I'm Feeling the Bern

When Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy for President a few months back, someone said by way of pithy facebook post: "Bernie Sanders, the lesser of two evils I have been waiting for all my life."  To be honest, at that point, I barely knew who Sanders was, but I had heard two things: he was a socialist and he stood almost no chance of gaining the democratic nomination let alone a general election.  The socialist part, I'm okay with, because in the current milieu it basically means anyone who is not a wholehearted supporter of  unbridled capitalism.  As a perpetual resident of the middle class, I do not support unbridled capitalism.  As a Christian, I believe that serving mammon is antithetical to following Jesus, you know, because he said so.

Over the past few months I have heard things come out of Bernie Sanders' grumpy old mouth that I have wanted someone, anyone, particularly someone with some political clout to say for a long time.  The list includes:

1. Paying a living wage
2. Reforming the system of public higher education and attendant crushing student debt.
3. Paying for such things by taxing stock market speculation and capital gains
4. Properly and stringently regulating the financial sector.
5. Even better health care solutions (single payer system)
6. Campaign finance reform
7. Ecological sanity
8. Racial Justice
9. Effective Gun control legislation

You may notice that a lot of those things have to do with getting a grip on our economic situation and tilting the playing field back towards level for the middle class.  That's simple self interest on one level, because I'm aware that I'm never going to sniff the upper echelons of the income scale or become super wealthy.  But on another level, I hear in Bernie Sanders platform, perhaps the most Christian set of values brought to this particular table since Jimmy Carter.  And Bernie is Jewish, and not even particularly religious.

But for the love of all that is holy, give me person who wants to try and create a more just society and fight oppression, and I will tell you that he's following Christ more than certain other candidates who demonstrate a rather callous attitude towards the poor (especially if the poor happen to come from south of the border).  Show me a secular Jew who wants to restore dignity to public discourse and I will show you Jesus (a religious Jew) who told us that if we call someone a fool we are liable to damnation.  Bernie rather notably refuses to attack Hilary, Biden or even any of the Republican candidates, other than stating his disagreement with their platforms and policies.  When he actually chastises reporters who would like to make some comment about Hilary's hair (or his hair for that matter), you get the sense that we are dealing with an actual grown up.

Maybe it's just because I'm in my 40's now, but I really want our next president to be an actual grown up.  I think Obama has been, and I think history will show that he was, even if the latest polls or the adolescent media don't particularly reflect that.

I have two things that I'm looking for when I vote: 

1. Do their policies and platform reflect a mature and realistic way forward.
2. Does that way forward mesh with Christian ethics.

Notice, I don't include whether or not they can win, whether they have good hair or whether or not they profess to be Christian.  I don't care about those things, those things got us Reagan and W. Bush (and Billy Clinton, just in case you think I'm picking on the Red side of the aisle).  Those things got us a mess of bad wars and rampant greed and eventually crashed us into the ditch.

I feel like we need to get our house in order, and for that to happen the focus of the conversation needs to change.  Even if Bernie doesn't get the nod from the Dems, he has still changed the conversation.  You know who is pushing buttons on the other side of the aisle? Donald Trump and his spectacular, horrible, really bad hair.  But it's okay, Bernie won't go after the hair, he'll go after the immoral and unfeasible ideas that Trump represents, that should be fun to watch if it happens.