You're probably the only person in here who knows I was being facetious without having to use the green font goop. But, to answer your question, no, I don't speak Portuguese, but our extended family is planning to take a nice long trip there within the next year. My Niece's boyfriend is from there, so we'll have a great tour guide.
So he's still posting here? Been awhile since I have seen any of his posts.
Was the part about comparing Rastapopoulos to cup a personal attack intended to insult because it sure looks like it?Heh. It's kinda fun to watch you in action. You're kinda like a Cup-lite.
At any rate, sorry to hit your funny bone with the communist references. Certainly didn't mean to tickle your sabers.
Well, yeah, while Bernie's most likely not a communist in the pure sense, he's certainly a lot more left-leaning that your every day American Democrat. So much so, I believe the party leaders will be doing all they can to keep him from becoming the nominee. Shoot, even Bill Clinton's guy, James Carville, calls him an ideologue. Funny stuff....
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/politics/bernie-sanders-james-carville-criticism/index.html
No. Just no. The kind of "class war" anybody but a very tiny number of people actually talk about in the US is just "increase the taxes on the rich". It's not literal "storm the gated communities and put them to the sword". If Bernie was really a communist he wouldn't be part of the American system of government. And even if he was a deep cover communist, he would have zero chance of getting the other two branches of government to comply in ripping up the constitution. He doesn't even advocate a dictatorship of the proletariat while the state withers away, for God's sake. Bernie is what we in the political theory world refer to as a liberal, in that, like Locke and Mill, he sees the individual as the basic unit of value, and individual rights as paramount. As such he is not a Communist. He's a self-styled democratic socialist, and the "democracy" part is the tell - you don't need democracy if you speak with the voice of the people as one unit.
Or he's just smart and realizes he can't jump in and do it all at once. Communism's long term goal is international, but does that mean there are no communists since we don't have one world order yet... So many of Bernie types say how amazing he'll be for international relationships so yeah some of the goals of his fans are international.
Thus proving that there really are no good candidates. Again.
I am kind of messing with you by the way. Though I think there is a lot of changing of the meaning of words and labels to get what we want to sound good going on and I think while he's not a straight-up commie like say @barfo heh. His ideologies do in fact lean that direction on the political spectrum, and it's only this kind of "American" thing where communism is a bad word that has caused politicians to flee from that label at all costs. We're arguing different things though, you're arguments are look there are differences between him and a communist (in the traditional political definition) - which I would grant you that there are differences. I am arguing that his political leanings do in fact come way closer to the edge of communism than most. Without the negative stigma's around the word communism, I think his fans would be more ok with that, instead of trying to point out each and every way he isn't a "true communist", it's all politics. If culturally the word communism didn't have the negativity surrounding it, most of his supporters wouldn't have an issue with the word being used.
The very term "big government" is a Reagan-era, Ayn Rand-influenced invention. No president seriously doesn't agree with the power of the presidency. Trump is using it more than any president in decades and decades. Bernie is perfectly right that the right is AT LEAST as "socialist" as the left in terms of "government intervening", it's just that it's in favor of agribusiness and big business generally. There is no genuine "small government" party except the actual Libertarian party, and you can see how popular they are. The Tea Party was SUPPOSED to be that, but as actual True Believes like Justin Amash keep pointing out - it turns out they were just waiting for an authoritarian they liked.
Himself. So: shit.
Have you no sense of humor, man?
It's not too late to get in the race!
Actually its too early Im not old enough.
You’re really good at circling around the argument and running off to the topics you want to talk about. Is Bernie way closer to communism than you guys want to admit? Yup. But you’ll just tell me that you grew up in England so therefore your opinion on big government and Socialism and all that is what matters. The origin of the phrase of big government is just about as important as the origin of the word communism, as in not relevant. Wherever it came from we know what it means now or at least means to us.
No. A Matter of Perspective and a matter of reality are not always the same thing. If there is a line and the extreme is purple and the other extreme is green, the green may look at someone in between and say you're closer to purple then I am, that's perspective, but that's not the argument. However, if we are all on this line between purple and green and you are leaning one way or another the perspective doesn't really matter. You're either Purple or Green in the middle or closer to one then the other. Even with a matter of perspective in mind, The purple and green can see who is closer to their point in space and who isn't.
I didn't say he was a communist though, I said his political leanings make him closer to that then other candidates, but Bernie people can't seem to admit that, and I also noted that communism believes itself to be the truest form of socialism.
