Bullish on Bernie: The Bernie Sanders 2016 Thread II

Fudbucker said:
...

Hillary sure is progressive:
pro-death penalty
pro-fracking
anti-national health care
anti-carbon tax
pro-big banks

..
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Bull!

She said the death penalty should only be for the most extreme circumstances.

She said fracking was a step toward alternative energy believing we can't get to alt energy fast enough.

She's been for universal health care since at least Bill's term. She's not for Medicare for all.

I'll have to look into the carbon tax but if it's like the rest of your BS chances are there are multiple reasons.

She is not pro-big bank, she realistically recognizes the world is not black and white, financial institutions are not the enemy, unregulated ones are.


That's the problem with Sanders supporters, they want unrealistic magical answers. Clinton is more realistic and that makes people cherry pick her words to find the out of context anti-Progressive messages in them.
 
Fudbucker said:
Hillary sure is progressive:
pro-death penalty
pro-fracking
anti-national health care
anti-carbon tax
pro-big banks

I can't wait to vote for her!

You guys like the death penalty and fracking, right? Right???
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Well, according to some posters on this forum (e.g. Tony Stark), Hillary is very progressive, and if you say otherwise, you are being unreasonable and insisting on "ideological purity". I can only gather that being pro-death penalty, etc. is now considered "progressive".

"Progressive" is a very flakey term. In 2003, all of the progressives in the US were against the Iraq War. Then, John Kerry got the nomination of the Democratic Party. He managed to convince all of my Democrat friends that the problem with the Iraq War wasn't the war, it was Bush. Kerry argued that he would wage a much smarter and more effective war than Bush would. So, basically, he was better at being Bush than Bush was. I saw many "progressives" go from being anti-war to pro-war. The idea was that getting into the war was a mistake, but now that we were there, we had to "finish the job", no matter how long it would take. We couldn't just "bring the troops home". That would be a naive mistake!

Of course, after Kerry lost, everybody went back to being anti-war again, and the solution went back to "Bring the troops home".

The progressive way is not removing things, but handling them "more intelligently". So, the problem with the death penalty isn't the practice of killing people; the problem is the method of killing people. How can we kill people more effectively and humanely? The same with fracking and big banks. How do we make fracking more environmentally friendly? How can we recover more quickly next time the big banks crash the economy?

Progressives will never do away with things like the death penalty or big banks; they will just attempt to manage them in a better fashion.

Some things DO need to be ended, though, and progressives consider that to be a radical and reactionary concept.

I don't call myself a "progressive". I'm a LIBERAL.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Bull!

She said the death penalty should only be for the most extreme circumstances.
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Pro-death penalty.

She said fracking was a step toward alternative energy believing we can't get to alt energy fast enough.
Click to expand...

Pro-fracking

She's been for universal health care since at least Bill's term. She's not for Medicare for all.
Click to expand...

No, Clinton is for universal coverage.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/health-care/

She wants to add a public option to Obamacare. Wow, what a bold agenda! We need to keep insurance companies around, cause...Hillary*!

I'll have to look into the carbon tax but if it's like the rest of your BS chances are there are multiple reasons.
Click to expand...

Don't you already know? How can you be this clueless about your own candidate?

"But Clinton isn't proposing a price on greenhouse gas emissions, or so-called carbon tax, unlike the other two Democrats."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/politics/hillary-clinton-environment-keystone-pipeline/

"Clinton has never said whether she would support a carbon tax, a levy that many liberal activists and a handful of conservative think tanks consider the most effective and straightforward response to the climate threat. She dodged the question during an April debate with Democratic rival Bernie Sanders."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/house-carbon-tax-hillary-clinton-224158#ixzz4CceheYJT

Oh, and as an added bonus:

"By comparison, as secretary of state in 2010, Clinton said she was "inclined" to approve Keystone."
http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/26/politics/hillary-clinton-environment-keystone-pipeline/

So, anti-environment? Check.
She is not pro-big bank, she realistically recognizes the world is not black and white, financial institutions are not the enemy, unregulated ones are. word salad
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Pro-big banks.

That's the problem with Sanders supporters, they want unrealistic magical answers. Clinton is more realistic and that makes people cherry pick her words to find the out of context anti-Progressive messages in them.
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Do you like the death penalty, Skeptical Ginger? Do you like fracking? Keystone? Insurance companies?

Maybe you are realizing some uncomfortable truths about the person you idolize.

*Since national health care with this incompetent government we have scares the hell out of me, I actually agree with Clinton's caution on national healthcare. But then again, I don't pretend that she's progressive.
 
Like I said, if you think the world is black and white, good and evil ...

Do you have a bank account, use oil, have car and or medical insurance?
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Like I said, if you think the world is black and white, good and evil ...
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Right. That's why we have a "bad" death penalty (supported by Republicans) and a "good" death penalty (supported by Democrats). Having no death penalty is completely unrealistic.

Same with "good" fracking and "bad" fracking and so on....

If the gay lobby had listened to progressives like Obama, there would be no marriage equality now. Civil unions were the progressive compromise. Having same-sex marriages that were equal to opposite-sex marriages was considered radical and unrealistic.

Do you have a bank account, use oil, have car and or medical insurance?
Click to expand...

I think that having those things are all the more reason to worry about what Hillary will do with them.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Like I said, if you think the world is black and white, good and evil ...

Do you have a bank account, use oil, have car and or medical insurance?
Click to expand...

Ahh, so the death penalty is one of those gray areas for you, is it? Fracking too? Keystone? Glass-Steagall? Carbon taxes?

Are you sure you're not a Republican?
 
Is it still March? Gather ye rosebuds where ye may. If Bernie's managed to push her left on several issues, that's good, isn't it. Or are we still pretending "we're gonna win this thing"?

Even Bernie's contenting himself with the results and is concentrating on NOT ELECTING TRUMP.

You guys want to pout for the rest of your lives? Gonna turn into Al Smith supporters?

Nice to see Bernie voting with the Dems in the Senate on the gun control measure this week.
 
Whining about crap like single payer healthcare not being in the platform is ridiculous purity test nonsense.

First of all, single payer is not the only way to achieve universal coverage; many countries with universal coverage do not have it.

Second, Hillary is right, single payer is not an achievable goal in the US. Even if by some miracle Bernie Sanders becomes President, he would definitely not be able to make it happen.

Third of all the purity test BS distracts from the real enemy: the GOP scum who are unanimously against universal coverage and have tried literally dozens of times to take away healthcare from millions of people. If it wasn't for the fact that Obama vetoed their disgusting bill, they would have succeeded too. Similarly, there is literally zero doubt whatsoever that Hillary would veto the GOP's evil attempts to take away healthcare from millions of people. But heh, let's get caught up in retarded purity test BS and help make a racist conman who probably would sign the bill the President of the United States. Makes perfect sense!
 
Tony Stark said:
First of all, single payer is not the only way to achieve universal coverage; many countries with universal coverage do not have it.
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More importantly, single player may actually be the worst way to achieve universal coverage.

I live in Canada, and we have what could be considered a 'single payer' system. (Its not exactly a single payer system... some private services do exist, but we're probably closer to the definition of single payer than most other countries.) And our health care system sucks (at least in comparison to much of Europe.)

The commonwealth fund did a study comparing the health care systems of Canada, the U.S., and 9 other western countries. The U.S. was ranked last (in part due to costs, efficiency and equality). Canada was ranked second last. We were ranked dead last in terms of timeliness (even below the U.S.) and even scored below the U.S. in terms of safety. While many Canadians will puff up their chest and brag about how we're beating the Americans, they ignore the fact that we trail most of the rest of the developed world.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/press-releases/2014/jun/us-health-system-ranks-last

The top-ranked countries all seemed to use some sort of combination of private and public health care... For example, Britain was ranked #1, and while they have their national health plan, they also have millions of users of private insurance and private hospitals. Switzerland was ranked #2, and I believe they use private insurance, with government subsidies to people who can't afford to pay the entire health care costs themselves.

If Sanders wants to adopt a single-payer system, then what exactly does he expect the result to be? To see America's health care go from worst to second worst in the western world like Canada's? That's not exactly a big step up. Shouldn't American voters be looking for better than second worst?
 
Fudbucker said:
Hillary sure is progressive:
...
pro-big banks
Click to expand...
Canada (the country that Sanders seems to want to use for the model for things like health care) uses 'big banks'. We have what are called the "big 5". those banks are well regulated.

As a result, we have a very stable banking system (we survived the 2008 recession fairly unscathed, in small part because of that. None of our banks required massive bailouts, and I can't remember the last time any bank went under.) The banks do earn decent profits, but then again so do many other sectors of the economy.

If a "socialist" country like Canada (or at least one further to the political left than the U.S.) can survive using large large (but well regulated) banks, then its probably not such a bad model.

In fact, a large but well regulated bank might lead to more stability than a system of smaller banks, since their greater capitalization may prevent individual banks from going out of business.
 
Tony Stark said:
Whining about crap like single payer healthcare not being in the platform is ridiculous purity test nonsense.

First of all, single payer is not the only way to achieve universal coverage; many countries with universal coverage do not have it.

Second, Hillary is right, single payer is not an achievable goal in the US. Even if by some miracle Bernie Sanders becomes President, he would definitely not be able to make it happen.

Third of all the purity test BS distracts from the real enemy: the GOP scum who are unanimously against universal coverage and have tried literally dozens of times to take away healthcare from millions of people. If it wasn't for the fact that Obama vetoed their disgusting bill, they would have succeeded too. Similarly, there is literally zero doubt whatsoever that Hillary would veto the GOP's evil attempts to take away healthcare from millions of people. But heh, let's get caught up in retarded purity test BS and help make a racist conman who probably would sign the bill the President of the United States. Makes perfect sense!
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It's a purity test when a candidate is on the wrong side of the majority of Democrats on multiple important issues, like healthcare, the economy, and the environment?

Only 25% of Democrats support Fracking.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/190355/opposition-fracking-mounts.aspx
58% of everyone supports replacing Obamacare with a federally funded healthcare system
http://www.gallup.com/poll/191504/majority-support-idea-fed-funded-healthcare-system.aspx
60% of all Americans favor a Carbon Tax
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...l-on-carbon-tax-finds-mixed-support/12950925/
63% of Americans want a $15 minimum wage. (Hilllary wants $12)
http://www.nelp.org/content/uploads/2015/03/PR-Federal-Minimum-Wage-Poll-Jan-2015.pdf
39% of Democrats support the Keystone Pipeline
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/15/politics/poll-majority-of-americans-back-keystone-pipeline/
61% of Democrats want to break up "too big too fail" banks.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/230058-poll-bipartisan-backing-for-breaking-up-big-banks

Surprisingly, Democrats are split on the death penalty, although I have a hunch most Hillary supporters here are not pro-death penalty. Do any of you Hillary supporters still want the death penalty around? Don't be shy.

Anyway, this is the candidate you guys are supporting. She's to the right of the Democrat party on just about every issue. Probably the only Democrat further to the right than Clinton is former Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter.

But do carry on patting yourselves on the back over what a progressive Hillary is. It's very amusing.
 
Segnosaur said:
Canada (the country that Sanders seems to want to use for the model for things like health care) uses 'big banks'. We have what are called the "big 5". those banks are well regulated.

As a result, we have a very stable banking system (we survived the 2008 recession fairly unscathed, in small part because of that. None of our banks required massive bailouts, and I can't remember the last time any bank went under.) The banks do earn decent profits, but then again so do many other sectors of the economy.

If a "socialist" country like Canada (or at least one further to the political left than the U.S.) can survive using large large (but well regulated) banks, then its probably not such a bad model.

In fact, a large but well regulated bank might lead to more stability than a system of smaller banks, since their greater capitalization may prevent individual banks from going out of business.
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I wouldn't know. My point is that Clinton is to the Right of Democrats on this (and many other) issues. And trusting someone who took gobs of money from Goldman Sachs to at least reform the financial sector is pretty stupid.
 
Fudbucker, you are as bad as Sanders refusing to concede. Sanders is on CNN again insisting Clinton adopt all his campaign issues. News flash, Sanders lost. The majority did not vote for Sanders or his campaign issues. Clinton is close, more measured, it's not like she's running on a Conservative Platform.

If Clinton is to the right of Democrats, how did she win?

Get over yourselves.
 
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Skeptic Ginger said:
Fudbucker, you are as bad as Sanders refusing to concede. Sanders is on CNN again insisting Clinton adopt all his campaign issues. News flash, Sanders lost. The majority did not vote for Sanders or his campaign issues. Clinton is close, more measured, it's not like she's running on a Conservative Platform.

If Clinton is to the right of Democrats, how did she win?

Get over yourselves.
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When should we apply the death penalty, Skeptical Ginger? You said you support it. What are your guidelines to make sure we don't kill an innocent person?
 
Fudbucker said:
It's a purity test when a candidate is on the wrong side of the majority of Democrats on multiple important issues, like healthcare, the economy, and the environment?

Only 25% of Democrats support Fracking.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/190355/opposition-fracking-mounts.aspx
58% of everyone supports replacing Obamacare with a federally funded healthcare system
http://www.gallup.com/poll/191504/majority-support-idea-fed-funded-healthcare-system.aspx
60% of all Americans favor a Carbon Tax
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money...l-on-carbon-tax-finds-mixed-support/12950925/
63% of Americans want a $15 minimum wage. (Hilllary wants $12)
http://www.nelp.org/content/uploads/2015/03/PR-Federal-Minimum-Wage-Poll-Jan-2015.pdf
39% of Democrats support the Keystone Pipeline
http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/15/politics/poll-majority-of-americans-back-keystone-pipeline/
61% of Democrats want to break up "too big too fail" banks.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/230058-poll-bipartisan-backing-for-breaking-up-big-banks

Surprisingly, Democrats are split on the death penalty, although I have a hunch most Hillary supporters here are not pro-death penalty. Do any of you Hillary supporters still want the death penalty around? Don't be shy.

Anyway, this is the candidate you guys are supporting. She's to the right of the Democrat party on just about every issue. Probably the only Democrat further to the right than Clinton is former Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter.

But do carry on patting yourselves on the back over what a progressive Hillary is. It's very amusing.
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Yeah, most Americans might tell a pollster they are in favor of single payer healthcare. But they aren't actually willing to pay the huge taxes increases it would cost. Even Bernie Sanders supporters are not willing to pay much more in taxes for his plans. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/4/14/11421744/bernie-sanders-tax-revolution

Guaranteed fact that if single payer was ever in serious consideration, the public would turn against it quick once they learned of the details and the Republicans began their relentless propaganda campaign. Hillary knows this. Bernie is a fool if he believes that he could get single payer passed. He definitely could not.

You saying she is the most right wing Democrat proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. The reality of the matter is that she was one of the most liberal Senators. To the left of President Obama, who has an extremely high approval rating among Democrats. And she has moved left since then.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/
 
Fudbucker said:
When should we apply the death penalty, Skeptical Ginger? You said you support it. What are your guidelines to make sure we don't kill an innocent person?
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I gave you an example, Charles Campbell.

Your argument about false convictions is a non sequitur. This is not a false conviction thread.

Are you angry about Sanders losing?
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Fudbucker, you are as bad as Sanders refusing to concede. Sanders is on CNN again insisting Clinton adopt all his campaign issues. News flash, Sanders lost. The majority did not vote for Sanders or his campaign issues. Clinton is close, more measured, it's not like she's running on a Conservative Platform.

If Clinton is to the right of Democrats, how did she win?

Get over yourselves.
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It is pretty ridiculous that the resounding loser is attempting to force the winner to adopt his platform. Imagine what Bernie would say if he won but Hillary tried to hold her support of him hostage contingent on him adopting her entire platform. He would just tell her to **** off.
 
Tony Stark said:
Yeah, most Americans might tell a pollster they are in favor of single payer healthcare. But they aren't actually willing to pay the huge taxes increases it would cost. Even Bernie Sanders supporters are not willing to pay much more in taxes for his plans. http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/4/14/11421744/bernie-sanders-tax-revolution

Guaranteed fact that if single payer was ever in serious consideration, the public would turn against it quick once they learned of the details and the Republicans began their relentless propaganda campaign. Hillary knows this. Bernie is a fool if he believes that he could get single payer passed. He definitely could not.

You saying she is the most right wing Democrat proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. The reality of the matter is that she was one of the most liberal Senators. To the left of President Obama, who has an extremely high approval rating among Democrats. And she has moved left since then.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/hillary-clinton-was-liberal-hillary-clinton-is-liberal/
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Except when you look at the actual polling. I never said Clinton wasn't liberal. On social issues, she's fairly liberal.

The probably for Clinton is the Democratic party now is VERY liberal, as the polls I linked to show: national health care, too-big-to-fail, fracking, carbon tax, minimum wage, etc. It's morphing into an actual leftist party in the European sense. Clinton is not morphing with it.

You could have had someone much further left than Clinton and still beat Trump, but it was Clinton's "turn" I guess, and nobody but Bernie and a couple of losers thought they could challenge her, and now we're stuck with someone who's out of touch with Democrats on key issues.

There are two issues I care about: SCOTUS and income/wealth inequality. Clinton will be good for one and totally useless, as Obama was, on the other.
 
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