The Democrat Debate

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

Just simply socialism isn’t “everything gets everything they want”, nor is it “everyone gets the same and the leftovers go to the government”. The idea is that everyone gets a basic level of livability and the excess that many have is reduced to provide this. If you have 3 houses and rent them out well sorry but that’s a sign of economic disparity, not prosperity. If you’re earning a million dollars then lets put in practices to shave that off and disperse it. [/quote]

For someone who just spent two posts insulting other people’s intelligence you are fucking dumb.

Socialism: Socialism is a social and economic system characterized by social ownership and control of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.

“social ownership” = government ownership, which means no freedom.

We don’t have “socialist” programs. We have a social safety net (welfare state) and some SERVICES facilitated by government, subsidized by taxpayers. We have no “socialist” programs.

Maybe if you read a fucking book, you know one with “basic” and “economics” in the title.

I think the assumption by you that we don’t know what we’re talking about, or you or ANYONE is in a position to tell anyone else what is “excessive” income/property/earnings is not only a silly narrative but down right fucking moronic and so anti-freedom, you couldn’t find a tyrant that didn’t agree.

Because you know, socialism has created the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen right? Oh right, no it hasn’t that was America and capitalism.

You’re in no position to tell other to read a book. Elementary human history and economics seem to evade you.

I think YOU aren’t WE, and your ideas are shit.

42

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

Oh lord.

[/quote]

This is you.

You’re anti freedom, and pro government oppression and you seem to think that because you support these authoritarian tyrannical ideas that you’ll be exempt from the crushing boot that is the ruling class. LOL!

You’re anti-rights, anti-freedom…

Fuck Aussies are brainwashed.

43

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

Oh lord.

[/quote]

This is you.

You’re anti freedom, and pro government oppression and you seem to think that because you support these authoritarian tyrannical ideas that you’ll be exempt from the crushing boot that is the ruling class. LOL!

You’re anti-rights, anti-freedom…

Fuck Aussies are brainwashed. [/quote]

You’re being childish Beansie … now be quiet while the statist schools us of the glories of the utopia!

44

I can’t reply to everyone individually but lets be honest here the ‘facts’ quoted about Australia vs USA are wrong. Australia has a higher median income by almost 40% (maybe you mixed it up?), has a roughly equal rape rate, and actually as a decent earner I paid slightly less tax in Australia especially once you figure in insurance/s (insurance here is much lower coverage for much higher premiums across the board) but you do absolutely have lower prices of a lot of things can’t deny that!

You have a skilled employment problem brewing here though so to say that educating people is going to cause some huge issue is, as I said, short sighted. I’m here because you quite literally cannot fill engineering positions with Americans. There aren’t enough trained people living here. This applies to medicine, engineering, computer science, most basic sciences as far as I’ve seen.

Just to set the record straight education is not free in Australia but it is ‘virtually’ free. My 4 year cost me < 25k and I paid for it out of additional tax that was progressive based on earnings. I paid my loans back in 7 years at a rate of about 2%. Its adjusted at CPI.

The best educational institutions are not mostly in the US either. Just think. In the top 50 you have good representation from Europe, Canada and Asia. Lists vary but sure lets give the US 50% of the top 50. Why does that impact anything? You don’t actually need the best university to get a leg up in life, you just want a wider and better education for the country. I’m not sure if you’re debating this idea?

BSes are devalued here because they’re useless. The number of people I know here that did liberal arts or are studying languages or some niche area of engineering is ridiculous. I think the problem here is people that can get it get too many degrees. Again in Australia you get number 1 under the system outlined above and after that you pay full price. I have friends here doing a masters in some stupid mining engineering just to do geophysics work; he already has a B.Eng. Why does anyone need anything more? Are degrees here much worse so you need to continue doing them? I doubt it.

Economics 101 has shown higher progressive tax rates are better. You’re own country proved this not too long ago. On the flip side you’ve also proven in many states that lowering taxes destroys economies. It’s hard to apply strict logic here but higher taxes good, low taxes bad …

As per usual there are a lot of assumptions in peoples’ posts that have been straight up disproven time and again. e.g. higher tax = less money in economy = bad. You’re dealing with the economy as a first order system but its anything but that. Also higher corp tax = offshoring = … whatever. Again in your own country many states have already shown this to be wrong. They’ve increased corporate taxes and companies stayed put.

Happy to keep debating though. Its always good to hear what the right wing is thinking these days.

Cheers!

45

Fuck you’re retarded. I’m out.

46

Sorry I realise I’m coming off like a bit (or lot) of a dick. Its just passion and not meaning to directly insult anyone.

47

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

Just simply socialism isn’t “everything gets everything they want”, nor is it “everyone gets the same and the leftovers go to the government”. The idea is that everyone gets a basic level of livability and the excess that many have is reduced to provide this. If you have 3 houses and rent them out well sorry but that’s a sign of economic disparity, not prosperity. If you’re earning a million dollars then lets put in practices to shave that off and disperse it. [/quote]

For someone who just spent two posts insulting other people’s intelligence you are fucking dumb.

Socialism: Socialism is a social and economic system characterized by social ownership and control of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.

“social ownership” = government ownership, which means no freedom.

We don’t have “socialist” programs. We have a social safety net (welfare state) and some SERVICES facilitated by government, subsidized by taxpayers. We have no “socialist” programs.

Maybe if you read a fucking book, you know one with “basic” and “economics” in the title.

I think the assumption by you that we don’t know what we’re talking about, or you or ANYONE is in a position to tell anyone else what is “excessive” income/property/earnings is not only a silly narrative but down right fucking moronic and so anti-freedom, you couldn’t find a tyrant that didn’t agree.

Because you know, socialism has created the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen right? Oh right, no it hasn’t that was America and capitalism.

You’re in no position to tell other to read a book. Elementary human history and economics seem to evade you.

I think YOU aren’t WE, and your ideas are shit.
[/quote]

Fair enough. Sometimes I feel included but its good to know I’m not. Cheers!

I’m not meaning to imply you haven’t thought about this stuff just that I think you’re wrong and have experienced that myself.

Cutting and pasting some stuff from Wikipedia is good and all but doesn’t deal with any nuance of the philosophy. Also even if you take it to the logical conclusion of state ownership of everything I’m not sure how that is anti freedom? The current system which requires a large chunk of the population to work 16 hrs a day might also seem to some people to be a reduction in freedom. Freedom is a pretty vague term so I’m not sure how its so easily thrown around here.

I’m just suggesting if you read a book about socialism it might give you a better idea of what it truly embodies. Media representation and understanding of it in this thread is not fair I would say.

48

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]Drew1411 wrote:
Seeing the mid-20’s generation on facebook respond so positively to Bernie is frightening. [/quote]

Frightening indeed, but not surprising. My generation sucks. [/quote]

Oh lord.

I wish you guys would actually read a book or something. Hey you can actually get a book on Socialism on Audible so you could just listen to it. [/quote]

Hilarious.

[quote]
The understanding of socialism here is childish in the extreme. [/quote]
Here? I thought you were in Australia?

[quote]
You have socialist programs already but for some reason I think you think socialism is the USSR (it wasn’t) [/quote]

“I think” ya, I doubt that. I’m well aware we have socialist programs already.

[quote]
whilst ignoring other quite socialist countries like Australia (my home), and all those amazing EU countries that are usually top of the pile for livability. [/quote]

Interesting you didn’t list Greece.

[quote]
Just simply socialism isn’t “everything gets everything they want”, nor is it “everyone gets the same and the leftovers go to the government”. The idea is that everyone gets a basic level of livability and the excess that many have is reduced to provide this. If you have 3 houses and rent them out well sorry but that’s a sign of economic disparity, not prosperity. If you’re earning a million dollars then lets put in practices to shave that off and disperse it. [/quote]

No thanks. In fact, fuck that.

[quote]
I think the assumption by the right wing here is that if you aren’t rich you just didn’t try hard enough but that’s a silly narrative and there are other ways people give back to society other than earning the most and having a bigger house. Socialism allows for this fact. [/quote]

That’s a pretty big and quite dumb assumption on your part boss.

[quote]
I don’t necessarily agree that what Sander is claiming he can do, he actually can do. I also don’t think you flip a switch on taxation, loopholes, regulation and so on and make things better. Everything needs to be put into a strategy that moves to more equal income, education and healthcare distribution. [/quote]

Ya, we fought a war over excessive tax. You might want to check it out, I read about, in a book.

[quote]
The issue is that his vision is truly amazing given what’s out there in the political sphere and definitely trumps any Republican vision. [/quote]

lolololololololololololoollolololl.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding about how politics in America work.

49

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

[quote]countingbeans wrote:

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

Just simply socialism isn’t “everything gets everything they want”, nor is it “everyone gets the same and the leftovers go to the government”. The idea is that everyone gets a basic level of livability and the excess that many have is reduced to provide this. If you have 3 houses and rent them out well sorry but that’s a sign of economic disparity, not prosperity. If you’re earning a million dollars then lets put in practices to shave that off and disperse it. [/quote]

For someone who just spent two posts insulting other people’s intelligence you are fucking dumb.

Socialism: Socialism is a social and economic system characterized by social ownership and control of the means of production and co-operative management of the economy, as well as a political theory and movement that aims at the establishment of such a system.

“social ownership” = government ownership, which means no freedom.

We don’t have “socialist” programs. We have a social safety net (welfare state) and some SERVICES facilitated by government, subsidized by taxpayers. We have no “socialist” programs.

Maybe if you read a fucking book, you know one with “basic” and “economics” in the title.

I think the assumption by you that we don’t know what we’re talking about, or you or ANYONE is in a position to tell anyone else what is “excessive” income/property/earnings is not only a silly narrative but down right fucking moronic and so anti-freedom, you couldn’t find a tyrant that didn’t agree.

Because you know, socialism has created the wealthiest nation the world has ever seen right? Oh right, no it hasn’t that was America and capitalism.

You’re in no position to tell other to read a book. Elementary human history and economics seem to evade you.

I think YOU aren’t WE, and your ideas are shit.
[/quote]

Fair enough. Sometimes I feel included but its good to know I’m not. Cheers!

I’m not meaning to imply you haven’t thought about this stuff just that I think you’re wrong and have experienced that myself.

Cutting and pasting some stuff from Wikipedia is good and all but doesn’t deal with any nuance of the philosophy. Also even if you take it to the logical conclusion of state ownership of everything I’m not sure how that is anti freedom? The current system which requires a large chunk of the population to work 16 hrs a day might also seem to some people to be a reduction in freedom. Freedom is a pretty vague term so I’m not sure how its so easily thrown around here.

I’m just suggesting if you read a book about socialism it might give you a better idea of what it truly embodies. Media representation and understanding of it in this thread is not fair I would say.
[/quote]

You seem like an amiable enough guy - just a couple of points. What system are you referring to that requires 16 hr work days?

Regarding state owned means of production - this is an inherent reductions and elimination in economic freedom as you can not freely choose to start or run your own business. The state allows you to do so, or they do not. You have no choice in the matter. It’s, at best, crony capitalism where the gov lets their buddies run a company that you happen to work for. It’s pretty straight forward how this is anti-freedom.

Also, aren’t a lot of your media censored (i.e. video games, movies, music)? They restrict and ban certain media - am I mistaken on this point?

And, when taken to its logical conclusion, socialism begets communism begets totalitarianism. Follow the road of centralized power. When the individual is stripped of their rights, Gov will continue to do so. On a long enough time line, your rights are nominal at best and “granted” by your government, those benevolent benefactors.

Think outside the box and your socialism doesn’t sound so rosy. Frame it in reality and it’s downright tyranny.

50

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

The best educational institutions are not mostly in the US either. Just think. In the top 50 you have good representation from Europe, Canada and Asia. Lists vary but sure lets give the US 50% of the top 50. Why does that impact anything? You don’t actually need the best university to get a leg up in life, you just want a wider and better education for the country. I’m not sure if you’re debating this idea?

[/quote]

Not sure what you’re getting at here. Are you saying its ok if our universities are not as good? That there is no difference between an MBA from Harvard vs. a college in latin america? Degrees in some countries are not as respected as there are when they come from a respected university. I think it is in our best interest to maintain highly respected universities to turn out talented people.

[quote]

BSes are devalued here because they’re useless. The number of people I know here that did liberal arts or are studying languages or some niche area of engineering is ridiculous. I think the problem here is people that can get it get too many degrees. Again in Australia you get number 1 under the system outlined above and after that you pay full price. I have friends here doing a masters in some stupid mining engineering just to do geophysics work; he already has a B.Eng. Why does anyone need anything more? Are degrees here much worse so you need to continue doing them? I doubt it. [/quote]

Nobody said that we need more advanced degrees so I don’t know where you got that from. The point made was that if you make college free, and hand out BS’s like candy, they have no value. If you want to do a worthless degree thats on you, you are FREE to make that choice, but don’t make me pay for your stupidity. The point is that the price of college is on you, so it is your responsibility to get the most of out it so you can get a return on your money.

[quote]

Economics 101 has shown higher progressive tax rates are better. You’re own country proved this not too long ago. On the flip side you’ve also proven in many states that lowering taxes destroys economies. It’s hard to apply strict logic here but higher taxes good, low taxes bad … [/quote]

How did we prove that?? Lower taxes destroys economies?? Where and when has that happened? If we follow your logic, is 100% taxation best? At what point does it stop being good? Do you know anything about creating incentives to grow and produce in the economy?

[quote]
As per usual there are a lot of assumptions in peoples’ posts that have been straight up disproven time and again. e.g. higher tax = less money in economy = bad. You’re dealing with the economy as a first order system but its anything but that. Also higher corp tax = offshoring = … whatever. Again in your own country many states have already shown this to be wrong. They’ve increased corporate taxes and companies stayed put. [/quote]

I’ve seen the exact opposite happen so I would like to see where you’ve gotten your information. Why are democratic and republican candidates talking about companies offshoring if it isn’t happening?

51

[quote]countingbeans wrote:
Fuck you’re retarded. I’m out.

[/quote]

Lol, yup. Oh lord indeed.

52

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

Economics 101 has shown higher progressive tax rates are better. You’re own country proved this not too long ago. On the flip side you’ve also proven in many states that lowering taxes destroys economies. It’s hard to apply strict logic here but higher taxes good, low taxes bad … [/quote]

This is completely and utterly ridiculous.

[quote]
Happy to keep debating though. [/quote]

This isn’t a debate. This is you mouthing off about complete non-sense.

53

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:
Also even if you take it to the logical conclusion of state ownership of everything I’m not sure how that is anti freedom?
[/quote]

…

Nice troll job. 8/10, would read again.

54

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

Also even if you take it to the logical conclusion of state ownership of everything I’m not sure how that is anti freedom?

[/quote]

Not sure if you are trolling or are actually serious. If the state owns everything including your personal property and income, you own nothing and are not free to use anything outside of the permission of the state. You are at the mercy of the state. There is nothing free about it, hence, anti-freedom.

Edit: add first sentence

55

[quote]Drew1411 wrote:

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

Also even if you take it to the logical conclusion of state ownership of everything I’m not sure how that is anti freedom?

[/quote]

If the state owns everything including your personal property and income, you own nothing and are not free to use anything outside of the permission of the state. You are at the mercy of the state. There is nothing free about it, hence, anti-freedom.[/quote]

Of course it’s anti-freedom. This fucking guy.

56

Bernie Fucking Sanders, the 70+ year old career politician, has literally done nothing in his 30+ years in various offices. How this guy has gained any traction is beyond me.

57

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:
I can’t reply to everyone individually but lets be honest here the ‘facts’ quoted about Australia vs USA are wrong. [/quote]

58

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:
I can’t reply to everyone individually but lets be honest here the ‘facts’ quoted about Australia vs USA are wrong…has a roughly equal rape rate… [/quote]

http://www.civitas.org.uk/crime/crime_stats_oecdjan2012.pdf

Looks equal…

59

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

[quote]smh_23 wrote:
What a nightmare. Bernie with his Santa bag tossing out free stuff. Free college! Free! In-state tuition (i.e. American-taxpayer-subsidized tuition) for the children of illegal immigrants!

From a semi-objective perspective, Hillary won easily and did better than expected. She did well on foreign policy questions. Anybody who thinks she doesn’t have a chance needs to take her more seriously.[/quote]

FYI this is a really short sighted view. The main reason as a country you want to fund the increase in education is to increase taxable revenue; its stupid candidates don’t express this. People with college degrees earn something in the order of $1M extra over their career. If you say these people are taxed at 30% then that’s an extra 300k per person into government coffers. They also require less aid and support during their working life and retirement. Its really a huge win for a country to provide free or virtually free education.[/quote]

The short-sightedness is here in your wildly reductive post. Of course higher education is good for our country and economy and national security – this is why we fund higher education with taxpayer dollars in thousands of different ways. Unlike many people on this board, I am all for this, though it could be done in a much smarter and leaner way (e.g., by demanding that public and semi-public [i.e., virtually all] universities make deep cuts to the gristle and waste that have grown up around campus but have nothing whatsoever to do with classroom education).

But “free” (here I stop to note that nothing is free and Sanders is actually talking about simply using one person’s money to pay entirely for another’s education) schooling is ludicrously unrealistic and unnecessary and just all-around silly.

On a philosophical level: the student is going to benefit from the million-dollar lifetime pay-bump to a greater direct degree than is the society (because she will keep the majority of her earnings), so from a benefits-reaped perspective the student ought to bear the majority of the cost of her investment. We who live outside the walls of fantasized utopia understand that the fruit does not find its way to our table without the hard work and risk of planting and tending crops. The student is making an investment in her future, and investments carry costs. Welcome to life on this planet.

On a practical level: this is a country with an enormous and relatively non-homogeneous population (i.e., it is not a cozy little corner of Northern Europe), and the cost of its education is correspondingly enormous and complex. What are you going to cut in order to pay for this? Health care for old people? Food stamps for families with young children? That won’t cover it, and neither will any adjustment to the defense budget, provided that you understand that nobody in the Western world (Europe very much included) who thinks seriously about international politics and the global balance of power – and I mean nobody – deems it a good idea for the U.S. to start adjusting itself down on the scale of relative military might.

No, it will (of course) have to come down to the “rich paying their fair share.” On that: this would act like what is sometimes called an exogenous tax, because it would not put into operation a new kind of social/economic institution, but would instead transfer the cost of an existing institution from the mixed (private and public) to the public sector. Now, one of the arguments I often make holds that that Barack Obama is not a socialist in any meaningful sense of the term, and one of the primary pieces of evidence I offer in support of that argument has to do with the economic advisers and strategists with whom he surrounds himself. One of them was Christina Romer, a liberal economist who nonetheless co-published a well-known paper about the contractionary effects of exogenous taxation.

All forms of taxation, you see, remove money from the private sector. All forms of taxation waste some of this money – government is famously inefficient – and many forms of taxation do not even moderately offset the removal with stimulative spending. Because of this, tax hikes generally exert a force in opposition to economic growth. Investment takes the most direct hit where income taxes are concerned, and this has all kinds of effects on hiring and job/wage growth. You can read about these effects for free on NBER.

Of course, there is a balancing act to perform vis-a-vis taxation, and moderate changes made for good reasons are often not only acceptable but necessary. But this isn’t a moderate change that’s being proposed – it’s an enormous and ridiculous one, and for unnecessary reasons. I’m sure all sorts of economic models support this, and, if I have time later, I might just hunt them down. For now it will suffice to say that the world is not, not nearly, as simple as Leftists (and their conservative counterparts, of course) believe.

Edited.

60

[quote]ozzyaaron wrote:

Also even if you take it to the logical conclusion of state ownership of everything I’m not sure how that is anti freedom?
[/quote]

“Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.”