Thread by @bansisharma

1. "Democratic Socialism" Is An Egregious Lie
What Bernie Sanders is telling a whole new generation of know-nothings is this that Venezuela is not socialism, Scandinavia is. That is a blatant lie because Scandinavian countries themselves reject that they are socialist.

2. So Bernie resorts to a semantic switcheroo and tells his acolytes what "he means" when he uses the term. By socialism he doesn't mean govt control of means of production, instead he only means: "free college, free healthcare, and government mandated higher wages and jobs."

3. Well, Bernie, there is no "free" anything in life. Someone has to pay. And in this case we are talking about tens if not hundreds of trillions of dollars. Who will pay for all of it? His answer: the super-rich will have to pay for it. Well, that's another humongous lie.

4. Even if you confiscate everything the super-rich have got, it can't even pay for a fraction of what Bernie is promising as "his meaning of socialism." Every fricking social welfare program is always and inevitably paid for by the middle class. Understand this once and for all.

5. While Scandinavian countries are not socialist, they do have more social welfare than the U.S. Who pays for it? Of course everybody pays for it. They have no minimum wage laws, and they have a relatively flat income tax, and a huge national sales tax on top of it.

6. What is the income tax rate in Scandinavian countries, except for people earning less than about $45,000 a year (who pay a smaller tax rate)? About 60% -- yes, for everybody, for every dollar earned above ~$45,000, regardless of income.

7. Why so high? Because that's what their level of social welfare costs in the real world. And that's what it will cost in the U.S. too. It is not illegitimate to want it even at that price. Scandinavians do. That is a discussion worth having. Every country can choose for itself.

8. Correction. It will cost even more than that in the U.S. Because U.S. has one more thing the govt has to fund which Scandinavian countries don't. A massive military power to protect not only the U.S. but also the Scandinavian countries, among others.

9. An intellectually honest Bernie would be making a case to the nation that it is a good idea for every American to pay a tax rate of about 75% on every dollar they earn above say $75K, in return for "free" healthcare and "free" college and a few other goodies.

10. Who knows? Maybe it's a good idea. Maybe it's not. But how can Americans even begin to have an honest discussion about it, if the Bernie Sanders of America keep telling them that they can have it all and some tooth-fairy will pick up the tab.

11. What loathsome, creepy, dishonest lowlifes these so-called socialist "leaders" are! They deserve no accolades. They deserve nothing but ridicule. And that's what they would get, if our schools and colleges were actually educating our kids to think critically.

The End.