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When Americans live in countries with those policies, many of them finally get it. You have to experience life outside the big bubble to understand. The hostility in America to those things is due to corporate propaganda.
I don't exactly agree with Bernie on taxes though.
Let's keep this discussion purely on policies and not start a flame war. This will be slightly long.
I'm a liberal and given most of the ideas Bernie Sanders put on the table during his campaign, I'm technically a progressive as I agree with most of his proposals. I've always had trouble understanding the other side and wanted to get some thoughts to better understand.
So let's start with what it means to be progressive: Progressivism is a philosophy based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancement in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to improve the human condition.
In hindsight, it makes complete sense, the more we know about something, the more we can put it to use to improve everyone's lives by creating opportunity which everyone has a fair shot at. Science is the key engine of this process and it bugs me that we don't invest more into scientific research and development. To start off I'll list some major policy areas that Bernie Sanders campaign was built upon and put in why I think it makes total sense.
Taxes: Tax the rich more and lower everyone else's taxes
Bernie's platform on taxes was essentially to reduce income inequality, raising taxes on the rich and reducing taxes on the middle class and poor as the richest of the richest earn their income via capital gains, and the rest earn their income via working. He gave some troubling statistics where the top 1% owns something like 30% of the wealth, and top 5% owns more than 60% of the wealth. The logic was, if it was true that if a rich person had a ton of capital, they would create a ton of jobs from the top down. Given various statistics among many others with factual evidence, this is not the case. A good one that Bernie pointed out is that even though America works longer hours and becomes more productive, incomes haven't been keeping up with the pace of productivity. Economists have long argued that to create a net increase in aggregate demand, most of the wealth needs to be in the middle class, the actual definition of what is middle class remains to be debated but a reasonable one is to assume 70% of the population, where the 15% is at the lower and top end of the scale. To fix this Bernie proposed a set of policies to help people of the middle and lower classes move up in the income ladder (Namely education, healthcare and equality).
Education: Free education at public institutions
A huge part of Bernie's platform was to make every single public college and university free for all students. The reason behind it is, there's a correlation between one's income and their education level. Generally, the higher one's education is, the higher their income is. To help the poor and middle class, making education free allows anyone to study and increases the pool of students who otherwise wouldn't be able to attend a school or would have to take on tons of debt. Once these students graduate, they will get a better job, be more competitive in the marketplace and also pay higher taxes compared to someone at the bottom of the income ladder. It's obviously worth the investment to pay for someone's education, then have the rest of their life to generate more taxes from their higher earnings.
Healthcare: Universal Healthcare
Another huge part of his platform was the complete overhaul of the healthcare system and make universal healthcare the defacto system. His argument was very simple, Americans pay more in healthcare per capita than every single other major industrialized country on earth. It makes sense to have a universal healthcare system because, since people do not have the same incomes, it hurts the people at the lower income levels than it does those at the higher income levels when they see the doctor and receive care. It's gotten so bad that people cannot even afford the insurance to even have at least some kind of protection.
Equality: Equality of pay for all Americans, civil rights, social justice regardless of background, sexual orientation, gender, religious faith.
Equality of pay for women, as statistics still show that women still get paid less than men for the same jobs. Reasoning behind this is, equality provides everyone an opportunity to make something for themselves and go up in the economic ladder. Discrimination of opportunities doesn't need factual evidence to back it up, it's inherently fair to not discriminate and a level playing field is pretty obvious for fairness to help the lower and middle classes improve themselves.
not a single anti liberal poster detailed an answer in reference to
taxes, free public education, universal healthcare, equal pay for all americans.
just spewed comments on these things are" too expensive"
(like things aren't "too expensive" now)...
Location: Just transplanted to FL from the N GA mountains
3,997 posts, read 4,143,759 times
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You list 4 platforms of the progressives..... And three of them just plain don't work...You could tax all the millionaires and billionaires in this country at 100% of their gross and it would not pay for education and health care. So where does that leave him..... the same as every other politician. Reaching in the pocket of the middle class....because he promised to write checks his ass couldn't cash. Business will be folding due to high taxes and if a business isn't in business to make money then what's the point? Business isn't there to give you a job...it's there to make money. You're just a cog in its gears. So where does that leave old Bernie's tax plan.... well.... doomed to failure just like the first two. You think it's bad now when 48% of our population doesn't pay any appreciable taxes. I'd guess the percentages would be close to 60% by the time Bernie got done with us....
The problem with progressives is they dream a nice dream....but they can't get their heads out of the clouds and down to reality enough to figure out how to pay for it...... Bernie seem to forget our looming debt, Social Security and Medicare problems, Security and Military Costs.... or is he just dare I say.... pandering for your votes.......
I'm just gonna say it OP: you're a goddamn idiot if you expect this conversation to be a productive one.
To your point, higher taxation of higher income earners does not (on it's own or exclusively) reduce income inequality, college should not be the only means to success, healthcare is a highly nuanced field, and equality is a meaningless ideal. While I only consider myself this because the options are usually worthlessly reduced to two choices, I am a liberal and I'm saying this. You NEED to be critical of your own point of view if you want it to be relevant. Because you made this post, it sounds like you may indeed want that.
For what it's worth, I don't like to label myself politically (like the typical millennial piece of **** I am ). But, I will try to define my principles for you. To keep it short, I believe that people should be free to make their own choices economically and socially and that all forms of authority should be questioned and subject to public oversight. As such, any restriction of freedom of speech (which includes voting) is an act of pure evil (if you think there are classes of people who can't vote, including felons [reasonably not including children... age limits on voting are valid] I believe you should be killed; not by me, obviously, but the right to vote is essential and necessary for freedom and any restriction is by nature radically authoritarian), any violation of basic rights, and any form of severe elitism is wrong. Economically, I believe is it the most moral to incentives less inequality, but believe that the only sustainable way is not through decrees of powerful central government, but by rational incentives. Again, you're not looking for "liberals" and in most relevant senses, I am one, but I'd be willing to discuss more than the average person on this forum who just wants to call you a communist for thinking you shouldn't have to go into debt to avoid getting sick.
You list 4 platforms of the progressives..... And three of them just plain don't work...You could tax all the millionaires and billionaires in this country at 100% of their gross and it would not pay for education and health care. So where does that leave him..... the same as every other politician. Reaching in the pocket of the middle class....because he promised to write checks his ass couldn't cash. Business will be folding due to high taxes and if a business isn't in business to make money then what's the point? Business isn't there to give you a job...it's there to make money. You're just a cog in its gears. So where does that leave old Bernie's tax plan.... well.... doomed to failure just like the first two. You think it's bad now when 48% of our population doesn't pay any appreciable taxes. I'd guess the percentages would be close to 60% by the time Bernie got done with us....
The problem with progressives is they dream a nice dream....but they can't get their heads out of the clouds and down to reality enough to figure out how to pay for it...... Bernie seem to forget our looming debt, Social Security and Medicare problems, Security and Military Costs.... or is he just dare I say.... pandering for your votes.......
That's like saying, every industrialized country other than us is failing horribly because it doesn't work. Somehow their country works just fine and their citizens are happier. Isn't this enough evidence?
You are a Social Democrat, like a European. Problem is that no one/group has the right to forcibly take from another person's work. Read Animal Farm.
Then you don't believe in economies.
John Locke, the founder of classical liberalism, said that people can own other people, more or less, by saying they can sell their labor. Meaning if I work on your farm, all the work I did is your work. Not mine. I'm paid whatever we agree on, which realistically favors your opinion more as you own the farm and I do not. While we agreed, what happens when you own all of the farms in my area? Or you and a few of your friends own all of them. Hell, even if you and your friends only own most, the small time farmers can only afford so many workers and I cannot be guaranteed a job. I may have to work for a person who is less concerned for my well being. You can argue this isn't technically not by force, but at the same time, where's the choice? I can starve or work for less than I may be reasonably entitled to.
Education, if it were free, still gives you the choice to attend or not. How is this "forced" outcomes? No one is telling you to MUST go to school.
Free education is not really free. It's very expensive when subsidized and will end up almost useless just like a HS diploma is. And you'll still have dolts being admitted to competitive majors and in lieu of another then hired because of their identity group. So all you'll end up with is an expensive and useless education and underemployment unless the progressives decide to favor your identity and consider you extra-special.
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). But, I will try to define my principles for you. To keep it short, I believe that people should be free to make their own choices economically and socially and that all forms of authority should be questioned and subject to public oversight. As such, any restriction of freedom of speech (which includes voting) is an act of pure evil (if you think there are classes of people who can't vote, including felons [reasonably not including children... age limits on voting are valid] I believe you should be killed; not by me, obviously, but the right to vote is essential and necessary for freedom and any restriction is by nature radically authoritarian), any violation of basic rights, and any form of severe elitism is wrong. Economically, I believe is it the most moral to incentives less inequality, but believe that the only sustainable way is not through decrees of powerful central government, but by rational incentives. Again, you're not looking for "liberals" and in most relevant senses, I am one, but I'd be willing to discuss more than the average person on this forum who just wants to call you a communist for thinking you shouldn't have to go into debt to avoid getting sick.
