Once again, congrats to the GOP

**bandc** · 12-22-2021, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by owknows

Yes... people tend to like taking things from others.

The United States wouldn't be near the economy or is without Socialist practices. Stop it.

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**bandc** · 12-22-2021, 01:29 PM

Originally Posted by TIGERBLOOD

His ideology is the same. He just started inventing terms like "democratic socialist " to make it sound better. He was always an extreme leftist. Change my mind.

I'm not sure Trump's ideology every changed. People switch parties all the time. The Democrat party moved so far left that any moderates were left behind. I also know many conservatives in Blue states and some in Hollywood that register as Democrats for business reasons. The left isn't very tolerant of anyone that's not just like them .

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No, you're doing it again. Words have meaning. Bernie has painstakingly defined his ideology over the course of his career. Democratic Socialism has a clear and obvious meaning and it is not Communism.

You're literally doing what MSNBC talking heads so by calling Trump a fascist at every turn when it was obvious he was not. Bernie has never promoted communist policies. Be real.

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**blah3** · 12-22-2021, 03:10 PM

Deleted wrong thread

**bandc** · 12-22-2021, 04:15 PM

Originally Posted by blah3

U.S. health regulators cleared use of a Covid-19 pill from Pfizer Inc., the first drug that newly infected patients can now take at home to stay out of the hospital.

The authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday permits doctors to prescribe the medicine to high-risk patients age 12 and older early in the course of disease, shortly after they develop symptoms.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/pfi...-s-11640193220

Once again this shows that this was a money grab. There is no way that these pills have greater efficacy than all of the cheaper drugs available at the beginning of the pandemic. All of these guys are bought and sold.

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**blah3** · 12-22-2021, 04:21 PM

Sorry, meant to put that in a different thread

**BustOfPallas** · 12-22-2021, 04:42 PM

Originally Posted by bandc

Once again this shows that this was a money grab. There is no way that these pills have greater efficacy than all of the cheaper drugs available at the beginning of the pandemic. All of these guys are bought and sold.

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If the politics line up and the right people are being paid then these drugs won't get the Pepe the Frog treatment like the other ones did. Now they just have to slow walk the distribution of the drug until after all the ballots are mailed out.

**Forgettable1** · 12-24-2021, 12:43 AM

Originally Posted by bandc

No, we would do like we do a lot of other things. Like police protection. I give a little of my money, and you give a little of your money so that all of us have police protection. Even the homeless person that has no money to contribute to police protection can call 911 and benefit from the communal services that we pay for.

I happen to like that system.

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Just curious. Not trying to be argumentative.
Do you like it because you like the results the police get?
Or do you like it because you like the notion of everyone chipping in, of -- for lack of a better word -- teamwork?

**bandc** · 12-24-2021, 12:51 AM

Originally Posted by Forgettable1

Just curious. Not trying to be argumentative.
Do you like it because you like the results the police get?
Or do you like it because you like the notion of everyone chipping in, of -- for lack of a better word -- teamwork?

1. I like the idea of a police force. Obviously what we have have right now isn't perfect but I believe we as a society will continue to mold what we envision the police force to be as time goes on. Police work is a necessary work and should be valued.

2. I believe teamwork as a society has gotten us to where we are right now. The fact that an individual paying taxes for road work done in the middle of the boondocks in Indiana allows for truckers to drive safely to deliver goods to us here in Maryland is a societal marvel. It's a beautiful thing.

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**Forgettable1** · 12-24-2021, 01:10 AM

Originally Posted by bandc

To be honest, you're right, that is pretty bad, but I still agree with most of his current ideology, which is obviously not what is in the paper.

Thomas Sowell was a socialist in his formative years. Trump was a democrat. People change ideologies as they get older, and I happen to agree with what most of Bernie stands for now.

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Some people do change. Some do not.

I once viewed a mid-90s clip of Trump talking politics. America makes bad deals. America is taken for a sucker. America needs to win.

The competitive business mindset didn't change. That's the core of his politics. America should win. Hugging the Bilbe or reading the flag, or vice versa -- likely window dressing in service of getting elected to do what he thinks America should do: win for America and Americans.

As for Bernie, it would be interesting to hear Bernie say why he moderated from Young Bernie? What's wrong with nationalization of banks? Does he think it's a bad idea because it was always a bad idea or because circumstances have changed?

A reason some people don't like Bernie is because they think he ought to know better. Being older, the benefit of experience should have taught him how slippery the slope is from mildly authoritarian socialism to aggressively authoritarian communism. One of the things that makes the slope slippery is the tactic that Bernie uses so often: scapegoating.

The greedy rich people are to blame. They are taking from you. They are keeping you down. A vote for him is a vote to take what they have and to give to them precisely what they deserve. And what they deserve ain't pretty.

It's not difficult to imagine how that puts people at each other's throats. Perhaps even worse, it breeds a kind of fatalism: I'm just a piece on a chessboard; my life isn't my own; any improvement will be stolen from me so why bother improving? Despite all the high-minded motives, there's something dreary, ugly, paranoid, and -- yes -- implicitly unsocial in much of what Bernie espouses.

**Forgettable1** · 12-24-2021, 01:38 AM

Originally Posted by bandc

1. I like the idea of a police force. Obviously what we have have right now isn't perfect but I believe we as a society will continue to mold what we envision the police force to be as time goes on. Police work is a necessary work and should be valued.

2. I believe teamwork as a society has gotten us to where we are right now. The fact that an individual paying taxes for road work done in the middle of the boondocks in Indiana allows for truckers to drive safely to deliver goods to us here in Maryland is a societal marvel. It's a beautiful thing.

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Thanks for reply.

The point of my question is to assess whether you would be just as happy if the same or better results were achieved without the warm and fuzzies of teamwork.

The typical justification for a public police force is that a monopoly on the justified use of force leads to better political results than the alternative of each man being his own law.

But other justifications exist, for it and for other things like public roads. One of those is efficiency. We have a public police force and public roads because it is more efficient than a private scheme, not because we like the warm and fuzzies of teamwork. Services are often public because A) prohibitive transaction costs of private contracting; and B) an inability to exclude non-payers from benefiting from the service.

If a privately constructed road leading from the boondocks of Indiana to the warehouses of Maryland could be built just as cheaply as a public road, would you support its construction? Or does the notion trigger some Spidey Sense of danger?

Again, here the notion is to assess whether you are more tied to a practical value, like, say efficiency (whatever gets the job done with the least waste) or whether you are tied to a a political value like, say, equality or communitarianism which would make the road more than just an instrument of travel but a kind of political symbol of the society we have.

**bandc** · 12-24-2021, 01:42 AM

Originally Posted by Forgettable1

Some people do change. Some do not.

I once viewed a mid-90s clip of Trump talking politics. America makes bad deals. America is taken for a sucker. America needs to win.

The competitive business mindset didn't change. That's the core of his politics. America should win. Hugging the Bilbe or reading the flag, or vice versa -- likely window dressing in service of getting elected to do what he thinks America should do: win for America and Americans.

As for Bernie, it would be interesting to hear Bernie say why he moderated from Young Bernie? What's wrong with nationalization of banks? Does he think it's a bad idea because it was always a bad idea or because circumstances have changed?

A reason some people don't like Bernie is because they think he ought to know better. Being older, the benefit of experience should have taught him how slippery the slope is from mildly authoritarian socialism to aggressively authoritarian communism. One of the things that makes the slope slippery is the tactic that Bernie uses so often: scapegoating.

The greedy rich people are to blame. They are taking from you. They are keeping you down. A vote for him is a vote to take what they have and to give to them precisely what they deserve. And what they deserve ain't pretty.

It's not difficult to imagine how that puts people at each other's throats. Perhaps even worse, it breeds a kind of fatalism: I'm just a piece on a chessboard; my life isn't my own; any improvement will be stolen from me so why bother improving? Despite all the high-minded motives, there's something dreary, ugly, paranoid, and -- yes -- implicitly unsocial in much of what Bernie espouses.

You're right, it would be interesting to hear about how and why his ideology has changed over the years, but as far as I have heard from him, he believes in the nationalization of things that morally shouldn't have profit motives (policework, roads, education, healthcare) and for everything else he pushes for more democratization within the workplace (unions, etc...)

From what I've seen from Bernie, he espouses the models used in Nordic countries, places that feature capitalism, but also uses a much much better safety net than we have here.

With regards to the rich, at this point I don't think there's any doubt in people's minds that rich folks are to blame for where we're at as a country. No one needed Bernie to see that large corporations have systematically bought out this country whether it be mandates through big pharma or censorship by YouTube, MSM, Bezos and the Washington Post, etc....

There's been a groundswell of people fighting back and calling out the massive greed and inequity in law. The Reddit GME situation highlighted how the rich have rigged the stock market in their favor. Certain subreddits have almost singlehandedly forced companies like John Deere and Kelloggs to bend the knee to their respective worker unions.

Bernie wasn't needed for folks to recognize this. It's simply that the rich in this country have become so brazen with their lawlessness, that a figure like Bernie then becomes possible, not the other way around.

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**bandc** · 12-24-2021, 01:58 AM

Originally Posted by Forgettable1

Thanks for reply.

The point of my question is to assess whether you would be just as happy if the same or better results were achieved without the warm and fuzzies of teamwork.

The typical justification for a public police force is that a monopoly on the justified use of force leads to better political results than the alternative of each man being his own law.

But other justifications exist, for it and for other things like public roads. One of those is efficiency. We have a public police force and public roads because it is more efficient than a private scheme, not because we like the warm and fuzzies of teamwork. Services are often public because A) prohibitive transaction costs of private contracting; and B) an inability to exclude non-payers from benefiting from the service.

If a privately constructed road leading from the boondocks of Indiana to the warehouses of Maryland could be built just as cheaply as a public road, would you support its construction? Or does the notion trigger some Spidey Sense of danger?

Again, here the notion is to assess whether you are more tied to a practical value, like, say efficiency (whatever gets the job done with the least waste) or whether you are tied to a a political value like, say, equality or communitarianism which would make the road more than just an instrument of travel but a kind of political symbol of the society we have.

I suppose I am more tied to the idea of warm and fuzzy cooperation. I know for a fact that I tie personal theological/philosophical beliefs into my politics (e.g. the love of money is the root of all types of evil, absolute power corrupts absolutely).

I believe my feelings concerning that have been practically vindicated in this pandemic. This country, along with many other refused to acknowledge early treatment of COVID in favor of waiting until a vaccine came because of the hold that pharmaceutical companies have on the government. If healthcare was nationalized and companies like Pfizer weren't set to make bank off of the vaccine, I think all of the cheap drugs that are out of patent and available would've been used.

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