Bernie 2020. #RESISTTRUMP

Bernie loves wealth and money yet is trying to preach to others it is a bad thing. Good thing that most rational folks don't take this senile man seriously.

 

Zing!

 

BERNIE 2020 -- Because nothing says progressive like an old rich white guy.

 

A couple things I don’t understand about the Democrats are:

• Why the hatred of an economic system that allows anyone to get wealthy?
• Why does healthcare reform automatically mean we have to be 100% socialist?
• Which country is 100% socialist and prosperous?
• If your socialism isn’t going to turn into Marxist socialism/communism ideology then why does the Communist Party of the USA support you?

 

I have to dig in to find where I originally read this, but I remember a story about the first Soviet spies who visited America. When they reported back to the Kremlin, they said communism would never work here because too many people were doing well. There was a huge, comfortable middle class that wouldn't buy into the class warfare, rich-vs-poor struggle.

Socialists need class warfare in order to be relevant. It's why they're always vilifying the top 1% and talking about race ad nauseam even though virtually every person in America is better off when we have aggregate prosperity. Generally speaking, inequality is their #1 foe, even if the entire nation is more prosperous for it.

I love asking the left to be very specific on what they think is appropriate:

1) How much inequality should there be in a society? How big should we allow the gap between rich and poor to be, and what policies are you going to create in order to ensure that it stays that way? How will your policies not restrict freedom?

2) If an individual works hard and builds wealth, how much of it should he/she be allowed to keep?

3) You demonize AR-15s by saying "no one needs to shoot 100 rounds per minute". Okay, how many rounds per minute should someone be able to fire? Unless we deal with the deeper problems, there will always be mass shootings, so how many victims per mass shooting are you comfortable with, and what policies would you propose to keep them at that level?

Inevitably you see how brutally restrictive their ideas are to freedom.

 

I live in a former Marxist-Leninist one-party totalitarian state. When Americans, who know about communism and communists from movies and state propaganda, try to make sense of the topic, I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

If you'll feel at least a bit stupid after reading this, that's good, you're learning. Couple more things you don't understand:

• 100% socialism a.k.a. communism would probably be pretty sweet if it were possible on a large scale which it is not
• 100% capitalism is very bad and the only time it was achieved it resulted in quality of life dropping below that of Stone Age hunters and gatherers
• the 2019 Democratic Party is a right-wing organization owned by the corporate just like the 2019 Republican Party
• however a couple of the newcomer Democrats are socdem, which among other things is not "100% socialist", just to clarify again
• if Trump's nationalism isn't going to turn into gassing Jews and enslaving blacks then why do the KKK and white nationalists support him? (Note: this is sarcasm. I've learned some people here need to have that pointed out)

 

Please back up this claim by sharing the "one" example where this happened.

How so? Exactly what policies to Democrats support that would be considered "right wing?"

 

Britain during the Industrial Revolution. Free of regulation, companies paid workers nearly nothing, used child labor, demanded working hours of 14 or more. The cities were heavily polluted, causing deadly sickness. The average age of death was fifteen.

Well, the status quo, obviously. Low income redistribution, low wages, weak anti-trust laws, laissez-faire approach in general and regarding the medical industry in particular.

From an outside point of view, the two US parties are centre-right neoliberals on one side and far-right neoliberals on the other. E.g. UK Cons are closer to US Dems than to US Reps.

However it looks like it may finally change - the 2020 Dem candidates are now coming forward with an actual left-wing rhetoric unheard of from a major US party ever since the reign of the Reagan-Thatcher axis of evil began 40 years ago.

 

You seem to have a skewed view of what "100% capitalist" actually means. The role of government--at least in the United States--is not to have zero regulation whatsoever. Its role is to set rules that provide an even playing field that leaves room for competition.

When there is competition, workers aren't "paid nearly nothing", because all a competitor has to do is offer higher wages and bam--they get better workers. If one company demands 14-hour work days, all a competitor has to do is offer 10-hour workdays. Competition creates choice, and "economic slavery" cannot exist in a society where workers and consumers have a multitude of options. The kind of oppression and slavery you're describing can only happen in societies where companies have monopolies and where workers have no options.

Where the US government fails is when it creates such stifling regulation that the only ones able to stay in compliance are the big fish, with their huge legal and accounting teams who can navigate thousands of pages of rules. American liberals love to talk about "supporting the little guy", and in the next breath support regulations that crush the little guy and reduce competition.

And thank god they're being honest. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders will have zero chance in a general election here.

 

Yeah, the axis of evil that created economic booms in both nations and lifted virtually all income levels. I don't know how we managed to cope with such oppression.

 

Joe Biden can't even put together coherent sentences anymore.

 

For the information of all: Most of the "yes" votes in the poll are the same guy with different accounts I believe.

 

I'm glad that you see that pure unfettered capitalism is fundamentally unfair and government intervention is necessary.

That's the theory. Now practice: many positions do not need better workers. If I need a janitor for example I'm not going to pay him more than the government forces me to unless there's serious shortage of workers. Regarding monopoly - as you correctly suggested it needs to be prevented via regulation. But sometimes there's just not enough capacity for competition. Not every village can have multiple restaurants fighting for guests.

Perhaps in some cases. But in other cases the regulation is sorely missing - for example the pharma cartel is free to set price of medication sometimes even an order of magnitude higher than elsewhere for the same product with the same cost of production.

Sometimes even the companies are more pro-regulation than the government. The destruction of environmental regulation by the current US leadership was not that well received by automotive and oil industries. They're playing the long game - they know that eventually the energy and transportation sectors are going to turn much greener and they want to survive that transformation. Part of that survival is convincing the public that they're not environmentally unfriendly. The only ones genuinely cheering the changes are opportunists who want to make quick bucks and move to the next con.

I think I'd heard the same about a recent candidate who nevertheless ended up being the current head of the country.

 

You'll offer more if you want a better janitor. And for those who think "janitorial wages" are too low, they can--gasp--develop more skills so they have more to offer a business than cleaning up. One of the realities of life is that there will always be more low-skill people than high-skill, because high skills are difficult to develop.

You assume that sky-high prices for medication are evidence of not enough regulation, and not an effect of it.

Well, duh. Huge corporations love regulation because it stifles their competition. So if the left wants to elect a President Warren or Sanders, they can knock themselves out ... but they shouldn't be surprised when "the top 1%" still does amazing under their 'leadership'.

 

The point was that nobody needs better janitors.

Very correct. Now - do these hordes of low skill workers deserve to eat shit and die?

Try to read the whole paragraph before responding to it...

Drugs need to be thoroughly tested for efficacy and safety before they're sold which makes it hard for startups to enter the market. If you want to get rid of that regulation, go ahead. But then don't be surprised when people start dropping dead after taking an untested multivitamin.

What countries outside the US do and the US doesn't is make sure that the prices remain low via extra regulation. And it works. Drugs don't poison nor bankrupt people. Your naive insistence that the market will take care of everything itself and all regulation is harmful despite all evidence to the contrary is baffling. It's like a religion!

By the way the american president agrees with me:
https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1016368503723577344

The big corp does far worse under socdem than under neoliberalism.

Note: it happens often that you ignore parts of what's written if you don't like what they say. Try to stop doing that, it makes it harder to get to the truth that way.

 

Looks like John Bolton the war monger-er has been let go. Again President Trump's detractors were wrong that he wanted war.