23 Deodorants

"You can't just continue growth for the sake of growth in a world in which we are struggling with climate change and all kinds of environmental problems. All right? You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country. I don't think the media appreciates the kind of stress that ordinary Americans are working on."--Sanders, a man seriously considered for the position of President of the United States

Economic growth is not a goal for the sake of itself, it is a result of a process. Economic growth ignited by the freeing of markets has lifted more people out of poverty in the last century than any other force in history. 23 deodorants are not  the objective here, they are the by-product of the essential--and essentially foreign to Sanders--element in the success of the West: Choice. For some reason he is unable to see the incredible progress that choice and unfettered human ingenuity has created. Somehow these "Progressives" have a pre-Eighteenth Century view of the world.

The "stress" he mentions, however, is real. And one can make a very strong argument that it comes from areas where Americans have no choice: War, inflation, and criminality. Who would argue that the last generation has suffered more from Sanders' "environmental problems" than our foreign adventures, our Wall Street Criminals and our over-reaching politicians who hope to advance their friends and families in the guise of governmental "good deeds." We poor citizens trudge through the Vietnam War to the Iraq War to the Afghanistan War, wake up to sub-prime crises and dollar crises and interest rate crises, have to listen to legislators whose insights are exemplified by their belief that Guam will tip over if there are too many marines stationed there, and then pick up the paper and find it is our fault. If we were only not given so many choices.....

And such ignorant, dismissive, malicious, condescending and stupid politicians are called "populist."