Bernie Sanders Defends Democratic Socialism

Davsey85

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How about forgetting about the isms and doing what actually benefits a society
 

sunraiser

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@tankasnowgod have you actually listened to the speech?

Which parts do you disagree with?

State control of legislation and more tax wealth is not comparable to private control in any way - when the private money comes in it's coming with an expectation of influencing policy from a small and direct source.

Tax income is in small chunks from many different people and the only expectation is for social good. It's nonsensical to conflate the two.

Patently countries that have more government regulation and a less free market have a much richer and freer middle class.

I'm glad @bzmazu has shared this as I see more and more people that are terrified of social democracy despite having no understanding of real world examples that work.

We have the same in the UK - Corbyn is labelled a commie, evil, part of "cabal of chaos" anti semetic etc. It only takes hearing speeches from people like him and bernie to undermine lots of the rhetoric but the media often only give small contextualised clips.

Good on USA today.

I find some of the sycophantic views towards plutocrats and billionaires to be really difficult to comprehend. The stat about 3 families in the US having the same wealth as 160 million people put together is forking stark.

That simply couldn't happen in a social democracy like Iceland.
 

managing

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You are correct in thinking that the United States has always been socialist, pretty much has been since it's inception in 1871. The United States of America never has.
I am glad you understood my post as I accidentally omitted the negative.

But I have no idea what distinction you are making between the US and USA and 1871?????
 

managing

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Of course it's done harm. It steals trillions of dollars every year from people, under the term "inflation." The Fed can print as much money as it wants for any reason, and doesn't have to tell anyone. With computers these days, it doesn't even have to print it. The Fed is not constitutional, and the Federal Reserve Act itself was passed under deceit and fraud.
Really not trying to be confrontational, but can you explain? In particular the "steals trillions of dollars every year" under the term "inflation"?
 

tankasnowgod

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I am glad you understood my post as I accidentally omitted the negative.

But I have no idea what distinction you are making between the US and USA and 1871?????

Most people don't. The United States of America is the republic, founded by the Constitution of 1789/1791. The United States is a Federal Corporation, created by the Congressional Act of 1871. People use the terms interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.
 

tankasnowgod

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Really not trying to be confrontational, but can you explain? In particular the "steals trillions of dollars every year" under the term "inflation"?

Look, you either understand economics and the effect of printing money out of thin air, or you don't.
 

managing

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Most people don't. The United States of America is the republic, founded by the Constitution of 1789/1791. The United States is a Federal Corporation, created by the Congressional Act of 1871. People use the terms interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.
And, so . . . ?
 

managing

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Look, you either understand economics and the effect of printing money out of thin air, or you don't.
Yeah, ok. I just thought you might want to explain your position. But if your argument is going to devolve to "you aren't smart enough to understand" that quickly, it was never going anywhere in the first place.

My apology. I am hard of hearing. Especially high frequencies. Can't hear dog whistles at all.
 

tankasnowgod

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@tankasnowgod have you actually listened to the speech?

Which parts do you disagree with?

State control of legislation and more tax wealth is not comparable to private control in any way - when the private money comes in it's coming with an expectation of influencing policy from a small and direct source.

Tax income is in small chunks from many different people and the only expectation is for social good. It's nonsensical to conflate the two.

Patently countries that have more government regulation and a less free market have a much richer and freer middle class.

No, I haven't watched the video, and I won't. Why would I? Bernie is a Senator from Vermont, and I do not live there, so can't vote for or against him. I am not a registered Democrat either, so won't be voting for him or anyone else in any primary.

I disagree with Sander's core concepts. I personally don't think any entity should pay even a single dime to the IRS. I am against the idea of third party payers in medicine, and especially a single payer. I have no idea why anyone on this forum would be for more government control of medicine, as concepts of mistakes or outright fraud are discussed all the time. Unless, you don't really believe in anything we discuss here, and then yeah, just go take statins and SSRIs and get blasted with radiation to prevent cancer and so on. Don't worry about iron fortification, and such. I think the college and university system is bloated and corrupt, and don't think the answer is to continue to subsidize it with federal money.

Bottom line, we are two very different people. I do not wish to cede my money, property or rights to any entity. You either wish to, or have no problem with doing so.
 

tankasnowgod

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Yeah, ok. I just thought you might want to explain your position. But if your argument is going to devolve to "you aren't smart enough to understand" that quickly, it was never going anywhere in the first place.

My apology. I am hard of hearing. Especially high frequencies. Can't hear dog whistles at all.

I don't know why it would have anything to do with your hearing, more like your ignorance of basic economic principles. The more money that gets pumped into an economy, the more prices go up. The more the value of said unit of exchange goes down. You ever see the multi-trillion dollar bills printed in Zimbabwe? Since that made almost everyone in Zimbabwe in that country into trillionaires and quadrillionaires, why weren't they all living in mansions and driving top of the line Mercedes and BMWs? That is an extreme example, but the same thing happens with any sort of inflation rate.
 

ShotTrue

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Really not trying to be confrontational, but can you explain? In particular the "steals trillions of dollars every year" under the term "inflation"?
I agree @tankasnowgod seems a little hostile. The more money the Fed prints the lower the value each dollar is, printing more money lets them pay people/institutions but lowers the total value of the dollar
 

Mossy

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Living in an Ayn-Rand eutopic phantasy where you just abolish all government institutions and everything will be peachy is all good and fine, but there millions of Americans living in a real crony-capitalist-dystopia right now, and I think they prefer a real alternative.
America is worthy of criticism, but I find the world trend now is that which a more eloquent and articulate person(s) (whom I can't recall) defined as the simple and base response of the lesser desiring and pursuing the downfall of the greater--simply because this is now the opportune time. It's not necessarily rooted in a more just and noble position, nor is it rooted in the good of the "corrupt" country, but more in a desire to see the giant fall. I don't use the term lesser or giant in any way other than to denote the positioning in the global power settings.

To repeat, no doubt, America has it's problems--as does the rest of the world. But, America also has what one great non-American writer saw as one of its unique strengths--a creed:

"America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature."
- G.K. Chesterton
I mention that creed, because what you mention and suggest, that America should go the way of the rest of the world, goes against that creed, which sees the need for the separations of powers, and to some degree, of the states. A move in the way of socialism would only increase the cronyism and dystopian state, centralizing the power even more, and as a result, producing greater corruption:

"“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
-Lord Acton​

My suggestion for a real alternative is to pursue and implement true capitalism. Chesterton defined the "capitalism" we have today as monopoly capitalism, or monopolism. To paraphrase, he suggests we can't really know for sure if capitalism works because we've never really had it.
 
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LUH 3417

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@Kartoffel hinted at this, but what really confuses me is why anybody thinks the US is or has ever been a "democratic socialist" economy/government? Sure, Bernie advocates some changes to that. But I can't help but wonder at how people get tweaked by the word "socialist" as if the US (or western Europe since WWII) has ever been anything but.
FDR and the new deal
 

managing

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FDR and the new deal
Yes. One particularly poignant example of many. Thank you for taking the point seriously.

To throw a little bit of coherence into this discussion:

"Simplifying Quill's explanation: “In a communist country, the government answers those questions. There's no private business. There's no private property. The government decides.”

“In a capitalist society, the people make those decisions. The businesses, the market decides how much products will cost, how many there are, where it will be made.”

“In the socialist system, there's a mix of both. The government operates the system to help all, but there is opportunity for private property and private wealth. That's generally how we talk about it.” Back to Quill's point: A socialist government could control all of the means of production — or it could, for example, use taxes to redistribute resources among the population."
Do you know the difference between a Communist and a Socialist?

We are most certainly and always have been a "socialist democracy". And certainly should be. One might not like our system of representation or the particular choices it has led to (I certainly don't in many particulars). However, there has never been a purely market driven economy. For very good reason.

Shrieking about "socialism" is mindless conflation with communism. Which isn't even remotely true. And if anybody thinks there is a politician running for president or any other major office in 2020 who is NOT a "democratic socialist" or "social democrat" of some flavor, they are fooling themselves.
 

LUH 3417

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Yes. One particularly poignant example of many. Thank you for taking the point seriously.

To throw a little bit of coherence into this discussion:

"Simplifying Quill's explanation: “In a communist country, the government answers those questions. There's no private business. There's no private property. The government decides.”

“In a capitalist society, the people make those decisions. The businesses, the market decides how much products will cost, how many there are, where it will be made.”

“In the socialist system, there's a mix of both. The government operates the system to help all, but there is opportunity for private property and private wealth. That's generally how we talk about it.” Back to Quill's point: A socialist government could control all of the means of production — or it could, for example, use taxes to redistribute resources among the population."
Do you know the difference between a Communist and a Socialist?

We are most certainly and always have been a "socialist democracy". And certainly should be. One might not like our system of representation or the particular choices it has led to (I certainly don't in many particulars). However, there has never been a purely market driven economy. For very good reason.

Shrieking about "socialism" is mindless conflation with communism. Which isn't even remotely true. And if anybody thinks there is a politician running for president or any other major office in 2020 who is NOT a "democratic socialist" or "social democrat" of some flavor, they are fooling themselves.
Additionally, good luck getting your mail delivered or your fires put out in a purely “capitalist” United States.
 

yerrag

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I disagree with Sander's core concepts. I personally don't think any entity should pay even a single dime to the IRS. I am against the idea of third party payers in medicine, and especially a single payer. I have no idea why anyone on this forum would be for more government control of medicine, as concepts of mistakes or outright fraud are discussed all the time. Unless, you don't really believe in anything we discuss here, and then yeah, just go take statins and SSRIs and get blasted with radiation to prevent cancer and so on. Don't worry about iron fortification, and such. I think the college and university system is bloated and corrupt, and don't think the answer is to continue to subsidize it with federal money.

I think that having life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness enshrined and encoded in the Declaration of Independence pretty much says it all about the DNA of the USA. That these serve as beacons on how as a society we should comport ourselves. The Fed caused the Great Recession. And the fix was worse than the cure. It made a great nation, founded on industry, into a nation propped up by financial chicanery, and forcefully legitimized by military might, and supported by a population brainwashed into subservience to the state. That the state will provide has replaced the industry of providing for oneself - this is what at least half of the country thinks. This half of the population is the half that's used to receiving the largesse of the state while not producing anything of value. This half consists of grossly overpaid college administrators, career bureaucrats that just perpetuate the failed state, media barons that conflate issues, lobbyists that feed off and worsen the state of affairs, financial contortionists in the fed and in the banking system that constantly expand the pyramid scheme with fiat money and unfunded pensions and junk bonds, pharmaceutical "legal-seeming drug cartels" that hide under the false pretense of legitimacy while pushing lethal drugs on the population, and their doting idealists that push the idea of enlarging the role of government, all the while pushing the blame on greedy corporations while absolving the corrupt government which is the ultimate enabler for the greedy corporations. The large government and the greedy corporations are nothing else but one. So, as you push democratic socialism, you are pushing for greedy corporations to morph into a larger government with a politburo that only tell you they are working towards the ideal state while they themselves make it less and less ideal by their machinations.

The medical industry is an appropriate example of what intervention does, it keeps making the organism weaker. Democratic socialism is nothing but intervention of the highest order. You've seen how politicians manage to just make the best of intentions morph into the worst of outcome. Grow up. The horrors of the past century are still fresh. Don't need to rinse and repeat that cycle.

Sadly, I feel though that democratic socialism is inevitable. This is the trend - large government. A largely brainwashed population that's hungry, high in serotonin, can only run into the embrace of democratic socialism. It's useless arguing and talking sense with a population that can only find answers in demagoguery.

Bernie is a demagogue without a moustache. He is offering what the economics cannot provide. He espouses funding grand societal schemes with modern monetary theory, an old idea, a pyramid scheme that has yet to fall apart but nearing its useless life's end.

Let's see how if and when he is president he walks back many of his promises. If the establishment is so wrong in the Russia collusion, wait till you see how they treat Bernie. Trump was just the pilot case. Bernie colluding with China would waste another two of our best years. If not, it means the fix is in. The deep state is already promised a large piece of the incoming pie.
 
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InChristAlone

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I used to lap up Bernie's rhetoric or maybe just the excitement. But I woke up. Dems take away freedoms... Right to bear arms right to deny medical procedures (vaccines) as our religious freedom and Nuremburg code. Also they tax ya up the wazoo and just give it away to someone else.
 

burtlancast

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The Greek concept of (direct) democracy has nothing to do with the modern concept of (representative) democracy invented around the French revolution by those who decided to wrestle the power from the nobility to their own advantage.

Greeks had no state power: every citizen was part of the state and could either participate in it or be governed by it. Judges were designated by chance draw among them, and there were no professional politicians.

Al Greeks participated daily in the political decisions of their nation and didn't chose anyone to represent their will.

In contrast, today's citizens are totally alienated from power and have no say in which way they're governed: we don't get to govern ourselves: and we look at the government as something alien to ourselves.

What we call (representative) democracy is in reality a liberal oligarchy totally alienating free individual choice, useful only in deceiving about the very concept of freedom and free choice.

There absolutely isn't any.

There are english subtitles available for this short video.
 
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yerrag

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The Greek concept of (direct) democracy has nothing to do with the modern concept of (representative) democracy invented around the French revolution by those who decided to wrestle the power from the nobility to their own advantage.

Greeks had no state power: every citizen was part of the state and could either participate in it or be governed by it. Judges were designated by chance draw among them, and there were no professional politicians.

They participated daily in the political decisions of their nation and didn't chose anyone to represent their intentions.

In contrast, today's citizens are totally alienated from power and have no say in which way they're governed: what we call (representative) democracy is in reality a liberal oligarchy totally alienating free individual choice, useful only in deceiving about the very concept of freedom and free choice.

There absolutely isn't any.

There are english subtitles available for this short video.


My inpression was that attempt at democracy didn't last long. It resulted in gridlock, as it devolved into a lot of polemics. There was too much discussion involved that even small matters took too long to decide upon. It was a nice concept, but humans are made to game any attempt at any good, and this was no exception. Inaction and statis led to the weakening of the democracy, and this eventually led to the ascendance of dictatorship.
 

burtlancast

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My post was directed at exposing the concept of democracy, as abused by all politicians, Bernie included.
 
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