No Bernie, Denmark is Not a Socialist Utopia
Socialist/communist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders loves to sing the praises of a small Scandinavian country, Denmark. It seems he has fallen out of love with his previous favorite countries, the Soviet Union and Cuba, which he “warmly praised” in the late 1980s.
After spurning the USSR, the country he spent his honeymoon in, shirtless, singing along drunkenly with his fellow communist comrades, he has moved on to northern Europe as representing his idea of utopia.
YouTube screen grab
As CNN reported about Bernie’s newfound love,
Open a newspaper on any given day here in this small Europe nation known for high taxes, generous government services and its stubbornly happy citizens, and you'll almost certainly find a story about the U.S. presidential election."I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway," Sanders said, "and learn what they have accomplished for their working people."
Danes may indeed be happy, but they bristle at being called socialists.
"I would like to make one thing clear," Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said recently in a speech at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy."
That hasn’t deterred Bernie, however. At a recent Democrat debate he proclaimed, "We should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people."
So, what’s the magic in Denmark? Denmark is the second happiest country in the world, just behind Finland, according to CNN Travel. The US sits in 19th place. If you watch a Trump rally, you would find nothing but happiness. Compare that to a Bernie rally or a Democrat debate where the only messages are misery and victimhood.
Denmark is fortunate that they don’t have our 24-7 cable news networks preaching gloom and doom and a major political party telling everyone how rotten Denmark is, a nation of victims. Who could be happy listening to nonstop pessimism?
Denmark is far from a socialist economy; instead they are the type of market economy that Bernie and his fellow Democrat candidates rail against. The CIA World Factbook describes Denmark this way.
This thoroughly modern market economy features advanced industry with world-leading firms in pharmaceuticals, maritime shipping, and renewable energy, and a high-tech agricultural sector. Danes enjoy a high standard of living, and the Danish economy is characterized by extensive government welfare measures and an equitable distribution of income. An aging population will be a long-term issue.
Wow, a market economy, not big government controlling healthcare, energy, communications, and tech, as the Democrats desire for America. But these extensive welfare measures have a cost.
How does GDP per capita compare between the US and Denmark? In Denmark it’s $50,000, but in the US it’s 20 percent higher at $60,000.
Denmark, as a member of NATO, enjoys military protection paid mostly by America. The US spends 3.1 percent of GDP on defense, compared to 1.3 percent by Denmark, leaving them more to spend on their “extensive government welfare measures.”
This applies to most European countries, happy for America to pay for their national defense, leaving them more money for extended family leave and other benefits.
How do taxes compare? After all, how does Denmark pay for their welfare benefits? From CNN,
"Free" is actually the wrong word to describe these services. Danes pay some of the highest taxes in the world, including a 25% tax on all goods and services, a top marginal tax rate hovering near 60%. The top tax rate in the U.S., by comparison, is less than 40%.
Bernie’s tax plan calls for a top tax rate north of 50 percent. He also wants a wealth tax of up to 8 percent on the Michael Bloombergs and Warren Buffets of the world.
Nothing is truly free. Taxes simply take money from citizens, purchasing “benefits” that some use or want and others don’t. Minus a hefty administrative fee to redistribute everyone’s income. Hardly free.
What about some of Denmark’s programs that are more in line with Trump than with Bernie? Democrats are famous for situational praise and outrage.
For example, John Bolton was evil when he was nominated by George W Bush for UN Ambassador, but a saint when he was willing to testify in the Ukraine impeachment trial. Mitt Romney was a racist, sexist, reprobate when running for president against The One, but became Mother Theresa when he was the sole Republican casting a vote to convict President Trump in the Senate.
So too with Denmark. There are other parts of the Denmark model that Bernie and his fellow socialist candidates would want no part of. Again, from CNN.
As a small country heavily reliant on trade, Denmark imposes minimal tariffs on foreign goods. Businesses here are only lightly regulated. The corporate tax rate is much lower than in the United States, which has one of the highest in the world. There's not even a minimum wage in Denmark, although most workers are paid high salaries in large part due to the strength of labor unions. And in the past few years, Danish voters elected a right-of-center government, which has been instituting reforms that have put tighter restrictions on access to the long-held safety net.
Every Democrat candidate is pushing for a higher minimum wage, yet Denmark has none. Danish immigration policy would also be anathema to Democrats.
Denmark has some of the most aggressive anti-immigrant policies in Europe. That has included taking out foreign-newspaper adverts warning potential migrants that they are not welcome, and authorizing police to seize cash and valuables from arriving asylum seekers to offset the cost of their maintenance.
Denmark has an island, 3 kilometers off shore, to house “rejected asylum seekers.” Our Democrats whine about “kids in cages”, a policy started under a Democrat president. What if President Trump turned Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California into a giant detention center, following the Denmark model?
Let’s ask Bernie if he endorses Denmark’s other immigration policies including a burqa ban, mandatory schooling in “Danish values” for ghetto children, and required handshakes with immigration officials regardless of an immigrant’s beliefs about physical contact with members of the opposite sex.
A Danish People’s Party spokesman believes Trump’s policies on immigration are “too weak.”
We’re a small country, and what binds us is a common language, and a common set of traditions and values. If we let in a large number of foreigners with their own cultures, ours will be overwhelmed.
Imagine hearing that from any Democrat candidate.
Bernie is simply cherry picking the policies of Denmark, such as generous welfare benefits, that he finds attractive, ignoring the numerous programs that are far more aligned with Donald Trump than the modern Democrat Party.
The reality is that, as CNN notes, “Few Danish politicians today would characterize themselves as ‘socialist’ -- even a ‘democratic socialist’ -- as Sanders does.” Ironically Trump has already instituted many Danish policies that Bernie now criticizes Trump over.
Yet Bernie continues to sing the praises of Denmark as his utopia, with no scrutiny from the lapdog media over a more complete analysis of Danish policies. But make no mistake, Denmark is not the socialist utopia Bernie Sanders claims it to be.
Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a Denver based physician and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and QuodVerum.
EVERY AMERICAN IS ONE PAYCHECK AND ONE
THOUSAND ILLEGALS AWAY FROM BEING HOMELESS
Bernie
Leads His Party to Open Borders
BERNIE’S
LA RAZA SUPREMACY WELFARE STATE IS AT HAND. WITH AMNESTY, 40 MILLION ILLEGALS
MAY BRING UP THE REST OF MEXICO AND VOTE DEMOCRAT FOR MORE!
In his Nevada victory
speech, Bernie promised that all Americans will pay for Democrat mistakes,
subsidizing not only citizens but also illegal aliens.
Milton Friedman, who was
so focused on economics that he forgot that nations need a shared culture to
function, believed open borders represented the free flow of both financial and
human capital. Friedman, however, drew a single bright line when it came to
open borders --no welfare:
Immigration is a
particularly difficult subject. There is no doubt that free and open
immigration is the right policy in a libertarian state, but in a welfare state
it is a different story: the supply of immigrants will become infinite. Your
proposal that someone only be able to come for employment is a good one but it
would not solve the problem completely. The real hitch is in denying social
benefits to the immigrants who are here. That is very hard to do, much harder
than you would think as we have found out in California.
Bernie Sanders has no
time for that economic reality:
Bernie Sanders: illegal immigrants are
"entitled" to the same government benefits as citizenshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsiRl6AJGbI …
Today we got 500,000
people sleeping out on the streets of America. Today we have 18 million
families paying 50% of their limited incomes for housing. Today we have
hundreds of thousands of bright young people who cannot afford to get a higher
education. Today we have 45 million paying a student debt that many of them
cannot afford to pay.
So, what our campaign is
about and what our administration will be about is rethinking America,
understanding that all of our people – when I say “all,” I also mean the
undocumented in this country – that all of our people are entitled to basic
human rights.
Democrats once understood
that illegal aliens depress working-class wages. That’s why Democrats
used to oppose open borders. In 1974, even Bernie
sang a different song about illegal laborers:
The Vermont senator and
2020 Democratic presidential candidate, as a gadfly political candidate in
1974, railed against the presence of 351 Jamaican guest workers in his state's
apple orchards, which were seeing a record harvest.
For socialist Sanders,
then 33, the situation supported his contention that businesses were yet again
selling out U.S. residents in favor of cheap labor.
[snip]
Back in 1974, Sanders's
rhetorical target was local orchard owners. Vermonters, in their view, were
unwilling to do the grueling work, which involved carrying around a ladder and
heavy bucket of apples for eight hours a day. The orchard owners said that
Jamaicans had more flexibility and experience in agricultural work. Unlike
native Vermonters, they were under no expectation of permanent employment.
[snip]
"With the Vermont
unemployment rate one of the highest in the nation, I could never support
importing foreign workers when our own people are out of work," said
Sanders, who was collecting unemployment insurance at the time.
Bernie has changed his
tune, as have all the other Democrats who once opposed open
borders, because
they need new voters – especially voters escaping disastrous socialist
economies in pursuit of better, more profitable socialism. That may not be
their express mindset but many of them, given the chance to vote, whether
legally or illegally, are drawn to socialism.
What’s most pernicious
about Bernie’s promises is that he’s forcing all Americans to pay for failed
Democrat policies. Rental housing stock in Democrat strongholds is expensive
because they embraced rent control and impaired landlords' abilities to evict
non-paying tenants. Housing stock in Democrat-run regions is expensive because
of restrictive zoning and insane limitations in service to “anthropogenic
climate change.”
The homeless are
multiplying on the streets because Democrats invite them in by providing them
with free food, free drugs, and the promise that they won’t be harassed or
arrested because of their anti-social behavior. Democrats also pushed to
close the institutions that once housed the severely mentally ill, leaving them
on the streets. (Watch the following video only if you have a strong
stomach.)
Higher education is more
expensive because Democrat-run colleges have drastically increased their institutions’
administrative employees while leaving the same number of teachers. These
costly administrative increases are all in service to diversity mania.
And finally, speaking of
higher education, students voluntarily take on this debt. No one makes them
acquire $300,000 in debt at a university with an endowment bigger than the GDP
of foreign countries in order to acquire a degree in LGBTQ puppetry.
EVERY AMERICAN IS ONE PAYCHECK AND ONE
THOUSAND ILLEGALS AWAY FROM BEING HOMELESS
Bernie
Leads His Party to Open Borders
|
Some 100
members of an American Mormon community in northern Mexico, nine of whom --
women, children, toddlers -- were massacred a week ago on a lonely stretch of
highway, just crossed over into Arizona.
Other
family members who have lived there for decades will follow.
The
atrocity was the work of one of the cartels battling for control of the drug
traffic into the United States.
In
Mexico's Sinaloa state in October, an arrest of Ovidio Guzman Lopez, son of
"El Chapo," who sits in a New York prison, brought a military-style
cartel attack on the state capital, Culiacan, followed by a surrender to the
cartel gunmen by national guard and army troops, and a release of the captive.
"Is
Mexico a failed state?" asks The Washington Times. Its editorial describes
"Another Blood-Soaked Year in Mexico" where 17,000 people were
murdered by July and the 2019 death toll is expected to reach 32,000.
USA Today
reports: "Through August of the current fiscal year, the Border Patrol
apprehended 457,871 migrants arriving as 'family units' ... a 406% increase
compared to the 90,554 family unit apprehensions during the same period the
previous year. Migrant families from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador made
up almost 92% of the total."
With
cartel battles escalating into a war that Mexico City has no stomach for fighting,
and a record number of migrants from Central America crossing Mexico to flood
into the USA, what is the Democratic Party's policy for halting the rising
tide?
Democrats
are moving toward an "open door" policy on the U.S. border, an open
borders embrace of any and all who wish to come.
America,
apparently, does not belong to those who live here and love the country.
America belongs to anyone who chooses to come. America belongs to the world.
Consider
Bernie Sanders' immigration proposal, outlined the week of the massacre of
Mormon women and children.
On Day
One, President Sanders would declare a moratorium on deportations and offer a
"swift pathway to citizenship" for all illegal migrants who have been
here for five years.
Bernie
would break up ICE. Border-jumping would cease to be a crime and become a civil
offense like jaywalking. The "Muslim ban" would be abolished.
President
Sanders would back sanctuary cities that refuse to work with U.S. law
enforcement. Asylum seekers would not have to wait in Mexico as their claims
were processed but would be welcomed into the USA.
Family
separations would end. Trump's wall, which Bernie calls "racist,"
would be history. The administration's treatment of illegal immigration
"as a criminal and national security matter is inhuman, impractical and
must end."
Migrants
who enter illegally would qualify for federal health care and the same social
welfare benefits as U.S. citizens. Immigrant officials say Sanders' proposals
would create an irresistible magnet for millions of migrants from all over the
world to stampede into the USA.
The
Nation magazine calls Sanders' plan "one of the boldest immigration plans
any major politician has put forward in years, and comes amid a campaign season
that has seen a major shift to the left among Democratic candidates on
immigration.
"With
calls for a total moratorium on deportations, abolishing ICE and providing a
path to citizenship for undocumented migration, the plan serves as a road map
for what a fair and just immigration can be."
From
another standpoint, Sanders' proposal is a surrender to the reality that a
leftist regime lacks the conviction or will to stop an endless stream of people
from migrating here.
Americans
troubled over what is happening on the Syrian-Turkish border, or
Ukrainian-Crimean border, might take a closer look at what will happen at our
own border, and to our own country, if Democrats win the presidency and throw
open the doors to unrestricted immigration.
The
federal budget, already running trillion-dollar deficits, and state budgets,
too, will see huge increases in the cost of social programs, without the
commensurate income tax revenues to pay for them.
Even at
present levels, illegal immigration is bringing in millions of people without
the work, education or language skills to compete and assimilate rapidly in a
first world, Western economy.
These
migrants pay virtually no income taxes, yet, would qualify for the same benefits
as U.S. citizens. The inevitable result: another run-up in an annual deficit
already running $1 trillion in the red.
Politically,
so massive a migration of peoples who, once they become citizens, vote 70%-90%
Democratic means an end of the GOP as a truly national party.
If we
open the borders, how do we stop the drugs from coming in? How do we stop the
cartels from following MS-13, which is already here?
Socially,
this country is as splintered as it has been since the 1960s.
Will a
barrage of migrants add to its diversity, or deepen the ethnic, racial and
cultural divides that are turning us into two, three, many Americas?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of "Nixon's White House Wars:
The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators
writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
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