Cornwall Alliance

For the Stewardship of Creation

  • Home
  • About
    • Listen To Our Podcast “Created to Reign!”
    • Who We Are
    • What We Do
    • What Drives Us
    • Our History in Highlights
    • Cornwall Alliance Statement of Faith
  • Landmark Documents
  • Issues
  • Blog
  • Media
    • Press Releases
  • Shop
    • Books
    • DVDs
  • Contact
    • Challenging “Net-Zero”: Conquering Poverty While Stewarding the Earth in the Age of Climate Change
    • Summer Essay Contest!
    • Request a Talk Show Guest
    • Request Opinion Columns
    • Q&A Form
    • Request A Speaker
  • Donate
  • Get Our Newest Book: Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism

Why are Young Americans Flocking to Bernie?

by E. Calvin Beisner

February 19, 2016

flickr bernie cropped

Of course young people like Bernie! He promises them free college, free health care—free, free, free.

But why don’t these young people understand TANSTAAFL (“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”)?

I’ll tell you.

Their mistake is perfectly understandable. For eighteen, twenty, maybe twenty-five years or more practically all they’ve consumed has been free to them. Their parents have fed them, clothed them, housed them, medicated them, transported them, entertained them, educated them—done practically everything for them, and hardly asked for a penny (or a penny’s worth of service) in return.

And that’s as it should be. Parents are meant to take care of their children, to provide for them until they’re ready to begin providing for themselves—and eventually for their aged and disabled parents.

But during those growing-up years, no matter how much parents try to teach them TANSTAAFL in the abstract, their day-to-day experience shouts a different message: Most everything’s free!

So, how do we get the naïve, Bernie-worshiping youth of America to think a little more sanely?

Ask them a few fairly simple questions with fairly obvious answers:

Who paid for pretty much all your meals from birth till you finished college? Who paid for pretty much all your clothes? Who paid the mortgage or rent for your home? Who paid the phone bills, the Internet bills, the cable bills? Who paid for all your transportation before you turned 16—and probably a good bit of it after that? Who paid for your health care—including the premiums that bought the insurance that wrote some of the checks? And if you went to college, or are in it now, who likely paid a good bit of your college costs?

Unless I’m very much mistaken, it wasn’t your next-door neighbors, it was your parents.

Is that because your neighbors were wicked, selfish, greedy, uncompassionate? No. You know your neighbors. With few exceptions, you know that’s not true of them. Though not perfect, they’re good, caring people, just like your parents.

But then why didn’t they pay for all your needs through all those years?

Because the free, just, and virtuous society, as Augustine put it in The City of God, is one in which everyone does “good to everyone he can reach. Primarily, therefore, his own household are his care, for the law of nature and of society gives him readier access to them and greater opportunity of serving them. And hence the apostle says, ‘Now, if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel’” [1 Timothy 5:8].

There’s a more subtle lesson here than the obvious one that nothing’s really free. It’s the lesson that even good, loving, charitable people rightly care more, and are willing to spend more, for their own children, their own immediate family members, and their own extended family members, than for others. It’s part of the warp and woof of God-given human nature.

So when Bernie says he wants to give you free college and free health care, remember: What he’s really saying is that he wants to shift the burden for those things from you and your own parents, who obviously love you more than your next-door neighbors do, to people all over the country who don’t even know you.

If your next-door neighbors didn’t pay for your food, clothing, and other needs while you were growing up and unable to pay for them yourself, what in the world makes you think people across the country who don’t even know you will gladly pay for those or less necessary things now that you’re grown up enough to work for them yourself?

And if they won’t, why do you think your government’s going to succeed at forcing them to? And are you really willing for it to succeed that way—by force, with the implicit threat to imprison or even, if necessary to overcome resistance, kill each one who refuses?

In real life, TANSTAAFL. Nothing’s free, except the gift of eternal life, and even that, though free to us, was paid for by the infinitely valuable sacrifice of God Himself on the cross.

This article was originally published on ChristianHeadlines.com.

Featured Image Courtesy of Phil Roeder/Flicker CC.

Dated: February 19, 2016

Tagged With: Bernie Sanders, Economics, Millennials, Politics, Presidential Race 2016, socialism
Filed Under: Bridging Humanity and the Environment, Economics, Poverty & Development, Environmental & Social Justice, Politics & Law

About E. Calvin Beisner

Dr. Beisner is Founder and National Spokesman of The Cornwall Alliance; former Associate Professor of Historical Theology & Social Ethics, at Knox Theological Seminary, and of Interdisciplinary Studies, at Covenant College; and author of “Where Garden Meets Wilderness: Evangelical Entry into the Environmental Debate” and “Prospects for Growth: A Biblical View of Population, Resources, and the Future.”

Comments

  1. Pat says

    April 6, 2016 at 10:04 pm

    Young Americans are flocking to Bernie because they have been brainwashed by the secular humanism that has taken over education in the United States. Therefore, among other things, they are ignorant of economic realities. They believe that the truly impossible dream of Utopia is actually possible–and they “feel good” about themselves in their ignorance. That’s why!

    Reply
  2. Stefan says

    May 1, 2016 at 1:04 am

    Bernie Sanders’ message echos Jesus’ in 2 key ways:

    1. The wealthy should be generous to others.

    2. We should broaden our definition of neighbor to include more then the people who live in the house beside our own.

    These are not easy challenges to accept (or commands to obey in Jesus’ case). So we should not be surprised that so few consider themselves Bernie Sanders supporters or followers of Jesus.

    Reply
    • E. Calvin Beisner says

      May 2, 2016 at 6:34 pm

      Stefan, thanks for sharing your thoughts. The Bible teaches that every individual should give generously and willingly to people in need. It does not command that any individual, or any group of individuals (of which a state is one example), to forcibly take from some to give to others. In short, we are to be generous with our own possessions, not with others’. Sanders’s message, therefore, doesn’t echo Jesus’ message but contradicts it. Let me recommend that, to gain a thoroughly Biblical understanding of economics and of aid for the poor, you read my book Prosperity and Poverty: The Compassionate Use of Resources in a World of Scarcity (out of print, but available used at very low cost–as little as a penny!–at http://www.amazon.com/Prosperity-Poverty-Compassionate-Resources-Christian/dp/0891074996/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462213988&sr=8-1&keywords=Beisner%2C+Prosperity+and+Poverty).

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Listen To Our Podcast


Available to listen on these platforms:

Spotify
Amazon Music
Apple Podcast
Google Podcast
Stitcher

Future Speaking Engagements

May 23, 2025 – Grand Rapids, MI

GR.Church, 4525 Stauffer Avenue Southeast, Grand Rapids, MI 49508

Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, Cornwall Alliance President, and Steve Goreham, Cornwall Alliance Board Member, will hold a symposium on Sustainable Energy, Climate Change, and the costs to YOUR life.  For tickets and more information, click HERE.

June 18-21, 2025–Dallas, TX

Cornwall Alliance will be a host of the Association of Classical Christian Schools’ (ACCS) annual Repairing the Ruins conference in Dallas, TX, and will have an exhibit booth.

Details and registration can be found HERE.

September 19-20–Arlington, VA

Dr Beisner will represent the Cornwall Alliance at the fall meeting of the Philadelphia Society and will have a literature table.

Attendance is for Society members and invited guests only. To inquire about an invitation, email Dr. Cal Beisner: Calvin@cornwallalliance.org.

September 26-27– Lynchburg, VA

Dr. Beisner will be speaking at the Christian Education Initiative Annual Summit, “Advancing Christ’s Kingdom Through Biblical Worldview Education.” 

Details and registration can be found HERE.

Are Science & Religion in Conflict?

Join Our Email List

Select list(s) to subscribe to


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Recent Stewards Blog Posts

  • Traditional Media Turn Complex Science Into Impending Catastrophe
  • Why the Environmental Movement (Deep Ecology) and Socialism Are No Substitute for the Great Commission
  • Trump’s Example to the World: Cull Activists to Achieve Energy Abundance
  • Shapiro ‘Price Cap’ Could Hike Electricity Bills
  • Next Year, Let’s Have People Day, Not Earth Day

Top 40 Global Warming Blog by Feedspot

Search

Listen to Our Podcast

Available to listen on these platforms:

Spotify
Amazon Music
Apple Podcast
Google Podcast
Stitcher



Copyright © 2025 · Cornwall Alliance · 875 W. Poplar Avenue Suite 23-284, Collierville, TN 38017 · Phone: (423) 500-3009

Designed by Ingenious Geeks & John A. Peck · Log in