Let’s face it. Bernie Sanders doesn’t like a lot of things about this country, starting with the fact it hasn’t fallen completely into socialism. But he’s usually better at hiding his true agenda than he was yesterday when he praised China for making “more progress in addressing extreme poverty than any country in the history of civilization.” Talk about not only twisting facts to suit his own narrative but being down right delusional.

Think about that for a moment. China, the country where a couple can have only one child unless one of the parents is, themselves, an only child. China where children (and adults) work in dismal conditions in factories. But Bernie apparently doesn’t think those pesky little facts, not to mention others, should detract from all the country has done for its poor.

Of course, he also doesn’t believe China presents an “existential threat” to our country. I guess he’s so busy campaigning for president in hopes of turning the U.S. into some sort of socialist paradise that he hasn’t been watching the news. Nothing else, other than delusional dreams of turning the U.S. into a worker’s paradise steeped in socialism, can explain such a statement.

Now, to be fair, China has seen positive economic gains for many of its citizens since Mao’s death in 1976. But, Sanders oh so carefully omitted one important fact from his interview.  These gains were accomplished through “free enterprise and capital investment, not state-mandated economic programs.”

Wait, what?

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Sanders forgot that little tidbit. Remember, he is against “unfettered free trade”. You see, the sort of free trade that helped lift so many Chinese out of poverty–and that helped build this country–is driven by business decisions and profit. Both of which are evil in Sanders’ eye unless that profit lining his own pocket. Instead, he feels trade agreements should trade be “designed to work for working families.”

Whatever the hell that means.

And leave it to Sanders to find a way to take a move toward capitalism and turn it into a progressive talking point. To him, what has happened in China shows that a government can and should guarantee economic prosperity for all, no matter what their ability or their willingness to work toward it.

Big Brother provideth and Big Brother taketh away—especially when the facts don’t serve the socialist narrative.

None of this should surprise anyone who’s listened to Sanders over the years. Back in 1985, he took exception to those who looked on having to stand in bread lines as something bad.

It’s funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is, that people are lining up for food. That is a good thing! In other countries people don’t line up for food: The rich get the food, and the poor starve to death.”

What?!?

But there’s more. Sanders also had this to say in the interview:

China is a country that is moving unfortunately in a more authoritarian way in a number of directions.”

Talk about living in an alternate reality.

Nothing China is doing now should surprise anyone who has studied history, especially the history of the last 100 years or so. China is not and has not been a benevolent and caring government during that time. If it had been, we wouldn’t be seeing the latest round of protests from Hong Kong. You know the ones I mean. The ones where U.S. flags are being waved and our National Anthem sung by those China wants to oppress. China wouldn’t have troops stationed nearby, ready to invade if “order” isn’t maintained. There are those of us old enough to remember the former Soviet Union rolling into Prague in 1968 because the Czechs dared to want to break away and be independent. Before that was the invasion of Hungary in 1956 for the same reason.

Hmm, I’m sort of seeing a pattern here. How about you?

Just as I’m seeing a pattern where Sanders is concerned. He has no problems with governments where people have to stand in bread lines. Why? Because he is foolish enough to believe that means equality for all. He either doesn’t see (or doesn’t want to) the fact the elite in the government or other apparatchik favored folks aren’t standing along side their comrades. They are living in a much nicer life. Bread lines don’t mean equality. They mean a lack of good for the common man, the person Bernie is supposedly out to take care.

If that is his way of taking care of someone, I’d prefer him to leave me alone.

The cold, hard truth is that Bernie Sanders wants to take our country down a path we’ll never recover from. He hates capitalism, free trade and much of what makes this nation great.

And, like so many of his ilk, he is a master of spin.

But this is one time the snake oil salesman isn’t going to make a sale. It is up to us to make sure he doesn’t have the chance to introduce his own version of the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution here.

Remember the words of Tania Branigan, the Guardian’s longtime reporter in China, concerning the will of the individual being far more powerful than the government when it comes to the economy:

The trope that hundreds of millions have been ‘lifted out’ of poverty is wrong and insulting. [T]hey have hauled themselves out.”

Bernie Sanders wants nothing more than to find a way to force this country into becoming his own socialist paradise. We’ve seen how well socialism has worked in other countries. Good intentions go out the window when reality sets in and people start understanding that the government pays for all that “free” medical care or education or whatever by reaching deep into the pockets of the individual. Take away the incentive to produce at your highest level and innovation drops through the floor. And, no, most people aren’t inclined to do their best when there’s a proverbial gun pointed at their head or when they know the profits of their work will go to someone else who had nothing to do with their effort instead of benefiting their own family.

And it is the individual that took advantage of the relaxed rules in China and pulled himself out of poverty, not the government. It is time we all realized a government that has no problems oppressing dissent is not one to encourage economic security, much less freedom, on an individual level.

In other words, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Remember that when you head to the polls for the primaries and then later in November. If Sanders or Warren are elected, we may never recover from the damage they want to do to the fabric of this great nation.

Welcome, Instapundit Readers!

Featured photo: Bernie Sanders caricature by DonkeyHotey. Creative Commons 2.0 license.