Should Bernie Sanders run for President in 2020

@HoraceGreenley Well he'd have won against Trump. But the DNC wasn't having it. After all it's the establishment democratic party's nightmare to run someone not taking corporate money.

@BlueMetalChick I doubt he'd have beaten Trump but you are right about the DNC. They party picks the nominee.

@HoraceGreenley Trump's own pollsters said Sanders would have won. I mean come on, Trump is a fucking clown, he's so beatable. And yet the DNC chose possibly the only candidate on Earth who could have lost to him. The trend is not hard to follow. When given a choice between populist rightism and populist leftism, the American working class shows a clear favor to the latter. And Trump pretended to be a populist rightist on his campaign trail. Now that he's in office of course he's the opposite, he's the most establishment president of all time, but that doesn't change what happened.

@BlueMetalChick The DNC knew a socialist could not win a general election so Clinton was given the Super delegates to ensure the nomination.

@BlueMetalChick I'd like to know how his proposal for "free college tuition " would work without having to raise taxes dramatically.

@HoraceGreenley [quote]he DNC knew a socialist could not win a general election[/quote]
But even with zero help from the DNC, the socialist candidate won over 40% of the vote. Don't you think that if he HAD had the help of his own party, that number would have been far higher? Look at the policies he supported and their approval ratings among the populace.

@FITMIKE70 Universal education is paid for by taxes, so yes, it would require citizens to pay a tax on it. The reason why it wouldn't cause your taxes to go up drastically though is because it's supposed to work as a tax replacement, not an additional tax altogether. The way Sanders had proposed it was basically reallocation of tax money. So, you pay money in taxes, and that money goes towards school rather than going towards defense spending, or more importantly, corporate subsidies. People don't realize it but every year in this country, the government cuts enormous welfare checks for big corporations. Just because. Meaning a big slice of the money collected in taxes just gets handed over to businesses like Exxon-Mobil, Haliburton, Boeing, Raytheon, so on and so forth.

Sounds good in theory, just like what some of Karl Marx's proposals were, but, not realistically feasible. Try to sell higher taxes to a public that is already paying high enough taxes as is. Bernie sells Utopia, and history teaches that the "road to Hell" is paved with good intentions.

@FITMIKE70 [quote]Sounds good in theory, just like what some of Karl Marx's proposals were, but, not realistically feasible.[/quote]
Is that why countries who currently have this system find it to be working fantastically? Because it's not realistically feasible? I'm trying not to sound condescending but I can't help but wonder if you think these proposals haven't ever been attempted before. Because they have, and they're working right now. Finland is ranked #1 in world education and this is exactly the system they use.

[quote]Try to sell higher taxes to a public that is already paying high enough taxes as is.[/quote]
Why would you have to sell higher taxes to the public if universal education wouldn't increase your taxes? You would be paying lower taxes. Because now, your money goes towards education instead of corporate subsidies. And education costs less than corporate subsidies, meaning less money is required to be collected.

[quote]Bernie sells Utopia, and history teaches that the "road to Hell" is paved with good intentions.[/quote]
Does history also teach that the way to achieving success is by cutting welfare checks for the rich? We currently have a socialist system in the US, but it's socialism for the elite. We just give them free shit and money they didn't earn.

Finland? That great world power? Great economy? Everyone is dying to get in there?

How many poor people on welfare sign paychecks?

I'm not necessarily for corporate subsidy, but they do employ people. Not everyone benefits from college (Bill Gates, Richard Branson, for ex.)

@FITMIKE70 Yep, stable economy, high wages, low poverty rates, ranked first in world education. Finland also won the 2018 World Happiness Index based on individual self reports and overall productivity.

But I'm sure you'd just hate to live in a country where you get paid well for your work, get to go to school, and have a stable national economy. Fuck all those things.

World Happiness Index? That sounds legit. How come their economy isn't as great as ours? What's the benefit of being weak? Why is being strong so bad?
Again, if Finland is so great...how many people die to get in?

@FITMIKE70 Who said their economy is inferior? Unless you consider not being in trillions of dollars of debt to be the hallmark of a "good economy."

What factors are you using to label these countries as "strong" or "weak?" Because the very first criterion I would choose would be how well the working class of a nation is doing. And when you put the two side by side, there's no question.

Institutions like the World Health Organization or the Human Rights Foundation do annual studies ranking the world's countries on various different factors. America is #1 is a single category. Can you guess what it is? Incarceration. The United States has more prisoners than any other country on Earth. Other than that, we are far down the list in pretty much every other category (which is good in some cases, such as execution rates).

Hell, I tried to go to Finland. I DID go to Finland but I was forced to leave because I was doing a lot of illegal shit.

I'm responding to your allegations that they are superior. Again, if its so great, why are so many risking their lives to come.here and not there?

@FITMIKE70 Mostly because Finland doesn't share a border with a country that's currently in the world's bloodiest armed conflict, and America does.

And that's not an exaggeration, the Mexican drug wars have the highest casualty rates of any armed struggle currently happening.

They have no military either. Why? Can't afford one.

@FITMIKE70 They can afford a military but why would they need one when they're not preoccupied bombing eight different countries around the world like the US is? Look at how much money this country wastes every year dropping bombs on other people. And you think "big military" is a good thing? Finland gets to use all that money to pay for their schooling, healthcare, infrastructure, and scientific research instead.

They can't have an effective one and have high taxes to pay for everyone at the same time. Who des Europe call when trouble starts, and don't say England,France or Germany.

For the record, I agree we should.have a vastly reduced presence overseas.

@FITMIKE70 Finland has very few enemies, mostly because they have a small world presence. Finnish people are notorious for their isolationist attitude, in fact people even make memes about it. It's a popular joke in the "Countryballs" comics.

To be fair though, their need for a strong military to defend their homeland is greatly reduced when you take into account just how fucking difficult it is to invade a country with as brutal of terrain as theirs is.

Wouldn't be hard. They play it neutral like Switzerland. They have to.

@FITMIKE70 Well the USSR tried to invade Finland during the Winter War and that turned out to be a huge disaster at first. The Russians suffered exponentially higher casualties than the Finns did. It didn't last, of course. Once the Soviets regrouped and changed their tactics, their invasion saw much better results. The war ended in a truce though, because the populations of both countries were extremely opposed to such a conflict since many Russians and Finns had families and friends in each other's countries.

Well, they did have to cede some of their land to Russia. Germany came right in and took over. The Muslims would have done the same if not for Poland during the Crusades.

@FITMIKE70 The Second World War marks a significant change in Finnish history and there hasn't been any armed conflict there since. They had a rocky time with Sweden, the two ethnic groups used to hate each other for a long time to the point were Finns living in Sweden were oppressed badly, and Swedes living in Finland were as well. I'm not sure how Finland would react were there a threat of invasion or war of some kind but my guess would be some sort of temporary wartime reallocation of resources.

Now, it isn't all perfect of course. Finland has the highest suicide rate of any country in the world, which sounds pretty random but it is relevant. Similar to Japan, the work ethic is very high, and it drives some people batty. Although there's actually fewer suicides in Finland than there are in Japan just as a raw number. But the population of the former is lower than that of the latter, and they measure in per 1,000 people, which is why it has a higher percentage. Japan has an obsession with personal honor and violation of that honor usually means someone wants to kill their self (cue Logan Paul).

Finland would be in trouble if they were invaded today. That being said, they have to play it neutral. They're not a military power nor do they have anything like gold,oil,platinum that others want. Yet.