Quote from: Viper1 on March 01, 2020, 05:43:48 PM

Quote from: TwitchySeal on March 01, 2020, 04:41:01 PM

Quote from: RonF on March 01, 2020, 04:01:35 PM

Indeed we need socialist/communist politicians in this country - look how well it has worked in California and countries like Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Venezuela, and others.

Street homelessness in tents, cardboard boxes and gulags for you.

The Nazis healthcare system isn't what made them evil. It was because they committed genocide and tried to take over the world.

The Soviet Union wasn't a horrible place to live because of their healthcare system. It was because they were run by an Authoritarian who didn't allow any sort of capitalism.

Venezuela isn't in a crisis because of their healthcare system. They're in a crisis because they have a an authoritarian president who abused his power for political gains at the cost of the people.

Unless you believe Bernie is secretly planning on moving away from Democracy and toward authoritarianism, it doesn't make sense to compare him to all those evil regimes.

I'm not a Bernie bro, btw. I don't know for sure what the best path forward is (and I think anyone who thinks they do isn't looking at things objectively), other than it would involve a balance of Capitalism and Socialist policies.

Why are you talking about healthcare as if he was saying that was "evil"? Pretty sure he was talking about socialism after my post about Bernie and what he says he is.

Germany had their own "form" of socialism with anti capitalism being a big part of it. And while they didn't want to do social programs, they ended up having to and made up some "racial" justification for it. Not like any of that really matters.

USSR communism derived itself from socialism.

Venezula is in "crisis" because of their socialist government, their mismanagement or the oil resources and the big drop in oil prices which they never prepared for. Could throw in sanctions as well as a contributing factor. I will say though, as someone who has friends there that I talk to regularly, they all are not happy with how the west portrays what's going on in their country. "Misleading" is the nicer phrase they tend to use.

You can certainly say it's the people in charge that are "evil" etc.. But then you have to ask yourself why that form of government tends to lead to that.

Quote from: TwitchySeal on March 01, 2020, 04:41:01 PM

Unless you believe Bernie is secretly planning on moving away from Democracy and toward authoritarianism, it doesn't make sense to compare him to all those evil regimes.

I posted what a Democratic Socialist is and that's what Bernie says he is. Not good. And as I said, maybe he's confused. But I went and checked and he knows very well that what he appears to promote is social democracy (he's used that term and he points to social democracies as examples) and yet he persists with using the other term for some reason and it almost looks like he's trying to redefine it for his own purposes. That makes zero sense and opens the door to all sorts of negative speculations as to his motivations for doing that. It also makes it very easy for the right to defeat him as the republicans are experts at fear mongering. Just need to run ads saying that he says he's a democratic socialist followed by the definition. They don't even have to get dirty although you know they will.

I agree it's stupid of him to label himself as anything that includes the word 'socialist', but only because most people just equate socialism with authoritarian regimes that have caused millions of people to suffer.

I know Capitalists consider themselves 'anti-socialist' and all flavors of Socialists consider themselves 'ant-capitalist', but in reality Socialism and Capitalism aren't binaries. They are opposite ends of a spectrum, and every first world country in the world has a combination of Socialist and Capitalist policies.

My main point is that arguments like 'Bernie is Socialist and Nazis were Socialist, therefore....' are not valid arguments. Instead of focusing on the labels, you should take an objective look at his proposals.