Let's talk about Bernie

Politics US Politics
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[quote=“BrentGolf”][quote=“Winston Smith”][quote=“BrentGolf”] . . . Universal healthcare, free public education, addressing wealth inequality, removing corporatism and big money from the political process, avoiding unnecessary and wildly expensive wars, making Wall Street pay for their risky speculation, rebuilding America’s infrastructure, addressing climate change, simplifying the tax code, equality for minorities woman LGBT, breaking up the too big to fail banks, etc…

Yeah, what a moron[/quote]

Bernie-Leninism sounds great on paper. Always has. So far though its various forms haven’t worked out well in practice but, heck, maybe Comrade Bernie has found the missing ingredient. I, for one, would have been all for giving him a shot at implementing Workers’ Paradise 17.0. $2,500 a month free money would have been nice.[/quote]

They haven’t? What world do you live in? Are you really not aware of any other developed nations that have adopted many of these “Bernie-Leninism” policies with great success? How is that even possible? Oh I get it, you still think democratic socialism is communism. :whistle:[/quote]

I regard socialism as communism with elections but that’s, of course, debatable. Whether two foxes and a chicken vote on what to have for dinner or the two foxes decide in “executive committee” the result is the same though.

Having said that I am sincere in my regret that Bernie-Leninism won’t be on the menu in America because I really would like to switch roles from chicken to fox for the next few years to upgrade my professional skills. Free tuition? Free healthcare? Free money? Yeah, baby! Would have been nice.

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[quote=“Winston Smith”]I regard socialism as communism with elections but that’s, of course, debatable. Whether two foxes and a chicken vote on what to have for dinner or the two foxes decide in “executive committee” the result is the same though.

Having said that I am sincere in my regret that Bernie-Leninism won’t be on the menu in America because I really would like to switch roles from chicken to fox for the next few years to upgrade my professional skills. Free tuition? Free healthcare? Free money? Yeah, baby! Would have been nice.[/quote]

And there in lies the problem. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say Bernie’s policies have absolutely nothing to do with communism. He is simply saying, government should actually do the job that it’s supposed to, that it’s been charged with, which is represent the people. They collect tax money for a reason don’t they? Bernie feels it’s to provide free healthcare, free education, modern infrastructure, higher living standards for everyone, a political system free from financial corruption, and a military that is defending the country, not playing conqueror overseas.

Why else do we give our money to the government? So we can also pay for school and medical care as well? What kind of ass backwards system is that? You either don’t pay taxes and you pay for your own stuff, or you pay taxes and you don’t pay for your shit. Why is this hard to understand? Bernie gets it, and so does more than a dozen other developed countries by the way…

Now I realize you were educated on what communism is way back when communism was a thing, but as they say when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail. You hear one word about government programs and it’s communism! Oh Bernie wants free public education? Communism! He wants affordable or free healthcare? He’s a communist!

This kind of uneducated sound bite version of people’s opinions are why Trump gains traction. He says the dumbest shit ever, and it sticks with people because they are simple. He says, “I’m the least racist person you’ll ever meet” and it sticks with people. Never mind the fact that he’s one of the most racist people we’ve ever seen, he said he isn’t in a sound bite so it must be true.

Seriously, Bernie is a communist - Leninist? Jesus… :astonished:

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The role of government… hmmmm… all over the world, we see what happens when government taxes more and spends more. So, given the absolute failure of the government to run the economy or pick winners, why then are we insisting on more government “service” in key areas like health and education? rather than a greater effort at deregulation/privatization/empowerment? I know BrentGolf will point to Europe and Canada but I would question whether their economic/financial solvency are really such a great success and given their absolute refusal to take on security responsibilities, can we really imagine a Bernie Sanders world where the US does exactly the same and expect it would not have serious consequences for the sheltered/coddled? My only regret is that Canada is not located elsewhere, perhaps, along the Mexican border or in the Balkans because no matter what, it will be blessing of geography benefit, while engaging in the national pastime of whinging with no effect whatsoever. But don’t you think Justin Trudeau is so dreamy… and like so smart and stuff? I just love his policies on… um … skiboarding and the environment. Like I totally get it! He totally gets it… If we could all just totally get it then everyone would like get it… get it?

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Again, you’re problem is a simple one. You are mistaking better government with more government. At no time has Bernie ever advocated for more government and more spending. He quite clearly advocates for a change in spending, from wasteful spending to purposeful and reduced spending. Literally everything he’s ever said points to that. I don’t know how you could have missed it. Collect taxes, and use the money to help the people who paid the taxes in the first place. Wow, so revolutionary. So communist. Bernie actually wants people to get value for their tax dollars? What a moron.

Personally as a Canadian, I don’t mind paying higher taxes. But it better provide me and my family cheap education and healthcare, decent roads and public services, and a non wasteful military of world conquest proportions and intentions.

25

If Bernie is a communist then all the progressive presidents, especially those who advocated for a better health care system, were also communists. That list includes Teddy Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt (who wanted public health care to be a part of Social Security), Truman (who wanted universal health care to be a part of the Fair Deal), Johnson (whose medicare and medicaid programs were also labeled as communist and socialist, because those were really good scare words back in the day), Nixon, Ford (both called for a health insurance reform until the oil crisis struck), Carter, Clinton (Hilary’s 1993 health care plan), W. Bush (at least while he was running against Kerry), and Obama.

That’s 12 bi-partisan communist presidents already. Most of have have failed or only achieve partial success due to the AMA’s powerful lobbies. What’s to worry about one more like Bernie? Surely AMA’s money will get in his way as well.

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:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

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We are as always looking at degrees of “social engineering.” I would argue that there is very little in common among Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman and Bernie Sanders. It is the gradation of “social concern” that is a concern, particularly since, like most committed leftists, Bernie Sanders never seems to have accomplished anything on his own or with his own money…

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If “accomplishment” to you can only be evaluated by whether or not someone has made lots of money, then I guess Jesus, Gandhi and the likes probably are complete failures to you.

Also, that’s a neat way to evaluate the greatness and accomplishments of past US presidents. Reagan is only the 20th most accomplished president at best. Bill Clinton is far more accomplished than Reagan and both Bushes according to a list of United States presidents by net worth.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U … _net_worth

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[quote]If “accomplishment” to you can only be evaluated by whether or not someone has made lots of money, then I guess Jesus, Gandhi and the likes probably are complete failures to you.
[/quote]

I realize that English is not your first language but reread what I said. Did I say money is the “only” way to evaluate someone’s accomplishments? Or did I say Bernie had none before then making reference to with or without his own money? Jesus and Gandhi are not “failures” but I don’t want either of them in charge of the economy or our government. In fact, Gandhi in India is a wonderful case in point of what socialism can do to a country. Witness the dismantling of said socialism and wow… suddenly India is a star economy with all sorts of prospects. Don’t recall that every happening in the first 45 years of its tired socialism that “cared” greatly for the poor… the results, unfortunately, are so often the opposite of what do-gooders “hope” for but maybe you can “change” that by spinning it differently? Good luck!

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[quote=“fred smith”]
I realize that English is not your first language but reread what I said. Did I say money is the “only” way to evaluate someone’s accomplishments? Or did I say Bernie had none before then making reference to with or without his own money? Jesus and Gandhi are not “failures” but I don’t want either of them in charge of the economy or our government. In fact, Gandhi in India is a wonderful case in point of what socialism can do to a country. Witness the dismantling of said socialism and wow… suddenly India is a star economy with all sorts of prospects. Don’t recall that every happening in the first 45 years of its tired socialism that “cared” greatly for the poor… the results, unfortunately, are so often the opposite of what do-gooders “hope” for but maybe you can “change” that by spinning it differently? Good luck![/quote]

India’s lack of development has nothing to do with its early socialism. The Indian government probably had their reasons not investing tax payer’s money into infrastructure, but the lack of infrastructure and lack of social mobility is what really hindered Indian economy. Judging by the frequency of gang rape news from India, I don’t think widening the wealth gap is doing it any favors in the long run.

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That’s the whole point Fred. Bernie advocates for government to represent the people. For the collection of tax dollars to benefit those who paid the taxes in the first place. For public officials to represent the public that voted for them.

News flash Fred. That means public officials should have MODEST salaries. I honestly can’t believe my eyes. It’s hard to imagine an adult wrote those comments. So wait, there’s an adult who’s mocking a politician because he DIDN’T rape the system for massive personal gain? :doh:

Maybe you don’t even take your own comments seriously. You write them and re-read it like, really? I’m going to go with that??? Well, ok… :astonished:

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:astonished: Huh? Please tell me you’re kidding. If tax benefits go back to those who paid the taxes then what happens to my free tuition, free healthcare and free money?

But back to the question as to how far left exactly Bernie is on the political spectrum. Some clues are he considers the Democratic Party too right wing. He also spent a working honeymoon in the former Soviet Union, considered Danny Ortega and the Sandinista movement role models for social change and once sought an audience with Fidel Castro. Then there’s his definition of “democracy”:

[quote]Democracy means public ownership of the major means of production, it means decentralization, it means involving people in their work. Rather than having bosses and workers it means having democratic control over the factories and shops to as great a degree as you can.[/quote]Comrade Bernie, 1987

Once again, don’t get me wrong, I feel the Bern. Just not some retreaded form of Bernie-Leninism involving bread lines, gulags, cultural revolutions, central planning, class warfare and other mistakes of the past but rather an intellectually honest version which truly does what it says for a change.

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[quote=“Winston Smith”]

[quote]Democracy means public ownership of the major means of production, it means decentralization, it means involving people in their work. Rather than having bosses and workers it means having democratic control over the factories and shops to as great a degree as you can.[/quote]Comrade Bernie, 1987

Once again, don’t get me wrong, I feel the Bern. Just not some retreaded form of Bernie-Leninism involving bread lines, gulags, cultural revolutions, central planning, class warfare and other mistakes of the past but rather an intellectually honest version which truly does what it says for a change.[/quote]

How did you get central planning when the man specifically said “decentralization”?

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[quote=“hansioux”]
How did you get central planning when the man specifically said “decentralization”?[/quote]

Don’t be dense. From the context, he clearly meant it in an Orwellian inversion sense.

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I’m not kidding, but I’m wondering if you are.

People pay taxes, and should expect something for that money. If you pay taxes, you should get free tuition, free healthcare, free social programs. Why else pay the taxes in the first place? Bernie is saying, tax money is there for a reason. TO PROVIDE SERVICES FOR THE PEOPLE. It ain’t so politicians can have massive salaries and cut social programs.

We’ve got one person who literally doesn’t know the definition of the word communism, and another who mocks politicians for working for the people on a modest salary… Mind blown :astonished:

36

So in your world view it makes sense for people to give money to the government and then have the government give it back to them in the form of tuition, healthcare and social programs? Minus a handling fee, of course. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the people to just keep their own money and pay their own expenses themselves? That way they could save the often substantial cut the government takes for ‘handling the transaction’ plus being able to avoid the often substantial turnaround time their money takes making the round trip. And how is getting your money back ‘free’ in any non-Orwellian sense of the word?

Well the following would be a good place to start if you’ve got the time and inclination to learn and understand the definition.

[quote]Communism: The Last Stage
The communist doctrine differs from the socialist worldview because communism calls not only for public ownership of property and natural resources, but also for the means of production of goods and services.[/quote]

[quote]Democracy means public ownership of the major means of production.[/quote] – Comrade Bernie, 1987

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So in your world view it makes sense for people to give money to the government and then have the government give it back to them in the form of tuition, healthcare and social programs? Minus a handling fee, of course. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the people to just keep their own money and pay their own expenses themselves? That way they could save the often substantial cut the government takes for ‘handling the transaction’ plus being able to avoid the often substantial turnaround time their money takes making the round trip. And how is getting your money back ‘free’ in any non-Orwellian sense of the word?[/quote]

In a perfect world where tuition is affordable for anyone who puts in a good 40 hours of work every week. However, for a great number of people in the US who are supposed to be middle class but in the reality are struggling to stay above the poverty line, that isn’t the case. Then there are a smaller amount of people who can’t find jobs, or suffer from disabilities or illness to be able to work.

Social mobility should be high in a free and democratic society. It’s the basic premise of “the American dream.” Without social mobility it’s no longer a free and democratic society, what we get instead is classism and a widening wealth gap, which is exactly what’s happening in the US.

It’s in a democratic society’s best interest to allow people to get an education. That’s true for the children whose parents suffer from disabilities, and it’s definitely true for people who are doing work, but for some reason their work doesn’t seem to give them a fair reward. To do that, the best way is to provide free tuition, which most developed European nations provide to their citizens.

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[quote=“rowland”][quote=“hansioux”]
Social mobility should be high in a free and democratic society. It’s the basic premise of “the American dream.” Without social mobility it’s no longer a free and democratic society, what we get instead is classism and a widening wealth gap, which is exactly what’s happening in the US.
[/quote]

[/quote]

[quote] The study, by a clutch of economists at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, is far bigger than any previous effort to measure social mobility. The economists crunch numbers from over 40m tax returns of people born between 1971 and 1993 (with all identifying information removed). They focus on mobility between generations and use several ways to measure it, including the correlation of parents’ and children’s income, and the odds that a child born into the bottom fifth of the income distribution will climb all the way up to the top fifth.

They find that none of these measures has changed much (see chart)[/quote]
economist.com/news/united-st … y-measured

[quote]
Incorporating results from a previous study dating back to the 1950s, the authors concluded that “measures of social mobility have remained remarkably stable over the second half of the twentieth century in the United States. That finding implies mobility is stuck at a low rate, at least compared to other wealthy nations: It is much harder for a poor child born in America to climb into the rare air of the country’s highest earners than it is for a similar child in, for example, Canada or Denmark.[/quote]
washingtonpost.com/business … story.html

I often wonder if conservatives habits of blaming decades-old trends on Obama reflects their inability to count past ten without taking their socks off.

40

So in your world view it makes sense for people to give money to the government and then have the government give it back to them in the form of tuition, healthcare and social programs? Minus a handling fee, of course. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the people to just keep their own money and pay their own expenses themselves? That way they could save the often substantial cut the government takes for ‘handling the transaction’ plus being able to avoid the often substantial turnaround time their money takes making the round trip. And how is getting your money back ‘free’ in any non-Orwellian sense of the word?[/quote]

In a perfect world where tuition is affordable for anyone who puts in a good 40 hours of work every week. However, for a great number of people in the US who are supposed to be middle class but in the reality are struggling to stay above the poverty line, that isn’t the case. Then there are a smaller amount of people who can’t find jobs, or suffer from disabilities or illness to be able to work.

Social mobility should be high in a free and democratic society. It’s the basic premise of “the American dream.” Without social mobility it’s no longer a free and democratic society, what we get instead is classism and a widening wealth gap, which is exactly what’s happening in the US.

It’s in a democratic society’s best interest to allow people to get an education. That’s true for the children whose parents suffer from disabilities, and it’s definitely true for people who are doing work, but for some reason their work doesn’t seem to give them a fair reward. To do that, the best way is to provide free tuition, which most developed European nations provide to their citizens.[/quote]

I agree. I was merely responding to Comrade Brent’s Orwellian assertion that I was going to have to pay my free tuition to myself once I switch sides. See “. . . Why else pay the taxes in the first place? . . . .”