Bernie Sanders will ruin America!!!!

SFBsocialism is complete shit, my boy rands got the right idea.

louie.miragsI feels ya for sure. What I am most afraid is that fast forward 5 years and we're still at an endless foreign war with no end in sight. Trillions of dollars later, countless murdered lives (American or not idc) and not much change.

slugworthIf that's your main concern maybe you should be voting for Sanders. Pretty clear where he stands on the issues you're concerned about.

S.J.WBased on reality??? So if single payer health care systems are so bad and cost every government so much money, then how come America is only the only government in the world to not have universal health care?

louie.miragsBernie Sanders endorses Obama’s decision to keep troops in Afghanistan -https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/19/sand-o19.html plus many more sources via a google search

"Sanders is in no sense an “antiwar” candidate. He uses demagogic condemnations of “millionaires and billionaires” and the growth of social inequality to appeal to working people and young people who are deeply opposed to American militarism, but only to divert their attention from the growing danger of the imperialist war. His support for the policy of the ruling class abroad exposes his pretense of opposing the policy of this same ruling class within the United States."

CampeadorYou would perhaps understand if you had taken the time to read the article about Vermont's futile attempt at establishing a single-payer system. You may also want to look into all the bankrupt health co-ops.

Also, I'm fairly certain that the U.S. is not the only government in the world that does not provide single-payer health care, careful with your hyperboles there chief.

And I'm still absolutely perplexed why an Australian cares so deeply about whether or not U.S. citizens (and illegal immigrants according to the dems) have single-payer health care. It really is a religion for you.

slugworthAlso, don't forget who got us in the middle east first. Who do you think is more likely to continue waging war abroad? A Bush or a Sanders?

CampeadorYou would perhaps understand if you had taken the time to read the article about Vermont's futile attempt at establishing a single-payer system. You may also want to look into all the bankrupt health co-ops.

Also, I'm fairly certain that the U.S. is not the only government in the world that does not provide single-payer health care, careful with your hyperboles there chief.

And I'm still absolutely perplexed why an Australian cares so deeply about whether or not U.S. citizens (and illegal immigrants according to the dems) have single-payer health care. It really is a religion for you.

S.J.WYou can bring up Vermont all you want as ONE example of it failing. (basically because it wasn't thought out enough), how about all the times that universal health care has helped people? In every other developed country in the world.

slugworthThis is all bulllllshit

CampeadorYes I'm sure that's the only reason. And actually I provided other examples of it's failures, but that was just the most obvious. Europe's systems are all under stress and headed towards insolvency. We'll see how great they are then, but I'm sure it'll just be a question of not being thought out enough.

You seem to be sadly bereft of any kind of meaningful activity, you do spend an excessive amount of time on here spewing your socialist nonsense. Maybe that's why you want other people to foot your bills.

louie.mirags"it would be a useful exercise for nonlibertarians to ponder this question: How can you define taxation in a way which makes it different from robbery?" - Murray Rothbard

louie.mirags"it would be a useful exercise for nonlibertarians to ponder this question: How can you define taxation in a way which makes it different from robbery?" - Murray Rothbard

S.J.W"man those are some nice roads"-SJW

louie.miragsthat roads can be built and maintained with voluntary exchanges. The question was to define taxation which makes it different than robbery.

.MASSHOLE.http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9565119/democrats-in-deep-trouble

Interesting look at the current state of affairs below the Presidential level.

Granite_StateMy favorite part of this article:

"Republicans have unified control of 25 states. Along with the usual set of tax cuts for high-income individuals and business-friendly regulations, the result has been:

An unprecedented wave of restrictions on abortion rights

The spread of union-hostile "right to work" laws into the Great Lakes states

New curbs on voting rights, to further tilt the electorate in a richer, whiter, older direction

Large-scale layoffs of teachers and other public sector workers who are likely to support Democrats"

Ah, conservatives, you are so just. I want to help fuck the country up just like you!

louie.mirags"it would be a useful exercise for nonlibertarians to ponder this question: How can you define taxation in a way which makes it different from robbery?" - Murray Rothbard

californiagrownIt's called being an accepting party to a social contract. It's not robbery if you knowingly signed up for it... Which you did... When you chose to work in the united States.

louie.miragsThis is the only contract that you're forced to sign up for and they will lock you up if you do not abide. They are the only body allowed to use violence to get what they want - whether you agree or not.

ThaLoraxI get a lot of their points. I don't agree with nearly any of them, but I understand where the ideas come from.

There's 3 things I really don't understand about how the majority of republicans take their positions (feel free to explain if you understand them):
1. The Unions were started by the democrats back when the democrats had republican ideologies (i.e. before the party switch). It's like their rebelling against their own hard work (pun intended).
2. Why they think all these teacher/public sector layoffs and denial of raises are good for our country. They complain about unemployment rates, unemployment benefits, and unions, but they lay people off like it's their job to do so. These people are the foundation of our country and keep the country's gears lubed and turning.
3. The majority of republicans are blue collar workers yet they support candidates who pass tax laws that support the 1%. I don't understand how they can voluntarily stand behind policies that benefit the rich and powerful while getting thrown to the curb by the very people they vote for. It's like republicans are a bunch of masochists and love to hurt themselves by being unwilling to take off their blinders. Voting for the rich republicans does not help the rest of the 99% of republicans.

I don't even like or agree with most democrats. I'm more of a liberal independent, but goddamn it's painful watching the republicans repeatedly screw themselves over in the eyes of the world and then go back for seconds.

Fuck it, vote Oligarchy 2016.

ThaLoraxI get a lot of their points. I don't agree with nearly any of them, but I understand where the ideas come from.

There's 3 things I really don't understand about how the majority of republicans take their positions (feel free to explain if you understand them):
1. The Unions were started by the democrats back when the democrats had republican ideologies (i.e. before the party switch). It's like their rebelling against their own hard work (pun intended).
2. Why they think all these teacher/public sector layoffs and denial of raises are good for our country. They complain about unemployment rates, unemployment benefits, and unions, but they lay people off like it's their job to do so. These people are the foundation of our country and keep the country's gears lubed and turning.
3. The majority of republicans are blue collar workers yet they support candidates who pass tax laws that support the 1%. I don't understand how they can voluntarily stand behind policies that benefit the rich and powerful while getting thrown to the curb by the very people they vote for. It's like republicans are a bunch of masochists and love to hurt themselves by being unwilling to take off their blinders. Voting for the rich republicans does not help the rest of the 99% of republicans.

I don't even like or agree with most democrats. I'm more of a liberal independent, but goddamn it's painful watching the republicans repeatedly screw themselves over in the eyes of the world and then go back for seconds.

Fuck it, vote Oligarchy 2016.

californiagrownYou aren't forced to sign it haha. Go live somewhere else. America isn't keeping you here.

louie.miragsHave you not studied how our country was founded? They were unhappy with the ways things were so they stood up against the government. They warned us about the same shit our government is doing right now.

californiagrownThere absolutely is representation nowadays.

Do YOU not know how and why our country was founded?

Granite_StateI mean not a whole lot. Do you know how many laws are passed that the majority of citizens don't even know about?

.MASSHOLE.We are a democratic republic, not a direct democracy. The people elected are supposed to make the decisions they feel are in the best interests of their constituents. It is up to the constituents to be informed and inform their representatives of their opinion or stances on issues.

.MASSHOLE.We are a democratic republic

.MASSHOLE.We are a democratic republic, not a direct democracy. The people elected are supposed to make the decisions they feel are in the best interests of their constituents. It is up to the constituents to be informed and inform their representatives of their opinion or stances on issues.

Granite_StateI understand that. I guess I feel the citizens best interest aren't at heart. The majority of the U.S. is incredibly uninformed. I doubt the common man can make sense of the legal conjecture used in writting bills. Plus there are thousands of bills proposed and passed every year, far more than the average citizen can keep track and make sense of. But I guess thats just more of my frustration with the system anyways. It really doesn't take the average citizen at heart but more of the people with the most money and therefore most influence aka corporations. But thats pretty obvious anyways.

.MASSHOLE.The people elected are supposed to make the decisions they feel are in the best interests of their constituents.

louie.miragsThe Iraq war is sometimes portrayed as a conservative/liberal issue. It isn't. Supporters of war and empire come from both political parties and can be found among both liberals and conservatives. The "liberal media" supported the Iraq war with enthusiasm, and in their eagerness to parrot the official line abandoned whatever critical faculties they possessed. The american media were so derelict in their duty during the Iraq war that one watchdog group actually offered a $1,000 reward for any reporter who would ask the administration a challenging question about prewar intelligence. Hillary Clinton was a strong supporter of the war. Following the off-year election in 2006, congressional Democrats, for the most part, revealed themselves once again to be a sorry excuse for an opposition party, continuing to fund the war and refusing to take any bold action.

-Ron Paul in the book, The Revolution.

KravtZEasy how people forget what the USA was like around 9/11/2001. Most people were very much for War at the time. Look at what happened to that area of the world when Obama pulled out most of the troops. It went to 10000X worse than before we started. Now we have a bigger issue on our hands. Its a massively important area of the world in terms of resources and bottom line we can't let ISIS/Al Qaeda , etc take control of it.

KravtZEasy how people forget what the USA was like around 9/11/2001. Most people were very much for War at the time. Look at what happened to that area of the world when Obama pulled out most of the troops. It went to 10000X worse than before we started. Now we have a bigger issue on our hands. Its a massively important area of the world in terms of resources and bottom line we can't let ISIS/Al Qaeda , etc take control of it.

louie.miragsWhen it comes to suicide bombing, I, like many others, always assumed that the driving force behind the practice was Islamic Fundamentalism. Promise of instant entry into paradise as a reward for killing infidels was said to explain the suicides. The world's expert on suicide terrorism convinced me to rethink this apparently plausible answer...
The clincher is this: the strongest motivation, according to Pape, is not religion but rather a desire "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorist view as their homeland." Between 1995 and 2004, the al Qaeda years, two-thirds of all attacks came from countries where the United States, had troops stationed. While al Qaeda terrorist are twice as likely to hail from a country with a strong Wahhabist (radical Islamic) presence, they are ten times as likely to come from a country in which U.S. troops are stationed. Until the U.S. invasion in 2003, Iraw had never had a suicide terrorist attack in its entire history. Between 1982 and 1986, there were 41 suicide terrorist attacks in Lebanon. Once the U.S., France, and Israel withdrew their forces from Lebanon, there were no more attacks. The reason the attacks stop, according to Pape, is that the Osama Bin Landens of the world can no longer inspire potential suicide terrorist, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Pape is convinced after extensive research that the longer and more extensive the occupation of Muslim territories, the greater the chance of more 9/11 type-attacks on the United States.

-Ron Paul in the book, The Revolution

louie.miragsWhen it comes to suicide bombing, I, like many others, always assumed that the driving force behind the practice was Islamic Fundamentalism. Promise of instant entry into paradise as a reward for killing infidels was said to explain the suicides. The world's expert on suicide terrorism convinced me to rethink this apparently plausible answer...
The clincher is this: the strongest motivation, according to Pape, is not religion but rather a desire "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorist view as their homeland." Between 1995 and 2004, the al Qaeda years, two-thirds of all attacks came from countries where the United States, had troops stationed. While al Qaeda terrorist are twice as likely to hail from a country with a strong Wahhabist (radical Islamic) presence, they are ten times as likely to come from a country in which U.S. troops are stationed. Until the U.S. invasion in 2003, Iraw had never had a suicide terrorist attack in its entire history. Between 1982 and 1986, there were 41 suicide terrorist attacks in Lebanon. Once the U.S., France, and Israel withdrew their forces from Lebanon, there were no more attacks. The reason the attacks stop, according to Pape, is that the Osama Bin Landens of the world can no longer inspire potential suicide terrorist, regardless of their religious beliefs.
Pape is convinced after extensive research that the longer and more extensive the occupation of Muslim territories, the greater the chance of more 9/11 type-attacks on the United States.

-Ron Paul in the book, The Revolution

californiagrownHuh? That doesn't address why suicide attacks increased... It addresses why attacks in general increased.


IMO suicide attacks became popular because it is one helluva lot easier to pull of off than leaving a bomb in a strategic location at a strategic time, and because in many communities the bombers gained small measures of fame.

louie.miragsyou are right. He is explaining why there are so many more attacks and not just the reason why they choose suicide. Suicide bombs happen to be their chosen method. Our government would like you to believe that they do it for Religious reasons and the quote I shared shows that is not the case.


I would like to share so many more passages but it would be easier if everyone would just pick up their own copy of The Revolution, by Ron Paul.

californiagrownThere are religous reasons that it is acceptable though. If martyrdom wasn't such a prevalant thought in the Islam of certain places, suicide bombings would be unacceptable and the perpetrators would be shamed instead of celebrated.

I think the folks brainwashing people to carry out the attacks do it for strategic reasons, but many of the perpetrators do it for religious reasons.

louie.miragsTheir chosen method for attack does not change the correlation between the attacks and the American presence in that area. That is the point. What you think verses what Pape, a University of Chicago professor who conducted the studies reports, is not relevant.

"The University of Chicago's Robert Pape, for his book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, collected a database of all 462 suicide terrorist attacks between 1980 and 2004. One thing he found was that religious beliefs were less important as motivating factors than we believed. The world's leaders in suicide terrorism are actually the Tamil tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist secular group. The largest Islamic fundamentalist countries have not been responsible for any suicide terrorist attacks. Not one has come from Iran or Sudan"

"Although most Americans don't know it, for much of the early twentieth century our country had an excellent reputation in the Middle East, the part of the world we are now told will hate us no matter what we do. Right now, after decades of meddling, our government is hated in the Middle East and around the world to a degree I have never before seen in my lifetime. That does not make us safer"

-Ron Paul in the book, The Revolution

californiagrownAnd do you know why we are involved in the middle East? Oil. Oil and energy control the world economy. If we are not major players in shaping the oil and energy economy, our economy takes a huge hit.

Safety is really the reason you think we should piss off from the mid East? I'm safe as fuck here in America man haha. Idk why you feel so unsafe?

louie.miragsYes, I have been preaching that for years, man. You are agreeing with me by saying that, not disagreeing. The propaganda machine attempts to play the terrorist card and say we are in the Middle East to make us safer, to stop the terrorist attacks etc. They also try to play the humanitarian card saying we have to play the world's police etc. The overall point being is they attack our troops because we are on their land. We should not be in war thousands of miles from our country. This is what our founding fathers warned us against.

And this is all relevant to this thread because Bernie and Hillary have been backing Obama with his recent decisions regarding the Middle East and how we're handling it.

californiagrownI agree its about oil, but my agreement stops there.

Its not ONLY about oil. We are also trying to make the lives of Arab a Persian people better in the long-run by deposing dictators, sharia law, etc. We are trying to do good things. We act with one eye on our money and one eye on humanitarianism



We do have to be the world's police. If we don't, who will step in? Not Russia. Not china. Not the toothless UN. WHO? We have the means and ability to effect positive change for others as well as ourselves. Sometimes our plan doesn't go to plan, that's reality. Doesn't mean we should stop trying!

louie.miragsDisagree. The goal of our government needs to go back to protecting our Natural rights and not meddling in the world's affairs and all of our daily affairs. The government has our population convinced we need them to do our daily task but we do not. Again, our founding fathers warned us against this. Us sticking our noses into foreign affairs is what is causing a lot of our major problems today. From us murdering civilians to our debt crisis. A lot of the debt is from these wars. They want you to think that they are chasing away these dictators for the country's benefit. But that is a mistake. If it was helpful, why would these countries have groups fighting us away????

We do not need to be the world's police. That breeds hate toward us is what I am getting at.

californiagrownThe founding Fathers were not talking about a 21st century international empire, so please stop with the "but the founding Fathers said" BS. The economy we have is so far beyond ANY of their comprehension at that time.

louie.mirags"The object of classical liberals (libertarians) was to bring about individual liberty in all of its interrelated aspects. In this economy, taxes were to be drastically reduced, controls and regulations eliminated, and human energy, enterprise, and markets set free to create and produce in exchanges that would benefit everyone and the mass of consumers. Entrepreneurs were to be free at last to compete, to develop, to create. The shackles of control were to be lifted from land, labor, and capital alike. Personal freedom and civil liberty were to be guaranteed against the depredations of tyranny of the king or his minions."


"Thus, America, above all countries, was born in an explicitly libertarian revolution, a revolution against empire; against taxation, trade monopoly, and regulation; and against militarism and executive power. The revolution resulted in governments unprecedented in restrictions placed of their power" - Rothbard


tl;dr Looking back to what our Founding Fathers had in mind for America is important. Ever heard the cliche, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."? Our founding fathers had a greater outlook on the future than you think.

As a country we have drifted too far from our roots and it is time to correct it.

onenerdykidBut the founding fathers were far from infallible (alliteration score +5 points), and while they had some good points (most of which was a simple re-hashing of what other political philosophers already have said) the notion that we should be against trade monopolies and against regulation is a blatant contradiction.

Since the Industrial Revolution, we have been repeatedly shown that a completely free (meaning unregulated) economy will take advantage of people & the environment for monetary gain any legal way that is available. And if no regulation is in place, then they will trample whomever & whatever they want in order to increase their profits. They have shown us that if greedy people are able to get away with something, they will do it and this is precisely what will happen in an unregulated economy. These people aren't motivated by the good/ethical/moral/the just but instead by pure greed and their actions demonstrate it. Removing restrictions from such businesses will only further complicate our economic, humanitarian, and environmental problems.

If we are concerned with learning from history, then history has shown us that when given the chance greedy powerful people will not act in the interest of the common good. They act for their own good and that's it.

louie.miragsRight now our government is the greedy business that will "trample whomever & whatever they want in order to increase their profits". The government is the "people [that] aren't motivated by the good/ethical/moral/the just but instead by pure greed and their actions demonstrate it."

The government is what needs to be regulated.