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John Stossel Published 4:39 p.m. ET Feb. 10, 2017 | Updated 17 minutes ago

20/20 - JOHN STOSSEL(Photo: STEVE FENN, ABC)

Oh, no! I did it again.

It was a foolish mistake. But I slipped.

I read The New York Times.

This is bad for my health, because I get so mad at the smug socialist spin, but how can I not read it? Its my hometown paper. My wife wakes me up with indignant questions like, How can you say government is too big? The Times says

Aargh! Nearly every day brings a new Times outrage.

Saturday, a front-page story smeared Labor Secretary nominee Andy Puzder.

The story begins, Decades before President Trump nominated him Puzder went to battle with federal labor regulators

Wait a second. Decades (END ITAL) before? They went back decades to criticize him? Actually, (SET ITAL) three (END ITAL) decades -- to 1983, when as a young lawyer, Puzder represented a client whom the Labor Department accused of squandering union money.

The Times went on to say: He has repeatedly argued that economic regulations stifle economic growth.

Puzder argued that? Regulations (SET ITAL) obviously (END ITAL) stifle growth. Thats their purpose -- to protect workers by putting limits on businesses pursuit of profit. Regulation is a big reason this post-recession recovery has been so weak.

In just the last 10 years, the Department added regulations that require another 70 million hours of paperwork.

Monday: Trumps F.D.A. Pick Could Undo Decades of Drug Safeguards.

Oh, no! Trump will poison America with unsafe drugs!

President Trump hasnt actually made his FDA pick yet, but the Times worries his push for deregulation might put consumers at risk.

The reporter cites thalidomide, which, 60 years ago, caused severe birth defects in babies whose mothers had taken the drug in pregnancy. Since then, the F.D.A. has come to be viewed as the worlds leading watchdog for protecting the safety of food and drugs, a gold standard

Fools gold. The FDA protected American babies from thalidomide not by being smart, but by being so slow. By the time thalidomide neared approval, its bad effects were visible in Europe.

The Times eagerly reports damage done by drugs: Drug safety watchdogs point to examples like the painkiller Vioxx, which was withdrawn from the market

But invoking Vioxx as the icon for such looseness is itself ignorant looseness, says my medical researcher brother, Tom. FDA approvals are tradeoffs between benefits and risks. The FDA knew about Vioxxs risks. It was the company, not the FDA, that withdrew the painkiller. Many doctors now say it was an ill-advised move that deprives patients of a good alternative. Vioxxs risks are no greater than painkillers like Motrin sold over the counter.

The Times avoids detailing just how onerous todays regulation is. The reporter says, The agency sets a 10-month goal for approving standard drugs.

Gee, goals are nice, but does the agency honor them? The Times doesnt say. It also doesnt mention that the 10-month goal only applies to the final step of regulation after all trials are done. The entire process takes an average 16 years and $2.6 billion.

Americans want protection from bad drugs, but how many of us suffer needless pain, or die, while waiting those 16 years? How many die because a drugs developers cannot raise $2.6 billion?

One more smear:

President Trumps pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, has aggressively moved to roll back consumer protection regulations.

Consumer protection? No. Socialist idiocy.

The Times says Pai stopped nine companies from providing discounted high-speed internet service to low-income individuals.

No, he stopped a $9.25/month government subsidy for high-speed internet.

He withdrew an effort to keep prison phone rates down, says the Times.

No, he stopped FCC lawyers from fighting about in-state phone calls because the FCC has no constitutional authority there.

Utterly reasonable. But the Times quotes an advocacy group saying, Chairman Pai is showing his true stripes (doing) favors for the powerful corporations.

Please. Someone. Tell The New York Times that socialism was tried. It doesnt work.

You can contact John Stossel at info@creators.com.

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Failure of socialism is old news - Press & Sun-Bulletin

By Julie Hyland 10 February 2017

This is the conclusion of a two-part series on the British pseudo-lefts support for immigration controls. Part one was published on February 9.

Britains pseudo-left distort Karl Marxs analysis of the industrial reserve army or relative surplus population in order to smuggle in a racial and nativist criterion that, in fact, belongs to the far right.

This is underscored by the fact that, in support of their position, they frequently cite Marx on the issue of Irish migration to England in the 19th century, quoting from a letter in which he wrote, Ireland constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market, and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral position of the English working class. [Marx letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt, April 9, 1870]

The divisions cultivated between Irish and English workers were notorious and by no means confined to the 1800s. Many people today remember only too well the No Irish, No Blacks, No dogs signs that frequented rented accommodation in the UK right up to the 1960s.

Once again, the pseudo-left omit the remainder of Marxs letter, which excoriates the backwardness of the English worker, who regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself.

Marx continues: He cherishes religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker. His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the poor whites to the Negroes in the former slave states of the USA The Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of the English rulers in Ireland.

This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite aware of this... It is the special task of the Central Council [of the First International] in London to make the English workers realise that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment, but the first condition of their own social emancipation.

For Marx, prejudice amongst English workers against their Irish brothers and sisters was the occasion for a ruthless political struggle to establish their common class interests against the British bourgeoisienot, as with the pseudo-left today, an excuse for justifying nationalist reaction.

Far from opposition to border controls not being a socialist principle, the controversy over this issue was to take on life and death dimensions within the Second International.

The issue of immigration restrictions arose in the run-up to the 1907 Socialist Congress in Stuttgart, the Seventh Congress of the Second International. The US state was targeting Chinese and Japanese workers. Congress had passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, halting the entry of Chinese immigrants into the country. In 1908, Japanese immigration into the US was also banned.

On behalf of the US Socialist Party leadership, Morris Hillquit and Victor Berger proposed a resolution calling for a campaign against the willful importation of cheap foreign labor calculated to destroy labor organizations, to lower the standard of living of the working class, and to retard the ultimate realization of socialism.

This stance was opposed by the left wing within the Socialist Party, with Eugene Debs attacking it as utterly unsocialistic, reactionary, and, in truth, outrageous.

The Stuttgart Congress rejected the resolution. Lenin, who attended the congress as one of the Bolshevik party delegates, welcomed the defeat. Support for immigration restrictions represented an attempt to defend narrow, craft interests and was the outcome of the spirit of aristocratism that one finds among workers in some of the civilised countries, who derive certain advantages from their privileged position, and are, therefore, inclined to forget the need for international class solidarity. [Lenin Proletary, No. 17, October 20, 1907, The International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart]

Lenin returned to the issue of Capitalism and Workers Immigration in his article of that title in Za Pravdu, October 29, 1913. Capitalism has given rise to a special form of migration of nations, he wrote, forcing hundreds of thousands of workers to wander hundreds and thousands of versts for employment.

There can be no doubt that dire poverty alone compels people to abandon their native land, and that the capitalists exploit the immigrant workers in the most shameless manner. But only reactionaries can shut their eyes to the progressive significance of this modern migration of nations. Emancipation from the yoke of capital is impossible without the further development of capitalism, and without the class struggle that is based on it. And it is into this struggle that capitalism is drawing the masses of the working people of the whole world, breaking down the musty, fusty habits of local life, breaking down national barriers and prejudices, uniting workers from all countries in huge factories and mines in America, Germany, and so forth

Noting that the most backward countries of the world were thrust into the ranks of the advanced, international army of the proletariat, he wrote, The bourgeoisie incites the workers of one nation against those of another in the endeavour to keep them disunited. Class-conscious workers, realising that the break-down of all the national barriers by capitalism is inevitable and progressive, are trying to help to enlighten and organise their fellow-workers from the backward countries.

The anti-migrant proposal was indicative of the growth of opportunism within the Second International, in which the trade unions were to play a particularly significant role.

Opportunist elements also argued in favour of colonialism, on the grounds of its civilising role. Most notably, several delegates raised the demand to support working class national defence in times of war.

Though defeated at the 1907 Congress, these tendencies were to plunge the working class into a fratricidal slaughter in 1914. This betrayal of socialism by most of the leaders of the Second International, Lenin wrote, has been mainly caused by the actual prevalence in it of petty-bourgeois opportunism, the bourgeois nature and danger of which have long been indicated by the finest representatives of the revolutionary proletariat of all countries.

Lenin continued: The opportunists had long been preparing to wreck the Second International by denying the socialist revolution and substituting bourgeois reformism in its stead, by rejecting the class struggle with its inevitable conversion at certain moments into civil war, and by preaching class collaboration; by preaching bourgeois chauvinism under the guise of patriotism and the defence of the fatherland, and ignoring or rejecting the fundamental truth of socialism, long ago set forth in the Communist Manifesto, that the workingmen have no country; by confining themselves, in the struggle against militarism, to a sentimental philistine point of view, instead of recognizing the need for a revolutionary war by the proletarians of all countries, against the bourgeoisie of all countries; by making a fetish of the necessary utilization of parliamentarianism and bourgeois legality, and forgetting that illegal forms of organization and agitation are imperative at times of crises. [Lenin, The tasks of revolutionary Social-Democracy in the European War, 1914]

In opposition to the capitulation of the Second International, the Bolshevik Party, under the leadership of Lenin, came out against the war and launched the fight for a new Third International. This was to be built on the basis of an uncompromising struggle against the opportunist national chauvinist tendencies that had revealed themselves as the agencies of imperialism within the workers movement.

This was the critical preparation for the revolutionary eruptions that were signified by the outbreak of imperialist war and the breakdown of the nation state system. It was on this basis that Lenin, alongside Leon Trotsky, was able to prepare the Bolshevik Party and the most advanced sections of workers and youth for the seizure of power in October 1917 and the establishment of the first workers state in the world.

Lenin returned to the issue of border controls at the height of the war in a November 1915 letter to the Socialist Propaganda League (SPL), a left-wing formation within the US Socialist Party that broke with the Socialist Party after the October Revolution to form the US Communist Party.

Lenin wrote, In our struggle for true internationalism and against jingo-socialism, we always quote in our press the example of the opportunist leaders of the SP in America, who are in favour of restrictions of the immigration of Chinese and Japanese workers (especially after the Congress of Stuttgart, 1907, and against the decisions of Stuttgart).

We think that one cannot be internationalist and be at the same time in favour of such restrictions.

The global integration of capitalism has reached an unprecedented level since Marx and Lenins time. In combination with the spectacular developments in science and technique over the last 30 years, it has made possible a rationalisation of production and facilitated the ability of the bourgeoisie to drive down wages and conditions to an ever-diminishing global benchmark.

However, the cause of this process is not the globalisation of production, as the national opportunists would claim, but capitalism itself. The tremendous achievements to be derived from the progressive unification of the globe and its resources are perverted by private ownership of the means of production and the division of the world into antagonistic nation states.

In Europe, the bourgeoisie seized upon the 2008 financial crash as the pretext to turn the clock back centuries through the imposition of austerity. From Greece to Spain to Britain, social democracy, the trade unions and their pseudo-left apologists have played a key political role in this process.

As a result, thousands of workers, especially young workers, are forced to move around looking for work. But once again, this migration is not the cause of low wages in the UK, or anywhere else. The cause is the subordination of the world economy to the profit interests of the corporate and financial elite.

Even in the surveys routinely cited by the right wing, supposedly revealing the impact of EU migration on wages in semi-unskilled employment, the impact is minimalcalculated at between 0.5 percent and 1.0 percent. Yet wages fell by 10.4 percent in the UK between 2007 and 2015, a drop equalled only by Greece within the countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

This fall is the result of a deliberate political strategy on the part of the bourgeoisie to pauperise the working class, one in which the Labour Party and the trade unions play the key role.

These organisations are completely incorporated into the bourgeois and corporate state apparatus, enforcing austerity, wage freezes and wage cuts. Their justifications for this are the same as those they employ in favour of border controls: Nothing can be done to alter the scarcities created by the monopolisation of global wealth by a tiny financial elite. Instead, the working class must make sacrifices, especially the migrant workers who are to be told there is no place for them.

This accounts for the grotesque spectacle of Labour and the trade unions spouting forth on the need for immigration controls so as to protect labour standards, even as they collaborate with the government and corporations to destroy these standards in order to make British capital more competitive.

The pseudo-left are an integral part of this labour bureaucracy and constitute the bulk of its leadership. From Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to the heads of numerous unions to the Syriza government in Greece, the pseudo-left function as a special anti-working class detachment of the bourgeoisie.

While Trump declares for America First, Corbyn demands import controls against China and similar protectionist measures, while the pseudo-left repeat the specious claim that strong national borders, economic protectionism and tighter immigration laws will benefit the working class. Their support for the strengthening of the nation state is wholly reactionary. As history has proven, it leads to the intensification of the attacks on the working class at home and support for imperialist war abroad.

Against the national chauvinism of the pseudo-left, the absolute principle of socialist-minded workers and youth must be to oppose the efforts to divide native-born and migrant workers. The right of all workers to live and work in the country they choose, with full and equal rights, is not for sale.

Only in solidarity with its class brothers and sistersirrespective of colour, language, religion and nationalitycan the working class successfully struggle against globally mobile capitalist corporations and advance its own independent solution to the world economic crisis: the reorganization of the global economy to meet social needs, not the drive for private profit.

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Socialism and defence of the free movement of labour: Part two - World Socialist Web Site

"Has anybody been angry before about capitalism?" Hannah Allison, a 29-year-old organizer with the Democratic Socialists of America, asks from the stage of a recent meeting in Los Angeles.

The nearly 100 DSA members who've gathered at the Friendship Auditorium in Griffith Park on this Saturday afternoon erupt in cheers and applause, after hours of presentations by speakers at least twice Allison's age.

Allison, who's based at DSA's New York City headquarters, has been visiting the group's local chapters around the country on a mission to get new members especially younger and more diverse individuals, including those catalyzed by Bernie Sanders' campaign excited about organizing toward so-called democratic socialism. There are signs her efforts are starting to pay off. The group, which officially formed in 1982 but has roots in the early-20th-century socialist movement, has experienced a renaissance of late. The LA gathering is one of the group's largest in 25 years. And since last March, the DSA's membership has nearly tripled, to more than 15,000 members, with 90 local groups in 37 states.

Relative to other political groups, the DSA's numbers are still small, but the group is poised to become a leader in the national resistance against Trump's administration, if it can figure out what to tackle first. The independent, member-funded organization has attracted a legion of social-media-savvy young followers at a time when progressives are feeling angry and disillusioned with the Democratic Party in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election. With its DIY ethos members are encouraged to form their own chapters, organize niche committees and run for a position on its board of directors the DSA offers get-your-hands-dirty activism as an antidote to what its members see as the corporate, stuffy fundraiser culture in Washington. But its greatest appeal an egalitarian approach, combined with a desire to smash capitalism may also prove to be its biggest challenge when it comes to having a lasting impact on U.S. politics.

Credit Bernie Sanders for DSA's explosion in growth. The Independent Vermont senator ran for president last year as a Democrat but has long identified as a democratic socialist or, as he defined it in a 2006 interview, someone who believes in a democracy that's not influenced by Wall Street. At the time, he described democratic socialism as a system in which the government plays a strong role in ensuring all of its citizens have access to health care, childcare and a college education, regardless of income. "It means we do not allow large corporations and moneyed interests to destroy our environment, that we create a government not dominated by big-money interests," he said. "I mean, to me, it means democracy, frankly."

Most members of the DSA would agree with that statement. In fact, the group's website includes similar language: "Democratic socialists believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few," it reads, also calling for a radical transformation "through greater economic and social democracy so that ordinary Americans can participate in the many decisions that affect our lives." (The DSA supported Sanders during the 2016 primary, praising his proposals and campaigning on his behalf, but Sanders has never been a member.)

"Bernie Sanders did a great service to us by saying, 'I'm a democratic socialist.' You then had a ton more interest coming in because of that, and I think interest in socialism [in general]," says DSA organizer Brandon Rey Ramirez, 26. "I think people want something different, and they want to be part of something where they feel like it's not super bureaucratic." Ramirez, like many of DSA's members, is a former Sanders supporter who critiqued Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign for its reliance on Wall Street funding and neo-liberalism, or "the trust of free markets over labor" and regulation, as he puts it.

Watch Bernie Sanders discuss what the democratic party needs to do by 2020.

DSA members point to Sanders' involvement in the Young People's Socialist League a former student group under the umbrella of what was then the Socialist Party of America while attending the University of Chicago in the early Sixties as evidence of his alignment with their ideologies. The DSA, too, is largely modeled after the Socialist Party of America, a fringe party that formed in 1901 and dissolved by 1972. Decades later, many of the party's former leaders, like Eugene Debs and Victor Berger, are revered as cult idols by young DSA members. Still, many Americans continue to think of "socialism" as a dirty word, likely thanks to its associations with communism and the Cold War. A Gallup poll from last May found that Americans of all ages favored capitalism to socialism, with one exception: people ages 18 to 29, whose views of each ideology were equally positive.

But with income inequality rising steadily in every state a trend that's likely to continue thanks to Trump's plans to deregulate Wall Street and fight federal minimum-wage increases some members of the DSA see socialism as the only path to economic parity in the United States. That includes members like Max Belasco, an IT worker at UCLA who says he had to sleep in his car for three months after moving to Los Angeles because he couldn't afford to pay rent, and his friend Tyler Wilson, who says workers from a temp agency he used to work for were routinely taken advantage of by corporations or, as he calls them, "sexual harassment factories" who viewed them as little more than disposable help. Belasco founded the unions and labor committee within DSA's Los Angeles chapter last month in an attempt to organize and align with union members throughout the city.

Membership in the DSA nationally has been further bolstered over the past several months by celebrities like Rob Delaney touting it on Twitter as the new cool kids' club for people who want to make a difference. "My web-page's sole purpose now is to lure teens & millennials into the #ripped arms of feminist socialism," the Catastrophe star tweeted to his 1.3 million followers last month with a link to the DSA's website. Other new members credit their interest in the DSA to the popular podcast Chapo Trap House, whose hosts frequently roast the Democratic Party in favor of socialist and even nihilist ideas. The organization's most enthusiastic members proudly feature the rose emoji an iteration of the DSA's logo in their Twitter handles.

But for all its great intentions and recent growth, the DSA has its work cut out for it to be able to make a measurable impact in Trump's America. One hurdle it could face is focus: The organization's goals tend to fluctuate depending on the individual chapter and local leadership. (Organizers say that's the point, dubbing the DSA a "big-tent" organization.)

Organizers are also grappling with a diversity issue. "Because of the way it's passed along on Twitter, we do have a lot of white dudes, which was much less true before [the election]," says LA organizer Miranda Sklaroff, 30. The DSA has struggled to recruit both women and people of color the populations the DSA most aims to stand in solidarity with. It's a challenge that has not gone unnoticed by the organization's national leadership. The group's constitution a series of organizing principles last amended in 2001 mandates that half of the 16 slots on the DSA's board of directors be reserved for women, and a quarter of them for people of color. But at the recent event in Los Angeles, the sea of mostly white, male 20-somethings is jarring, even as the solidarity with other groups is evident. "Black Lives Matter is real important," says DSA member Bernie Eisenberg, a Korean War vet who wears a "Veterans for Peace" trucker hat and a nametag describing himself as "the other Bernie." "I notice we have the signs up, but we need more people of color here to really move forward."

Eisenberg and other old-timers like self-described anarchist Carol Newton, 77, and 90-year-old retired social worker Jack Rothman are living evidence of one of the group's advantages: It's intergenerational, with activists from the Sixties passing along their knowledge to those of the social media generation, and vice versa. Ramirez recalls, for example, being amazed to learn about the time Newton knocked over a bus during a protest against the Vietnam War. "Somebody just goes, 'How the hell do you knock over a bus?' She's like, 'You just keep on pushing.' And it was just like, Jesus Christ, she has this awesome attitude.''

The most important thing the DSA might offer at this point is what Chapo Trap House co-host and longtime DSA member Amber A'Lee Frost called during a recent episode "a place to find comrades." That's how Sklaroff sees it, too. The DSA "is like a good balm for the existential dread and anxiety to go out and work and meet people who want to change the world just like you do," she says. "Right now we need everyone to just get together in a room and start working." For her part, she co-organized a museum workers' strike on Inauguration Day, participated in the Women's March and protested in front of Sen. Dianne Feinstein's office last month to encourage her to vote no on Trump attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions.

With new activist groups forming on a near daily basis in response to the Trump administration, Ramirez also sees the DSA's decades-long foundation as an asset. "What's interesting about DSA is that it's the long history of organizing, laying the intellectual groundwork it's built from both activists and academics, and now it's getting injected with this new kind of activist: the person who had been at Occupy, or they were activated by the Bernie Sanders campaign, or they want to resist Trump," says Ramirez.

For Newton and other DSA leaders, Trump's unexpected victory leaves them with conflicting thoughts: They see his administration wreaking havoc on the country and are doing everything they can to help those affected, but they also recognize that it's been a boon to their own organization. "We've been trying so hard for so long to build a chapter," Newton says. "Now look at all we have to do. We're going to be busy now for at least four years."

Toward the end of her speech, Allison, the New York DSA organizer, puts the dilemma in blunter terms. "Trump is awful, right? But ... as socialists, he's created this really good moment for us where we don't have to sugarcoat things or lie anymore. We can say we're socialists, right?" she says. "And that's why I think this particular moment, while dangerous, is so important."

To seize on the moment, she says, the DSA must build an inclusive movement with space for everyone to participate, and rely on its network of chapters to implement direct action at the local level. "We want to be a force that the neoliberal Democrats have to reckon with, that the GOP has to reckon with," she says. "That the racists and white supremacists have to reckon with."

Of course, accomplishing that will also require socialists to do something they're generally averse to: accumulating money. "But it's really important," Allison says on stage, "because nobody else is going to fund the overthrow of capitalism, so we've got to fund this shit ourselves."

The crowd laughs, and several people take out their wallets to pay their dues, passing envelopes back to Newton. Some members rush off to sign up for Sklaroff's feminist socialist committee or Belasco's unions and labor committee. There's talk of organizing a carpool to attend a protest happening at the airport that day, while others spread the word about upcoming actions. There's a lot of work to be done.

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How Democratic Socialists Are Building on Bernie's Momentum - RollingStone.com

by: Karla Ray Updated: Feb 8, 2017 - 11:30 PM

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. - Some parents and others are demanding that the University of Central Florida take action against a group of students, after the so-called Knights For Socialism group hosted an event described as a fight club on campus.

The event was tied to a promise to train students how to defend themselves against some supporters of President Donald Trump.

9 Investigates learned, however, that even with threats of violence against the group, the University has little control over the groups message right now.

One post by the Knights For Socialism advertised a Leftist Fight Club. Another stated Kick Their Axis- Stop the Alt-Right. The original event post, which is no longer available, said the fight club was open to everyone except Republicans.

Im very disappointed that UCF has not had a reaction to that yet, UCF College Republicans Chairwoman Karis Lockhart said by phone.

Its contradictory, because theyre willing to fight people for different beliefs, UCF student Ladranicia Lynch said.

9 Investigates learned those feelings extend beyond campus. One parent wrote to admissions officials in an email that if these students in this club are not expelled immediately, my son will be transferring to UF as soon as possible. Another man, claiming to be a student at the University of Alabama, threatened to bring a crowd to campus for a fight, writing we will have ambulences (sic) on standby.

No one should be trying to incite violence, using force, in any way, UCF student Stephen Rice said.

The Knights For Socialism received our messages requesting an interview and responded with the following statement:

"Knights for Socialism is committed to fighting for intersectional justice on campus and in the Orlando community. We stand with marginalized communities facing all kinds of persecution, whether it be because of their ethnicity, their immigration status, their gender, who they love, or the size of their income.

Knights for Socialism exists to bring together passionate students who want to take direct action to improve, protect, and serve their community.

In light of recent events on campus, around the state, and throughout the country, we've heard concerns from fellow colleagues who now don't feel safe doing normal things like studying at the library. This past week, we held the first of many events geared towards improving students' sense of safety on campus. While there was apparent controversy over the marketing for the event, we stand committed to building positive relationships with students of all ideologies. Last semester, we participated in a debate with campus libertarians, and we look forward to discussing and debating our ideas in the future."

The group posted on its page that the except Republicans comment in the fight club post was made in jest.

We found the University has little power to control the group, because its not registered to receive campus support or funding. However, the group has started the process to become a recognized student group.

A University spokesman said in a statement:

As Americans, all students have the right to free speech. However, we expect our entire campus community to be inclusive and respect the diverse perspectives of others. In fact, fostering "an open and supportive campus environment and respecting the rights of every individual" is one of the tenets of the UCF Creed. The group associated with the event you contacted us about is not a registered student organization - they are individual students. This means the group receives no university or state funding. Although UCF supports the rights of all students to express their viewpoints, that certainly does not mean those viewpoints represent the positions of the university.

2017 Cox Media Group.

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9 Investigates 'Fight Club' at UCF - WFTV Orlando

Throughout an improbable rise to national prominence over the past two years, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) railed against millionaires and billionaires and called for a sweeping expansion of government programs and services. Among his myriad exhortations were calls for a single-payer healthcare system, free college, and a doubling of the federal minimum wage. If enacted, these and other similar proposals would have ushered in European-style socialism to the United States, economic policies that the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and the Urban Institute Health Policy Center jointly projected would add $18 trillion to the already massive national debt.

Proponents argue these steps are necessary because private-sector costs are too high, and the average family simply cannot afford them. In-state public college, for example, is estimated to run nearly $25,000 per year when all expenses are included. With U.S. median family income in 2015 of $55,775, a four-year cost of $100,000 would, at first glance, seem virtually impossible to pay. That's one of the main reasons why student loan debt levels have exploded.

But is it really? As with all arguments, the devil is in the details.

Americans Are Notoriously Poor Savers

In 2015, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released data that indicated the average family savings rate for 25 Western nations was 6.5 percent. The Eurozone, coincidentally, posted the same rate. While savings over the next two years were projected to remain stable or rise slightly for the group as a whole, the percentage of household income tucked away by Americans already significantly below average at 4.87 percent was expected to decline to 3.13 percent by the end of this year.

That's an embarrassingly low number. If the projections hold true, the United States will rank among the bottom five of the countries on the list when the calendar turns to 2018. Caught in the throes of rampant consumerism, American savings patterns are clearly heading in the wrong direction. It's little wonder why millions of people are throwing their hands in the air, demanding any form of change, leading to the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. To a large degree, they simply don't know what else to do.

A Little Planning Goes a Long Way

One of the biggest failures of an ineffective public-school system is the lack of personal financial literacy. Just 17 states mandate taking a class in personal finances, a shocking failure to prepare students to make informed economic decisions that will in all likelihood impact their entire lives.

The facts back up that assertion. According to a GoBankingRates survey, one-third of Americans have no retirement savings whatsoever, and 56 percent have less than $10,000 set aside. At that rate, the majority will be forced to rely upon a teetering Social Security system for their retirement, which can't provide more than subsistence-level income even in a best-case scenario.

One of the common arguments against saving money is the current low interest rate environment. Although artificially low interest rates are clearly a deleterious influence, they should never be a deterrent. Positive returns, even if below the rate of inflation, are far preferable to suffering credit card interest rates when emergencies arise.

The Power of Discipline

As motivational speaker Allen Klein once wrote, A little perspective, like a little humor, goes a long way. Many Americans fail to save money because they do not believe they can afford to do so. In time, this overarching belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading to a paycheck-to-paycheck existence and very little savings in the bank.

It doesn't have to be that way. Consider the following scenario for a typical American family:

$56,000 household income

Income rising two percent annually

Saving 10 percent of annual income for 20 years: half earmarked for retirement and half for college-related expenses

Average annual retirement returns of five percent and non-retirement returns of two percent

Using the above assumptions, retirement savings would rise to over $160,000 in 20 years without even considering the potential of employer matching funds, while the family college fund would swell to approximately $83,000. Suddenly, a subsistence-level retirement is no longer inevitable and the $100,000 college price tag is largely covered without using up home equity or taking on a massive amount of student debt. Add another percent or two along the way (many investment counselors recommend increasing the savings percentage by one percent annually) and both numbers jump in concert.

College can be paid for without government handouts or massive levels of debt. For all the subjects covered in school, you'd think that would be covered on day one.

Living Below One's Means

Naturally, the counterargument will be that there just isn't room in the family budget to save that much money. A close look at how money is spent is bound to show otherwise. The typical vacation for a family of four costs $4,580, while the average person spends $1,092 on coffee. Voila, we've just found 10 percent, and we've barely even scratched the surface. A little here and a little more there will get the family where it needs to be, and before long, it becomes the new normal.

Other countries manage to figure it all out. Germans saved an average of 9.55 percent in 2015, while denizens of Hungary saved 9.02 percent. In Switzerland, the savings rate was an incredible 17.82 percent, with the savings percentages in Luxembourg and Sweden 17.34 and 15.83, respectively.

The high savings rates seen in a number of European countries, paradoxically, appear to be due in part to collective debt aversion because of higher taxes and a lower standard of living. Germany and Switzerland, for example, possess some of the lowest home ownership rates in the Western world.

The Socialism Antidote

The point of the preceding exercise is to show that free college, socialized medicine, and the other tax-draining, budget-busting platforms of the far Left aren't the answer. Personal responsibility, achieved through financial discipline and dedication of purpose, will absolutely help every American reach their financial goals.

Is it worth living slightly below one's means now to guarantee the future for you and your children? Even Bernie Sanders couldn't disagree with that statement.

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Savings: The Socialism Antidote - The New American