The Difference Between Bernie Sanders And Rand Paul 28 By J. Wilson on JUNE 14, 2015 Healthcare - Obamacare The Difference Between Bernie Sanders And Rand Paul
Before getting to the differences, it’s important to note that there are some similarities between Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul. They’re both Senators that often break ranks with their party and stand alone to fight for issues they care about. They aren’t afraid to challenge their party’s powerful elite, and represent important ideas that are forgotten by the mainstream. In other words, they’re both independents, and each should be respected for that regardless of one’s politics.
When it comes to their actual ideas, however, they couldn’t be more different. Luckily, the difference between Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul can be summed up in this one image. The issue of whether someone has a right to the goods and services of someone else is a major difference between libertarians and liberals, or socialists.
Bernie Sanders would have you believe that people do have a right to healthcare, a service provided by individuals. To enforce that “right”, Sanders would used government theft to confiscate incomes, and/or theoretically conscript healthcare workers to provide that service for “free”. This would not be limited to healthcare, as Sanders also believes in “free” education, and other social welfare programs.
Rand Paul does not believe in that tyranny. Libertarians hold that government force is inherently illegitimate, and should be minimized to only cover the protection of natural rights. Natural rights are negative rights, or rights that can be exercised without infringing on another’s. A “right” to healthcare would be a positive right, or in essence, a demand upon other individuals to either provide their income or services. That demand violates those individuals’ rights, and because of that violation is not a valid right. Therefore, the idea that government should enforce a demand for healthcare is morally wrong.
Libertarians believe in the power of the free market to provide goods and services at the lowest price and highest quality. But, that competition can only work if government regulation and intervention is minimized, which is obviously not the current situation. We would deregulate the healthcare insurance market and allow competition across state lines among other things.
While healthcare is just one subject, it exemplifies the difference between Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul. It’s simple. Bernie Sanders believes rights come from government, can be granted by politicians, and be forced upon individuals. On the other hand, Rand Paul believes in natural rights that are inherent in our existence, and should be protected by government.
Independents considering voting for either man should know the difference, and consider which country they would rather live in: A country where government can invent “rights” and force their demands upon a helpless public already suffering under massive bureaucracy, or one where government protects natural rights and liberty, and eliminates crony regulations to free the market? Hopefully that choice will be clear in 2016.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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