Is it time for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-USSR) to retire to his three homes and spend his remaining years enjoying whatever he wishes to obtain with the millions he has earned in the service of socialism? If his appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday night is any indication, it seems as if the 81-year-old leveler, who has been in the Senate since Greta Thunberg’s fourth birthday, is well past his sell-by date and should give up all hope he may still have of out-Bidening Biden and becoming the next superannuated socialist in the Oval Office. Sanders showed his age, and his ignorance, when he failed to explain a basic tenet of the sinister political philosophy for which he has been advocating since Old Joe Biden was cheating in law school.
The senescent socialist was appearing on Maher’s show to sell his new book, It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, which you can get in paperback from Amazon for a capitalistic $30. In the course of the discussion, Maher asked, “Are we confusing equality of opportunity with trying to guarantee equity in outcomes?” Yes, Bill, we certainly are, and that’s the primary difference between a free society and a socialist one: the former will strive to provide equality of opportunity while understanding that human beings are all different in their talents and capabilities, and thus equality of opportunity will not result in equity of outcome. A socialist state, on the other hand, will impose various institutionalized inequalities upon people in order to try to guarantee equity of outcome, and will resort to confiscation and worse if inequities persist.
The imperative to guarantee that all people will have the same (low) standard of living, without anyone making more money or enjoying more privilege than anyone else, is a basic tenet of socialism, although of course the political elites and other favored people are exempt from the rules that others must follow in socialist states. Sanders, however, despite being America’s foremost socialist (with the arguable exception of his friend, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), demonstrated before the world on Maher’s show that he is unable to explain these fundamental socialist principles. Has he all along been more like Old Joe Biden than we knew — just a mouthpiece for handlers who are actually running the show?
Maher continued, “I think this word ‘equity’ has come into the language in the last few years and before that, we didn’t hear it a lot. And I think a lot of people hear ‘equity’ and they hear ‘equality’ like it’s the same word, but it’s not the same word and the same concept.” Then — O unhappy fate! — Maher turned to Sanders and asked, “So how would you differentiate between equity and equality?”
Sanders initially tried to bluster his way out of the tight spot Maher had unwittingly put him in, but quickly gave up. “Well, equality,” Bernie began, clearly feeling the burn himself, “we talk about — uh, I don’t know what the answer to that is.” As the audience laughed, Sanders circled back to one of the small number of clichés and slogans that he has committed to memory. “Equality,” he announced grandly, “is equality of opportunity.” Unfortunately for Bernie, Maher wasn’t satisfied with this, and asked him another question: “Equity, I think, is more of a guarantee of outcome, is it not?”
“Yeah, I think so,” Sanders responded sheepishly. Worse was to come. Maher asked him, “Which side do you come down on?” Sanders, cornered, answered disingenuously: “Equality.” That was a good answer in terms of reassuring Americans that he isn’t some octogenarian totalitarian bent on seizing the fruits of their labors and redistributing them to the idle. But doing just that is what socialism is all about, and of all people, Bernie Sanders should know that.
But now we know that he doesn’t know, although whether he ever did know or has simply forgotten in his advanced age is still unclear. Either way, the Maher appearance should be Bernie’s last on the national stage. But it will almost certainly not be. Bernie is raking in $95 a pop for tickets to his It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism book tour, and so he is unlikely to stop the gravy train anytime soon. It’s amazing that anyone would plunk down so much money to gain pearls of wisdom from a man who so clearly has none to give, but hey, that’s the way capitalism works: the old socialist is just supplying something for which there is, in our insane society today, obviously a demand.
Photo: AP/Patrick Semansky
Socialism is a nerfed version of communism. Both socialism and communism stem from Marxism.
Marxism boils down to THEFT and SLAVERY.
Theft by the state to give to the state bureaucrats, and enslavement of the “peasants” to the state.
One could refer to socialism/communism as neo-feudal systems.
I was thinking of going to see him but America still doesn’t want unvaccinated visitors so sadly I can’t go. I’ll spend the $95 on PragerU instead.
I’d rather treat myself to a nice, $95 bottle of good booze instead.
It’s too bad he won’t live long enough to witness the full measure of destruction that his minions have wrought on our experiment in Freedom.
Hopefully, in this appearance, he has contributed to informing the populace of the foolishness of Socialism and thereby help prevent the institution of same.
He’ll live briefly in the “here after” when God himself informs him.
Then He’ll weep & wail as he’s informed that his name isn’t recorded in the Book of Life.
So, yes; He’ll know.
Doesn’t equity or lets call it equal outcome ultimately result in stagnation of everything? It seems to me that equity strangles innovation, like Einstein, Edison and the guy who made that better mouse trap. The way equity would have to work is to hold back everyone to the level of those who perform the least.
How would you like to have heart surgery from the guy who finished last in his med. class? Or live in a country run by a President who finished 76 out of 85 in law school? OOPS!
Call me cynical but I think he knows the difference. I think he was just lying, another common characteristic of Socialists.
Of course he was lying, all socialistists lie when they see the glint of the dollar fall into their pockets, IT’s how you justify it that balances equity ..
Birnie blamed the $95 fee on those nasty capatialist publishers, claiming they set the fee .. And then expected us to belive ..
The sharp, mocking style of this wonderful article needs to become a conservative staple!
Equally inferior, equally miserable. True social justice.
This is such an easy question to answer. Socialism’s main tenet is “Everything in the state … nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”. Of course Mussolini said that and Hitler agreed. That would, Bernie, make them socialists … your people, not Trump’s. These days the difference between socialism, Marxism, communism, progressivism, leftism, and plain liberalism isn’t a hair’s breadth worth spitting.
UnAmerican or anti-American seems appropriate.
Good point.
Now . . . “How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?”
It’s no wonder that leftist scum have banned “Animal Farm”, and “1984” from our public school libraries (Afterall; they have to make room for pornographic filth books for our 1st graders.)
why do people buy into Bernie’s ‘socialism’?
this is a man who had no qualms about endorsing bankster-owned hillary clinton, a corrupt closet republican so evil people voted against her and we ended up with a TV reality show grifter in Trumper
The evil bltch is about as closet republican as you much as you read books.
(I’ll concede, if you meant republican, like Romney, McConnell, etc.)
Sanders is a fraud and equity is a canard period. Anti capitalists, that is people who have made a career out of being opposed to the “system” they live under, use it to gin up their support base. They are exploiters of the discontented. Sanders admired the Soviet Union. He had his honeymoon there. After that failed he decided that he favored some thing like Denmark, calling that Socialism, which is definitely is not.
Ha ha, Denmark was socialist-leaning for a short period of time and it almost sunk them. They got rid of that failed philosophy very quickly! Now they’re far more capitalist than America. The coming fascist world order via the UN may squash that, but for the moment, Denmark is a wonderful place.
Socialism is taking money away from people who have earned it and handing it over to people who haven’t.
My older brother, a Communist organizer in California, once said to me “The problem with you is that you have zero understanding of the basic tenets of Communism, so you think it’s evil.”
I said, sure I do. For the Communist organizer and politician, it operates on two basic principles:
1. What’s mine is mine and what yours is mine too
2. Communism is for the serfs, not the Communists.
Like most influential Communists, Bernie Sanders has lived his life by these principles. He feels entitled to steal from others and completely justified in imposing a system on others that he has no intention of complying with. Like my brother once said, “Rules are for the people who are willing to follow them.” There’s no more Communist a statement than that.
Okay Bernie you little parade is over time to go back to your cell with the guy who thinks is Napolean
The peasants work 18 hours a day to pay their fair share and ride bicycles.
The masters take vacations at their beach houses, fly in private jets, and ride in limos.
Senator McCarty warned us about Sanders and his kind now is the time to heed those warnings