[MindlessInsanity]

Jeff, your current behavior is pretty much the definition of passive aggressive.

Also what do you have against communism

Also what do you have against communism

Also what do you have against communism

communism

Get out of here Vladimir Lenin.

That was both a non-answer and a completely rude way to state things. I'm not going to ask you to apologize because I know that you won't. However, I am rolling around the idea of posting a forum ban request due to your repeated offences of (to put it eloquently) being an arse.

False. Look, DLGN, I'm sorry. I don't actually think you're a communist. But a joke is meant to be funny or ironic. I don't see what you get out of saying such an asinine thing. Bones, I've got nothing against you. If you think I'm a rear then go ahead and think that. We don't live in the perfect world. When there's too much socialism, or socialism that isn't executed right, countries go bankrupt. I don't know who'd make the best presidential candidate. But Sanders isn't it.

[Bonejunky]

Jeff, your current behavior is pretty much the definition of passive aggressive.

Also what do you have against communism

Also what do you have against communism

Also what do you have against communism

communism

Get out of here Vladimir Lenin.

That was both a non-answer and a completely rude way to state things. I'm not going to ask you to apologize because I know that you won't. However, I am rolling around the idea of posting a forum ban request due to your repeated offences of (to put it eloquently) being an arse.

False. Look, DLGN, I'm sorry. I don't actually think you're a communist. But a joke is meant to be funny or ironic. I don't see what you get out of saying the most asinine things. And Bones, you can't just entirely assume what someone will do off of previous actions.

This is still a non-answer. Dl asked a legitimate question yet you have twice evaded giving a proper answer (your reasoning for seeing communism as a bad thing, for instance), firstly by making fun of Dl, and secondly by calling the question asinine. To be honest, I do not believe that what you said/how you said it was meant to be funny, but rather to be an insult to Dl as well as rationality itself. Generally, when a word is highlighted and restated with increasing vigor it will have a condescending tone and can be interpreted by a reasonable person as an attack on their intelligence, and by evading the question in such a demeaning manner you prove yourself to be highly irrational because you do not attempt to contribute to discussion or allow others to understand your way of thinking. Also, it is very easy to assume what someone will do from their previous actions. A thief who repeatedly offends is likely to continue to steal in the future until action is taken and rehabilitation is undergone. This is just one example. We even have criminal record checks because someone who has offended in the past is likely to offend in the future and is therefore not safe for certain jobs or activities.

[BSGSamuel]

[legokrin]

Have we already derailed from this? ;-;

[eah]

Also what do you have against communism

As I understand it, the root of the problem is that communism makes people less motivated. If you take money from the rich, they won't be motivated to make that money because it's immediately taken from them. If you give money to the poor, they won't be motivated to work as well because they get a free lunch. A shift toward communism would remove a portion of the motivation for profit. Therefore, production and innovation suffers. In return, you get a more equal distribution of wealth and possibly solve starvation.

I know someone who knows someone else who lives off of welfare. She's able to claim that she has too much anxiety to work, so therefore is able to survive off of money from the government. She basically qualifies as "dirt poor," lives with a relative and food stamps. The money from the government and the relative isn't much, but it's enough. Many people are self-interested. If a person can get away doing something (or the lack of) that is not rational from the perspective of the whole (society), then they probably will.

The super-rich are also self-interested. They have too much power over the economy and too much potential to be irresponsible with that power. Therefore, Sanders.

[Rick]

If we're going to get this thread locked, we might as well do it with dignity. Cite your sources.

Anywayyyyy, here's my opinion.

1. We need to ease or prevent fluctuations on the world economy.
2. If an individual is smart, able, and hard-working, but his/her parent/guardian was not, it is beneficial to the individual and world that the individual receive a higher-level education.
3. A motif of liberalism is that the US is doing good by getting its hands in the middle east, but I seriously wonder if everyone would be better off if we let them deal with their own problems.
4. Building walls is stupid.

These seem to be the things dominating Berny's campaign, so go Berny?

1. Honestly, I don't know enough about world economy to have a valid opinion.
2. Grants and scholarships.
3. I'm actually curious to see how that would play out.
4. Building walls is definitely stupid.

Challenge accepted.
How can Sanders plan works when we're already in 16 trillion dollars in debt, and taxes would go thru the roof. Also, DLGN, I know this is hard for you to understand with you being home-schooled. But there's this called common core. It's mandatory education curriculum from Washington DC and its total horsecrap.

I wouldn't say total horsecrap per se, but I think the US is a bit too large and culturally diverse to have a one-size-fits-all education, whereas places like Finland and Singapore can use it effectively. Because I've grown up in a different environment (AZ) with much different standards than someone who lives in North Carolina, for example, having us both take the same test with the same standards doesn't really make sense to me. However one could also pose the question as to what an alternative form of education could be.

He's said almost nothing about education other than people deserve free and quality education. What his idea of quality is unknown.

I don't think he's focused on the actual quality of higher education. IMO college education actually does a really good job of teaching you what you want/need to be taught regarding your major.

However his policy on the cost, or lack thereof, is what bothers me. Reducing tuition costs is one thing, but making it outright free and requiring colleges to "meet 100% of the financial needs of the lowest-income students" to me is outrageous. I think everyone would definitely benefit from some sort of higher education whether it's college or trade school, but at the cost of the government spending even more money to achieve that, it's not worth it.

And if it's not the government spending money on it, then it comes out of our pockets with increased taxes for all tax brackets.

Also, why should anyone earn 15$ an hour? I don't mean to be prejudice, but some McDonalds workers are absolute crap at their job to begin with. I'm no economist, but that sounds asinine.

It's got nothing to do with how bad people are at their jobs (former president of VW), but moreso the fact that minimum wage workers are expecting $15/hour to actually make a difference for them. What they don't seem to understand is that raising minimum wage will cost companies more money, which will cause them to hike prices in order to make up for lost profits, which comes full circle back around to people not having enough money to pay for what they want. So now, not only has their plan to have minimum be livable failed, but now they've significantly lowered the value of the dollar in the process. It's basic economic inflation, and I don't understand why this is actually an issue.

I agree the rich should pay more taxes but 90% sounds bordering communism. Again, bordering.

Now I'm not too knowledgeable on communism (I understand just the basics), but 90% is definitely way way too much to be taxing the rich.

Sanders says he wants to tax the wealthiest Americans at 90%. I don't imagine that people who make $300 000 - $1 000 000 would be included in that since you guys have billionaires. 536 of them, actually. Taxing a person who makes one billion in one year would leave them with one hundred million dollars, which is more than enough for anyone to live off of.

Our highest tax bracket(the 1% of the US) is at $415,050 at 39.6% (I'm going by a single person's income). So unless he manages to add another bracket at an excess of $1 million for whatever reason, anyone in the current highest tax bracket will be taxed at 90%.

Now you say $100 million is enough for anyone to live off of. I'm going to respectfully disagree with you. To you and me, and 99% of America, it is definitely more than enough to live off of. I'd be ecstatic to have $100 million to drop on whatever I want. But let's think about the people that make $1 billion+.

Currently, someone who makes $1 billion would be paying exactly $395,956,168.20 in income taxes. That leaves them with a little bit over $600 million to other costs and goods. So right now, their current mindset is that they have that much to live off of. $600 million is their standard of living.

Now imagine what would happen if in just 1 year, taxes are increased to 90% for them. That means now they owe exactly $899,746,982.50 in income taxes. That's a $500 million dollar decrease from their usual standard of living. I don't know about you, but if I lost 83% of my usual earnings because the Feds say so, you best believe I'm moving my rich ass across the pond over to even the UK where I'd only be paying $449,980,775.70 ( or £324,368,913.82 for all my m8s) in income taxes.

So now, instead the government getting almost half a billion from a single billionaire, they'd get 0. Now half a billion doesn't seem like a lot to lose to a government, but when you start having all of your rich citizens moving out of the country because you chose to more-than double their taxes, you'll lose a LOT of money.

Raising taxes on the wealthy isn't bad idea, as long as it's reasonable.

So I'm not a typical rich white cis-het male. Although I am a white cis-het male.

Pls no. im getting triggered.

I still have liberal views and conservative views. More conservative than liberal but I believe in being rational. To think based on facts and not some superstition or whatever is most convenient to me. I am thinking about the future generations of America. Because I care.

TL;DR Shockingly to you, I agree with Jeff on most of these issues. Not a Bernie fan, not a Trump fan. So I'm kinda SOL at the moment.

[dlgn]

I know someone who knows someone else who lives off of welfare. She's able to claim that she has too much anxiety to work, so therefore is able to survive off of money from the government.

I don't really understand what you're saying here. Are claiming that it's an excuse? If so, you really don't understand mental illness. There's a reason it's considered a disability.

Anyway, I've seen before that in-depth discussions about controversial political discussions on MR tend to go really badly--not to mention that I'm not a scholar with a load of experience arguing about socioeconomic systems, and I don't enjoy discussions in which I get ganged up on, which will probably happen. So I'll just say that assuming people will act with the same motivations in a communist or socialist society as a capitalist one because of "human nature" is no way to start an accurate analysis (plus, people in a communist or socialist society still have to work if they can); and that even if very high taxes are screwing over the rich, it's better to take money from people who can afford it than let people starve because they haven't "earned it". After all, the capitalist system is just as manipulative as socialism and communism in its shifting around of money, it just isn't explicit about it. For example, it's impossible to have a near 0% unemployment rate on a capitalist society, because it only works if companies have coercive hiring power over employees, which would vanish in the presence of scarcity. Low-level employees producing commodities and services literally cannot be paid the full value of their work, because then their employers wouldn't make any money. Economic mobility in the US is incredibly low, and working hard doesn't change that. And so on. It's easy to talk about "cheating the rich out of their well-earned money to give it to people who haven't" until you're looking at families with children dying of common illnesses because they can't afford healthcare, dropping out of school to work or engage in illegal activities to support their family, and in general working more for a lower quality of life through no fault of their own--indeed, for no real reason whatsoever other than having the misfortune to have been born in a socioeconomic class whose purpose is to be, practically speaking, exploited by a system that requires cheap labor.

A bunch of the anti-communist sentiment in the US is left over from the Red Scare in the 50s, and not based on any real economic analysis. But the fact is, only the precisely targeted implementation of some (but not all) socialist policies (the New Deal) prevented the US from radicalizing and becoming either communist or fascist following the Great Depression, which was the inevitable result of a capitalist state going into overdrive.

Welp, there goes not saying anything. Oh well.

[eah]

I know someone who knows someone else who lives off of welfare. She's able to claim that she has too much anxiety to work, so therefore is able to survive off of money from the government.

I don't really understand what you're saying here. Are claiming that it's an excuse? If so, you really don't understand mental illness. There's a reason it's considered a disability.

Yeah, I was claiming it's an excuse... until you said that. Like most people, I hold a bunch of biases, beliefs, and prejudice. I apologize to anyone I offended.

[MindlessInsanity]

snip

Not taking your bait Sam.

As much as I hate formalities I'm going to write better.

Okay, so, Bonejunky. I didn't think that was an actual question. Plus the answer is obvious. And you seem you really want an answer but eah just summed it up for me. Thanks eah. It makes people less motivated, and it forces people into jobs they didn't decide they want.

And I'm not a guy who hates and thinks most dependents of public aid are horrible people. I just want to reduce that number and make people rely on themselves.

DLGN, I like you. You are very smart from what I've seen in the past. I aspire to be like you. But you aren't perfect either

I don't mean to be derailing threads, it just happens that it causes too much hostility. Please, let's not get this locked too.

[diamond_boss]

Also what do you have against communism

The root of communism's problems aren't complicated. The ideology behind communism is great in itself, but it fails because of human nature's evils. We're greedy. If an elite few are given authority over all of the power and resources in a society, it's inevitable that corruption is going to happen eventually. Even Mikhail Gorbachev, who led the Soviet Union in it's last years knew that it wouldn't work any longer. Why do you think he pulled the plug? I mean, every communist society to exist has failed, and considering that humanity hasn't been showing any signs of getting any less screwed up in the past few decades, I doubt we'll ever be at a point where we can actually sustain a communist society in the future without it failing too.