Over the course of the months that have been the Presidential campaign and I've noticed that two candidates have popularity among college-aged Americans: Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders. I have aligned myself with the former and a lot of people are curious to know why. I am finally giving my answer.
1) Sanders' policies are too Utopian
Free college and healthcare sound really great on paper, but there is virtually no way those will pass.
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2) His attitude on post-secondary education.
It really did not sit well with me when Bernie Sanders said that the only alternative to college education was prison. Mostly because it simply isn't true. There are many jobs that are vital to the infrastructure that do not require or even warrant a college degree. To put it another way, if everyone is a doctor or a lawyer, then there are no cops, no firefighters, no electricians.
3) Sanders is a proponent of government overreach
I have never been a fan of government run healthcare, but Sanders would take the concept and make it so much worse. Presently, John Q. Taxpayer pays for himself and his family if he has one. In my case, I pay insurance for myself, as I am not married and have no dependents and that is how it should be. If the Sanders plan happens, that would make John Q. Taxpayer responsible for another's potentially poor choices.
Bernie Sanders also oversaw the Congressional hearings in 2005 on anabolic steroids in professional baseball, a domain in which his committee had absolutely no jurisdiction. This in and of itself is the definition of government overreach. The documentary "Bigger, Faster, Stronger*" noted that in 2005, Congress spent 151 days in session. 8 of those were about steroids in baseball. It does on to say this was more than they spent on national healthcare (which Bernie is supposedly the champion of), why levees broke in New Orleans, and ending the Iraq war.
As much as Bernie tries to separate himself from Donald Trump, they do not really differ in terms of authoritarian views.
4) Sanders lacks understanding of not only economics, but the Supreme Court
That's not how it works bud.
5) The rEVOLution
Ron Paul did that first.
6) He "reluctantly" admitted that he agreed with Rand Paul on NSA surveillance
One shouldn't have to reluctantly agree with anyone that the NSA surveillance on the American people was wrong, an act which was an egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment.
This article isn't to say that Bernie Sanders is completely without merit. I would agree with him in that there needs to be a joint coalition to take on ISIS and I agree that the Federal Reserve needs more transparency. Income equality does exist, but the solution doesn't lie in taxing that which another person has worked for. Although Sanders does propagate the idea that corporations are evil when in actuality, they are the best equipped to solve the world's problems. Sanders and others have made people hate capitalism and embrace socialism when REALLY what people hate is corporatism, which is not the entirety of the American economy. The best economic system combines aspects of both capitalism and socialism.
