Nazis Have a Fundamental Right to Free Speech..or they don't

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Re: Nazis Have a Fundamental Right to Free Speech..or they d

Post by Forty Two » Thu Mar 23, 2017 6:17 pm

Sanders would be left wing in most western European countries too - he's an avowed socialist. Europe does have mainstream non-socialist parties.

I am not a right winger, and I explained why above. I hold approximately zero right wing views.

Sanders has absolutely called himself a socialist, many times. He's not an idiot. He knows what it means. That's why he favored Medicare for all - everyone covered by one, big government provided healthcare system. No private healthcare market.

Look - the guy is as far left as they come - University of Chicago, Sanders joined the Young People’s Socialist League, the youth wing of the Socialist Party USA. He also organized for a communist front, the United Packinghouse Workers Union. He later worked for a Marxist propaganda group - American People’s History Society. He has a portrait of Eugene Debs hanging in his Senate office -- hailed by the Bolsheviks in Russia back in the day as "America's Greatest Marxist." In the 19’70s, Sanders helped found the Liberty Union Party, which called for the nationalization of all US banks and the public takeover of all private utility companies. In 1985, he traveled to Managua to celebrate the rise to power of the Marxist-Leninist Sandinista government. He called it a “heroic revolution.”

He proposes completely nationalizing our health care system and putting private health insurance and drug companies, in his words, “out of business.” He also wants to break up “big banks” and control the energy industry, while providing “free” college tuition, a “living wage” and guaranteed homeownership and jobs through massive public works projects to the tune of $18 trillion. Trillion. The entire US national debt is now around $19 trillion. He wants a 90% income tax, a speculation tax on Wall Street, and a global warming tax on all Americans.

And, you call him center left?

Lots of European companies have private health care systems and private drug companies. Lots of them don't have free college (essentially nationalized college). And lots don't have nationalized energy and power sectors.

I get that Europeans tend to be left of Americans, but the notion that Bernie Sanders is a moderate or something is really just not recognizing his own descriptions of his own views. People like to glom onto the notion that all he wants is, like, Norwegian or Danish, social democracy, but that is most decidedly not merely what he wants. Bernie would be left, even in Norway.
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Re: Nazis Have a Fundamental Right to Free Speech..or they d

Post by JimC » Thu Mar 23, 2017 9:13 pm

Just like Trump is somewhat hobbled by his own republicans, Sanders would have been hobbled by mainstream democrats, and, perhaps with the exception of a national health care system, would not have been able to nationalise much else...
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Re: Nazis Have a Fundamental Right to Free Speech..or they d

Post by pErvinalia » Fri Mar 24, 2017 1:04 am

Forty Two wrote:
pErvin wrote: People don't care about reasoned arguments. That's why people fight. Presenting a reasoned counter-argument to a fascist is going to have zero effect on them. If you want to discourage or outright stop something dangerous, you've got to step up and get in the way of it.
Well, that certainly is one position to take, however, there are myriad opinions as to which views are the dangerous ones. Nazis and fascists have views on that too, and that's their thought process: if you want to discourage or stop something dangerous, they have to step up and get in the way of it. That's why they resort to violence, to stop their opposition. That's certainly unlawful, and I think most people would consider it immoral, but you've just made the case for it be a righteous act. That's the same case they make.
This is why I keep saying that ideological liberalism is naive. My view above may be unlawful and it may even be immoral (depending on what moral framework one adopts), but it doesn't change the fact that this is how the world actually works. The world doesn't change via sitting down and respectfully disagreeing about arguably dangerous ideas. I'd like to see you actually comment on this. You keep bleating the same tired rebuttal (that right wingers could apply the same principle to social democrats, say). I get it. I don't dispute that. What i want to hear you address is whether you accept that rigidly adhering to ideological concepts like free speech despite the fact that they aren't practical in the real world is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Ultimately you get less freedom when fascism (or authoritarian socialism) prevails.
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Re: Nazis Have a Fundamental Right to Free Speech..or they d

Post by pErvinalia » Fri Mar 24, 2017 1:13 am

Forty Two wrote:Sanders would be left wing in most western European countries too - he's an avowed socialist. Europe does have mainstream non-socialist parties.

I am not a right winger, and I explained why above. I hold approximately zero right wing views.
You are economically right wing. Fuck, you think that taxes and regulations are creeping socialism. :fp: You've basically become Seth-lite.
Sanders has absolutely called himself a socialist, many times. He's not an idiot. He knows what it means. That's why he favored Medicare for all - everyone covered by one, big government provided healthcare system. No private healthcare market.
Sanders may well be a democratic socialist ideologically, but in reality he is a social democrat. You can't really be a socialist while being content with private property and widespread profit motive economy.
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Re: Nazis Have a Fundamental Right to Free Speech..or they d

Post by Hermit » Fri Mar 24, 2017 5:25 am

Forty Two wrote:I am not a right winger, and I explained why above.
No. You have explained that you are not a conservative, and given your views on abortion, same sex marriage, firearm regulation, marijuana, mandatory minimum sentencing, anti-discrimination laws, et cetera, I agree. You are not a conservative in relation to numerous issues. That said, you are a right winger. Sanders is no more a socialist than you are a moderate, regardless of what either of you say about yourselves.

Breaking up financial cartels does not equal nationalisation of the finance sector, and implementing a single payer system does not mean the end of privately owned health care providers. At most, as you mentioned yourself, Sanders is on the left side in your country's rather narrow spectrum of mainstream politics. Sanders may well call himself a socialist, but his policies are those of a social democrat, and you hate them because you are a right winger.

I really don't know how you can deny that that's what you are while keeping a straight face. You support a rabid nationalist (which you'll say is not rabid and not a bad thing) who is also a racist (which you deny), a sexist (which you also deny), who surrounds himself with staff exclusively chosen from among right wing circles. He favours Breitbart for news coverage and regards the mainstream media as purveyors of fake news. Oh, the irony. He chooses a religious nutter as his running mate. He pulls the rug out from under family planning because he opposes abortion. He wants to get all Muslims onto a national database "and more". (No, he wasn't talking about the Great Wall at the time.) By far the most common reason for personal bankruptcy declarations is the cost of health care. So he works on repealing the Affordable Health Care Act. The money saved in the process gets channelled into tax reductions for the rich. Trump is thoroughly right wing with utterly fascist tendencies lurking underneath, but you leave no reinterpretation, evasion or plain denial untouched to persuade us - and yourself - that he is a moderate. I guess you must do that because you only have two other options: Either you admit that you too are a right winger, or you admit that supporting Trump is a mistake. Of course neither of the latter is going to happen. More's the pity.
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Re: Nazis Have a Fundamental Right to Free Speech..or they d

Post by rainbow » Fri Mar 24, 2017 6:45 am

Forty Two wrote:Sanders would be left wing in most western European countries too
Right wing post-colonial masters. Them?
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