So... I Have Decided On My Vote For President In 2016

Started by LostInTheMist, April 27, 2015, 01:43:55 AM

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Oniya

Quote from: Ephiral on May 10, 2015, 04:10:52 PM
EDIT THE SECOND:I absolutely think he believes in what he's saying, because frankly his message hasn't changed much in roughly the last decade.

That's precisely why I have the stance I do - I just don't underestimate how jaded the American Public as a whole has become, and so I don't doubt that there are other voters who think he's just saying what people want to hear.

Of course, he's saying what a lot more people want to hear as far as the economic imbalance is concerned, so that's a point in his favor.  With any luck, he'll force the other candidates to at least start stepping up to the plate as far as discussing these issues.
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Ephiral

#51
Exclusively... in the modern era, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single example. However, my experience (and I'll cite telecomms and power as my examples here - both were basically entirely state-run in my lifetime) is that service has gotten worse as state influence on the industry has gone down. and Crown corporations have been privatized. They offer less, or charge more, or both, customer service becomes lowest-common-denominator, and the previous very tight regulatory environment they existed in starts to go away.

I'm of the firm opinion that pretty much everything needed to function in modern society (at minimum, we're talking emergency services, roads, eucation, health care, power, water, and telecomms) should have a strong state-owned enterprise that is not focused on profit. I'm not averse to private entities competing with the public option if they think they can, but essential services shouldn't be aimed at maximum profits, really.

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Ephiral on May 10, 2015, 08:13:40 PM
Exclusively... in the modern era, I'm hard-pressed to think of a single example. However, my experience (and I'll cite telecomms and power as my examples here - both were basically entirely state-run in my lifetime) is that service has gotten worse as state influence on the industry has gone down. and Crown corporations have been privatized. They offer less, or charge more, or both, customer service becomes lowest-common-denominator, and the previous very tight regulatory environment they existed in starts to go away.

I'm of the firm opinion that pretty much everything needed to function in modern society (at minimum, we're talking emergency services, roads, eucation, health care, power, water, and telecomms) should have a strong state-owned enterprise that is not focused on profit. I'm not averse to private entities competing with the public option if they think they can, but essential services shouldn't be aimed at maximum profits, really.

I happen to agree with that - for stuff like you mentioned, there should always be a 'public option' for lack of a better word, to guarantee access to those necessities. But that's not nationalization, or government control of an industry, just government presence in an industry, which is what I and Zakharra were commenting on and questioning - nationalization is the government taking control of the entire thing, including taking it away from private citizens. Places like Argentina, Cuba, Pakistan, Venezula - they tend towards widespread government takeovers of entire industries, and are all authoritarian oligarchies or effective dictatorships as well. If Bernie is left-wing to the degree of outright nationalization of private industry, that's a deep cause of concern for me.

Ephiral

Fair point, though I'll note the specific examples I cited of private entry having been detrimental were entirely state-controlled within my lifetime. Not sure if "nationalized" is the right word since it was at the provincial level, but there were only public options for power and telecomms. This is still the case for power in most places. And those public options were measurably better in a number of way than even the same corporations post-privatization. (My power company was privatized a handful of years ago. It has ramped rates as much as legally permitted basically every year since then, and lobbied repeatedly to have the limit raised as well.)

HannibalBarca

I think you have to take into account a nation's overarching culture as well.  Despite doomsayers, the USA would never take to an authoritarian dictatorship; it isn't in our national makeup.  Socialism works very well in most European nations, where it is mixed with capitalism and overseen by a democratically elected government.  Cuba and Venezuela are examples of strongman, El Jefe states, very authoritarian and without a long tradition of democracy.  Pakistan is nothing like the USA as far as human rights and democracy, let alone a strong secular government.

The United States already has a mixture of socialism and capitalism, though much more strongly in the capitalist stance.  Think of all the socialist-style institutions we have in this country--the Post Office, Medicare and Social Security, police, firefighting, and military services, public education.  Even the NFL is has a strong dose of socialism in it's method of sharing the income among all 32 teams equally, regardless of the size of their individual markets.  The result is that every team--and every fan base--is invested in the game and its future, and growing.  Baseball, which is classic laissez faire capitalism, has haves and have-nots among its teams and cities, and it shows in which teams have succeeded over the years, and which teams have struggled just to have winning seasons.

As far as Bernie Sanders advocating nationalizing of private industry...that's more a communist tactic, not a socialist one.  Besides, the extreme right-wing with fascism has done the very same thing, so both extreme ends have no problem doing so...but Senator Sanders isn't an extremist by any measurement...only to those who are already extreme themselves on the other side of the spectrum.

Still, I think the word socialism has been soiled by way of its detractors, much how liberal was denigrated in the 80s.  To be honest, I don't know how modern conservatives would treat conservative presidents of the past if they ran for office today.  What with Eisenhower and his 78%+ effective tax rate on the wealthy and warning of the military-industrial complex, Nixon's attempt to create a national health care plan, and Reagan's desire to ease immigration law, I think they would be run out of town on a rail.
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Ironwolf85

most likely Hannibal... I've seen some folks so dogmatic that any idea that contradicts the current far right republican narrative of history is "a lie by the liberal media" I swear the more they loose long term the more the crazies come out.
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