Bernie is a good man who seeks to improve the lives of Americans but his method is redistribution through confiscatory taxation, which is a bad idea. It is a bad idea because it punishes the economically creative, rewards the bums, and does not address fundamental causes of inequality: wage stagnation, declining skill sets among workers, high cost of education, health, and housing, and high personal debt among the middle and lower classes with huge debt service and a sense of entitlement. A skewed economic value system among individuals if you will. When I see a mother who has to go to a local food bank to feed her family return to a home with three hi def TVs and cell phones for her and hubby, you know things are fucked up value wise. Use welfare surgically and with discrimination, pay workers more, fund pensions properly, create a rational health care system, one which rewards health and not sickness, stop being the global policeman, and you could significantly lower the tax burden in this country and improve its economic health and existential being.
yeah I hear ya. All these socialists sound like good guys. Everything out of their mouth is something for the poor and disadvantaged or nowadays just the plain old middle class. But all the pie in the sky comes falling down if any buzz killer dares ask, "And how again are we going to pay for all of this?" And that is why I am against means testing. Social security and medicare work (just barely) because all pay and all receive. Nobody understands why I am for food stamps for all. I just don't like the government means testing and deciding who gets it and who pays. Everybody should get it and everybody should pay. Bernie and the socialists sound good, but they never tell you their dirty little secret, and that is... what they do to individuals who do not obey. The young girls love Bernie, he preaches money for all. But nobody ever asks him what he will do to those that don't comply.
No political, and more importantly economic system, has ever come close to the success of capitalism for bringing the most people out of poverty into the middle class - and helping the poorest of the poor. Period. End of story. Will something else come along at some time that is better. It very well might happen. But meanwhile Socialism is exactly the opposite of its other modern day name Progressive. I am not in favor of turning back the clocks and turning back modern day society to the "good old days" of FDR and the USSR.
??? There is nothing other than capitalism. It's not something man invented. It's the law of the land and was the law of the land long before man ever started walking upright in search of food. Government just attempts to harness capitalism. Without capitalism there can be no government because there would be nothing to govern. Socialism is not the opposite of capitalism. Socialism simply asks the question, "Now that we have all this wealth from capitalism, what should we do with it?"
While I agree for the most part with above, Socialism is not just about control of money but of behavior. Though some on the right stray in that direction too. One doesn't have to be a Libertarian to understand a country with 5% of the worlds population shouldn't have 25% of the worlds prisoners.
Uh no. Death row convicts number only in the low 1000's. It is because our prison system is set up to produce not reduce recidivism. Mo' money mo' prisoners. Crime pays - for the Industrial Prison Complex, especially the privately run facilities.
yes, that's my point, we only kill 1k, unlike China where you can get killed for bank fraud. Who knows how many they kill each year? otherwise, no argument here. I'm for prison for dangerous criminals only who need to be kept off the street for our own safety. Now if you're smart enough to break into my house and steal something, I don't want you in jail, I want you out working until you pay me back (and then some extra) for the harm you did to me. And if you can't pay me back on time, THEN you can go to jail. Privatising prison has turned out to be a very, very bad decision. But don't think it is any different in Mexico. All those prisoners are there because they have a hope of some family member paying a bribe to get them out.