Should we fear Bernie?

PhantomWolf said:
I don't recall the verses where he had the disciples and his followers drink poisoned cool-aide (or wine as the case might be.) Perhaps you can point them out.
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He told his followers to sell all their stuff and stop working because he Endtimes are imminent.
Call it End Times Cult if you prefer, but the teachings of Jesus only work if the world is about to end.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
He told his followers to sell all their stuff and stop working because he Endtimes are imminent.
Call it End Times Cult if you prefer, but the teachings of Jesus only work if the world is about to end.
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I suggest you point to the exact verses because you seem to be interpreting them differently than I do.
 
"Well you see Bernie isn't technically a socialist because it's only socialism if it comes from a certain region in Southern France otherwise you have to call it sparkling government overreach because that's what the book that mentions unicorns 9 times said..."

Truly I am blessed to live in such a gilded age of discourse.
 
JoeMorgue said:
"Well you see Bernie isn't technically a socialist because it's only socialism if it comes from a certain region in Southern France otherwise you have to call it sparkling government overreach because that's what the book that mentions unicorns 9 times said..."

Truly I am blessed to live in such a gilded age of discourse.
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On the other hand, "define your terms" is a fairly important early step in logic. If you proceed directly to discoursing without having done that things tend to get muddy.
 
TragicMonkey said:
On the other hand, "define your terms" is a fairly important early step in logic. If you proceed directly to discoursing without having done that things tend to get muddy.
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Not when the terms are arbitrary.

The political scale isn't the Periodic Table of Elements. You can't go "Bernie Sanders has an atomic weight of 42 and has 7 electrons in his valence therefore he's a Socialist."

Political terms are fuzzy edged rules of thumb to make discussing social/economic/political opinions/philosophies/stances that often tend to clump together easier, not because they are hard and fast bound rules of the universe that can be declared true by definition.

So the whole "Dismissing through categorization thing" AND people who think everything said about someone is "dismissing them through categorization" shut the discussions down.

"I think Bernie Sander's political stances are good/bad for America and X, Y, Z are my reasons why" have got to be discussable without "Oh so you just hate Bernie because you think it's a socialist oh and here's a totally different person who doesn't understand the difference between socialism and communism I bet you think the same" or any equivalent OR any polar opposite argument.
 
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JoeMorgue said:
Not when the terms are arbitrary.

The political scale isn't the Periodic Table of Elements. You can't go "Bernie Sanders has an atomic weight of 42 and has 7 electrons in his valence therefore he's a Socialist."

Political terms are fuzzy edged rules of thumb to make discussing social/economic/political opinions/philosophies/stances that often tend to clump together easier, not because they are hard and fast bound rules of the universe that can be declared true by definition.

So the whole "Dismissing through categorization thing" AND people who think everything said about someone is "dismissing them through categorization" shut the discussions down.

"I think Bernie Sander's political stances are good/bad for America and X, Y, Z are my reasons why" have got to be discussable without "Oh so you just hate Bernie because you think it's a socialist oh and here's a totally different person who doesn't understand the difference between socialism and communism I bet you think the same" or any equivalent OR any polar opposite argument.
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When the terms are arbitrary is exactly when they most need to be defined. "Clinton is a regressive!" should be answered by "what do you mean by 'regressive'?", not "no, she isn't!" or "so is your hero Pol Pot!" or "your mama didn't complain about regressives when I was wrecking her posterior!"
 
TragicMonkey said:
When the terms are arbitrary is exactly when they most need to be defined. "Clinton is a regressive!" should be answered by "what do you mean by 'regressive'?", not "no, she isn't!" or "so is your hero Pol Pot!" or "your mama didn't complain about regressives when I was wrecking her posterior!"
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When why have the terms? There's a difference between a term that has to be clarified in some contexts and a term that has be defined everytime you use it.

If it has to be "I support Candidate McGillicutty because he is a Whig, and I know he is a Whig because he supports policies X, Y, and Z" why not just "I support Candidate McGillicutty because he supports policies X, Y, and Z" and drop the transitive definition in the middle if he has to be clarified in the same breath you assert it?

What's the purpose of a categorization that serves no purpose but the invite the pedants to argue about the categorization?
 
There are dozens of Socialist policies enshrined in US law.

It is not very rational to assume that a few more will suddenly turn the entire country Communist.
 
JoeMorgue said:
When why have the terms? There's a difference between a term that has to be clarified in some contexts and a term that has be defined everytime you use it.

If it has to be "I support Candidate McGillicutty because he is a Whig, and I know he is a Whig because he supports policies X, Y, and Z" why not just "I support Candidate McGillicutty because he supports policies X, Y, and Z" and drop the transitive definition in the middle if he has to be clarified in the same breath you assert it?

What's the purpose of a categorization that serves no purpose but the invite the pedants to argue about the categorization?
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Categories do serve purposes. Your objection is to miscategorization, not categorization itself.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Categories do serve purposes. Your objection is to miscategorization, not categorization itself.
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Because the last 20 years has been an arms race of who can be the most pedantic about whether you have 4 fingers and a thumb or 5 fingers and about how many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg and "It's not Champagne, It's Sparking Wine" and so forth and such on and etc.

If we can never be clear/precise enough to appease the pedants with our categorization, we just shouldn't use them. Just refer directly to the context/meaning and cut their ability to stall and troll out from under them.

You've played the game as long as I have. You know damn well no matter how well you word it, how precise you are if you say "X is Y therefore Z" someone, someone will within a metaphysical certainty stop the conversation to argue about with X is Y even if they don't disagree with the core "X therefore Z" argument being made.

You know as well as I do that the world is full of people who, if you walk up to them asking for help because you're dying because a poisonous snake just bit you, will argue that no that's not possible because poisonous means its toxic if you eat, what you really mean is you were bitten by a venomous snake and now it's too late because you're already dead.

So if "X is category Y therefore conclusion Z" will always attract the pedants, just drop it and phrase it as "X therefore conclusion Z." It's the same meaning it just skips over the part that always triggers that subset of humanity that is incapable of not spotting a technicality but totally incapable of realizing it doesn't matter and nobody cares.
 
JoeMorgue said:
Because the last 20 years has been an arms race of who can be the most pedantic about whether you have 4 fingers and a thumb or 5 fingers and about how many legs does a dog have if you call a tail a leg and "It's not Champagne, It's Sparking Wine" and so forth and such on and etc.

If we can never be clear/precise enough to appease the pedants with our categorization, we just shouldn't use them. Just refer directly to the context/meaning and cut their ability to stall and troll out from under them.

You've played the game as long as I have. You know damn well no matter how well you word it, how precise you are if you say "X is Y therefore Z" someone, someone will within a metaphysical certainty stop the conversation to argue about with X is Y even if they don't disagree with the core "X therefore Z" argument being made.

You know as well as I do that the world is full of people who, if you walk up to them asking for help because you're dying because a poisonous snake just bit you, will argue that no that's not possible because poisonous means its toxic if you eat, what you really mean is you were bitten by a venomous snake and now it's too late because you're already dead.

So if "X is category Y therefore conclusion Z" will always attract the pedants, just drop it and phrase it as "X therefore conclusion Z." It's the same meaning it just skips over the part that always triggers that subset of humanity that is incapable of not spotting a technicality but totally incapable of realizing it doesn't matter and nobody cares.
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I don't see a need to abandon sense just to anticipate potential internet persnickertyness. Using clear language and reasonably explaining what one means is preferable to adopting whatever hyperbolic bizzarery is the fashion of a subset of a subset of random maniacs. If you are writing sense, do it sensibly. Don't cast it in the trappings of nonsense just because you think it'll be easier to fight about. And if you're writing nonsense, ask yo mama about regressives.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I don't see a need to abandon sense just to anticipate potential internet persnickertyness. Using clear language and reasonably explaining what one means is preferable to adopting whatever hyperbolic bizzarery is the fashion of a subset of a subset of random maniacs. If you are writing sense, do it sensibly. Don't cast it in the trappings of nonsense just because you think it'll be easier to fight about. And if you're writing nonsense, ask yo mama about regressives.
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I'm not talking about clarity, I'm talking about precision and that's an arms race we can never win.

Language pedants always fall back on "clarity." But nobody in the history of this or any other possible universe has ever encountered a double negative or a grocer's sign that said "Ten Items or Less" instead of "Ten Items or Fewer" and been unable to figure out the meaning. As always "If you understand it well enough to correct it, you obviously understood it."

Same thing here. Saying "I like or dislike Sanders because he's a socialist because he thinks X, Y, Z" isn't dependent on some technically perfect, mathematically precise usage of the term ""Socialist" but I refer you to "Every discussion about Sanders ever" that I would like to enter into evidence as proof that's every discussion of Sanders will always be about.
 
Craig4 said:
The swing Trump voter is over 45, Bernie's worst demographic.

Also, socialism just using popular with Americans.

https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/8070...ut-socialism-isnt-popular-with-most-americans

What on his agenda has he ever been successful at? Nothing. He has no track record of success, even when his party controlled the Senate. He can't work with other Democrats, let alone across the aisle.
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Add to that his honeymoon in Russia and his comments favoring Castro...

https://www.politico.com/blogs/2016...985-praise-of-fidel-castro-sandinistas-220550
BuzzFeed News posted the video, which originally aired on Channel 17/Town Meeting Television, in June 2015. Sanders remarked that people "forgot that [Castro] educated their kids, gave their kids healthcare, totally transformed the society.”
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And the part we didn't see yet:
Hillary Clinton dismissed Sanders' explanation [that he was really talking against Reagan's interventionism] and noted that in an unaired portion of the same interview, Sanders remarked upon the "revolution of values" occurring in those countries.
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We should not fear Bernie, we should fear him losing to Trump.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
They will not. They had a chance to do so already. It would only have taken two more GOP Senators to vote to impeach Trump. They did not materialize. They WANT this.
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They do want it. They are trying to ride on Trump's coattails. So they couldn't afford to cross him in the run-up to senatorial elections. I think it will be a different ballgame afterward. It's a conspiracy theory of mine and off-topic here.

And are you not aware that it would have taken 66 (or maybe 67) senators to convict and remove him? He was already impeached; that happened in the House.
 
Minoosh said:
And are you not aware that it would have taken 66 (or maybe 67) senators to convict and remove him? He was already impeached; that happened in the House.
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Two more senators would have established witnesses and rules of a trial, and more importantly wrested control away from McConnell.

I keep hearing that the GOP is going to turn on Trump any day now, they hate him, really they do, and <X> is going to backfire on Trump because it'll finally be too far and they'll find some way kick him out, except that it never happens and they can't even muster up the courage to defy him in the smallest possible way.

They are either collaborators or cowards. Either way, they're complicit.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
It will be a major blow to the country and probably the world.
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I think there is a diminishing return to Trump's destructive power.
For starters, Trump has used up the pool of people willing to get into legal trouble for him.
And since he can't run for a third term, no career Republican will support him beyond what helps them. They won't want to go down with his ship in the 2022 midterms.
Trump will certainly become more transparently corrupt and desperate to shield himself from legal consequences, which puts him in a weak position with the Democrats.

I think that it is far more important to win the Senate than the White House in 2020.
 
Has this been mentioned:

https://www.npr.org/sections/itsall...e-bernie-sanders-rape-fantasy-essay-explained

I mean in the proper context is not very shocking, just clumsy writing in a completely different era, but it's such lovely red meat for the republican propaganda machine, and they probably have not mentioned it even once... They really, really want Bernie as the opponent - and one can imagine how this will play in the puritan heartland. But who knows what will and what will not work these days. The merest whiff of a whiff of Russian interference would have sunk any candidate in two seconds in the past years while these days it's totally fine if it's done for a republican.
 
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