in an adjacent state, to build a canal. The governor effectively "hired" a group of people to go build the darn thing, and get farmland in exchange. 1900, Wyoming.

After it was built, they stayed and lived out their years.

Today there would be years of hearings, many full time salaried state and local govt. employees, clearances from federal govt. etc.

Back then they just built the damn thing.