The biggest lie against Bernie and the people that like him is to shame them by saying they want to live off the work of other people. As the video above describes, if you pay taxes nothing we get is free. Instead, it is a re-prioritization of how our tax dollars are spent based on what we want as a people.
Bernie is really good. He's the mirror image of Trump on the Left. Unfortunately, his single-payer and free education plans are half baked and fiscally dangerous.
People keep saying the word free as if we are not paying for it. Nothing is free if you are taxed. It is re prioritization of how we spend tax dollars. People think this re prioritization is the revolution he is talking about, but it is completely mundane in many Nordic countries and other European countries. The revolution is political, not social. For example, from [budget less tax dollars spent on war] => the surplus is then [budget more education and health care]. It is simply taking existing moneys budgeted from one entry in the ledger to another.
There is no one person that will fit your own, or my, or any other persons, personal philosophy perfectly. Each of us has to weigh all aspects of a candidate's platform, against those of other candidates. The important thing is for us to think about these matters in some depth and not be swept along foolishly by carnival hucksterism and salesmanship. It is very difficult to resist our strong human instinct to conform in order to be accepted by the group. But groups are often dangerous and wrong. We must learn to think for ourselves. Those among us who do become leaders are good at manipulating our basic instincts to get what they want. They may do this naturally without even realizing or recognizing why or how they are able to convince others to follow them. Unfortunately, this natural, instinctive ability of leaders is no guarantee that we will be led in a direction that serves our interests. Our ideas are in no way inferior to those of our leaders; yet we are perfectly happy to discard them in favor of the leader so long as doing so leads to acceptance by the group. It is a rare circumstance to find a leader that can articulate good, but unpopular ideas, or even wants to. It is far easier to play to our instincts. Sanders has found an audience among college students. Those students will be described as inexperienced and naive. They may be both, but I don't think that is why Sanders appeals to them. I think it is because they are still capable of hearing, weighing and thinking. Their thinking is still malleable and not intransigent and hardened by preconceived notions. He will be portrayed as radical of course. In reality, if one were to judge by standards of all the advanced countries, he is the least radical of all our candidates. The U.S. has transformed itself into a radical, militarized, far right country. We are the radicals. Sanders is the sane one. _______________________ For those who have an interest in human evolution and the whys and hows of our path to becoming a eusocial species, like bees and ants, E.O. Wilson's new book, "The Social Conquest of Earth", is a good read.
This is how corrupt and twisted the system is: This is the best explanation of gerrymandering you will ever see How to steal an election: a visual guide "Gerrymandering -- drawing political boundaries to give your party a numeric advantage over an opposing party -- is a difficult process to explain. If you find the notion confusing, check out the chart above -- adapted from one posted to Reddit this weekend -- and wonder no more. Suppose we have a very tiny state of fifty people. Thirty of them belong to the Blue Party, and 20 belong to the Red Party. And just our luck, they all live in a nice even grid with the Blues on one side of the state and the Reds on the other. Now, let's say we need to divide this state into five districts. Each district will send one representative to the House to represent the people. Ideally, we want the representation to be proportional: if 60 percent of our residents are Blue and 40 percent are Red, those five seats should be divvied up the same way. Fortunately, because our citizens live in a neatly ordered grid, it's easy to draw five lengthy districts -- two for the Reds , and three for the Blues. Voila! Perfectly proportional representation, just as the Founders intended. That's grid 1 above, "perfect representation." Now, let's say instead that the Blue Party controls the state government, and they get to decide how the lines are drawn. Rather than draw districts vertically they draw them horizontally, so that in each district there are six Blues and four Reds. You can see that in grid 2 above, "compact but unfair." With a comfortable Blue majority in this state, each district elects a blue candidate to the House. The Blues win 5 seats and the Reds don't get a single one. Oh well! All's fair in love and politics. In the real world, the results of this latter scenario are similar to what we see in New York, though there are no good examples of where a majority party gives itself a clean-sweep. In 2012, Democrats received 66 percent of the popular House vote. But they won 21 out of 27 House seats, or three more than you'd expect from the popular vote alone. And from a purely geometric standpoint, New York's congressional districts aren't terribly irregular -- at least not compared to other states..." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...lanation-of-gerrymandering-you-will-ever-see/
Neither of the two parties are innocent of course. Currently the Republicans are expected to control the House for as long as anyone can foresee because of Gerrymandered safe districts. Most likely, if the Democrats get a chance, they'll undo this and retaliate by going to the extreme in the other direction. I like to point out that we are not a very democratic Republic at the national level, because we only elect one of the three branches of government democratically. But I have not been giving Gerrymandering enough consideration. We really only elect one half of one branch democratically -- the Senate. It now seems ironic that the Senate is the part of the legislative branch that used to be appointed and now is the only democratic part. As I said in my post above, we've become quite a radical country compared to the Western countries we regularly like to compare ourselves to. It seems rather comical, or hypocritical, depending on how kind you want to be, to consider that our press is quick to point out election fraud in other countries, and we are happy to champion sending U.N. observers to oversee elections in banana republics; yet, while our national elections are strictly by the book, they are every bit as fraudulent! The only difference in the net result that I can see is that in the U.S. one or the other of competing candidates is usually not murdered. Please don't misunderstand, however. I'm not suggesting we should become a democratic Republic. I'm merely pointing out the charade.
Piezoe wants again you blame the other side for the work of your establishment team... particularly democrats. I saw plenty of analysis which indicates democrats instigated a great deal of this gerrymandering to protect a few seats they would normally not have. If you draw rectangles and squares democrats would have fewer seats because of clumping. this current system is close to the best democrats can do to maximize their totals. They tend to be clumped overwhelmingly in some urban areas and spread more thinly in others. Its part of the reason they so want to get more illegals in and more of them to vote. this is not the article I read... that suggested democrats would have even fewer sets... but bloomberg explains some of this... http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-08/why-democrats-can-t-blame-gerrymandering "There are, however, important political reasons the lines are drawn that way. Yes, one could slice up any large Democratic city, scattering its votes to many House districts. But cities don’t want to be split that way. Most local governments want House districts that respect both local government lines and communities of interest. What’s more, local politicians (who might want to run for those House seats some day) probably want House districts they have a chance of winning. And, perhaps most important, those city governments and their politicians are overwhelmingly Democratic, and they have unusual clout with Democratic state legislators who otherwise would be in a position to gerrymander. That’s all straight-up interest politics, which make it difficult for Democrats to carve up cities for optimal partisan results."
JEM, with all due respect, this is the kind of absolutely nutso stuff you post on occasion , like the business of the Fed being privately owned!, that just makes me scratch my head, and wonder, what have you been drinking or smoking? Only citizens eighteen years old or older who are not convicted felons can vote. It will be 18 years before the babies of illegals can vote, and almost as long before their parents can become citizens.
Napolitano: California To Allow Illegal Immigrants To Vote ... dailycaller.com/.../napolitano-california-to-allow-illegal-... The Daily Caller Oct 13, 2015 - Judge Andrew Napolitano says that “if you are an illegal alien in California, get a driver’s license, register to vote, you can vote in local, state, and federal elections in California and those votes count.”. ... Napolitano argued that while it would be against the law for an ... Jerry Brown Signs Bill Allowing Illegal Immigrants to Vote www.breitbart.com/.../gov-jerry-brown-signs-bill... Breitbart News Network Oct 12, 2015 - Jerry Brown Signs Bill That Could Let Illegal Aliens Vote. ... On Saturday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1461, the New Motor Voter Act, which will automatically register people to vote through the DMV, and could result in illegal aliens voting. States Cannot Prevent Illegal Aliens from Voting in US ... www.truthandaction.org/supreme-court-states-prevent-illegal-aliens-voti... In a stunning ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down an Arizona law requiring voters to present citizenship proof to register in state and ... California Signs Law Allowing Illegals To Vote – RAW ... rawconservative.com › Discussion Oct 28, 2015 - Jerry Brown, that will register and allow illegal aliens to vote in US Elections. The New Motor Voter Act (A.B.1461) that is now law in California, ...