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Fox News poll finds Bernie Sanders and Planned Parenthood are the most popular things

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  • #46
    Bernie is a socialist. Also our government was intentionally designed to change slowly to prevent tyranny.
    sigpic

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    • #47
      Originally posted by TheWall View Post
      Bernie is a socialist.
      What does that term mean to you? Do you call the entire democratic party 'socialist'? Do you call the rest of the Western world 'socialist'? Is socialist a bad thing? I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here. Bernie calls himself a "democratic socialist" which is a bit different to a "socialist", and he's been criticized by socialists in the past of not actually being a socialist.

      Also our government was intentionally designed to change slowly to prevent tyranny.
      So does that mean that once it changes into a tyranny it's very difficult to change it back?

      One of the obvious problems I see at the moment in US politicians is that the Supreme Court has creatively decided that corruption is constitutionally required, because "money counts as speech" and hence the First Amendment that allows free speech thereby requires that special interests be allowed to corrupt politicians with money and thereby thwart the will of the American people by leading to a government that always does the will of the big donors regardless of what the people want. Obviously the solution to that is a constitutional amendment that makes it clear that the government is allowed to pass anti-corruption laws (thus preventing the Supreme Court repeatedly declaring anti-corruption laws to be unconstitutional as it has been doing). But getting a constitutional amendment in the US requires a few major miracles plus moving heaven and earth, so most people write it off as impossible. All such attempts at passing this constitutional amendment so far have simply died down party lines with Dems all voting for it and all elected Republicans voting against it. Obviously once you get an entire party that bathes in the special-interest money and is corrupt through-and-through like the Republican party is (check out this video of John Boehner talking about the time he handed out checks from the tobacco-lobby to congressmen on the house floor), they are going to be unwilling to vote for anti-corruption laws, never mind anti-corruption constitutional amendments that need super-majorities.
      "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
      "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
      "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

      Comment


      • #48
        Originally posted by TheWall View Post
        Bernie is a socialist.
        P.S. I would call myself a "socialist" or "democratic socialist". My motivation for doing so is that I am concerned about the way rich business owners can screw over their employees, the environment, and their community just to make a few dollars more for themselves. The term "socialist" to me means that I want to see the employees and the community have more say in how the businesses are run, so that the businesses are not simply mini-dictatorships where the rich person gets everything they want and then makes all the profits. Ways I would want to do this include:
        - Having strong unions, so employees have power (as many Scandinavian countries do)
        - Encouraging cooperatives
        - Encouraging employee shareholding schemes and profit-sharing agreements.
        - Replacing the legal fiduciary responsibility of a business to maximize its profits, with a wider set of legal responsibilities to act in the interests of all those with whom the company interacts (shareholders, employees, customers, the community, the environment). (As the UK does)
        - Having a representative of the employees sit on the board of directors (as Germany does)
        - Having a democratically elected representative from the local community sit on the board of directors
        etc.

        Socialist ideas originally developed during the industrial revolution in England, when new technologies allowed the rich people to build a factory and staff it with minimum-wage workers who worked in awful conditions and died young, and the already rich factory owners made truckloads of money in profits which they kept for themselves. The workers weren't getting their fair share of what their own labor was producing. Today we are seeing this same sort of repeat of extreme wealth inequality where workers are not getting paid proportionately for their productive activities and where the rich are running out the back door with all the money. And that is happening because businesses are run in a very top-down dictatorship fashion, and workers have woefully inadequate powers to stand up for their fair share of the profits. Here is a graph that lays the problem out for you:



        From the 40s to the 70s in America, as productivity increased, what employees were being paid increased. That was great, that was what should happen - if your productivity doubles your earnings should double. But around the 70s, due to a number of different political policies (perhaps the most important being the decline of unions), employee wages stopped rising despite the fact that productivity kept increasing with new technology. The increasing difference between those two lines all went into the pockets of the business owners rather than into the pockets of the employees, thus making the already-rich much, much, much richer. The fall of the unions around the 70s thus effectively transitioned America from socialist to capitalist around that time, and you see the two lines diverge as a result.

        Anyway that is an example of what "socialism" or "democratic socialism" is. Notably, Bernie during his campaign only ever mentioned a single one of the things in my list (unions). He campaigned mostly as a social democrat would, which is a different term that means a person is in favor of strongly re-distributive government policies (i.e. using taxes and welfare to take money from the rich through taxes and give it to the poor in the form of healthcare, education, welfare etc), and thereby achieve a more equal society. The difference between those terms basically is that a "social democrat" endorses capitalism (the idea that those rich business owners can create a business and milk it for all its worth) and tries to redress the inequalities the capitalism creates through some re-distributive government welfare programs, where as "democratic socialist / socialist" opposes capitalism and advocates socialism (the idea that employees or the community should have real power in how a business is being run) and thus tries to stop the inequalities created by capitalism at the source rather than mopping up after it as the social democrats try to do.
        Last edited by Starlight; 03-17-2017, 04:01 AM.
        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

        Comment


        • #49
          Originally posted by Darth Executor View Post
          ^Assuming that is true (a big assumption even if you were the most honest injun around, given how incompetent you are), it is a very unique situation.
          Those kiwis just slightly faster. Like in Dutchland, immigration causing parties to move right. Even Merkel has to fake at times!!

          So many idiots libs eventually will see light, oppose immigration. Then they will claim that 'but but but opposing immigration is not right-wing'
          Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

          Comment


          • #50
            Of course it would be hard to stop tyranny once it has occurred. We had an entire war of independence about the subject.
            sigpic

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            • #51
              Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post

              And it is typically you who is wrong - but you elephant hurl so much crap that it takes a full time job to fact check your biased sources and their creative charts.
              Told ya so... That "EPI" chart...


              The Economic Policy Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit American think tank based in Washington, D.C. that carries out economic research and analyzes the economic impact of policies and proposals. The EPI describes itself as a non-partisan think tank that "seeks to include the needs of low- and middle-income workers in economic policy discussions". It is affiliated with the labor movement, and is usually described as presenting a liberal viewpoint on public policy issues

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Policy_Institute
              That's what
              - She

              Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
              - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

              I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
              - Stephen R. Donaldson

              Comment


              • #52
                Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
                Told ya so... That "EPI" chart...


                The Economic Policy Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit American think tank based in Washington, D.C. that carries out economic research and analyzes the economic impact of policies and proposals. The EPI describes itself as a non-partisan think tank that "seeks to include the needs of low- and middle-income workers in economic policy discussions". It is affiliated with the labor movement, and is usually described as presenting a liberal viewpoint on public policy issues

                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_Policy_Institute
                I get that you enjoy trying to win the stupidest TWebber prize, but GDP and median income are widely published numbers and you can easily find dozens of minor variants of the same chart published by different people, so your bizarre attacks on the makers of this chart are totally irrelevant.
                "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                Comment


                • #53
                  Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                  I get that you enjoy trying to win the stupidest TWebber prize,
                  Sorry fruitloop, but that Oscar sits firmly on your mantle.

                  but GDP and median income are widely published numbers and you can easily find dozens of minor variants of the same chart published by different people, so your bizarre attacks on the makers of this chart are totally irrelevant.
                  Again, you missed the point, unsurprisingly. I said "but you elephant hurl so much crap that it takes a full time job to fact check your biased sources and their creative charts." Your source you used is heavily biased.
                  That's what
                  - She

                  Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                  - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                  I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                  - Stephen R. Donaldson

                  Comment

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