Readers React: Backhanded praise for Bernie Sanders from a conservative

To the editor: In his piece confessing admiration for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ intellectual honesty, Barton Swaim makes assertions that seem both ill-informed and contrary to the presentation style he admires. (“A conservative explains what he likes about Bernie Sanders,” Op-Ed, Nov. 13)

He describes healthcare as a contemporary commodity rather than the most basic of human needs and states “guaranteeing a ‘right’ to any product or service … can only produce effects opposite from the ones intended.” He says viewing healthcare as a right is “an abuse of language.”

In the Declaration of Independence, our founders declared certain rights, including those of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” to be unalienable. They affirmed that to secure these qualities, people have the right to form and organize governments.

I agree that Sanders states his views in ways encouraging democratic discussion. How ironic that Swaim presents his own as facts rather than debatable propositions. I find Swaim’s examples wholly inconsistent with practical realities and the policies our nation needs to pursue.

That, of course, is only my opinion.

Walter Hamilton, Santa Barbara

..

To the editor: Swaim could use some of the humility he applauds in Sanders, and some historical perspective as well.

He may find Sanders’ notion that the U.S. is an unjust society “a preposterous slur,” but the troubling number of Americans continuing to suffer racial and economic injustice lends the notion credence.

Nor is Sanders’ claim that healthcare is a right nearly as far-fetched as Swaim asserts. Franklin D. Roosevelt claimed as much in his “Second Bill of Rights” speech in 1944, adding the right to a living wage, housing, education, social security, food, clothing and leisure.

Vincent Brook, Los Angeles

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook