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The more she speaks, the more she reveals how little she knows. Dan Quayle was a genius compared to this nincompoop.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez interview
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Sounds like a typical millennial.... they love the idea of socialism but have zero actual experience with it or understanding of it...
Many of my friends are in that category... totally ignorant of reality and facts... you debate with them and they regurgitate whatever is on the spin cycle that day... its kind of why i get grumpier with libs than conservatives these days... don’t get me wrong, i have friends like that on the conservative side too, but there are way more on the lib sode that you cannot have a reasonable debate with.... drives me nuts having the same canned facts recited without context over and over
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Did she get her degree from a cracker jack box? This illustrates what is going on in colleges across this country. A woman who has a degree in Economics and can't even speak on the level of a 5th grader. Hell I could speak better in kindergarten on economics than this woman.
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Here's a pretty good summation of Cortez
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<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/09GBnSmFg8s" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen="" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0"></iframe>
Lol...love the backwards hat guy. Calls Cortez a child, then proceeds to put forward a bunch of incorrect, ignorant ,child like arguments and comparisons.
And the Trumptards lap it up as if it's some kind of sound argument.....
What is the obsession and fear for this woman anyway?
She is just one candidate for the house, yet the Reich Wing media(and of course following quickly the lemmings) have collectively freaked out over her.
Lets see: smart, Hispanic, woman, can't be bought, promotes policy ideas that more than 60% of Americans agree with......
Never mind....
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SOCIALIST. Anything else necessary? Americans see the Democratic party turning more Socialist every day. She and Bernie are just the first to openly admit it. The first of many to come I'm guessing.
You're doing better though, I admit. You saw a Black Conservative and managed not to make any racist statements about him. I'm proud of you today! There may be hope for you yet.
Ha ha ha! That's all we need to know about you. That ***** is dumb as a rock.
Americans enjoy and benefit from socialist programs and policy everyday.
You've been so brainwashed to believe that Democratic socialism is the same as the despotic or totalitarian "socialism" that we've seen historically that you wear blinders to what already exists in this country and Europe. It has improved the lives of millions.
Many your family members I'm sure.
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That's some pretty good CNN 'esque propaganda, I will admit. Unfortunately I understand that Socialism is evil in principle and stands in direct opposition to everything America was built on. Since Progressives want nothing more than to tear down everything America stands for, it stands to reason that they would be very much in favor of a Socialist takeover.
Nice straw man as usual; "progressives want to tear down everything America stands for" while saying this you support a fascist who really is trying his best to tear America as we know it down. Unbelievable.........
Socialism is not evil, if anything capitalism is truly evil. It is economic Darwinism that seeks to pit us against each other, and the planet ,all to enrich a few beyond description. Human beings are a unique species with an imagination that let's us rise above that limited view of themselves as a commodity as well as the planet.
I should qualify that by saying that Democratic Socialism is not evil. You and your Reich Wing media brainwashed friends here try to equate Democratic Socialism with the despotic and totalitarian "socialism" that we saw rise up in the 20th century. That argument is ludicrous.
It's ludicrous because here in America we have had Democratic Socialist policies and programs in place for many, many, years. You and your family have enjoyed and benefited from these things ALL your life, yet you call them evil.........in the annals of 'you can't make it up' this one deserves special recognition, and a special solution.
G.I. Bill
Interstate highway system
The Postal Service
Police and fire departments
Social Security
Medicare
Public schools
College loans and grants
The V.A.
Food Stamps
Public libraries ( which by the way Repugnican scum were trying to devise a way to privatize, and some already have been, but people in many states reacted furiously pushing them back. CONservatism is truly SICK.)
Museums
Public parks: Local, state, and national.
Our court system, and for that matter all our elected officials and supporting personnel/infrastructure and public defenders
OSHA
National Weather Service
You can go on and on and on......
So my special solution to your hatred of socialism is for you to try and calculate how much you and your family have benefited from those socialist programs, then calculate how much you have paid into the system.
We know how that ratio will turn out...
And of course since you hate the the very thought of someone getting something "for free" you can start writing your first check payable to: The U.S. Treasury..........
You will implore your family and other CONservative friends to do the same as well I'm sure.....you know being how you hate this socialism stuff so much........................................
And I might add that Socialism can NOT stand in opposition to what America stands for since the founders included wording and law on taxation....and not once is the word "capitalism" mentioned in the founding documents, yet the "general welfare" is.
Hmmmm....I wonder what in the hell that tax system was for?
The sad truth is:
I just hoping the country doesn't become more socialist that what Canada and some European countries currently look like....and doesn't travel much further down the Socialist path that this country eventually starts to look like the miserably failed nations of Cuba, Venezuela, etc...
The changing demographics of the nation, the higher educational institutional promoting/brainwashing agenda, social media intervention, and the nations past and current immigration failures are the accelerate to continually fuel and advance the failed policies of Socialism in the U.S...
Im just glad I am on the back nine....but am very concerned for my children and beyond...
But one thing is for sure...Extreme Socialist platforms and overall ideology will never get my vote.
I just hoping the country doesn't become more socialist that what Canada and some European countries currently look like....and doesn't travel much further down the Socialist path that this country eventually starts to look like the miserably failed nations of Cuba, Venezuela, etc...
The changing demographics of the nation, the higher educational institutional promoting/brainwashing agenda, social media intervention, and the nations past and current immigration failures are the accelerate to continually fuel and advance the failed policies of Socialism in the U.S...
Im just glad I am on the back nine....but am very concerned for my children and beyond...
But one thing is for sure...Extreme Socialist platforms and overall ideology will never get my vote.
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Yes ...I hear ya..
The United States does promote some forms of socialism by the pure definition of the word..
Which I believe has value if managed/governed properly...
My concern is that we as a nation are now pushing the envelope and are advancing the Democratic Socialism programs, most of which have worked very well and help strengthen our nation, into a full blown Socialist style government..
Theres a fine line between running successful "socialist" type programs in a democratic country....and becoming a nation that becomes a true Socialist style of government...
Socialists are generally failures in life with a warped sense of entitlement. They believe in punishing the successful and redistributing their money to people who did not earn it, through very high taxes and socialist programs that end up bankrupting countries. I love that the Left is moving in this direction. Great news!
I appreciate your open minded and fair view of this situation, unlike many of the Hannity echo chamber members here who just hear "Socialism" as a dog whistle term with no further thought.
And in all fairness when they hear socialism they think the Soviet Union, and when we on the other side think of capitalism we are guilty of thinking crony capitalism.
Both philosophies have advantages and we must find a balance. We are letting the filthy rich rob us blind, take our jobs where they can exploit desperate work forces, and ar e the only industrialist nation without universal health care. Why? Because the rich want it this way, and they've scared the middle class into supporting them with the propaganda and lies they've spoon fed them for years.
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And in our system which is now dominated by crony capitalists we distribute most of the money to the top 1% while bankrupting and ruining everyone down below slowly...think trickle down.
But hey your a 1%er right, so who cares? I can see why you support the current system............
A timely article on how socialized medicine is failing in China.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/31...andal-shows-the-flaws-of-socialized-medicine/
Ocasio-Cortez recently said that healthcare for all requires moral courage. But socialized medicine is inherently immoral. Lacking choice and accountability, patients receive only substandard care. Thus, the true moral courage Ocasio-Cortez needs is to admit socialized medicine doesn’t work. Given the undeniable evidence from China and other nations, the solution to our healthcare is not to try more socialized medicine, but to liberate medical resources from federal control and return choice back to the American people.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/07/31...andal-shows-the-flaws-of-socialized-medicine/
Ocasio-Cortez recently said that healthcare for all requires moral courage. But socialized medicine is inherently immoral. Lacking choice and accountability, patients receive only substandard care. Thus, the true moral courage Ocasio-Cortez needs is to admit socialized medicine doesn’t work. Given the undeniable evidence from China and other nations, the solution to our healthcare is not to try more socialized medicine, but to liberate medical resources from federal control and return choice back to the American people.
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The tax system for the Federal government was intended to pay the National debt incurred in funding the Revolutionary war, and to pay for a standing army. Hamilton was the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury and based the nation's taxes primarily on tariffs for imports.
Hamilton's "Report on the National Credit of 1790" stunned everyone, including President George Washington. Hamilton advised paying off the entire national [war] debt at full face value and assuming all existing state [war] debt. To do otherwise, he argued, would cause citizens to lose faith in the credit and integrity of the struggling government and sabotage the new Constitution. The Revolution had been fought for the benefit of all states, and the unity of all states would be critical to the survival of the new nation.
To pay for his proposals, Hamilton called for an excise tax on whiskey and a tariff on imported goods. Since most manufactured goods at that time were imported, most consumers opposed the tariff. Western farmers who used whiskey as a pseudo-currency were opposed to the excise tax. In fact, in 1794 Hamilton and Henry Lee led an army into western Pennsylvania to defeat the Whiskey Rebellion.
http://www.mcall.com/opinion/yourvi...-hamilton-fisher-yv-0208-20150207-story.html#
Hamilton’s plan for the new country’s financial system had three major parts. Assuming the states’ [war] debts by issuing interest-bearing bonds was the first part of the plan. Hamilton also instituted tariffs for imported goods as a way of raising federal revenue and helping domestic businesses. With the establishment of a new national bank, Hamilton created a way for the United States to hold funds and use securities as capital to encourage future growth.
https://squareup.com/townsquare/the-us-financial-system-and-alexander-hamilton
Second, your listing of current government agencies that provide for the common good - police, fire, transportation, military, court systems, post office - certainly does not make America socialist, and the issue is not close. The United States was founded with the innate understanding that protecting the citizens, including protection of property, manifestly required police and courts. Otherwise, property rights were essentially worthless.
Those agencies are funded by way of taxes on private property, and private wages, and private production, and private investment. The tactic of taxing private property to fund public expenditures for "common good" agencies is the opposite of socialism.
Socialism is a populist economic and political system based on the public ownership (also known as collective or common ownership) of the means of production. Those means include the machinery, tools and factories used to produce goods that aim to directly satisfy human needs. Communism and socialism are umbrella terms referring to two left-wing schools of economic thought; both oppose capitalism, but socialism predates the "Communist Manifesto," an 1848 pamphlet by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, by a few decades.
In a purely socialist system, all legal production and distribution decisions are made by the government, and individuals rely on the state for everything from food to healthcare. The government determines output and pricing levels of these goods and services.
Socialism https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/socialism.asp#ixzz5MqWEOOh1
Yes, Ocasio-Cortez actually believes it a good idea for government to own all machinery, property, vehicles, and tools used to produce any consumer good - ANY CONSUMER GOOD. That entails the theft of trillions of dollars of private property and materials.
The simple fact of the matter is that Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk are unfortunately too ignorant to know what they espouse. Socialism has been the economic approach in Venezuela over the past 20 years. At the time of his election in 1998, Chavez oversaw a Venezuela that was among the most productive and economically viable in Latin America. Venezuela has arguably the greatest known petroleum reserves in the world. The oil collapse in the 1980's hit Venezuela hard, over the next 12 years, the nation brought inflation down into a manageable level, while exports of oil and building staples such as cement, steel and aluminum kept the economy at a growing level.
Much has changed since Chavez imposed his socialist ways. "Since the Bolivarian Revolution half-dismantled its PDVSA oil giant corporation in 2002 by firing most of its 20,000-strong dissident professional human capital and imposed stringent currency controls in 2003 in an attempt to prevent capital flight, there has been a steady decline in oil production and exports and a series of stern currency devaluations, disrupting the economy. Further yet, price controls, expropriation of numerous farmlands and various industries, among other disputable government policies including a near-total freeze on any access to foreign currency at reasonable "official" exchange rates, have resulted in severe shortages in Venezuela and steep price rises of all common goods, including food, water, household products, spare parts, tools and medical supplies; forcing many manufacturers to either cut production or close down, with many ultimately abandoning the country as has been the case with several technological firms and most automobile makers. In 2015, Venezuela had over 100% inflation—the highest in the world and the highest in the country's history at that time. According to independent sources, the rate increased to 4,000% in 2017 with Venezuela spiraling into hyperinflation while the population poverty rate was between 76% and 87%. On 14 November 2017, credit rating agencies declared that Venezuela was in default with its debt payments, with Standard & Poor's categorizing Venezuela as being in "selective default."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Venezuela
But no worries, the inflation rate in 2018 will certainly be less than 4000% - right? Not so much.
Inflation is estimated to rise to 1,000,000% - you heard right, ONE MILLION PERCENT - by the end of the year.
With the situation in the country deteriorating faster than expected, the IMF has unveiled a far more severe prognosis, saying that Venezuela’s hyperinflation is poised to reach an annualized rate of 1 million percent by year’s end. That inflation rate is set to catapult socialist Venezuela into a rogue’s gallery of nations that have suffered the worst inflation rates in history.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...1880eac5f1d_story.html?utm_term=.155a1f6466ba
Why such absurd hyperinflation? Because socialism's stubborn refusal to recognize and respect market forces leads to a series of government edicts that drive out capital, dry up investment (both native and foreign), and force the government to monetize the debt by simply printing more and more money, triggering inflation then hyper-inflation and finally ultra-inflation.
Socialism ... it sounds generous, but in reality has you eating zoo animals to stay alive.
Reports in from Venezuela that starving people in that country, the beneficiaries of those glories of Bolivarian socialism, are now breaking into the zoos and butchering the animals in order to be able to eat them.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timwor...parisians-had-the-german-excuse/#2cf04a21d2cc
This has been your history lesson on socialism vs. capitalism. The final score: Capitalism 1,000,000 - socialism eating zoo animals.
What? The founding fathers and our constitution is For The People. You evil socialists want to throw it out and burn it, rule the people like slaves.
****,.
I know a guy who owned a chemical company in Venezuela. One of his products was used in hot dip galvanizing, which is one of the industries that I sell to. One day Chavez's military came to his company and assumed control of it at gunpoint. In the snap of a finger he lost everything. He had to move to Mexico and start over. **** Socialism. It. Does. Not. Work.
The tax system for the Federal government was intended to pay the National debt incurred in funding the Revolutionary war, and to pay for a standing army. Hamilton was the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury and based the nation's taxes primarily on tariffs for imports.
Hamilton's "Report on the National Credit of 1790" stunned everyone, including President George Washington. Hamilton advised paying off the entire national [war] debt at full face value and assuming all existing state [war] debt. To do otherwise, he argued, would cause citizens to lose faith in the credit and integrity of the struggling government and sabotage the new Constitution. The Revolution had been fought for the benefit of all states, and the unity of all states would be critical to the survival of the new nation.
To pay for his proposals, Hamilton called for an excise tax on whiskey and a tariff on imported goods. Since most manufactured goods at that time were imported, most consumers opposed the tariff. Western farmers who used whiskey as a pseudo-currency were opposed to the excise tax. In fact, in 1794 Hamilton and Henry Lee led an army into western Pennsylvania to defeat the Whiskey Rebellion.
http://www.mcall.com/opinion/yourvi...-hamilton-fisher-yv-0208-20150207-story.html#
Hamilton’s plan for the new country’s financial system had three major parts. Assuming the states’ [war] debts by issuing interest-bearing bonds was the first part of the plan. Hamilton also instituted tariffs for imported goods as a way of raising federal revenue and helping domestic businesses. With the establishment of a new national bank, Hamilton created a way for the United States to hold funds and use securities as capital to encourage future growth.
https://squareup.com/townsquare/the-us-financial-system-and-alexander-hamilton
Second, your listing of current government agencies that provide for the common good - police, fire, transportation, military, court systems, post office - certainly does not make America socialist, and the issue is not close. The United States was founded with the innate understanding that protecting the citizens, including protection of property, manifestly required police and courts. Otherwise, property rights were essentially worthless.
Those agencies are funded by way of taxes on private property, and private wages, and private production, and private investment. The tactic of taxing private property to fund public expenditures for "common good" agencies is the opposite of socialism.
Socialism is a populist economic and political system based on the public ownership (also known as collective or common ownership) of the means of production. Those means include the machinery, tools and factories used to produce goods that aim to directly satisfy human needs. Communism and socialism are umbrella terms referring to two left-wing schools of economic thought; both oppose capitalism, but socialism predates the "Communist Manifesto," an 1848 pamphlet by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, by a few decades.
In a purely socialist system, all legal production and distribution decisions are made by the government, and individuals rely on the state for everything from food to healthcare. The government determines output and pricing levels of these goods and services.
Socialism https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/socialism.asp#ixzz5MqWEOOh1
Yes, Ocasio-Cortez actually believes it a good idea for government to own all machinery, property, vehicles, and tools used to produce any consumer good - ANY CONSUMER GOOD. That entails the theft of trillions of dollars of private property and materials.
The simple fact of the matter is that Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk are unfortunately too ignorant to know what they espouse. Socialism has been the economic approach in Venezuela over the past 20 years. At the time of his election in 1998, Chavez oversaw a Venezuela that was among the most productive and economically viable in Latin America. Venezuela has arguably the greatest known petroleum reserves in the world. The oil collapse in the 1980's hit Venezuela hard, over the next 12 years, the nation brought inflation down into a manageable level, while exports of oil and building staples such as cement, steel and aluminum kept the economy at a growing level.
Much has changed since Chavez imposed his socialist ways. "Since the Bolivarian Revolution half-dismantled its PDVSA oil giant corporation in 2002 by firing most of its 20,000-strong dissident professional human capital and imposed stringent currency controls in 2003 in an attempt to prevent capital flight, there has been a steady decline in oil production and exports and a series of stern currency devaluations, disrupting the economy. Further yet, price controls, expropriation of numerous farmlands and various industries, among other disputable government policies including a near-total freeze on any access to foreign currency at reasonable "official" exchange rates, have resulted in severe shortages in Venezuela and steep price rises of all common goods, including food, water, household products, spare parts, tools and medical supplies; forcing many manufacturers to either cut production or close down, with many ultimately abandoning the country as has been the case with several technological firms and most automobile makers. In 2015, Venezuela had over 100% inflation—the highest in the world and the highest in the country's history at that time. According to independent sources, the rate increased to 4,000% in 2017 with Venezuela spiraling into hyperinflation while the population poverty rate was between 76% and 87%. On 14 November 2017, credit rating agencies declared that Venezuela was in default with its debt payments, with Standard & Poor's categorizing Venezuela as being in "selective default."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Venezuela
But no worries, the inflation rate in 2018 will certainly be less than 4000% - right? Not so much.
Inflation is estimated to rise to 1,000,000% - you heard right, ONE MILLION PERCENT - by the end of the year.
With the situation in the country deteriorating faster than expected, the IMF has unveiled a far more severe prognosis, saying that Venezuela’s hyperinflation is poised to reach an annualized rate of 1 million percent by year’s end. That inflation rate is set to catapult socialist Venezuela into a rogue’s gallery of nations that have suffered the worst inflation rates in history.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...1880eac5f1d_story.html?utm_term=.155a1f6466ba
Why such absurd hyperinflation? Because socialism's stubborn refusal to recognize and respect market forces leads to a series of government edicts that drive out capital, dry up investment (both native and foreign), and force the government to monetize the debt by simply printing more and more money, triggering inflation then hyper-inflation and finally ultra-inflation.
Socialism ... it sounds generous, but in reality has you eating zoo animals to stay alive.
Reports in from Venezuela that starving people in that country, the beneficiaries of those glories of Bolivarian socialism, are now breaking into the zoos and butchering the animals in order to be able to eat them.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/timwor...parisians-had-the-german-excuse/#2cf04a21d2cc
This has been your history lesson on socialism vs. capitalism. The final score: Capitalism 1,000,000 - socialism eating zoo animals.
Another fool with the same tired tropes.
I think you might enjoy this since the law is your hobby.
United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936),[1] was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the U.S. Congress's power to lay taxes is not limited only to the level necessary to carry out its other powers enumerated in Article I of the U.S. Constitution, but is a broad authority to tax and spend for the "general welfare" of the United States.[2] The decision itself concerned whether the processing taxes instituted under the 1933 Agricultural Adjustment Act were constitutional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Butler
And if it still doesn't enter your thick skull:
The general welfare
Although Congress’s authority is limited to an itemized list of powers contained in the text of the Constitution itself, these powers are quite sweeping. They include the authority to regulate the national economy, build a national postal system, create comprehensive immigration and intellectual property regulation, maintain a military, and raise and spend money.
This last power, the authority to raise and spend money, is among Congress’s broadest powers. Under the Constitution, national leaders are free to spend money in any way they choose so long as they do so to “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.” For this reason, laws such as Medicare and Social Security are obviously constitutional because they both raise and spend money to the benefit of all Americans upon their retirement.
Many members of Congress, however, do not believe the Constitution’s words mean what they say they mean. Consider the words of Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who recently explained the origin of the increasingly common belief that Congress’s constitutional spending power is so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub:
If you read [James] Madison, Madison will tell you what he thought of the Welfare Clause. He said, “Yeah, there is a General Welfare Clause, but if we meant that you can do anything, why would we have listed the enumerated powers?” Really, the Welfare Clause is bound by the enumerated powers that we gave the federal government.
In essence, Paul and many of his fellow conservatives believe Congress’s power to collect taxes and “provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States” really only enables Congress to build post offices or fund wars or take other actions expressly authorized by some other part of the Constitution. According to this view, the spending power is not—as it is almost universally understood —itself an independent enumerated power authorizing Congress to spend money.
Paul’s understanding of the Spending Clause is not simply the idiosyncratic view of an outlier senator. Indeed, there is strong reason to believe his view is shared by the majority of his caucus. In the lead-up to the 2010 midterm elections, congressional Republicans released a “Pledge to America,” which broadly outlined their plans for governing if they were to prevail that November. In it, the lawmakers claimed that “lack of respect for the clear constitutional limits and authorities has allowed Congress to create ineffective and costly programs that add to the massive deficit year after year.”
This language suggests that many conservatives agree with Sen. Paul that Congress is somehow exceeding its constitutional authority to spend money. But there is no support for this view in constitutional text or in Supreme Court precedent.
In its very first decision to consider the issue—its 1936 decision in United States v. Butler—the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that “the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution,” as Sen. Paul would claim. Similarly, while the text of the Constitution establishes that “the exercise of the spending power must be in pursuit of ‘the general welfare,’” neither Sen. Paul nor the Pledge cites examples of laws that fail to meet this criterion.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/courts/reports/2011/05/27/9610/the-fake-james-madison/
As for the tired, ignorant tropes you trotted out yet again: YES despotic and totalitarian regimes are bad......we get it do you? Is that why you support the despot currently occupying the White House? They tend to meddle and ruin everything don't they? Prodded on by their ego; Trump with tariffs and Hitler with war maps.
What does Sanders mean by ‘democratic socialism’?
What is a “democratic socialist”? Is it a politician who believes media, business and utility conglomerates should be nationalized, or is it a leader who takes the approach of sharing wealth in a manner which allows citizens to enjoy the rewards of a civilized and developed nation?
These are interesting questions that need to be answered with this historical presidential election fully underway. Bernie Sanders (I), the U.S. senator from Vermont, has billed himself as a democratic socialist while seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. His opponents, however, have labeled him a communist and even a Soviet sympathizer, while others claim he isn’t a socialist at all.
Professor Frances Fox Piven, the honorary chairperson of the official Democratic Socialists of America coalition, says Sanders does not quite meet the definition of the term, preferring to call him a New Deal Democrat – a reference to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s ambitious set of social programs after the Great Depression and during the Second World War. Piven did admit, however, that “people mean a lot of different things by (democratic socialism).” Famed activist and linguist Noam Chomsky also has said Sanders is not a socialist of any sort, calling him “a decent, honest New Dealer.”
Splitting hairs over terminology might seem like an academic exercise with little or no value, and it largely is, but since Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist and many Americans do not fully understand what he means by that statement, it is worth investigating the term — and more importantly, figuring out what he means by it.
In 2006, Sanders himself defined what he meant by the term. He stated: “… I think it means the government has got to play a very important role in making sure that as a right of citizenship, all of our people have health care; that as a right, all of our kids, regardless of income, have quality child care, are able to go to college without going deeply into debt; that it means we do not allow large corporations and moneyed interests to destroy our environment; that we create a government in which it is not dominated by big money interest. I mean, to me, it means democracy, frankly.’’
All of that is pretty tame stuff compared to what many Americans might imagine when they hear the word socialism.
It is sometimes just as useful to define a thing by what it isn’t as by what it is. The Sanders brand of democratic socialism is not Latin American-style socialism where businesses and utilities are seized and nationalized. It is also not Chinese or Soviet-style communism where much of the economy is centrally controlled and the rights of individuals are trampled under the heavy boot of government. To see the difference between communism and social democracy, we need look no further than one of the major theorists and architects of the Russian revolution, Leon Trotsky, who was such a vehement opponent of social democrats in Western Europe that he blamed them for saving capitalism and preventing communist revolutions in places like Germany and France.
To equate democratic socialism or social democracy with revolutionary communism is therefore both definitionally and historically inaccurate. The closest models are ones Sanders regularly cites — countries such as Canada, Denmark, England, and Germany.
Whether political scholars and activists think Sanders is a democratic socialist or a social democrat or a New Deal Democrat is ultimately immaterial. What matters is that we understand his policy record and positions, since no one country he names is a perfect model for what his vision for America is, and no single definition of any of the terms that might correctly apply to him sum up the entirety of his political views.
While it is certainly incumbent upon us as citizens to educate ourselves about a candidate’s views, Sanders is going to have to explain his views and what he means by the somewhat nebulous term democratic socialism.
The term socialism is no longer as hated a word as it once was, but it still scares many Americans. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 47 percent of Americans say they would vote for a socialist (the category of democratic socialist was not used in the poll, so it is hard to say if that would have registered more support). That said, another recent Gallup poll showed that 63 percent of Americans think that the distribution of wealth is unfair, 52 percent want to see the rich pay more in taxes, 79 percent believe education is not affordable for everyone, and 71 percent believe global warming is occurring (with 52 percent certain it is a human-made problem).
In effect, these numbers show that a majority of Americans agree with much of Sanders’ version of democratic socialism. The question is: can he convince them to look past the label to his policies?
Get a clue.
Let's try your "logic"
I know a story about American soldiers murdering women and babies during the Vietnam War at a place called My Lai.
All American military members are innocent women and baby killers.
Right Indy?
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