I’m not a socialist.

I could just leave my argument there but this article has to be at least 500 words so I will provide specific examples.

1. College shouldn’t be free.

College is a privilege, not an entitlement. It should be an investment by the student for his or her future. Making college free for everyone will cheapen its value and make a master’s degree essential to be competitive in the job market. Are we going to make graduate degrees free as well? Stop being ridiculous.

This is the point where Bernie supporters usually start to attack me during my argument. I’m often told that I have no compassion and that I don’t care about helping the less fortunate. This is where they would be wrong. I believe that in a society built on free markets everyone would be able to succeed. It’s a difference in the pathway, not the destination.

2. Please, don’t raise taxes.

I’m not rich. Never have been, and as a Criminal Justice Major I more than likely never will be. I’m sure that there will be times when I struggle to make ends meet. However, that is not the rich’s fault. We should be congratulating those who have more success than us and be taking notes to better ourselves, not wanting them to pay for our stuff through increased taxes. We should encourage success, not punish it. Again, I’m not heartless. I just believe that it is not the government’s place to steal from one person and give to another.

3. I don’t like Big Government.

I really want the government to stay out of my business. That includes my wallet. I earned my money, and as a result I believe that I have the right to keep it. Bernie’s reforms would cause a huge growth in the size of government and that scares me. American government is already much bigger than it was intended to be, let’s not make it bigger. Originally, the government was not allowed to tax a person’s income. The Constitution had to be amended to allow this to happen (16^th Amendment). Sanders wants to tax some people as much as 52 percent. I unapologetically believe that there is nothing right about the government taking half of your income, not matter how much you make.

4. Social Security shouldn’t even exist in the first place, let’s not expand it.

People should be in charge of their own savings and retirement. If they are not mature enough to save, that’s not anyone else’s fault. I hate that I have to pay into a system that I personally don’t believe will be around to pay me back by the time I’m old enough. If people were allowed to take the money that would usually go toward Social Security and apply it toward a conservative retirement fund, they’d have a sizable sum by the time they retired, and they would be able to pass anything left over to their children. It’s actually more compassionate to let people do their own investing than let the government mandate it.

5. I don’t believe in wage regulation.

I personally believe that if wages weren’t regulated by a minimum wage law, they would be higher. Raising the minimum wage will only cause inflation across the whole economy, eventually placing those who have minimum wage jobs in the same bracket of purchasing power that they were in before. There are other ways to make an economy healthier and to raise wages. They’re called free markets. Also, this could actually eliminate jobs. Some businesses, particularly the small, local businesses that we all want to succeed, simply could not afford an increase to $15 an hour. They would have to lay people off or shut down entirely.

I’m sure many will think I am heartless for my laissez-faire approach to economics. I don’t believe these things because I think they will give any one person an advantage. I believe these things because I think they will lead to prosperity for all people. Bernie doesn’t agree and that is why I cannot “feel the Bern.” Socialism is a flawed idea. Remember the awesome movie "The Incredibles"? In the film, a character says, “When everyone’s super, no one will be.” The same can be said for socialism and its fight for income equality. Socialism stifles creative innovation and makes everyone bland instead of the unique, free individual they were born as.