FPI / June 16, 2019
In a campaign speech on June 12, 2020 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders introduced what he calls his “21st Century Economic Bill of Rights”.
Sanders defined six “rights” that the senator says all Americans are entitled to:
The right to a decent job that pays a living wage;
The right to quality health care;
The right to a complete education;
The right to affordable housing;
The right to a clean environment;
The right to a secure retirement.
Radio and TV host Mark Levin noted that Sanders has essentially plagiarized Joseph Stalin’s 1936 Soviet Constitution and has “stolen his agenda.”
The only “right” not lifted from the Stalin Constitution was the right to a clean environment. Climate change was not an issue in 1936.
Sanders said in the June 12 speech that “In fact, income and wealth inequality today is greater in the United States than in any time since the 1920s.”
Levin, whose book “Unfreedom of the Press” has been No. 1 on the New York Times Best Seller List since its release last month, said: “And what does that mean? ‘Well, the richest people are richer than ever and the poorest people are poorer than ever.’ That’s not true. The poorest people are not poorer than ever. You see, this is good for Marxist propaganda, but it is meaningless”
“The answer to what he’s suggesting is: less government and more liberty – less government and more liberty. What he doesn’t say, if he really believes in that canard, is that at no time have we had more government in the United States than we have now. At no time have we had more spending, more debt than we’ve had now. At no time have we had bigger bureaucracy than we have now, more regulations than we have now. He doesn’t point that out. So, obviously, from his perspective it’s not working, is it? It’s not working. So his answer is: it’s not working, so let’s do more of it. So let’s do more of it.”
RedState columnist Elizabeth Vaughn cited Articles 118-122 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution (Source: Bucknell University):
ARTICLE 118: Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work, that is, are guaranteed the right to employment and payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality.
ARTICLE 119: Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to rest and leisure. The right to rest and leisure is ensured by the reduction of the working day to seven hours for the overwhelming majority of the workers, the institution of annual vacations with full pay for workers and employees and the provision of a wide network of sanatoria, rest homes and clubs for the accommodation of the working people.
ARTICLE 120: Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to maintenance in old age and also in case of sickness or loss of capacity to work. This right is ensured by the extensive development of social insurance of workers and employees at state expense, free medical service for the working people and the provision of a wide network of health resorts for the use of the working people.
ARTICLE 121: Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to education. This right is ensured by universal, compulsory elementary education; by education, including higher education, being free of charge; by the system of state stipends for the overwhelming majority of students in the universities and colleges; by instruction in schools being conducted in the native language, and by the organization in the factories, state farms, machine and tractor stations and collective farms of free vocational, technical and agronomic training for the working people.
ARTICLE 122: Women in the U.S.S.R. are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of economic, state, cultural, social and political life. The possibility of exercising these rights is ensured to women by granting them an equal right with men to work, payment for work, rest and leisure, social insurance and education, and by state protection of the interests of mother and child, prematernity and maternity leave with full pay, and the provision of a wide network of maternity homes, nurseries and kindergartens.
The National Review’s Kevin Williamson offers this definition of socialism: “solidarity that is enforced at gunpoint, if necessary.”
FPI, Free Press International