In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On August 22 2015 09:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Unabashed just means that he's not embarrassed or ashamed to call himself a socialist, and that's 100% accurate because he's never shied away from using that term (although sometimes he'll qualify it a bit more by saying Democratic Socialist).
Being unabashed doesn't say anything about the place on the spectrum a person lands in terms of severity of opinion though. It just means he's not embarrassed to use a specific label.
Therefore, I agree with Danglars on the use of the term "unabashed" for Bernie Sanders. He's owning that label of socialist, and he's doing it surprisingly well (unlike the previous generation).
I see. Agreed.
Actually Dangalr's point about how people will perceive someone who openly admits to having socialist ideas is interesting. We saw it here a few pages ago when the guy went on about 'evil socialists' that people have extreme negative connotations when they (probably) don't even know what socialism means. I think people would be hard pressed to say some socialist ideas are bad if they actually knew what some were.
Agreed. It's unfortunate that some labels have been used inappropriately for so long- or characterized as being inherently evil for so long- that an actual, factual discussion about that label may take decades to come about. A lot of it comes down to fearmongering and Us vs. Them mentalities.
On August 22 2015 07:49 Kickstart wrote: Unabashed socialism is different from moderate socialism. Our country is already a mixed economy anyways (that is, it is both capitalist and socialist). People just get all up in arms and most of them (not accusing any one here of this) don't even know what socialism is, or what communism is, or the difference, nor much about anything that they just get all worked up about.
You're continuing the mixup in terms by misunderstanding the point. Back in the day, you would be dead in the water overtly calling yourself a socialist and supporting the goals. If you agreed with socialism, you called yourself a liberal, progressive, moderate Democrat, and supported that agenda with waves to how compassion drove your support. Now, Bernie is an unabashed socialist that is unafraid of the boogeyman, where his predecessors would dodge the label like the plague.
I think in most of our dictionaries an unabashed socialist would be committed to worker control of the means of production.
I used unabashed by intention, knowing how embarrassed past American-left (European-center) politicians would flee from the term. It's simply not being ashamed or embarrassed of the label, full stop. I'm not talking about his brand of socialism (as I thought I made clear previously).
Vice President Joe Biden met Thursday at his home in Wilmington, Del. with the small circle of advisers who are plotting out a potential late-entry presidential campaign, according to a person familiar with the meeting.
Only a few people are involved in the real decision-making: Biden’s longest and closest political adviser, his sister Valerie Biden Owens, his son Hunter, chief of staff Steve Ricchetti, former political adviser Mike Donilon and former top aide Sen. Ted Kaufman. Ricchetti, Donilon and Kaufman were at the meeting, debating the ups and downs of getting in and how to make a race happen.
Kaufman declined to comment. Donilon did not return a call for comment.
The group last week began exploring early primary-state travel and identifying a handful of potential big-dollar donors who could bankroll a race via a super PAC. But Biden has not made an official decision, and has yet to discuss the race with top people at the White House or President Barack Obama.
On August 22 2015 07:49 Kickstart wrote: Unabashed socialism is different from moderate socialism. Our country is already a mixed economy anyways (that is, it is both capitalist and socialist). People just get all up in arms and most of them (not accusing any one here of this) don't even know what socialism is, or what communism is, or the difference, nor much about anything that they just get all worked up about.
You're continuing the mixup in terms by misunderstanding the point. Back in the day, you would be dead in the water overtly calling yourself a socialist and supporting the goals. If you agreed with socialism, you called yourself a liberal, progressive, moderate Democrat, and supported that agenda with waves to how compassion drove your support. Now, Bernie is an unabashed socialist that is unafraid of the boogeyman, where his predecessors would dodge the label like the plague.
I think in most of our dictionaries an unabashed socialist would be committed to worker control of the means of production.
I used unabashed by intention, knowing how embarrassed past American-left (European-center) politicians would flee from the term. It's simply not being ashamed or embarrassed of the label, full stop. I'm not talking about his brand of socialism (as I thought I made clear previously).
On August 22 2015 09:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Unabashed just means that he's not embarrassed or ashamed to call himself a socialist, and that's 100% accurate because he's never shied away from using that term (although sometimes he'll qualify it a bit more by saying Democratic Socialist).
Being unabashed doesn't say anything about the place on the spectrum a person lands in terms of severity of opinion though. It just means he's not embarrassed to use a specific label.
Therefore, I agree with Danglars on the use of the term "unabashed" for Bernie Sanders. He's owning that label of socialist, and he's doing it surprisingly well (unlike the previous generation).
I see. Agreed.
Actually Dangalr's point about how people will perceive someone who openly admits to having socialist ideas is interesting. We saw it here a few pages ago when the guy went on about 'evil socialists' that people have extreme negative connotations when they (probably) don't even know what socialism means. I think people would be hard pressed to say some socialist ideas are bad if they actually knew what some were.
Agreed. It's unfortunate that some labels have been used inappropriately for so long- or characterized as being inherently evil for so long- that an actual, factual discussion about that label may take decades to come about. A lot of it comes down to fearmongering and Us vs. Them mentalities.
We're not that far out from the cold war. Its not really fearmongering when the evil empire is literally in our world and cry's out for a worldwide socialist revolution.
On August 22 2015 09:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Unabashed just means that he's not embarrassed or ashamed to call himself a socialist, and that's 100% accurate because he's never shied away from using that term (although sometimes he'll qualify it a bit more by saying Democratic Socialist).
Being unabashed doesn't say anything about the place on the spectrum a person lands in terms of severity of opinion though. It just means he's not embarrassed to use a specific label.
Therefore, I agree with Danglars on the use of the term "unabashed" for Bernie Sanders. He's owning that label of socialist, and he's doing it surprisingly well (unlike the previous generation).
I see. Agreed.
Actually Dangalr's point about how people will perceive someone who openly admits to having socialist ideas is interesting. We saw it here a few pages ago when the guy went on about 'evil socialists' that people have extreme negative connotations when they (probably) don't even know what socialism means. I think people would be hard pressed to say some socialist ideas are bad if they actually knew what some were.
Agreed. It's unfortunate that some labels have been used inappropriately for so long- or characterized as being inherently evil for so long- that an actual, factual discussion about that label may take decades to come about. A lot of it comes down to fearmongering and Us vs. Them mentalities.
We're not that far out from the cold war. Its not really fearmongering when the evil empire is literally in our world and cry's out for a worldwide socialist revolution.
100 years ago the evil empire was Britain.
Today half the world thinks US is the evil empire.
There was always an evil empire for every country.
On August 22 2015 09:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Unabashed just means that he's not embarrassed or ashamed to call himself a socialist, and that's 100% accurate because he's never shied away from using that term (although sometimes he'll qualify it a bit more by saying Democratic Socialist).
Being unabashed doesn't say anything about the place on the spectrum a person lands in terms of severity of opinion though. It just means he's not embarrassed to use a specific label.
Therefore, I agree with Danglars on the use of the term "unabashed" for Bernie Sanders. He's owning that label of socialist, and he's doing it surprisingly well (unlike the previous generation).
I see. Agreed.
Actually Dangalr's point about how people will perceive someone who openly admits to having socialist ideas is interesting. We saw it here a few pages ago when the guy went on about 'evil socialists' that people have extreme negative connotations when they (probably) don't even know what socialism means. I think people would be hard pressed to say some socialist ideas are bad if they actually knew what some were.
Agreed. It's unfortunate that some labels have been used inappropriately for so long- or characterized as being inherently evil for so long- that an actual, factual discussion about that label may take decades to come about. A lot of it comes down to fearmongering and Us vs. Them mentalities.
We're not that far out from the cold war. Its not really fearmongering when the evil empire is literally in our world and cry's out for a worldwide socialist revolution.
On August 22 2015 09:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Unabashed just means that he's not embarrassed or ashamed to call himself a socialist, and that's 100% accurate because he's never shied away from using that term (although sometimes he'll qualify it a bit more by saying Democratic Socialist).
Being unabashed doesn't say anything about the place on the spectrum a person lands in terms of severity of opinion though. It just means he's not embarrassed to use a specific label.
Therefore, I agree with Danglars on the use of the term "unabashed" for Bernie Sanders. He's owning that label of socialist, and he's doing it surprisingly well (unlike the previous generation).
I see. Agreed.
Actually Dangalr's point about how people will perceive someone who openly admits to having socialist ideas is interesting. We saw it here a few pages ago when the guy went on about 'evil socialists' that people have extreme negative connotations when they (probably) don't even know what socialism means. I think people would be hard pressed to say some socialist ideas are bad if they actually knew what some were.
Agreed. It's unfortunate that some labels have been used inappropriately for so long- or characterized as being inherently evil for so long- that an actual, factual discussion about that label may take decades to come about. A lot of it comes down to fearmongering and Us vs. Them mentalities.
We're not that far out from the cold war. Its not really fearmongering when the evil empire is literally in our world and cry's out for a worldwide socialist revolution.
100 years ago the evil empire was Britain.
Today half the world thinks US is the evil empire.
There was always an evil empire for every country.
Perhaps, but at least the Brits didn't kill millions of their own population - granted, they did kill a lot of natives around the world, but in that respect no different than the USSR. Socialism has a bad image, because it doesn't work, is militantly violent, and has killed tens of millions (of their own people, and others). You look at places today like Venezuala, Argentina, North Korea, Cuba (though at least they're starting to liberalize a bit), etc. and they're really terrible places to live. At least the British respected their citizens liberties way more than any socialist counterpart. Historically, we can talk about Maoist China, the Khmer Rouge, the VC, Eastern Europe, etc. There's a good reason socialism has a bad image, just like Fascism.
For all the boogeyman that is liberalism - it lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and is the cornerstone for the liberties that many take for granted today. Now, we're all against hegemonic powers here, but don't compare 1900 Brits to the USSR/Maoist China. That just makes you look bad.
Firstly the capitalist Britain did kill millions of their own population in the Irish famine after the means of production, in this case the land, were transferred from the workers to the capitalist class who dedicated them to cash crops and the export market. And secondly Britain has been socialist for a century now. The transition started at the dawn of the 20th Century and the nationalization of industry during the Great War was a turning point in that process. So 0 for 2 there.
Also the USSR, China, Khmer Rouge, the Warsaw Pact nations and so forth weren't socialist.
On August 22 2015 09:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Unabashed just means that he's not embarrassed or ashamed to call himself a socialist, and that's 100% accurate because he's never shied away from using that term (although sometimes he'll qualify it a bit more by saying Democratic Socialist).
Being unabashed doesn't say anything about the place on the spectrum a person lands in terms of severity of opinion though. It just means he's not embarrassed to use a specific label.
Therefore, I agree with Danglars on the use of the term "unabashed" for Bernie Sanders. He's owning that label of socialist, and he's doing it surprisingly well (unlike the previous generation).
I see. Agreed.
Actually Dangalr's point about how people will perceive someone who openly admits to having socialist ideas is interesting. We saw it here a few pages ago when the guy went on about 'evil socialists' that people have extreme negative connotations when they (probably) don't even know what socialism means. I think people would be hard pressed to say some socialist ideas are bad if they actually knew what some were.
Agreed. It's unfortunate that some labels have been used inappropriately for so long- or characterized as being inherently evil for so long- that an actual, factual discussion about that label may take decades to come about. A lot of it comes down to fearmongering and Us vs. Them mentalities.
We're not that far out from the cold war. Its not really fearmongering when the evil empire is literally in our world and cry's out for a worldwide socialist revolution.
100 years ago the evil empire was Britain.
Today half the world thinks US is the evil empire.
There was always an evil empire for every country.
Perhaps, but at least the Brits didn't kill millions of their own population - granted, they did kill a lot of natives around the world, but in that respect no different than the USSR. Socialism has a bad image, because it doesn't work, is militantly violent, and has killed tens of millions (of their own people, and others). You look at places today like Venezuala, Argentina, North Korea, Cuba (though at least they're starting to liberalize a bit), etc. and they're really terrible places to live. At least the British respected their citizens liberties way more than any socialist counterpart. Historically, we can talk about Maoist China, the Khmer Rouge, the VC, Eastern Europe, etc. There's a good reason socialism has a bad image, just like Fascism.
For all the boogeyman that is liberalism - it lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty and is the cornerstone for the liberties that many take for granted today. Now, we're all against hegemonic powers here, but don't compare 1900 Brits to the USSR/Maoist China. That just makes you look bad.
I don't think you know what socialism is or which countries are/were socialist.
Oh, and capitalism has killed a LOT of people throughout history.
In his “soapbox” remarks at the Iowa State Fair on Friday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz criticized Jimmy Carter’s presidency - a day after Carter’s moving public admission about his cancer.
“I think where we are today is very, very much like the late 1970’s. I think the parallels between this administration and the Carter administration are uncanny, same failed domestic policy, same misery, stagnation and malaise, same feckless and naive foreign policy. In fact, the exact same countries, Russia and Iran, openly laughing at and mocking the president of the United States.”
On August 22 2015 08:24 Saryph wrote: So two(?) unarmed Marines on a train in France took down a guy armed with a knife, handgun and a Kalashnikov with over 300 rounds of ammo. Is it really easy to get that stuff onto a train? Also, Marines.
A train is not a plane. There is pretty much no security to get onto a train. The harder part would be aquiring that stuff, getting it onto a train is a cakewalk. Simply put it into a bag. Then walk onto the train.
I also don't see a point in having security to get onto a train. There are public places without security pretty much everywhere. So unless you want to make your whole country a prison with security scanners everywhere, having them to access some random places is pointless.
On August 22 2015 08:24 Saryph wrote: So two(?) unarmed Marines on a train in France took down a guy armed with a knife, handgun and a Kalashnikov with over 300 rounds of ammo. Is it really easy to get that stuff onto a train? Also, Marines.
A train is not a plane. There is pretty much no security to get onto a train. The harder part would be aquiring that stuff, getting it onto a train is a cakewalk. Simply put it into a bag. Then walk onto the train.
I also don't see a point in having security to get onto a train. There are public places without security pretty much everywhere. So unless you want to make your whole country a prison with security scanners everywhere, having them to access some random places is pointless.
The point would be that they are just as easy terrorist targets as planes now that pilots lock the door.
But really that is just an argument against security on planes.
Republican Donald Trump is pulling away from the pack in the race for the party's U.S. presidential nomination, widening his lead over his closest rivals in the past week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Friday.
Republican voters show no signs they are growing weary of the brash real estate mogul, who has dominated political headlines and the 17-strong Republican presidential field with his tough talk about immigration and insults directed at his political rivals. The candidates are vying to be nominated to represent their party in the November 2016 general election.
Nearly 32 percent of Republicans surveyed online said they backed Trump, up from 24 percent a week earlier, the opinion poll found. Trump had nearly double the support of his closest competitor, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who got 16 percent. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was third at 8 percent.
Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week
Even when Trump was pitted directly in the poll against just his top two competitors, 44 percent backed him. Bush won about 29 percent of respondents, and Carson 25 percent.
"He's not taking any guff from anybody," Dewey Stedman, 70, a Republican from East Wenatchee, Washington, said of the publicity-loving billionaire. "If you don't have something in your brains, you're not going to have billions of dollars."
Trump has driven the debate on the campaign trail with a hard-line immigration plan that calls for the deportation of undocumented immigrants, amendment of the Constitution to end automatic citizenship for all people born in the United States, and construction of a wall along the border with Mexico.
He also has feuded with Bush and other rivals while boasting he could easily beat Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
Trump's campaign momentum has paid off with bigger crowds on the campaign trail. On Friday night, he moved a planned rally in Mobile, Alabama, to a football stadium seating more than 40,000.
"It is an appeal to people that are just aggravated about what's going on," Republican strategist Rich Galen said, adding that Trump is a "novelty act" that voters will tire of.
Friday's results in the online rolling opinion poll are based on a survey of 501 Republicans and have a credibility interval of plus or minus 5 percent.
Separate results found Clinton leading among Democrats, though support for her dipped below 50 percent to 48.5 percent.
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont came in second in the poll of 625 Democrats, followed by Vice President Joe Biden, who has not entered the race. That survey had a credibility interval of plus or minus 4.5 percent.
On August 22 2015 08:24 Saryph wrote: So two(?) unarmed Marines on a train in France took down a guy armed with a knife, handgun and a Kalashnikov with over 300 rounds of ammo. Is it really easy to get that stuff onto a train? Also, Marines.
A train is not a plane. There is pretty much no security to get onto a train. The harder part would be aquiring that stuff, getting it onto a train is a cakewalk. Simply put it into a bag. Then walk onto the train.
I also don't see a point in having security to get onto a train. There are public places without security pretty much everywhere. So unless you want to make your whole country a prison with security scanners everywhere, having them to access some random places is pointless.
The point would be that they are just as easy terrorist targets as planes now that pilots lock the door.
But really that is just an argument against security on planes.
I'm not sure what your point is - the difference is that planes can be hijacked and directed off course to ram them into targets, which is not the case for trains (as is eloquently explained here). Like Simberto said, trains are no different from public spaces where a terrorist can suddenly start shooting the people present (of course, trains are an enclosed space from which it is harder to escape as long as they are not stopped).
On August 22 2015 08:24 Saryph wrote: So two(?) unarmed Marines on a train in France took down a guy armed with a knife, handgun and a Kalashnikov with over 300 rounds of ammo. Is it really easy to get that stuff onto a train? Also, Marines.
A train is not a plane. There is pretty much no security to get onto a train. The harder part would be aquiring that stuff, getting it onto a train is a cakewalk. Simply put it into a bag. Then walk onto the train.
I also don't see a point in having security to get onto a train. There are public places without security pretty much everywhere. So unless you want to make your whole country a prison with security scanners everywhere, having them to access some random places is pointless.
The point would be that they are just as easy terrorist targets as planes now that pilots lock the door.
But really that is just an argument against security on planes.
I'm not sure what your point is - the difference is that planes can be hijacked and directed off course to ram them into targets, which is not the case for trains (as is eloquently explained here). Like Simberto said, trains are no different from public spaces where a terrorist can suddenly start shooting the people present (of course, trains are an enclosed space from which it is harder to escape as long as they are not stopped).
Post 9/11 the door is locked and reinforced. Such an attack is nearly impossible unless a majority of passengers on a flight are terrorists and there is nowhere for the pilots to land the plane within 20-30 minutes. Even in such a situation, any competent pilot would scuttle the craft. 9/11 was not a security failure it was a training failure and an exploit of the public's misunderstanding of thier goals.
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.blueoregon.com/media/uploads/bernieportland.png)
