Senator Rand Paul made some waves Wednesday at the Health, Education, Labor, and Pension confirmation hearing by rebuking Senator Bernie Sanders’ angry socialist ranting. The septuagenarian Bernster, who almost won the Democratic nomination, asked the HHS Secretary nominee Tom Price (R-GA) if he thought healthcare was a “right of all Americans whether they’re rich or they’re poor?” Representative Price began to respond with “We are a compassionate society…” before he was abruptly cut off by the boom of Sanders’ self-righteous thunder.
“No, we’re not a compassionate society in terms of our relationship to poor and working people,” Sanders said. “Our record is worse than virtually any other country on earth. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty than any other major country on earth and half of our senior, older workers have nothing set aside for retirement. So I don’t think compared to other countries we are particularly compassionate.”
When it was Senator Paul’s turn to question the nominee, he focused most of his attention on a response to the socialist vitriol of Sanders; espousing the virtue of American generosity and the manipulative lie of socialist utopia which has been repeatedly demonstrated as nothing but failure all across the world.
It’s interesting that those who say we have no compassion, you know, extol the virtues of socialism. And you look at a country like Venezuela, with great resources and an utter disaster where people can’t eat, devolving into violence. I think it’s important that we do have a debate ultimately in our country between socialism and communism and America and capitalism.
“One of things that’s extraordinary about our country is that just two years ago, in 2014, we gave away $400 billion privately. Not the government — individually, through churches and charities. We’re an incredibly compassionate society and I think often this was misplaced in sort of the wonky numbers … within healthcare. How much we do help each other — not only do we help each other in our country, I bet you half of the physicians in my community in Bowling Green have gone on international trips and done international charity work.
“And all that is lost in saying that we’re this heartless, terrible country. I would just argue the opposite. I think the greatness of our country and the greatness of the compassion of our country, we give away most of the gross domestic product of most of these socialized countries around the world.”
.@RandPaul: “We’re an incredibly compassionate society.” pic.twitter.com/GVUKyGf3Ma
— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 18, 2017
What do you think? Are Rand Paul’s assertions correct? If so, why do socialists (like Sanders) seem to lack (or ignore) a basic understanding of economic principles? Are they mostly useful idiots (simply desiring a free lunch); malevolent parasites (who, like bandits, want to use force [government] to pillage those who produce); or perhaps both? Let us know on Facebook or in the comments below.
