Politics Can Sanders beat Trump?

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by Hoopguru, Feb 2, 2020.

  1. Rastapopoulos

    Rastapopoulos Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2008
    Messages:
    37,380
    Likes Received:
    21,977
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Ballin'
    Have you no sense of humor, man?
     
  2. Rastapopoulos

    Rastapopoulos Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 30, 2008
    Messages:
    37,380
    Likes Received:
    21,977
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Ballin'
    It's not too late to get in the race!
     
  3. ABM

    ABM Happily Married In Music City, USA!

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2008
    Messages:
    31,865
    Likes Received:
    5,783
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Commercial Real Estate
    Location:
    Nashville, TN
    Himself.

    Oh, and an assortment of accomplishments to accompany his bombasticism. But I digress. ;)
     
  4. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2018
    Messages:
    19,824
    Likes Received:
    23,356
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Baby Daddy
    Location:
    Chasing my kids
    Actually its too early Im not old enough.
     
  5. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2018
    Messages:
    19,824
    Likes Received:
    23,356
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Baby Daddy
    Location:
    Chasing my kids
    You’re really good at circling around the argument and running off to the topics you want to talk about. Is Bernie way closer to communism than you guys want to admit? Yup. But you’ll just tell me that you grew up in England so therefore your opinion on big government and Socialism and all that is what matters. The origin of the phrase of big government is just about as important as the origin of the word communism, as in not relevant. Wherever it came from we know what it means now or at least means to us.

    You literally cannot argue that Bernie doesn't lean that direction, so you run around it to talk about other things, or try to use other terms you can describe it with.

    Bernie may or may not be a good president if he gets that far but his supporters are so much in denial about any criticism towards him they've begun to sound like Trump supporters. Which hey I guess that makes sense since like you said the right and the left are really the same, they just want to screw us in different ways (I added the last part).
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2020
  6. donkiez

    donkiez Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2009
    Messages:
    4,235
    Likes Received:
    3,259
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The direction he leans is a matter of perspective. If you are a communist then Bernie leans towards being a small government capitalist.
     
    VanillaGorilla likes this.
  7. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2018
    Messages:
    19,824
    Likes Received:
    23,356
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Baby Daddy
    Location:
    Chasing my kids
    No. A Matter of Perspective and a matter of reality are not always the same thing. If there is a line and the extreme is purple and the other extreme is green, the green may look at someone in between and say you're closer to purple then I am, that's perspective, but that's not the argument. However, if we are all on this line between purple and green and you are leaning one way or another the perspective doesn't really matter. You're either Purple or Green in the middle or closer to one then the other. Even with a matter of perspective in mind, The purple and green can see who is closer to their point in space and who isn't.
     
  8. Minstrel

    Minstrel Top Of The Pops Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2008
    Messages:
    26,226
    Likes Received:
    14,405
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    User Interface Designer
    Location:
    Hello darkness, my old friend
    Communism and socialism aren't the same thing. Communism is an extreme form of socialism...it's like saying that if you believe in any amount of capitalism, you're a corporatist (a belief that the state should be controlled by large private entities) or you lean heavily in that direction. Virtually every nation these days is a mixture of socialism and capitalism, the US included. The debate isn't over capitalism versus socialism, it's what the precise mixture of the two should be. So yes, Sanders believes the US should have more socialism in its mix than it currently does, but it's silly to say that due to that, he's a communist. Saying that because he wants to nationalize the health insurance industry he's a communist is like saying that anyone who's okay with the nationalized educational system that we currently have is a communist (and before anyone points out that there are private schools, Medicare already allows for private health insurance--often called supplementary--to cover things that either Medicare doesn't or for things that you'd rather not go through Medicare for).

    Sanders labels himself a Democratic Socialist because he believes we should socialize more costs that poorer people struggle with. That's a far, far cry from communism and giving government control over all the means of production. That should be obvious.
     
    VanillaGorilla and donkiez like this.
  9. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2018
    Messages:
    19,824
    Likes Received:
    23,356
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Baby Daddy
    Location:
    Chasing my kids
    I didn't say he was a communist though, I said his political leanings make him closer to that then other candidates, but Bernie people can't seem to admit that, and I also noted that communism believes itself to be the truest form of socialism.
    So if one side can get away with the argument that capitalism is a gateway to corporatist movements, then the reverse argument can be implied. The argument is made too, that all the right is basically corporatist movements beholden to big business and all that. So sure by the very definition of a "communist" no Bernie isn't one, but if the argument is good for one side it's good for the other too.
     
  10. donkiez

    donkiez Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2009
    Messages:
    4,235
    Likes Received:
    3,259
    Trophy Points:
    113
    You argument seems to be that he is basically a communist, or close enough to a communist or a purple green guy. I think the point most the rest of us are making is that purple and green are not the same colors
     
  11. ABM

    ABM Happily Married In Music City, USA!

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2008
    Messages:
    31,865
    Likes Received:
    5,783
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Commercial Real Estate
    Location:
    Nashville, TN
    If Sanders becomes President, not only would I lose my all-important bet with Lanny, but I truly would consider moving to The Azores.
     
  12. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2018
    Messages:
    19,824
    Likes Received:
    23,356
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Baby Daddy
    Location:
    Chasing my kids
    My argument is that a.) some of his ideologies DO actually come close to communism. Here's my qoute: Karl Marx advocated class wars, worker control, and taking away the power of the ruling class. It seems to me that many of his followers at least do want to engage in a class war with the ultra-rich, are working for worker-control and unionization, and b.) His supporters have to shun that label or anything that comes close to it because of western stigma's towards the word, "Communism", they seem to struggle even saying well he's closer to that then someone else.
     
  13. Minstrel

    Minstrel Top Of The Pops Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2008
    Messages:
    26,226
    Likes Received:
    14,405
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    User Interface Designer
    Location:
    Hello darkness, my old friend
    Socialism can be a gateway to communism, it's just that no one is actually advocating that.

    No one really believes that the mainstream right is advocating real corporatism (i.e. actually putting big business or other private entities in charge of the state), just that they are much more beholden to business interests. If all you've been trying to say is that Sanders believes in more socialism than any other current Presidential candidate, well, yeah, that's obvious. You said what he believes in is "borderline communism," though, and that seems way off.
     
    VanillaGorilla likes this.
  14. Minstrel

    Minstrel Top Of The Pops Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2008
    Messages:
    26,226
    Likes Received:
    14,405
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    User Interface Designer
    Location:
    Hello darkness, my old friend
    The term "class war" is kind of meaningless, though, because it mostly just means "any policy that isn't ideal for either poor people, middle class people or rich people." It's just as fair to say that conservative policies cutting away the social safety net to give big tax breaks to the rich, or corporate subsidies, is class warfare against the working class and poor. So are Republicans "communists" for engaging in class warfare? It's such a subjective, poorly-defined term that it can be used by either side, so it's not a good hinge point for an argument, IMO.
     
    VanillaGorilla likes this.
  15. Minstrel

    Minstrel Top Of The Pops Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2008
    Messages:
    26,226
    Likes Received:
    14,405
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    User Interface Designer
    Location:
    Hello darkness, my old friend
    Do you speak Portuguese?
     
  16. ABM

    ABM Happily Married In Music City, USA!

    Joined:
    Sep 12, 2008
    Messages:
    31,865
    Likes Received:
    5,783
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Commercial Real Estate
    Location:
    Nashville, TN
    No, but my family does.
     
  17. andalusian

    andalusian Season - Restarted

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    14,414
    Likes Received:
    13,349
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    San Marcos, CA
    Reading some of his responses here - I am questioning at times if he speaks English.. ;) I kid, I kid.
     
  18. TorturedBlazerFan

    TorturedBlazerFan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2018
    Messages:
    19,824
    Likes Received:
    23,356
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Baby Daddy
    Location:
    Chasing my kids
    I disagree, I think people are advocating for extreme socialist agenda’s they just know that they must move slowly to get there and Bernie’s version is a nice start in that direction. Now we could agree to disagree on that.
    I am saying that he’s more socialist yes, and that more socialist is much closer to communism than less socialist, and his beliefs do come across to me as borderline communism at least in some aspects not in all.
     
  19. Minstrel

    Minstrel Top Of The Pops Global Moderator

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2008
    Messages:
    26,226
    Likes Received:
    14,405
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    User Interface Designer
    Location:
    Hello darkness, my old friend
    Sure, but class warfare seemed to be kind of the big thing there. We can go into the other two things, too.

    "Worker control" -- This is a weird one, because it's often misunderstood, as though there are two (or more groups) and Marx advocated giving control to one, the workers. The whole point of communism is that the society is "flat"--everyone is a worker and therefore everyone has control. In what way is Sanders advocating that? Giving more power to unions is not the Marxian "worker control" ideal, even if unions have something to do with workers. Giving more power to unions might be a "leftist" thing but it isn't anything to do with socialism, it's a form of collective bargaining, which is perfectly acceptable within a capitalist structure and it's simply a way for employees to organize in a way that gives them a similar type of leverage that companies have when it comes to negotiation. Negotiation is a core part of capitalism.

    "Taking away the power of the ruling class" -- What is the ruling class? Do you define that as the government or industry? Sanders certainly isn't advocating taking away the power of government. He clearly believes in giving workers the right to organize in a way that they can gain parity with big business...is that taking away the power of the ruling class to you?
     
    VanillaGorilla likes this.
  20. andalusian

    andalusian Season - Restarted

    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2008
    Messages:
    14,414
    Likes Received:
    13,349
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    San Marcos, CA
    I think that universal health care is actually a fantastic capitalist tool for the US - where health-care costs are usually a big burden on small to mid-size business owners - a lot of these small businesses that are hard to create in this country in the 20-500 people range will be much easier to create.

    I absolutely do not think that this is anywhere that would take us on the road to communism, it would actually be a great help for capitalism and innovation in this country.

    The other big policy Bernie talks about is the "Green new deal" - which is basically a government support for innovation in the way that energy production is changing. The alternative is Trump's support for bed-ridden industries like coal - which continues to lose jobs despite Trump's government funded support.

    How is helping an industry to transform to the modern world and creating up to 20 million new jobs communism is beyond me.

    Finally, College for all - is another way to help industry - people are the most important resource the modern economy needs - but it's costs has gone up way out of control (I have a kid that goes to college next year, I have an idea...) - since 1985, we had compounded inflation of 249%, college costs has gone up 500% in that time, average salary is at around 239% compounded (all quick, back of the envelope calculations).

    Lack of skilled workers is one of the worst things that can happen to modern industry.

    I would say, Bernie is a lot more modern capitalist than you are willing to give him credit for.
     
    Last edited: Feb 19, 2020

Share This Page