Trump: acquitted

[Immanuel Can]

Bernie Land.

Precisely.

That's EXACTLY what you get from socialism AT ITS BEST. So why the heck is anyone still entertaining ANY socialist government as an idea? How bad does every case of socialism have to turn out to be, before people finally say, "Y'know, maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all..."

And yet, Bernie's essentially saying, "Well, Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Brezhnev, Mao, Pol Pot, the Kim Jongs, Castro, Chavez, Maduro, Ceaucescu, Tito, Noriega, and everybody else who ever tried it got socialism wrong, but I, I would get it right."

Who's he kidding?

[Arising_uk]

I hope your born again 'God' supports mendacity else it's a toasty time for you.

All your Bernie is proposing is the kind of 'socialism' that most western democratic countries provide for their citizens.

[henry quirk]

All your Bernie is proposing is the kind of 'socialism' that most western democratic countries provide for their citizens.

Name the countries, please.

[Walker]

All your Bernie is proposing is the kind of 'socialism' that most western democratic countries provide for their citizens.

Name the countries, please.

Sanders says his social programs would be financed by taxing the wealthy, however Scandinavian countries heavily tax the middle class and poor, and this is what Sanders would actually do. During the first wave of looting, companies would be either liquidated or forfeited to pay the new wealth taxes necessary to finanace the social programs. If simply forfeited then any former owners with the right politics might be offered management jobs in their old companies.

Details:
Bernie Sanders’s Scandinavian fantasy – Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html

"Sanders’s vision of Scandinavian countries, as with much of his ideology, seems to be stuck in the 1960s and 1970s, a period when these countries were indeed pioneers in creating a social market economy."

[Arising_uk]

Name the countries, please.

UK
France
Spain
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Italy
Portugal
Germany
Finland
Belgium
Holland
And further afield
Australia
New Zealand

[Dubious]

There's a huge difference between socialism and democratic socialism as exists in most of Western Europe. Don't know if one can call anyone happy in this world but these countries certainly feel, with good reason, more secure than the kind of society that keeps devolving in the U.S. where the next mass shooting is just around the corner and everyone is happy that it didn't happen to them.

[Walker]

How slick the slippery slope. Obama’s hiring of communist Van Jones created such a controversy that Jones quickly resigned, and now a decade later Crazy Bernie (CB) is winning primaries with a new crop of government-educated voters.

Don’t be fooled by Bernie Sanders — he’s a diehard communist
https://nypost.com/2016/01/16/dont-be-f ... communist/

“Mainstreaming Sanders requires whitewashing his radical pro-communist past. It won’t be easy to do.
If Sanders were vying for a Cabinet post, he’d never pass an FBI background check. There’d be too many subversive red flags popping up in his file. He was a communist collaborator during the height of the Cold War.”

[henry quirk]

Name the countries, please.

UK
France
Spain
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Italy
Portugal
Germany
Finland
Belgium
Holland
And further afield
Australia
New Zealand

Yeah, Bernie is callin' for a damn sight more than what any of those us doin'.

[FlashDangerpants]

Name the countries, please.

UK
France
Spain
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Italy
Portugal
Germany
Finland
Belgium
Holland
And further afield
Australia
New Zealand

Yeah, Bernie is callin' for a damn sight more than what any of those us doin'.

You are correct there - up to a point. None of those countries has ever seriously considered oultawing all private medical insurance (a far left part of the UK Labour Party used to advocate for that and banning all private schooling as well, but those guys were such tankies nobody took them seriously). Some of Bernies tax policies go beyond the 75% top range ofincome tax that was briefly applied in France - to which even the actual communists objected.

In general Bernie is a populist like Trump. All talk of him being a scandinavian social democrat is misplaced, he is too protectionist (remember those state bailouts for Saab and Nokia? No, the scandinavians don't do that shit), he is too focussed on taxing the rich (the scandies tax wildly across the board) and too focussed also on job creation (the scandies let that stuff sort itself out, they don't pamper a single public sector union).

But Bernie is nothing like Che Guevara either. So if you are suddenly a stickler for facts you have some work to do. If we factor in the stuff that Bernie couldn't possibly get through Congress even with a democratic super-majority such as the bits I have singled out (except the protectionism and public sector union bits because America really buys into both those things) the possible end results are more like the European or Canadian experience than the Venezuelan.

Which is to be expected, Venezuela was a poor corrupt country sustained by a single export industry prior to the bolivarian revolution. Cuba was an even poorer country with only sugar and gambling to offer prior to their revolution. The nations of Europe were largely well off, and critically all had workable rule-of-law, low levels of corruption (this offer excludes Italy) and varied economies full of people who knew how to do valuable work prior to their various levels of peaceful democratic commitment to stuff that is often wrongly thought of as socialist anyway. What a fucking surprise it is that today those latter countries are rich and the former ones are poor.

[Immanuel Can]

Name the countries, please.

UK
France
Spain
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Italy
Portugal
Germany
Finland
Belgium
Holland
And further afield
Australia
New Zealand

Yeah, Bernie is callin' for a damn sight more than what any of those us doin'.

Not one of those countries is actually socialist. What's evident is that the more socialism one actually puts into the economy, the more the economy dies.

What's successful in these countries, and in others that have socialized elements (like Canada's medical system) is that the socialist elements are a lead weight tied to the economy, but there's enough democracy and capitalism to keep the non-functional socialist elements afloat...at least for a time, though in cases like Canada, it's become clear that's not going to last.

It's democracy and capitalism that are successful in all the so-called "socialist democratic" countries (thought we cannot rightly call any countries that are still democratic and have a capitalist economy "socialist.") Socialism itself, and even the isolated socialist elements within a democratic polity, have historically been an utter failure -- a drag on every economy where they're practiced. This is probably because Socialism puts elements of the economy in the hands of government bureaucrats, and removes any market features from the equation.

[henry quirk]

Not me.

Bernie is a commie: that's the only fact that matters.

And: no, don't waste your time tryin' to show me I'm wrong.

Bernie is a commie: he ought to gifted with a free chopper ride.

"Oh, how libertarian of you, Henry."

My principles say I get to self-defend: like the Hebrews say, If you know someone is comin' to off you, get up early and off them first.

Bernie is a commie: his kind leashes folks.

Fuck that, fuck him, and fuck you if you support him.

[FlashDangerpants]

Not me.

Bernie is a commie: that's the only fact that matters.

And: no, don't waste your time tryin' to show me I'm wrong.

Okay then, I'll just state that you are wrong.

Bernie is a commie: he ought to gifted with a free chopper ride.

"Oh, how libertarian of you, Henry."

My principles say I get to self-defend: like the Hebrews say, If you know someone is comin' to off you, get up early and off them first.

Bernie is a commie: his kind leashes folks.

That raises a point I asked you about before though. When you do all that "i won't hurt you if you don't hurt me" routine, you normally offer zero preemptive recourse. There's never any right to take action in advance such as preventing fake doctors from performing operations, but it always has to wait until harm has been done and then it's a matter of revenge.

So if you want to do the helicopter rides for Bernie, then really you ought to be in favour of preventative action in all cases where somebody's ill-behaviour threatens the well being of others.

Fuck that, fuck him, and fuck you if you support him.

I don't. But I can sympathise. I think much the same of anyone who believes I should be ruled by Nigel Farage.

[henry quirk]

Okay then, I'll just state that you are wrong.

Nope.


That raises a point I asked you about before though. When you do all that "i won't hurt you if you don't hurt me" routine, you normally offer zero preemptive recourse. There's never any right to take action in advance such as preventing fake doctors from performing operations, but it always has to wait until harm has been done and then it's a matter of revenge.

Apples and oranges: the fake doc hurts me, after promising to help me: the commie promises to hurt me right upfront.

[Ginkgo]

UK
France
Spain
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Italy
Portugal
Germany
Finland
Belgium
Holland
And further afield
Australia
New Zealand

Yeah, Bernie is callin' for a damn sight more than what any of those us doin'.

Not one of those countries is actually socialist. What's evident is that the more socialism one actually puts into the economy, the more the economy dies.

What's successful in these countries, and in others that have socialized elements (like Canada's medical system) is that the socialist elements are a lead weight tied to the economy, but there's enough democracy and capitalism to keep the non-functional socialist elements afloat...at least for a time, though in cases like Canada, it's become clear that's not going to last.

It's democracy and capitalism that are successful in all the so-called "socialist democratic" countries (thought we cannot rightly call any countries that are still democratic and have a capitalist economy "socialist.") Socialism itself, and even the isolated socialist elements within a democratic polity, have historically been an utter failure -- a drag on every economy where they're practiced. This is probably because Socialism puts elements of the economy in the hands of government bureaucrats, and removes any market features from the equation.

Most of these counties listed have their socialist elements. Australia has many socialist programmes. For example, universal health care, PBS scheme, financial support for the unemployed. These programmes and many more are not a drag on our economy, they are essential for the whole country.

[Immanuel Can]

Most of these counties listed have their socialist elements. Australia has many socialist programmes. For example, universal health care, PBS scheme, financial support for the unemployed. These programmes and many more are not a drag on our economy, they are essential for the whole country.

None of them makes money. They all lose money. And they're all managed by bureaucrats, who have no inherent incentive to make them financially accountable or sustainable.

That makes them a drag on the economy, even if we regard some of them as a desirable or necessary drag on the economy. And that means that we cannot have too large a number of them, or they will simply sink the economy entirely. So we have to be very smart and selective about what we allow to become "socialized." It's an option we can afford to use only cautiously.

So maybe "socialized medicine" might be a first one. But it will be (by far) the biggest source of taxation on the productive populace, and will always demand more than we can afford, because that's exactly how socialized medicine is in every place it's been instituted.

But what about education? What about university? What about welfare? What about a living wage? What about family allowance and subsidized contraception? What about roads, bridges and airports? What about policing, the military, and food inspectors? What about fish, game and wildlife? What about borders and passports? What about sanitation services, recycling and power generation? What about...it never stops. And nothing we socialize ever seems to turn a profit. So where does the money come from to pay for all this socializing?

At some point we have to be smart, and say, "A little socialization of programs won't kill us economically. But it can't be everything. It can't even be most things. So we've got to prioritize and minimize here."