Author Topic: 2020 POTUS Candidates  (Read 369241 times)

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2300 on: February 26, 2020, 12:41:36 PM »
I was thinking about Sanders this morning and listening to CNN commentators about him, and I had some thoughts. Several compared Sanders to Trump and commented about the positive aspects of this - him standing toe to toe with Trump on debate stage, being equally forceful, and all that jazz. There's probably some validity to that, but I think it's exposing some serious flaws with Sanders. Look, it's easy to be the guy who talks really loud or forceful, never backs down, and so on. We all probably know that guy. But do you really like that guy? Being that guy was one of the first things that made me dislike Trump the candidate before his policies really came out. Sanders has been in politics for a long while being the voice that never changes (and often isn't really concerned with the details). Consistency can be good, but he's got away with a lot of crap because he's never been the frontrunner before. Well now, guess what buddy. You're the front runner. You can't say stuff like in interviews like we can't nickel and dime things as a way to put off a legitimate question and actually tell the world in the interview  how many trillions or tens of trillions or dollars your plans will cost.

Then there's the Cuba stuff from Cooper's interview. I'm sure to many liberals it's not a big deal. I was trying to think of an analogy as to why this is beyond just a misused sound bite, and I came up with it this morning. His statements reminds me a lot of Trump's statements in Charlottesville. There's good people on both sides. Well, sure, the neo-nazis protesting probably do some good things. They probably look after their ailing grandmother or donate money to cancer research or whatnot. But when you're the president or reasonably close to being one, you can't say that. And it's more than just it looks bad. Cuba's regime was evil and not just evil but evil in a way that is very applicable to a government - they were authoritarian - the overall most evil goverment type there is. Bernie took some dumb or naive perspectives back in the day. Instead of taking a step back now and saying, look, this government which imprisoned/killed dissidents is bad full stop, he said, oh i condemn the killing but at least they now can read better...amirite? He doubled down. It just screams Trump to me, and again, he no longer has the luxury of being just a voice of his socialist perspectives. He's running for president. Of course, I may be totally wrong. This may be where all US politics is leading and it may not matter. But it should.

Trump says things: Sanders says things. Therefor they are basically the same.

Great political analysis there.

Two sentence analysis of my point. Great commentary analysis there. You should win a Pulitzer. Care to actually comment on the similarities that I pointed out, or would you prefer to sound witty?

YttriumNitrate

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2301 on: February 26, 2020, 12:48:10 PM »
Then there's the Cuba stuff from Cooper's interview. I'm sure to many liberals it's not a big deal. ... But when you're the president or reasonably close to being one, you can't say that. And it's more than just it looks bad. Cuba's regime was evil and not just evil but evil in a way that is very applicable to a government - they were authoritarian - the overall most evil goverment type there is. Bernie took some dumb or naive perspectives back in the day. Instead of taking a step back now and saying, look, this government which imprisoned/killed dissidents is bad full stop, he said, oh i condemn the killing but at least they now can read better...amirite?

Unfortunately for Sanders, while "the Cuba stuff ... to many liberals it's not a big deal" those who care about it are highly concentrated in a swing state. If Sander loses Florida, Trump could lose Ohio and Michigan and still win reelection.

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2302 on: February 26, 2020, 12:51:41 PM »
Quote
Cuba's regime was evil and not just evil but evil in a way that is very applicable to a government - they were authoritarian - the overall most evil goverment type there is. Bernie took some dumb or naive perspectives back in the day. Instead of taking a step back now and saying, look, this government which imprisoned/killed dissidents is bad full stop, he said, oh i condemn the killing but at least they now can read better...amirite? He doubled down.

This is an interesting perspective, and I wonder if you apply it equally to the USA? Is the USA "bad full stop" because of all the awful shit the government has done, including all the killing and imprisonment of innocent people?

I find no problem in separating out the good and effective things the US government has done in serving its population from the terrible things it has done. I can do the same with Cuba.

All governments do bad things. The point I was trying to make is Cuba goverment is a bad thing because they are authoritarian. They took over with violent force and violently with lethal force suppressed opposition to their government. That is an unpardonable offense for a government because it is an inherent flaw of them as a government. There's not really room for debate there. That's why it reminded me of the Charlottesville thing. Trump was like Oh, there's good guys on both sides. His supporters were like, well, there are, these people are supporting a point of view, but they have lives and kids and do some good things and whatnot. That was missing the point, though. These people were supporting something so abhorrent that even if they did other good things, that's missing the point entirely. They were representing something evil and should be unilaterally condemned. The parallel is that Sanders is making exactly the same mistake but on the opposite end of the political spectrum. The Cuban government is representing pure evil in how they took and held power. Just because they're liberal in their policies and not conservative shouldn't matter. But it's seeming more and more to me that Sanders and Trump are cut from a similar cloth in how they want to act/react which ties into how they will govern. It's a legitimate problem.

EvenSteven

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2303 on: February 26, 2020, 01:02:29 PM »
Quote
They took over with violent force and violently with lethal force suppressed opposition to their government. That is an unpardonable offense for a government because it is an inherent flaw of them as a government.

So did the US. Why is it OK when the US does it, but pure evil when Cuba does it?




GuitarStv

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2304 on: February 26, 2020, 01:13:48 PM »
Quote
Cuba's regime was evil and not just evil but evil in a way that is very applicable to a government - they were authoritarian - the overall most evil goverment type there is. Bernie took some dumb or naive perspectives back in the day. Instead of taking a step back now and saying, look, this government which imprisoned/killed dissidents is bad full stop, he said, oh i condemn the killing but at least they now can read better...amirite? He doubled down.

This is an interesting perspective, and I wonder if you apply it equally to the USA? Is the USA "bad full stop" because of all the awful shit the government has done, including all the killing and imprisonment of innocent people?

I find no problem in separating out the good and effective things the US government has done in serving its population from the terrible things it has done. I can do the same with Cuba.

All governments do bad things. The point I was trying to make is Cuba goverment is a bad thing because they are authoritarian. They took over with violent force and violently with lethal force suppressed opposition to their government. That is an unpardonable offense for a government because it is an inherent flaw of them as a government. There's not really room for debate there. That's why it reminded me of the Charlottesville thing. Trump was like Oh, there's good guys on both sides. His supporters were like, well, there are, these people are supporting a point of view, but they have lives and kids and do some good things and whatnot. That was missing the point, though. These people were supporting something so abhorrent that even if they did other good things, that's missing the point entirely. They were representing something evil and should be unilaterally condemned. The parallel is that Sanders is making exactly the same mistake but on the opposite end of the political spectrum. The Cuban government is representing pure evil in how they took and held power. Just because they're liberal in their policies and not conservative shouldn't matter. But it's seeming more and more to me that Sanders and Trump are cut from a similar cloth in how they want to act/react which ties into how they will govern. It's a legitimate problem.

Look man, I don't think too many folks are going to argue that Cuba was a paradise of freedom . . . but your comments here seem a bit hyperbolic.  A lot of folks were killed by the government in Cuba - agreed.  This is terrible - agreed.  But you can't ignore the good that happened in the country as well.  For example, how many people were saved by the very efficient public health care that Castro implemented?  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/

Again, I'm not saying that Cuba is or was the greatest place, or that I prefer the government of Cuba to a less authoritarian one.  I do think a reasonable argument can be made that a greed driven government that doesn't provide the basic human right of health care to it's citizens is also guilty of an unpardonable offense.

bacchi

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2305 on: February 26, 2020, 01:17:40 PM »
Quote
They took over with violent force and violently with lethal force suppressed opposition to their government. That is an unpardonable offense for a government because it is an inherent flaw of them as a government.

So did the US. Why is it OK when the US does it, but pure evil when Cuba does it?

Yeah, there's some glossing over of history here.

Castro took power from Batista, who had seized power in 1952 in a coup after failing to win the Presidential election against a civil liberties focused, and popularly elected, Prió. Batista wasn't a boy scout. He suspended the Constitution, for one thing, and then sold out Cuban interests to American corporations. It's no wonder that Castro was so anti-American.


Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2306 on: February 26, 2020, 01:26:06 PM »
Quote
They took over with violent force and violently with lethal force suppressed opposition to their government. That is an unpardonable offense for a government because it is an inherent flaw of them as a government.

So did the US. Why is it OK when the US does it, but pure evil when Cuba does it?

The U.S. ended up with a democracy (albeit a flawed one). Please explain to me the equivalency of the U.S. fighting a war against England ending up in a democracy (albeit a flawed one) with what happened in Cuba during and for years after the revolution.

cliffhanger

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2307 on: February 26, 2020, 01:28:14 PM »

Look man, I don't think too many folks are going to argue that Cuba was a paradise of freedom . . . but your comments here seem a bit hyperbolic.  A lot of folks were killed by the government in Cuba - agreed.  This is terrible - agreed.  But you can't ignore the good that happened in the country as well.  For example, how many people were saved by the very efficient public health care that Castro implemented?  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/

Again, I'm not saying that Cuba is or was the greatest place, or that I prefer the government of Cuba to a less authoritarian one.  I do think a reasonable argument can be made that a greed driven government that doesn't provide the basic human right of health care to it's citizens is also guilty of an unpardonable offense.

I'm not sure that your post is in line with the link provided. Care to expand on your reasoning?

Quote
Trudeau appears to accept outdated Cuban government spin as current fact. The reality is that education and health care were already relatively vibrant in Cuba before the revolution, compared with other Latin American countries. While the Castro regime has not let that slip — and given greater access to the poor — it is a stretch to claim Castro was responsible for “significant improvements,” especially more recently.

Many other Latin American countries made far more dramatic strides in the past six decades, without the need for a communist dictatorship; Cuba simply had a head start when Castro seized power.

Moreover, the focus on health care and education should not detract from the fact that overall living standards, as measured by gross domestic product, calorie consumption and other measures, have declined significantly under communist rule. Without big handouts from first the Soviet Union and then Venezuela, the economic picture would be even worse.

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2308 on: February 26, 2020, 01:31:15 PM »
Quote
Cuba's regime was evil and not just evil but evil in a way that is very applicable to a government - they were authoritarian - the overall most evil goverment type there is. Bernie took some dumb or naive perspectives back in the day. Instead of taking a step back now and saying, look, this government which imprisoned/killed dissidents is bad full stop, he said, oh i condemn the killing but at least they now can read better...amirite? He doubled down.

This is an interesting perspective, and I wonder if you apply it equally to the USA? Is the USA "bad full stop" because of all the awful shit the government has done, including all the killing and imprisonment of innocent people?

I find no problem in separating out the good and effective things the US government has done in serving its population from the terrible things it has done. I can do the same with Cuba.

All governments do bad things. The point I was trying to make is Cuba goverment is a bad thing because they are authoritarian. They took over with violent force and violently with lethal force suppressed opposition to their government. That is an unpardonable offense for a government because it is an inherent flaw of them as a government. There's not really room for debate there. That's why it reminded me of the Charlottesville thing. Trump was like Oh, there's good guys on both sides. His supporters were like, well, there are, these people are supporting a point of view, but they have lives and kids and do some good things and whatnot. That was missing the point, though. These people were supporting something so abhorrent that even if they did other good things, that's missing the point entirely. They were representing something evil and should be unilaterally condemned. The parallel is that Sanders is making exactly the same mistake but on the opposite end of the political spectrum. The Cuban government is representing pure evil in how they took and held power. Just because they're liberal in their policies and not conservative shouldn't matter. But it's seeming more and more to me that Sanders and Trump are cut from a similar cloth in how they want to act/react which ties into how they will govern. It's a legitimate problem.

Look man, I don't think too many folks are going to argue that Cuba was a paradise of freedom . . . but your comments here seem a bit hyperbolic.  A lot of folks were killed by the government in Cuba - agreed.  This is terrible - agreed.  But you can't ignore the good that happened in the country as well.  For example, how many people were saved by the very efficient public health care that Castro implemented?  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/

Again, I'm not saying that Cuba is or was the greatest place, or that I prefer the government of Cuba to a less authoritarian one.  I do think a reasonable argument can be made that a greed driven government that doesn't provide the basic human right of health care to it's citizens is also guilty of an unpardonable offense.

Arguments can be made for or against government actions and their morality or immorality by rationale people. We do it here all the time. An authoritarian country that continued to execute hundreds or thousands of dissidents for decades after the "actual" revolution is inherently reprehensible. Are we really arguing that because Cuba has some decent healthcare that this is not a full stop condemnation kind of thing? I'm truly at a loss.

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2309 on: February 26, 2020, 01:32:58 PM »
Quote
They took over with violent force and violently with lethal force suppressed opposition to their government. That is an unpardonable offense for a government because it is an inherent flaw of them as a government.

So did the US. Why is it OK when the US does it, but pure evil when Cuba does it?

Yeah, there's some glossing over of history here.

Castro took power from Batista, who had seized power in 1952 in a coup after failing to win the Presidential election against a civil liberties focused, and popularly elected, Prió. Batista wasn't a boy scout. He suspended the Constitution, for one thing, and then sold out Cuban interests to American corporations. It's no wonder that Castro was so anti-American.

No, there's no glossing over of history. I'm talking about the fabric of a country and how it's run...how it exists. An authoritarian country that executes dissidents is rotten to the core. "Conservative" countries like the U.S. don't fit into that. Liberal countries like Denmark don't fit into that. Authoritarian countries fit into that.

EvenSteven

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2310 on: February 26, 2020, 01:43:09 PM »
Quote
They took over with violent force and violently with lethal force suppressed opposition to their government. That is an unpardonable offense for a government because it is an inherent flaw of them as a government.

So did the US. Why is it OK when the US does it, but pure evil when Cuba does it?

The U.S. ended up with a democracy (albeit a flawed one). Please explain to me the equivalency of the U.S. fighting a war against England ending up in a democracy (albeit a flawed one) with what happened in Cuba during and for years after the revolution.

There are similarities and differences between the US and Cuba.

The US being a democracy and Cuba being a dictatorship is a difference between the two.

Similarities would be both the US and the Castro government formed by violent revolution against an unelected non-democratic government. You have claimed that Cuba is evil because of this, but have avoided taking a position on whether the same actions taken by the US also make the US evil.

I am against authoritarian dictatorships, and am in favor of democracies. But I can still acknowledge good things as good when done by an authoritarian dictatorship, and can condemn bad things as bad when done by democracies.


GuitarStv

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2311 on: February 26, 2020, 01:45:36 PM »
An authoritarian country that continued to execute hundreds or thousands of dissidents for decades after the "actual" revolution is inherently reprehensible.

Agreed!

Are we really arguing that because Cuba has some decent healthcare that this is not a full stop condemnation kind of thing? I'm truly at a loss.

No.  Absolutely, the political executions should be condemned.  They're equally as bad as the abductions, rape, torture, and murders that the US committed in Guantanamo Bay.

My point was simply that there are some areas of communist Cuba under Castro that were better than modern day America, so a wholesale condemnation of everything seems out of place.

Kris

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2312 on: February 26, 2020, 01:47:45 PM »
An authoritarian country that continued to execute hundreds or thousands of dissidents for decades after the "actual" revolution is inherently reprehensible.

Agreed!

Are we really arguing that because Cuba has some decent healthcare that this is not a full stop condemnation kind of thing? I'm truly at a loss.

No.  Absolutely, the political executions should be condemned.  They're equally as bad as the abductions, rape, torture, and murders that the US committed in Guantanamo Bay.

My point was simply that there are some areas of communist Cuba under Castro that were better than modern day America, so a wholesale condemnation of everything seems out of place.

One tiny aspect: they have a lung cancer vaccine in Cuba.

Does my saying that make me an evil commie?

FIPurpose

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2313 on: February 26, 2020, 01:57:43 PM »
I was thinking about Sanders this morning and listening to CNN commentators about him, and I had some thoughts. Several compared Sanders to Trump and commented about the positive aspects of this - him standing toe to toe with Trump on debate stage, being equally forceful, and all that jazz. There's probably some validity to that, but I think it's exposing some serious flaws with Sanders. Look, it's easy to be the guy who talks really loud or forceful, never backs down, and so on. We all probably know that guy. But do you really like that guy? Being that guy was one of the first things that made me dislike Trump the candidate before his policies really came out. Sanders has been in politics for a long while being the voice that never changes (and often isn't really concerned with the details). Consistency can be good, but he's got away with a lot of crap because he's never been the frontrunner before. Well now, guess what buddy. You're the front runner. You can't say stuff like in interviews like we can't nickel and dime things as a way to put off a legitimate question and actually tell the world in the interview  how many trillions or tens of trillions or dollars your plans will cost.

Then there's the Cuba stuff from Cooper's interview. I'm sure to many liberals it's not a big deal. I was trying to think of an analogy as to why this is beyond just a misused sound bite, and I came up with it this morning. His statements reminds me a lot of Trump's statements in Charlottesville. There's good people on both sides. Well, sure, the neo-nazis protesting probably do some good things. They probably look after their ailing grandmother or donate money to cancer research or whatnot. But when you're the president or reasonably close to being one, you can't say that. And it's more than just it looks bad. Cuba's regime was evil and not just evil but evil in a way that is very applicable to a government - they were authoritarian - the overall most evil goverment type there is. Bernie took some dumb or naive perspectives back in the day. Instead of taking a step back now and saying, look, this government which imprisoned/killed dissidents is bad full stop, he said, oh i condemn the killing but at least they now can read better...amirite? He doubled down. It just screams Trump to me, and again, he no longer has the luxury of being just a voice of his socialist perspectives. He's running for president. Of course, I may be totally wrong. This may be where all US politics is leading and it may not matter. But it should.

Trump says things: Sanders says things. Therefor they are basically the same.

Great political analysis there.

Two sentence analysis of my point. Great commentary analysis there. You should win a Pulitzer. Care to actually comment on the similarities that I pointed out, or would you prefer to sound witty?

1. This is just factually wrong. Bernie has plenty of positions that he's admitted he was wrong on and has amended his position. In fact, that is part of what would make him a much better president. He's been consistent on his moral stances, but has also been willing to listen to reason and compromise.

2. This shows a bit of stupid thinking on the part of the media more than anything. We regularly do business with China, Singapore, Vietnam, etc. that are run by authoritarian regimes. We talk about these things, but how often do we talk about completely economic withdraw from China over their Uyghur death camps? We don't. We talk about both the good and bad that China has done on a program by program basis. But also comparing even Castro to white nationalists is misguided at best. It's not even what Bernie said. Bernie stated that Castro's literacy program worked. (So does admitting that a literacy program worked mean that Bernie supported all the evil that Castro did? Of course not, that would be a completely idiotic assertion. In fact, Bernie stated the complete opposite). Meanwhile, Trump's comments were meant to deflect from the evil of the racists in Charlottesville by throwing mud on the protestors who were battling racism. Trump was equivocating both sides when one side was obviously more evil than the other. Trump was directly obscuring the racist actions in Charlottesville.

GuitarStv

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2314 on: February 26, 2020, 01:58:52 PM »

Look man, I don't think too many folks are going to argue that Cuba was a paradise of freedom . . . but your comments here seem a bit hyperbolic.  A lot of folks were killed by the government in Cuba - agreed.  This is terrible - agreed.  But you can't ignore the good that happened in the country as well.  For example, how many people were saved by the very efficient public health care that Castro implemented?  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/

Again, I'm not saying that Cuba is or was the greatest place, or that I prefer the government of Cuba to a less authoritarian one.  I do think a reasonable argument can be made that a greed driven government that doesn't provide the basic human right of health care to it's citizens is also guilty of an unpardonable offense.

I'm not sure that your post is in line with the link provided. Care to expand on your reasoning?

Quote
Trudeau appears to accept outdated Cuban government spin as current fact. The reality is that education and health care were already relatively vibrant in Cuba before the revolution, compared with other Latin American countries. While the Castro regime has not let that slip — and given greater access to the poor — it is a stretch to claim Castro was responsible for “significant improvements,” especially more recently.

Many other Latin American countries made far more dramatic strides in the past six decades, without the need for a communist dictatorship; Cuba simply had a head start when Castro seized power.

Moreover, the focus on health care and education should not detract from the fact that overall living standards, as measured by gross domestic product, calorie consumption and other measures, have declined significantly under communist rule. Without big handouts from first the Soviet Union and then Venezuela, the economic picture would be even worse.


Again . . . I'm not pro-communism at all.  It was an authoritarian regime.  As all communist dictatorships do, it ended up with people starving/scrounging to survive.

Generally, about the only thing I think Cuba got right was their approach to health care.  I disagree with the Washington Post article's take on things . . . Cuba may have started out ahead of the game regarding health care, but they steadily improved their record under Castro.  If you read the study that the links ("https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/") in the health care discussion:
"The revolution expanded the free public health system, confiscated health-care cooperatives, mutual-aid organizations and private providers, and prohibited the private practice of medicine. The virtual universalization of access reduced the gap between urban and rural areas—rural hospitals increased from one to 62—and among income groups. Infant mortality decreased 85% but continued being the lowest in the region in 1957 and 2007, 14 while life expectancy at birth increased 22% moving Cuba from 4th to 3rd place. Doctors per 10,000 inhabitants jumped six times and elevated Cuba from 3rd to 1st place,15 and hospital beds per 1,000 inhabitants grew 12%, maintaining the top spot. Maternal mortality declined 61% in the period, improving from 5th to 4th place, despite a 69% increase from 1989 to 2006. Out of 13 diseases tracked between 1957 and 2007, six were eradicated (diphtheria, malaria, poliomyelitis, measles, tetanus, and typhoid),
one was reduced (tuberculosis), and six increased (gonorrhea, acute diarrhea, scarlet fever, hepatitis, syphilis, and smallpox). Out of the six diseases on which a regional comparison is feasible between 1957 and 2006–2007, Cuba remained the country with lowest incidence in three and improved in the other three."

Castro's dictatorship did an awful lot wrong . . . but not health care.

YttriumNitrate

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2315 on: February 26, 2020, 02:25:20 PM »
One tiny aspect: they have a lung cancer vaccine in Cuba.

Does my saying that make me an evil commie?

No, but purposefully ignoring the three immunotherapy "vaccines" against lung cancer in the US is questionable.

Kris

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2316 on: February 26, 2020, 02:27:37 PM »
One tiny aspect: they have a lung cancer vaccine in Cuba.

Does my saying that make me an evil commie?

No, but purposefully ignoring the three immunotherapy "vaccines" against lung cancer in the US is questionable.

Um... well, since I did not know about them, it was not purposeful. I'll do some research, but I was unaware.

YttriumNitrate

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2317 on: February 26, 2020, 02:34:14 PM »
Snopes has a pretty good article on the matter. Civamax is definitely a neat drug, but other lung cancer treatments that use the immune system also exist.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cuba-cancer-vaccine/
« Last Edit: February 26, 2020, 02:52:17 PM by YttriumNitrate »

former player

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2318 on: February 26, 2020, 02:42:26 PM »

Look man, I don't think too many folks are going to argue that Cuba was a paradise of freedom . . . but your comments here seem a bit hyperbolic.  A lot of folks were killed by the government in Cuba - agreed.  This is terrible - agreed.  But you can't ignore the good that happened in the country as well.  For example, how many people were saved by the very efficient public health care that Castro implemented?  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/

Again, I'm not saying that Cuba is or was the greatest place, or that I prefer the government of Cuba to a less authoritarian one.  I do think a reasonable argument can be made that a greed driven government that doesn't provide the basic human right of health care to it's citizens is also guilty of an unpardonable offense.

I'm not sure that your post is in line with the link provided. Care to expand on your reasoning?

Quote
Trudeau appears to accept outdated Cuban government spin as current fact. The reality is that education and health care were already relatively vibrant in Cuba before the revolution, compared with other Latin American countries. While the Castro regime has not let that slip — and given greater access to the poor — it is a stretch to claim Castro was responsible for “significant improvements,” especially more recently.

Many other Latin American countries made far more dramatic strides in the past six decades, without the need for a communist dictatorship; Cuba simply had a head start when Castro seized power.

Moreover, the focus on health care and education should not detract from the fact that overall living standards, as measured by gross domestic product, calorie consumption and other measures, have declined significantly under communist rule. Without big handouts from first the Soviet Union and then Venezuela, the economic picture would be even worse.


Again . . . I'm not pro-communism at all.  It was an authoritarian regime.  As all communist dictatorships do, it ended up with people starving/scrounging to survive.

Generally, about the only thing I think Cuba got right was their approach to health care.  I disagree with the Washington Post article's take on things . . . Cuba may have started out ahead of the game regarding health care, but they steadily improved their record under Castro.  If you read the study that the links ("https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/") in the health care discussion:
"The revolution expanded the free public health system, confiscated health-care cooperatives, mutual-aid organizations and private providers, and prohibited the private practice of medicine. The virtual universalization of access reduced the gap between urban and rural areas—rural hospitals increased from one to 62—and among income groups. Infant mortality decreased 85% but continued being the lowest in the region in 1957 and 2007, 14 while life expectancy at birth increased 22% moving Cuba from 4th to 3rd place. Doctors per 10,000 inhabitants jumped six times and elevated Cuba from 3rd to 1st place,15 and hospital beds per 1,000 inhabitants grew 12%, maintaining the top spot. Maternal mortality declined 61% in the period, improving from 5th to 4th place, despite a 69% increase from 1989 to 2006. Out of 13 diseases tracked between 1957 and 2007, six were eradicated (diphtheria, malaria, poliomyelitis, measles, tetanus, and typhoid),
one was reduced (tuberculosis), and six increased (gonorrhea, acute diarrhea, scarlet fever, hepatitis, syphilis, and smallpox). Out of the six diseases on which a regional comparison is feasible between 1957 and 2006–2007, Cuba remained the country with lowest incidence in three and improved in the other three."

Castro's dictatorship did an awful lot wrong . . . but not health care.
The problem with saying a dictatorship did a lot wrong but got one thing right (health care) is that it is not a controlled experiment.  It is entirely possible that if Cuba had been a democracy after its revolution it could also have got health care right.  Any form of saying "yes but" as respects a dictatorship always misses that point.  And because it misses that point it can be interpreted as "the dictatorship was worth it because of health care" or even "without the dictatorship there would not have been the health care".  Neither can be proved to be true, and both end up as a form of justifying dictatorship because the basic premise has been misformed.

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2319 on: February 26, 2020, 04:26:52 PM »

Look man, I don't think too many folks are going to argue that Cuba was a paradise of freedom . . . but your comments here seem a bit hyperbolic.  A lot of folks were killed by the government in Cuba - agreed.  This is terrible - agreed.  But you can't ignore the good that happened in the country as well.  For example, how many people were saved by the very efficient public health care that Castro implemented?  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/

Again, I'm not saying that Cuba is or was the greatest place, or that I prefer the government of Cuba to a less authoritarian one.  I do think a reasonable argument can be made that a greed driven government that doesn't provide the basic human right of health care to it's citizens is also guilty of an unpardonable offense.

I'm not sure that your post is in line with the link provided. Care to expand on your reasoning?

Quote
Trudeau appears to accept outdated Cuban government spin as current fact. The reality is that education and health care were already relatively vibrant in Cuba before the revolution, compared with other Latin American countries. While the Castro regime has not let that slip — and given greater access to the poor — it is a stretch to claim Castro was responsible for “significant improvements,” especially more recently.

Many other Latin American countries made far more dramatic strides in the past six decades, without the need for a communist dictatorship; Cuba simply had a head start when Castro seized power.

Moreover, the focus on health care and education should not detract from the fact that overall living standards, as measured by gross domestic product, calorie consumption and other measures, have declined significantly under communist rule. Without big handouts from first the Soviet Union and then Venezuela, the economic picture would be even worse.


Again . . . I'm not pro-communism at all.  It was an authoritarian regime.  As all communist dictatorships do, it ended up with people starving/scrounging to survive.

Generally, about the only thing I think Cuba got right was their approach to health care.  I disagree with the Washington Post article's take on things . . . Cuba may have started out ahead of the game regarding health care, but they steadily improved their record under Castro.  If you read the study that the links ("https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/12/01/justin-trudeaus-claim-that-castro-made-significant-improvements-to-cuban-health-care-and-education/") in the health care discussion:
"The revolution expanded the free public health system, confiscated health-care cooperatives, mutual-aid organizations and private providers, and prohibited the private practice of medicine. The virtual universalization of access reduced the gap between urban and rural areas—rural hospitals increased from one to 62—and among income groups. Infant mortality decreased 85% but continued being the lowest in the region in 1957 and 2007, 14 while life expectancy at birth increased 22% moving Cuba from 4th to 3rd place. Doctors per 10,000 inhabitants jumped six times and elevated Cuba from 3rd to 1st place,15 and hospital beds per 1,000 inhabitants grew 12%, maintaining the top spot. Maternal mortality declined 61% in the period, improving from 5th to 4th place, despite a 69% increase from 1989 to 2006. Out of 13 diseases tracked between 1957 and 2007, six were eradicated (diphtheria, malaria, poliomyelitis, measles, tetanus, and typhoid),
one was reduced (tuberculosis), and six increased (gonorrhea, acute diarrhea, scarlet fever, hepatitis, syphilis, and smallpox). Out of the six diseases on which a regional comparison is feasible between 1957 and 2006–2007, Cuba remained the country with lowest incidence in three and improved in the other three."

Castro's dictatorship did an awful lot wrong . . . but not health care.
The problem with saying a dictatorship did a lot wrong but got one thing right (health care) is that it is not a controlled experiment.  It is entirely possible that if Cuba had been a democracy after its revolution it could also have got health care right.  Any form of saying "yes but" as respects a dictatorship always misses that point.  And because it misses that point it can be interpreted as "the dictatorship was worth it because of health care" or even "without the dictatorship there would not have been the health care".  Neither can be proved to be true, and both end up as a form of justifying dictatorship because the basic premise has been misformed.

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.  :P

I think it's important to try to look at the good and the bad in a stuation rather than outright wholesale condemnation.  Not to excuse the bad, but to try to learn from it.  Maybe there would have been health care without Castro and his authoritarian regime.  Would it have still generated the kind of exceptional cost effectiveness and early approach to treatment that never caught on in the US?  Dunno.  I don't think it is equivalent to justifying a dictatorship to admit that Cuba did pretty well with their health care though.

I mean, should the accomplishments of the US were dismissed of ignored simply because of the atrocious human rights record of the country?  Installing dictator after dictator in countries, assassinating and helping to overthrow democratic governments, the whole thing with slavery in the past and the current state of race relations and policing today, treatment of gay and transgendered people, treatment of Native Americans, state sanctioned rape/torture/religious degradation/imprisonment of minors/unlawful confinement/denial of legal process in military prisons, etc.

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2320 on: February 26, 2020, 04:40:45 PM »
This really just feels like MSNBC's and CNN's version of the Fox News "Socialism??? you mean like VENEZUELA!"

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2321 on: February 26, 2020, 06:10:16 PM »
Quote
They took over with violent force and violently with lethal force suppressed opposition to their government. That is an unpardonable offense for a government because it is an inherent flaw of them as a government.

So did the US. Why is it OK when the US does it, but pure evil when Cuba does it?

The U.S. ended up with a democracy (albeit a flawed one). Please explain to me the equivalency of the U.S. fighting a war against England ending up in a democracy (albeit a flawed one) with what happened in Cuba during and for years after the revolution.

There are similarities and differences between the US and Cuba.

The US being a democracy and Cuba being a dictatorship is a difference between the two.

Similarities would be both the US and the Castro government formed by violent revolution against an unelected non-democratic government. You have claimed that Cuba is evil because of this, but have avoided taking a position on whether the same actions taken by the US also make the US evil.

I am against authoritarian dictatorships, and am in favor of democracies. But I can still acknowledge good things as good when done by an authoritarian dictatorship, and can condemn bad things as bad when done by democracies.

In retrospect, I should not have used the initial violence part, so that's my bad. A huge swath of countries began in violence. So yea, there is that one similarity. Violence during war is so ingrained in humanity that if we declare any country touched by violence as evil, we'd pretty much declare them all so. So if you want to say, look, the US is evil because of violence in the beginning, sure we can say that. To put them in the same category as an authoritarian regime that kills political dissidents for decades, no, not even close.

You say you're against authoritarian regimes, and that's great. At some point, we have to say, we're not going to say, oh but. We're going to say this is evil straight up without bringing up other things about them. In the realm of government, if authoritarian regime/executing political prisoners isn't that, I don't know what is. Otherwise, we're back to my original Trump comment - there's good people on both sides. At some point, we have to just say, this is bad, I'm not going to nuance anything - authoritarian regime is the hill I will die on for that.


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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2322 on: February 26, 2020, 06:10:46 PM »
An authoritarian country that continued to execute hundreds or thousands of dissidents for decades after the "actual" revolution is inherently reprehensible.

Agreed!

Are we really arguing that because Cuba has some decent healthcare that this is not a full stop condemnation kind of thing? I'm truly at a loss.

No.  Absolutely, the political executions should be condemned.  They're equally as bad as the abductions, rape, torture, and murders that the US committed in Guantanamo Bay.

My point was simply that there are some areas of communist Cuba under Castro that were better than modern day America, so a wholesale condemnation of everything seems out of place.

Former player touched on this, but I'll expand per my own viewpoint (not putting words in their mouth). There's absolutely nothing that proves that the authoritarian government of Cuba was necessary to implement the healthcare situation. Therefore there's no reason to even bring it up. The regime is evil. The country happens to have some positive healthcare attributes - so does Canada. Let's talk about other countries that have positive healthcare attributes with no association of murdering political prisoners.

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2323 on: February 26, 2020, 06:32:04 PM »
I was thinking about Sanders this morning and listening to CNN commentators about him, and I had some thoughts. Several compared Sanders to Trump and commented about the positive aspects of this - him standing toe to toe with Trump on debate stage, being equally forceful, and all that jazz. There's probably some validity to that, but I think it's exposing some serious flaws with Sanders. Look, it's easy to be the guy who talks really loud or forceful, never backs down, and so on. We all probably know that guy. But do you really like that guy? Being that guy was one of the first things that made me dislike Trump the candidate before his policies really came out. Sanders has been in politics for a long while being the voice that never changes (and often isn't really concerned with the details). Consistency can be good, but he's got away with a lot of crap because he's never been the frontrunner before. Well now, guess what buddy. You're the front runner. You can't say stuff like in interviews like we can't nickel and dime things as a way to put off a legitimate question and actually tell the world in the interview  how many trillions or tens of trillions or dollars your plans will cost.

Then there's the Cuba stuff from Cooper's interview. I'm sure to many liberals it's not a big deal. I was trying to think of an analogy as to why this is beyond just a misused sound bite, and I came up with it this morning. His statements reminds me a lot of Trump's statements in Charlottesville. There's good people on both sides. Well, sure, the neo-nazis protesting probably do some good things. They probably look after their ailing grandmother or donate money to cancer research or whatnot. But when you're the president or reasonably close to being one, you can't say that. And it's more than just it looks bad. Cuba's regime was evil and not just evil but evil in a way that is very applicable to a government - they were authoritarian - the overall most evil goverment type there is. Bernie took some dumb or naive perspectives back in the day. Instead of taking a step back now and saying, look, this government which imprisoned/killed dissidents is bad full stop, he said, oh i condemn the killing but at least they now can read better...amirite? He doubled down. It just screams Trump to me, and again, he no longer has the luxury of being just a voice of his socialist perspectives. He's running for president. Of course, I may be totally wrong. This may be where all US politics is leading and it may not matter. But it should.

Trump says things: Sanders says things. Therefor they are basically the same.

Great political analysis there.

Two sentence analysis of my point. Great commentary analysis there. You should win a Pulitzer. Care to actually comment on the similarities that I pointed out, or would you prefer to sound witty?

1. This is just factually wrong. Bernie has plenty of positions that he's admitted he was wrong on and has amended his position. In fact, that is part of what would make him a much better president. He's been consistent on his moral stances, but has also been willing to listen to reason and compromise.

2. This shows a bit of stupid thinking on the part of the media more than anything. We regularly do business with China, Singapore, Vietnam, etc. that are run by authoritarian regimes. We talk about these things, but how often do we talk about completely economic withdraw from China over their Uyghur death camps? We don't. We talk about both the good and bad that China has done on a program by program basis. But also comparing even Castro to white nationalists is misguided at best. It's not even what Bernie said. Bernie stated that Castro's literacy program worked. (So does admitting that a literacy program worked mean that Bernie supported all the evil that Castro did? Of course not, that would be a completely idiotic assertion. In fact, Bernie stated the complete opposite). Meanwhile, Trump's comments were meant to deflect from the evil of the racists in Charlottesville by throwing mud on the protestors who were battling racism. Trump was equivocating both sides when one side was obviously more evil than the other. Trump was directly obscuring the racist actions in Charlottesville.

Bernie has admitted occasionally he was wrong, so perhaps my statement was a bit too black and white - although I was not intending (and upon rereading it do not think it actually conveyed) that Bernie has never ever admitted he was wrong. He's been in politics for decades. It would have been insane if he never ever had said my bad once. The point is that his default is doubling down - never back down, and the other similarity to Trump/part you didn't mention - a tendency to not worry about the details just to ride the populist sentiment and say woohoo, let's go!

Comparing what Bernie said to the Charlottesville situation is not misguided at best. You just don't appear to want to see any similarities. Trump was trying to obscure racist actions by saying there were good people on both sides. This is objectively bad. Glad we can agree on this.

The original video Sanders was in, as best I can tell, he was alluding to if not overtly acting as if the Cuban people didn't revolt back against Castro's authoritarian regime because of education and healthcare and all that.  That is straight up equivocating on evil. Cubans didn't re-overthrow Castro for the same reason North Korea hasn't overthrown their dictator....they would be killed if they did. At the very least, in the video he's trying to sell the country that implemented some of his political ideas to promote his own agenda despite the evil that was continuing to occur and the lack of ability for the people to do anything about it. That's equivocating on evil. But maybe he could have been mistaken or naive or whatever in his initial video. He had a chance to retract in this campaign. Instead, he chose to take the Trump-ish tact and double down.


This really just feels like MSNBC's and CNN's version of the Fox News "Socialism??? you mean like VENEZUELA!"

Whatever dude. I've read through this thread and listened to people again and again say, well, these people won't get the things they say they are trying for accomplished or vote against your own views on things or this or that or the other because because because Trump! So yea, just dismiss this legitimate issue with Bernie's views and willingness to equivocate on authoritarians because they swing on his side of the political aisle, but at some point, people are going to say, well, sure Trump's Trump, but it's not enough for me to vote for the opposition at all costs. Maybe they're wrong to do so, but I'm at the very least going to call you out when you denigrate it as if it's not even worth talking about.

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2324 on: February 26, 2020, 11:14:38 PM »
Bernie has admitted occasionally he was wrong, so perhaps my statement was a bit too black and white - although I was not intending (and upon rereading it do not think it actually conveyed) that Bernie has never ever admitted he was wrong. He's been in politics for decades. It would have been insane if he never ever had said my bad once. The point is that his default is doubling down - never back down, and the other similarity to Trump/part you didn't mention - a tendency to not worry about the details just to ride the populist sentiment and say woohoo, let's go!

Comparing what Bernie said to the Charlottesville situation is not misguided at best. You just don't appear to want to see any similarities. Trump was trying to obscure racist actions by saying there were good people on both sides. This is objectively bad. Glad we can agree on this.

The original video Sanders was in, as best I can tell, he was alluding to if not overtly acting as if the Cuban people didn't revolt back against Castro's authoritarian regime because of education and healthcare and all that.  That is straight up equivocating on evil. Cubans didn't re-overthrow Castro for the same reason North Korea hasn't overthrown their dictator....they would be killed if they did. At the very least, in the video he's trying to sell the country that implemented some of his political ideas to promote his own agenda despite the evil that was continuing to occur and the lack of ability for the people to do anything about it. That's equivocating on evil. But maybe he could have been mistaken or naive or whatever in his initial video. He had a chance to retract in this campaign. Instead, he chose to take the Trump-ish tact and double down.


This really just feels like MSNBC's and CNN's version of the Fox News "Socialism??? you mean like VENEZUELA!"

Whatever dude. I've read through this thread and listened to people again and again say, well, these people won't get the things they say they are trying for accomplished or vote against your own views on things or this or that or the other because because because Trump! So yea, just dismiss this legitimate issue with Bernie's views and willingness to equivocate on authoritarians because they swing on his side of the political aisle, but at some point, people are going to say, well, sure Trump's Trump, but it's not enough for me to vote for the opposition at all costs. Maybe they're wrong to do so, but I'm at the very least going to call you out when you denigrate it as if it's not even worth talking about.

1. I didn't mention it because it's just factually wrong. What details exactly does Bernie not have on his website? What plan has he not gone on to describe in some detail how he plans to implement and pay for everything? Maybe you just don't like the details or refuse to read them?

2. Maybe you didn't understand what I was saying. Trump was equivocating racists and anti-racist protesters as more or less equally evil (when obviously one side is evil and the other is not). Bernie was saying that Cuba's regime was evil, but managed to do some good things and implemented a few good programs. Bernie is just analyzing policies like a normal human being. Like I said, we somehow have the ability to separate out the good and bad aspects of Chinese policy and discuss that without freaking out. Cuba holds some special Cold War mentality where we just especially hate them. Also, how many times have us assassinating (attempt in Cuba's case) the dictator of a country worked out for us? They don't flip to democracies. And then we've ran an embargo against Cuba for like 80 years that all but ensures their poverty? How different would Cuba have been if we used economic pressure to make Fidel behave instead of scaring him into becoming a Russian asset? Anyways, Bernie I think would be able to have a reasonable discussion around that. Trump is just playing identity politics.

Trump had someone feeding him slogans and nationalist messages that he couldn't personally care less about. Bernie actually believes in his message and would actually fight to implement it. (I'm thinking of all the things Trump promised and quickly gave up on: fighting the NRA, better healthcare, etc.)

Bernie isn't a puppet for party insiders and isn't easily influenced by cable news anchors. Trump is.

Bernie and Trump are indeed both populists. The difference is that Trump is faking it.

Also Bernie can read. So that's an advantage.

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2325 on: February 27, 2020, 05:05:01 AM »
Bernie has admitted occasionally he was wrong, so perhaps my statement was a bit too black and white - although I was not intending (and upon rereading it do not think it actually conveyed) that Bernie has never ever admitted he was wrong. He's been in politics for decades. It would have been insane if he never ever had said my bad once. The point is that his default is doubling down - never back down, and the other similarity to Trump/part you didn't mention - a tendency to not worry about the details just to ride the populist sentiment and say woohoo, let's go!

Comparing what Bernie said to the Charlottesville situation is not misguided at best. You just don't appear to want to see any similarities. Trump was trying to obscure racist actions by saying there were good people on both sides. This is objectively bad. Glad we can agree on this.

The original video Sanders was in, as best I can tell, he was alluding to if not overtly acting as if the Cuban people didn't revolt back against Castro's authoritarian regime because of education and healthcare and all that.  That is straight up equivocating on evil. Cubans didn't re-overthrow Castro for the same reason North Korea hasn't overthrown their dictator....they would be killed if they did. At the very least, in the video he's trying to sell the country that implemented some of his political ideas to promote his own agenda despite the evil that was continuing to occur and the lack of ability for the people to do anything about it. That's equivocating on evil. But maybe he could have been mistaken or naive or whatever in his initial video. He had a chance to retract in this campaign. Instead, he chose to take the Trump-ish tact and double down.


This really just feels like MSNBC's and CNN's version of the Fox News "Socialism??? you mean like VENEZUELA!"

Whatever dude. I've read through this thread and listened to people again and again say, well, these people won't get the things they say they are trying for accomplished or vote against your own views on things or this or that or the other because because because Trump! So yea, just dismiss this legitimate issue with Bernie's views and willingness to equivocate on authoritarians because they swing on his side of the political aisle, but at some point, people are going to say, well, sure Trump's Trump, but it's not enough for me to vote for the opposition at all costs. Maybe they're wrong to do so, but I'm at the very least going to call you out when you denigrate it as if it's not even worth talking about.

1. I didn't mention it because it's just factually wrong. What details exactly does Bernie not have on his website? What plan has he not gone on to describe in some detail how he plans to implement and pay for everything? Maybe you just don't like the details or refuse to read them?

2. Maybe you didn't understand what I was saying. Trump was equivocating racists and anti-racist protesters as more or less equally evil (when obviously one side is evil and the other is not). Bernie was saying that Cuba's regime was evil, but managed to do some good things and implemented a few good programs. Bernie is just analyzing policies like a normal human being. Like I said, we somehow have the ability to separate out the good and bad aspects of Chinese policy and discuss that without freaking out. Cuba holds some special Cold War mentality where we just especially hate them. Also, how many times have us assassinating (attempt in Cuba's case) the dictator of a country worked out for us? They don't flip to democracies. And then we've ran an embargo against Cuba for like 80 years that all but ensures their poverty? How different would Cuba have been if we used economic pressure to make Fidel behave instead of scaring him into becoming a Russian asset? Anyways, Bernie I think would be able to have a reasonable discussion around that. Trump is just playing identity politics.

Trump had someone feeding him slogans and nationalist messages that he couldn't personally care less about. Bernie actually believes in his message and would actually fight to implement it. (I'm thinking of all the things Trump promised and quickly gave up on: fighting the NRA, better healthcare, etc.)

Bernie isn't a puppet for party insiders and isn't easily influenced by cable news anchors. Trump is.

Bernie and Trump are indeed both populists. The difference is that Trump is faking it.

Also Bernie can read. So that's an advantage.

1. A tendency - meaning an inclination. You have to look no further than the Cooper interview I referenced. Cooper called him out on how much things would cost. He acted as if that was "nickle and diming" to ask about trillions of dollars.

2. The two situations are not perfectly similar of course, but there are definite comparisons. Ultimately, what Trump was doing (or at least this is where supporters took it) was equivocating that racists are not that bad because they do some not bad things, just like non-racists do. I mean, that's literally the comparison he made - good people on both sides, implying racists and non-racists are more than just their views on this one issue. He said this in order to make racists look not as bad. Castro was holding up a government that is very bad, saying, look, some not bad things are happening in this country. There's no point in doing that other than to make a country whose government is evil look better. That's the similarity. I'm not trying to defend our policies on Cuba or China as a government in terms of not dealing with them at all or dealing with them in a limited fashion or whatever. I'm saying that there is zero point in holding up a government that is evil - crushing of personal freedoms, political prison camps, executing political prisoners, doing it all to hold power and then pointing out some things that are going right in the country just because you want to make those policies happen in your own country. That's manipulative and equivocating of the evil of a country to further your own political narrative.

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2326 on: February 27, 2020, 08:29:04 AM »

1. A tendency - meaning an inclination. You have to look no further than the Cooper interview I referenced. Cooper called him out on how much things would cost. He acted as if that was "nickle and diming" to ask about trillions of dollars.

2. The two situations are not perfectly similar of course, but there are definite comparisons. Ultimately, what Trump was doing (or at least this is where supporters took it) was equivocating that racists are not that bad because they do some not bad things, just like non-racists do. I mean, that's literally the comparison he made - good people on both sides, implying racists and non-racists are more than just their views on this one issue. He said this in order to make racists look not as bad. Castro was holding up a government that is very bad, saying, look, some not bad things are happening in this country. There's no point in doing that other than to make a country whose government is evil look better. That's the similarity. I'm not trying to defend our policies on Cuba or China as a government in terms of not dealing with them at all or dealing with them in a limited fashion or whatever. I'm saying that there is zero point in holding up a government that is evil - crushing of personal freedoms, political prison camps, executing political prisoners, doing it all to hold power and then pointing out some things that are going right in the country just because you want to make those policies happen in your own country. That's manipulative and equivocating of the evil of a country to further your own political narrative.

1. Or maybe the questions about "how to pay for it" are old and these journalists should start reading his website and plans instead of pretending that he has no plan.

2. No you're still not getting this.

Trump was equivocating in order to underplay the evil of the white nationalists. Political expediency to satisfy the racists that back him.

Sanders is saying that you can have a nuanced discussion about policies from another country while still calling them out as overall an evil country. He says in a followup CNN interview that we have nuanced discussions all the time about China, have economic partnerships with them, etc. And they commit the same human atrocities. (On a much bigger scale even). Somehow saying that China does something good (such as lifting millions out of poverty) doesn't get criticized as equivocating, but when you say that Cuba did something good, suddenly everyone thinks you're trying to cover for their crimes. Sanders has been quite consistent in how he views all authoritarian regimes, he is an adult and can see when one does something good in comparison to let's say North Korea that has done absolutely nothing good for its people. Sanders can have an adult conversation and is trying to elevate the conversation around foreign policy.

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2327 on: February 27, 2020, 09:57:32 AM »
1. Or maybe the questions about "how to pay for it" are old and these journalists should start reading his website and plans instead of pretending that he has no plan.

Except his funding plans don't come close to covering the proposed spending even with rosy predictions. You (and Bernie) can't just wave that away forever.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/sanderss-pricey-tax-and-spending-plans/607105/

We're actually way overdue for the other candidates and the media to dig in this and demand better answers (probably too late in the nomination process). You don't think Trump and his surrogates aren't going to hammer him mercilessly on this should he be the nominee?

He's thinking big and selling a vision, I get it. But at some point the magical thinking needs to be brought back down to Earth. There is no chance even 10% of these plans will materialize legislatively. I would much prefer him to be honest about that and talk about which are the few pieces he'll fight hard to push through and what kind of incremental improvements are actually feasible. For some reason that has not been demanded in the primary process but he can't continue to wave away reality in a general election.

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2328 on: February 27, 2020, 10:12:21 AM »

1. A tendency - meaning an inclination. You have to look no further than the Cooper interview I referenced. Cooper called him out on how much things would cost. He acted as if that was "nickle and diming" to ask about trillions of dollars.

2. The two situations are not perfectly similar of course, but there are definite comparisons. Ultimately, what Trump was doing (or at least this is where supporters took it) was equivocating that racists are not that bad because they do some not bad things, just like non-racists do. I mean, that's literally the comparison he made - good people on both sides, implying racists and non-racists are more than just their views on this one issue. He said this in order to make racists look not as bad. Castro was holding up a government that is very bad, saying, look, some not bad things are happening in this country. There's no point in doing that other than to make a country whose government is evil look better. That's the similarity. I'm not trying to defend our policies on Cuba or China as a government in terms of not dealing with them at all or dealing with them in a limited fashion or whatever. I'm saying that there is zero point in holding up a government that is evil - crushing of personal freedoms, political prison camps, executing political prisoners, doing it all to hold power and then pointing out some things that are going right in the country just because you want to make those policies happen in your own country. That's manipulative and equivocating of the evil of a country to further your own political narrative.

1. Or maybe the questions about "how to pay for it" are old and these journalists should start reading his website and plans instead of pretending that he has no plan.

2. No you're still not getting this.

Trump was equivocating in order to underplay the evil of the white nationalists. Political expediency to satisfy the racists that back him.

Sanders is saying that you can have a nuanced discussion about policies from another country while still calling them out as overall an evil country. He says in a followup CNN interview that we have nuanced discussions all the time about China, have economic partnerships with them, etc. And they commit the same human atrocities. (On a much bigger scale even). Somehow saying that China does something good (such as lifting millions out of poverty) doesn't get criticized as equivocating, but when you say that Cuba did something good, suddenly everyone thinks you're trying to cover for their crimes. Sanders has been quite consistent in how he views all authoritarian regimes, he is an adult and can see when one does something good in comparison to let's say North Korea that has done absolutely nothing good for its people. Sanders can have an adult conversation and is trying to elevate the conversation around foreign policy.

1. Did you watch the interview? The question that he kept pressing him on wasn't how to pay for it. It was how much does it cost. Good grief Charlie Brown, if you can't come up with literally just a ballpark figure of costs for your top 5 major governmental expansions off of the top of your head, then you probably don't need to be president or at least don't need to be proposing them. It can be argued that how to pay for it is a complex issue. Coming up with like 5 numbers should not be treated as a means for offense in an interview.

2. It is political expediency to gloss over bad things to use them in the pursuit of your policies, which is what I believe Sanders did.

Let's take a step back, though. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He was just trying to have a nuanced discussion as you say (it's funny how it can be nuanced on certain issues but full condemnation of people on others and that's all well and good, but again, let's just roll with it).

It's very simple. Sanders made a video that as best as I can tell from what I watched seem to not just say, for instance, let's do universal healthcare, all kinds of countries have this like Cuba. Instead, the videos appeared to me to be like, oh, Cuba had some bad parts, but look at what all good came out of their government. That's equivocating on evil plain and simple. And it's not just me that feels this way or it wouldn't be an issue.

So he's called out on it. It's very simple. You screwed up forming an argument like that. It was awhile ago, but you are responsible. Easy response time. Some people may not buy it because you're going against something they have you on video, but you can at least try. You can say, look, I shouldn't have (or even I didn't mean to but some people took it as) I was saying Cuba government had good parts because of healthcare. I meant to say, universal healthcare is good. It's in all sorts of countries, including Cuba. In fact, the fact that it's in Cuba with all of the other abhorrent things that happen with this authoritarian regime is a testament to the fact that universal healthcare is good. Nothing about the Cuban government is good. Their universal healthcare is completely divorced from their government. Tons of non authoritarian regimes have universal healthcare, and because of that I should have used them as examples, because there's absolutely no reason to link an authoritarian regime with something positive when it could just as easily have been done and has been done in countries that aren't.

But no. He doubles down, saying, oh I condemn the bad parts of the government, but of course I'm going to say that Cuba does good things. That's not the point. It's not tied to Cuba's authoritarian regime that some good things happen in the country. They should be totally divorced. The fact that you can't come right out and say that shows that you are putting your own policy interests and making them look good ahead of condemning authoritarianism. He had his chance. By linking Cuban government to good things that had no need of Cuba's authoritarian regime to come to pass and by then not retracting that, Sanders equivocated on the evil of the government, and it is completely fair to call him to the carpet for it.

FIPurpose

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2329 on: February 27, 2020, 10:48:22 AM »

1. A tendency - meaning an inclination. You have to look no further than the Cooper interview I referenced. Cooper called him out on how much things would cost. He acted as if that was "nickle and diming" to ask about trillions of dollars.

2. The two situations are not perfectly similar of course, but there are definite comparisons. Ultimately, what Trump was doing (or at least this is where supporters took it) was equivocating that racists are not that bad because they do some not bad things, just like non-racists do. I mean, that's literally the comparison he made - good people on both sides, implying racists and non-racists are more than just their views on this one issue. He said this in order to make racists look not as bad. Castro was holding up a government that is very bad, saying, look, some not bad things are happening in this country. There's no point in doing that other than to make a country whose government is evil look better. That's the similarity. I'm not trying to defend our policies on Cuba or China as a government in terms of not dealing with them at all or dealing with them in a limited fashion or whatever. I'm saying that there is zero point in holding up a government that is evil - crushing of personal freedoms, political prison camps, executing political prisoners, doing it all to hold power and then pointing out some things that are going right in the country just because you want to make those policies happen in your own country. That's manipulative and equivocating of the evil of a country to further your own political narrative.

1. Or maybe the questions about "how to pay for it" are old and these journalists should start reading his website and plans instead of pretending that he has no plan.

2. No you're still not getting this.

Trump was equivocating in order to underplay the evil of the white nationalists. Political expediency to satisfy the racists that back him.

Sanders is saying that you can have a nuanced discussion about policies from another country while still calling them out as overall an evil country. He says in a followup CNN interview that we have nuanced discussions all the time about China, have economic partnerships with them, etc. And they commit the same human atrocities. (On a much bigger scale even). Somehow saying that China does something good (such as lifting millions out of poverty) doesn't get criticized as equivocating, but when you say that Cuba did something good, suddenly everyone thinks you're trying to cover for their crimes. Sanders has been quite consistent in how he views all authoritarian regimes, he is an adult and can see when one does something good in comparison to let's say North Korea that has done absolutely nothing good for its people. Sanders can have an adult conversation and is trying to elevate the conversation around foreign policy.

1. Did you watch the interview? The question that he kept pressing him on wasn't how to pay for it. It was how much does it cost. Good grief Charlie Brown, if you can't come up with literally just a ballpark figure of costs for your top 5 major governmental expansions off of the top of your head, then you probably don't need to be president or at least don't need to be proposing them. It can be argued that how to pay for it is a complex issue. Coming up with like 5 numbers should not be treated as a means for offense in an interview.

2. It is political expediency to gloss over bad things to use them in the pursuit of your policies, which is what I believe Sanders did.

Let's take a step back, though. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He was just trying to have a nuanced discussion as you say (it's funny how it can be nuanced on certain issues but full condemnation of people on others and that's all well and good, but again, let's just roll with it).

It's very simple. Sanders made a video that as best as I can tell from what I watched seem to not just say, for instance, let's do universal healthcare, all kinds of countries have this like Cuba. Instead, the videos appeared to me to be like, oh, Cuba had some bad parts, but look at what all good came out of their government. That's equivocating on evil plain and simple. And it's not just me that feels this way or it wouldn't be an issue.

So he's called out on it. It's very simple. You screwed up forming an argument like that. It was awhile ago, but you are responsible. Easy response time. Some people may not buy it because you're going against something they have you on video, but you can at least try. You can say, look, I shouldn't have (or even I didn't mean to but some people took it as) I was saying Cuba government had good parts because of healthcare. I meant to say, universal healthcare is good. It's in all sorts of countries, including Cuba. In fact, the fact that it's in Cuba with all of the other abhorrent things that happen with this authoritarian regime is a testament to the fact that universal healthcare is good. Nothing about the Cuban government is good. Their universal healthcare is completely divorced from their government. Tons of non authoritarian regimes have universal healthcare, and because of that I should have used them as examples, because there's absolutely no reason to link an authoritarian regime with something positive when it could just as easily have been done and has been done in countries that aren't.

But no. He doubles down, saying, oh I condemn the bad parts of the government, but of course I'm going to say that Cuba does good things. That's not the point. It's not tied to Cuba's authoritarian regime that some good things happen in the country. They should be totally divorced. The fact that you can't come right out and say that shows that you are putting your own policy interests and making them look good ahead of condemning authoritarianism. He had his chance. By linking Cuban government to good things that had no need of Cuba's authoritarian regime to come to pass and by then not retracting that, Sanders equivocated on the evil of the government, and it is completely fair to call him to the carpet for it.

You didn't address the hypocrisy. How is what Sanders says worse from how Trump, Bloomberg, et al treat China? In fact they interact even more with China by having huge financial interests there. Trump and others make huge sums of money off of authoritarian regimes in China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.

But no Sanders is the one that is equivocating by pointing out the few pieces of good policy. Literally everyone in this country is complicit with funding and aiding authoritarian regimes around the country. We buy their stuff, we send our jobs there, etc. We even say "hey you know for all the bad at China has done, they have managed to lift a lot of people out of poverty". And you can't even for one minute consider the double standard you're hanging on Sanders because you have an agenda to somehow make Sanders into a giant authoritarian radical or something. It's ridiculous on its face.

On the funding of Bernie's plans, I think his ideas are so different and a radical change from what we do now. I agree that it's kind of pointless to argue out all of the details and expect a funding plan for every dollar.

1. Not everything will be implemented/ won't be implemented all at once. There will be time to calibrate and renegotiate. The more important piece is to give your vision for what the US could do.
2. Absolutely no one questions how we continue to pay for wars and the current spending we do on defense. I mean we all see the current deficit as a problem, but no has ever asked Obama or Bush "Hey before we go into Iraq, how are we going to pay for it?" The giant increase in defense spending from last year, did anyone even flinch? Yet similar plans that would cost just as much, such as free education demand a full payment plan. And then think tanks will push out their pseudoscience to push their own agenda to convince people it would cost 3x as much and the taxes would destroy the economy.

The Atlantic article that was posted is already out of date, as Bernie's campaign team has been quite responsive to critiques and released some additional details on Tuesday to his website that the article doesn't cover as mentioned here: https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/sanders-releases-plan-to-pay-for-52-trillion-worth-of-new-government-programs

But again, I think the focus on this is a double standard that really hammers on Sanders, we continue to pay for America's foreign policy with unwavering and unquestionable support. :)


Samuel

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2330 on: February 27, 2020, 11:40:56 AM »

The Atlantic article that was posted is already out of date, as Bernie's campaign team has been quite responsive to critiques and released some additional details on Tuesday to his website that the article doesn't cover as mentioned here: https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/sanders-releases-plan-to-pay-for-52-trillion-worth-of-new-government-programs

No, that Atlantic article was published yesterday and includes the "updates".

YttriumNitrate

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2331 on: February 27, 2020, 11:47:40 AM »
Looking at the polling estimates for Super Tuesday it's certainly starting to look like no one will be able to catch Sanders. Assuming that predictions are reasonably accurate, the interesting question now becomes which of the other candidates stay in the race to block Sanders from getting 1,991 delegates. The third tier candidates Steyer and Gabbard seem to have good possibility of dropping out next week, but I just don't see Warren, Biden, Buttigieg, Bloomberg, or Klobuchar since they all believe they'll be a big beneficiary when someone else in their group drops.

FIPurpose

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2332 on: February 27, 2020, 11:53:32 AM »

The Atlantic article that was posted is already out of date, as Bernie's campaign team has been quite responsive to critiques and released some additional details on Tuesday to his website that the article doesn't cover as mentioned here: https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/sanders-releases-plan-to-pay-for-52-trillion-worth-of-new-government-programs

No, that Atlantic article was published yesterday and includes the "updates".

From what I see the Atlantic article says:
Quote
The document that Sanders handed Cuomo on Monday represents his most complete attempt to explain how he would cover the bill for his entire agenda.

But the article I posted says that Sanders provided additional details on Tuesday. The Atlantic article has a link to Sander's most recent version, but is obviously talking about an old version of the details. They also fail to mention anything about the Yale paper that Sander's details use as proof of their numbers which is also what leads me to believe they are not responding to Tuesday's version.

Samuel

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2333 on: February 27, 2020, 12:49:09 PM »

The Atlantic article that was posted is already out of date, as Bernie's campaign team has been quite responsive to critiques and released some additional details on Tuesday to his website that the article doesn't cover as mentioned here: https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/sanders-releases-plan-to-pay-for-52-trillion-worth-of-new-government-programs

No, that Atlantic article was published yesterday and includes the "updates".

From what I see the Atlantic article says:
Quote
The document that Sanders handed Cuomo on Monday represents his most complete attempt to explain how he would cover the bill for his entire agenda.

But the article I posted says that Sanders provided additional details on Tuesday. The Atlantic article has a link to Sander's most recent version, but is obviously talking about an old version of the details. They also fail to mention anything about the Yale paper that Sander's details use as proof of their numbers which is also what leads me to believe they are not responding to Tuesday's version.

No, your article says Monday too (first sentence).

I actually agree that some (or all) of the analyses cited in the Atlantic article predate the latest release and need to be updated. Initial reactions to the new information didn't seem to change a whole lot, though. There are still extremely optimistic assumptions being used and yet there is still a significant shortfall. Bernie gets a head start selling his version but I will be interested to see how various estimates are updated.

FIPurpose

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2334 on: February 27, 2020, 01:02:20 PM »

The Atlantic article that was posted is already out of date, as Bernie's campaign team has been quite responsive to critiques and released some additional details on Tuesday to his website that the article doesn't cover as mentioned here: https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/sanders-releases-plan-to-pay-for-52-trillion-worth-of-new-government-programs

No, that Atlantic article was published yesterday and includes the "updates".

From what I see the Atlantic article says:
Quote
The document that Sanders handed Cuomo on Monday represents his most complete attempt to explain how he would cover the bill for his entire agenda.

But the article I posted says that Sanders provided additional details on Tuesday. The Atlantic article has a link to Sander's most recent version, but is obviously talking about an old version of the details. They also fail to mention anything about the Yale paper that Sander's details use as proof of their numbers which is also what leads me to believe they are not responding to Tuesday's version.

No, your article says Monday too (first sentence).

I actually agree that some (or all) of the analyses cited in the Atlantic article predate the latest release and need to be updated. Initial reactions to the new information didn't seem to change a whole lot, though. There are still extremely optimistic assumptions being used and yet there is still a significant shortfall. Bernie gets a head start selling his version but I will be interested to see how various estimates are updated.

From the article I cited:
Quote
A revised version of Sanders' list was posted sometime Tuesday. It cited figures from a Yale University study claiming that Medicare For All would reduce the total amount of U.S. private and public spending on health care from $52 trillion to $47 trillion. The campaign continued that federal, state and local governments were already on course to spend $30 trillion over the next ten years, so the campaign's plans to raise $17 trillion in revenue covered the difference.

Samuel

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2335 on: February 27, 2020, 04:31:46 PM »
From the article I cited:
Quote
A revised version of Sanders' list was posted sometime Tuesday. It cited figures from a Yale University study claiming that Medicare For All would reduce the total amount of U.S. private and public spending on health care from $52 trillion to $47 trillion. The campaign continued that federal, state and local governments were already on course to spend $30 trillion over the next ten years, so the campaign's plans to raise $17 trillion in revenue covered the difference.

Ah, ok. So on Tuesday they added numbers from a super friendly (co-authored by a former unpaid advisor) study to the framework released on Monday. Doesn't really change much. The Yale/Lancet study has been out long enough now to have been widely evaluated and is generally regarded as extremely optimistic in it's assumptions about potential reimbursement rates, utilization of services in the absence of cost sharing, and ability to control waste and fraud. And it forgot to include 4 trillion in long term care spending in Bernie's plan.

pecunia

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2336 on: February 27, 2020, 04:43:48 PM »
Politics is the art of compromise.  Bernie shoots for the moon and settles for much less.  Hopefully, the much less will still be an improvement for the common Joe.  (if Bernie gets the nomination)

It ain't over til it's over.  Looks like Joe Biden is on an upswing.  His time may be coming after all.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-biden-surges-in-south-carolina/

FIPurpose

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2337 on: February 27, 2020, 05:05:23 PM »
From the article I cited:
Quote
A revised version of Sanders' list was posted sometime Tuesday. It cited figures from a Yale University study claiming that Medicare For All would reduce the total amount of U.S. private and public spending on health care from $52 trillion to $47 trillion. The campaign continued that federal, state and local governments were already on course to spend $30 trillion over the next ten years, so the campaign's plans to raise $17 trillion in revenue covered the difference.

Ah, ok. So on Tuesday they added numbers from a super friendly (co-authored by a former unpaid advisor) study to the framework released on Monday. Doesn't really change much. The Yale/Lancet study has been out long enough now to have been widely evaluated and is generally regarded as extremely optimistic in it's assumptions about potential reimbursement rates, utilization of services in the absence of cost sharing, and ability to control waste and fraud. And it forgot to include 4 trillion in long term care spending in Bernie's plan.

This was my exact point up above. M4A is so large and has so many "maybes" and unknowns about how it would be implemented. Getting too specific doesn't really have a purpose. The estimate that Sanders cites is just one of many and should be treated as a valuable number among the many other papers and research, but getting too specific isn't just too wonky, but likely to be unfruitful in driving toward an actual solution. The question really should be: "Can the US potentially afford an M4A plan". It looks to me like it can. Here is a great tool that you can look at that let's you play with the numbers around M4A and see how different assumptions changes the outcome:

http://shift.cidma.us/

More or less when I mess around with the numbers it looks like M4A will be possible with an Employer payroll tax of about 8-10% and an personal tax of about 5-8%.

Or if you look at the tax loop holes that are being considered for closing, you could eliminate the personal tax and still completely pay for M4A and then accounting for any underestimates.

In creating these estimates, especially in these super large projects, you'll find that some of your estimates will be way under and others will be way over. Perhaps we find that M4A is actually able to negotiate much lower prescription rates than estimated, or that a certain section of the population is finally able to get the medication that their insurance was denying them that lead to better health outcomes and higher tax revenue than previously assumed. There's just a whole set of assumptions that frankly are kind of pointless arguing about beyond a very high level scope. If we're within 30% of the target, then we're doing good.

Poundwise

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2338 on: February 28, 2020, 08:03:32 AM »
Just putting in a good word... Warren developed her M4A payment plan using the most pessimistic estimate available (Urban Institute).  The way she phases things in, she covers all kids under 18 in year one and allows people 50 and older to buy in to the expanded Medicare. She can get it done by EO so no risks. People will try it, and if they like it, we pass M4A in Year 3. No ramming unwanted plans down our throats.

https://elizabethwarren.com/health-care-plans-compared

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2339 on: February 28, 2020, 08:17:18 AM »

1. A tendency - meaning an inclination. You have to look no further than the Cooper interview I referenced. Cooper called him out on how much things would cost. He acted as if that was "nickle and diming" to ask about trillions of dollars.

2. The two situations are not perfectly similar of course, but there are definite comparisons. Ultimately, what Trump was doing (or at least this is where supporters took it) was equivocating that racists are not that bad because they do some not bad things, just like non-racists do. I mean, that's literally the comparison he made - good people on both sides, implying racists and non-racists are more than just their views on this one issue. He said this in order to make racists look not as bad. Castro was holding up a government that is very bad, saying, look, some not bad things are happening in this country. There's no point in doing that other than to make a country whose government is evil look better. That's the similarity. I'm not trying to defend our policies on Cuba or China as a government in terms of not dealing with them at all or dealing with them in a limited fashion or whatever. I'm saying that there is zero point in holding up a government that is evil - crushing of personal freedoms, political prison camps, executing political prisoners, doing it all to hold power and then pointing out some things that are going right in the country just because you want to make those policies happen in your own country. That's manipulative and equivocating of the evil of a country to further your own political narrative.

1. Or maybe the questions about "how to pay for it" are old and these journalists should start reading his website and plans instead of pretending that he has no plan.

2. No you're still not getting this.

Trump was equivocating in order to underplay the evil of the white nationalists. Political expediency to satisfy the racists that back him.

Sanders is saying that you can have a nuanced discussion about policies from another country while still calling them out as overall an evil country. He says in a followup CNN interview that we have nuanced discussions all the time about China, have economic partnerships with them, etc. And they commit the same human atrocities. (On a much bigger scale even). Somehow saying that China does something good (such as lifting millions out of poverty) doesn't get criticized as equivocating, but when you say that Cuba did something good, suddenly everyone thinks you're trying to cover for their crimes. Sanders has been quite consistent in how he views all authoritarian regimes, he is an adult and can see when one does something good in comparison to let's say North Korea that has done absolutely nothing good for its people. Sanders can have an adult conversation and is trying to elevate the conversation around foreign policy.

1. Did you watch the interview? The question that he kept pressing him on wasn't how to pay for it. It was how much does it cost. Good grief Charlie Brown, if you can't come up with literally just a ballpark figure of costs for your top 5 major governmental expansions off of the top of your head, then you probably don't need to be president or at least don't need to be proposing them. It can be argued that how to pay for it is a complex issue. Coming up with like 5 numbers should not be treated as a means for offense in an interview.

2. It is political expediency to gloss over bad things to use them in the pursuit of your policies, which is what I believe Sanders did.

Let's take a step back, though. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He was just trying to have a nuanced discussion as you say (it's funny how it can be nuanced on certain issues but full condemnation of people on others and that's all well and good, but again, let's just roll with it).

It's very simple. Sanders made a video that as best as I can tell from what I watched seem to not just say, for instance, let's do universal healthcare, all kinds of countries have this like Cuba. Instead, the videos appeared to me to be like, oh, Cuba had some bad parts, but look at what all good came out of their government. That's equivocating on evil plain and simple. And it's not just me that feels this way or it wouldn't be an issue.

So he's called out on it. It's very simple. You screwed up forming an argument like that. It was awhile ago, but you are responsible. Easy response time. Some people may not buy it because you're going against something they have you on video, but you can at least try. You can say, look, I shouldn't have (or even I didn't mean to but some people took it as) I was saying Cuba government had good parts because of healthcare. I meant to say, universal healthcare is good. It's in all sorts of countries, including Cuba. In fact, the fact that it's in Cuba with all of the other abhorrent things that happen with this authoritarian regime is a testament to the fact that universal healthcare is good. Nothing about the Cuban government is good. Their universal healthcare is completely divorced from their government. Tons of non authoritarian regimes have universal healthcare, and because of that I should have used them as examples, because there's absolutely no reason to link an authoritarian regime with something positive when it could just as easily have been done and has been done in countries that aren't.

But no. He doubles down, saying, oh I condemn the bad parts of the government, but of course I'm going to say that Cuba does good things. That's not the point. It's not tied to Cuba's authoritarian regime that some good things happen in the country. They should be totally divorced. The fact that you can't come right out and say that shows that you are putting your own policy interests and making them look good ahead of condemning authoritarianism. He had his chance. By linking Cuban government to good things that had no need of Cuba's authoritarian regime to come to pass and by then not retracting that, Sanders equivocated on the evil of the government, and it is completely fair to call him to the carpet for it.

You didn't address the hypocrisy. How is what Sanders says worse from how Trump, Bloomberg, et al treat China? In fact they interact even more with China by having huge financial interests there. Trump and others make huge sums of money off of authoritarian regimes in China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, etc.

But no Sanders is the one that is equivocating by pointing out the few pieces of good policy. Literally everyone in this country is complicit with funding and aiding authoritarian regimes around the country. We buy their stuff, we send our jobs there, etc. We even say "hey you know for all the bad at China has done, they have managed to lift a lot of people out of poverty". And you can't even for one minute consider the double standard you're hanging on Sanders because you have an agenda to somehow make Sanders into a giant authoritarian radical or something. It's ridiculous on its face.

On the funding of Bernie's plans, I think his ideas are so different and a radical change from what we do now. I agree that it's kind of pointless to argue out all of the details and expect a funding plan for every dollar.

1. Not everything will be implemented/ won't be implemented all at once. There will be time to calibrate and renegotiate. The more important piece is to give your vision for what the US could do.
2. Absolutely no one questions how we continue to pay for wars and the current spending we do on defense. I mean we all see the current deficit as a problem, but no has ever asked Obama or Bush "Hey before we go into Iraq, how are we going to pay for it?" The giant increase in defense spending from last year, did anyone even flinch? Yet similar plans that would cost just as much, such as free education demand a full payment plan. And then think tanks will push out their pseudoscience to push their own agenda to convince people it would cost 3x as much and the taxes would destroy the economy.

The Atlantic article that was posted is already out of date, as Bernie's campaign team has been quite responsive to critiques and released some additional details on Tuesday to his website that the article doesn't cover as mentioned here: https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/sanders-releases-plan-to-pay-for-52-trillion-worth-of-new-government-programs

But again, I think the focus on this is a double standard that really hammers on Sanders, we continue to pay for America's foreign policy with unwavering and unquestionable support. :)

I guess you're just not actually reading what I'm saying. I keep talking about how much the things cost; you keep acting like I'm talking about how it's going to be paid for. I said that the question that they kept pressing him on was how much it would cost. Sanders responded to that commenting that the very question of how much was nickling and diming things. That's a huge gaffe. It couldn't be any more of a Republican inspired cariacature of a spendy liberal who doesn't get that the things he spends money on are significant - if he can't even say how much it will actually cost and even calls the questioning of how much trillion dollar programs would cost as "nickle and diming". It's laughable. At this point, I don't really know how to continue the conversation since you're not addressing what I'm actually saying.

On the second point, you keep talking about people dealing with other countries...having financial interests with them. To maintain purity by your standard, America would have to be full on isolationist, not even trading with countries with evil regimes. That is not practical or even necessarily a good idea. There's no hypocrisy in admitting this while thinking what Sanders did was bad.

I will correct you on a couple of things. I have no agenda to hang any label on Sanders. Until the interview and news on Cuba, his policies or thoughts about authoritarian regimes were the farthest removed from my mind (I was much more interested in his economic policies), so you can stop with the assumptions if you please. Second, I'm not sure who the we is in the "We even say "hey you know for all the bad at China has done, they have managed to lift a lot of people out of poverty"" but I'm certainly not included in that we. If I was talking about China, I would never say, well, their government is authoritarian but at least some less people are in poverty. I wouldn't say it because it's stupid. There's good solid ways for people to be brought out of poverty without having a government that has forced labor camps and executions for people who disagree. Even if it was undeniably proven that the people were pulled out of poverty because of the authoritarian, evil governments, I still wouldn't say it for the very reason that it's equivocating something that's evil. It's pretty clear on this topic that nothing is going to matter to you about what Bernie said. To me, he made statements earlier that essentially said, well, Cuba's government is not that bad because they have governmental healthcare and the people can read better. I have a serious problem if that's what he intended to say. I would actually have given him the benefit of the doubt if he had explained that there's no excuse to excuse an evil regime just because literally everything they did didn't hurt people. He didn't do that. I think it's abhorrent when Trump says dictators are good guys. I think it's abhorrent when Sanders justifies evil regimes by commenting that, well, they do, do some good things. It's clear that you don't have a problem with Sanders saying that, so again on this one, I'm not sure if there's any point in discussing further. It matters to me, and Sanders will be lucky as someone mentioned earlier if it doesn't lose Florida for him, because it matters to others.

YttriumNitrate

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2340 on: February 28, 2020, 08:39:27 AM »
Sanders responded to that commenting that the very question of how much was nickling and diming things. That's a huge gaffe.



I've been posting this article for the last four election cycles, and it's still as accurate as ever. #5:

https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-to-spot-b.s.-political-story-in-under-10-seconds/

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2341 on: February 28, 2020, 08:42:52 AM »
Sanders responded to that commenting that the very question of how much was nickling and diming things. That's a huge gaffe.



I've been posting this article for the last four election cycles, and it's still as accurate as ever. #5:

https://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-to-spot-b.s.-political-story-in-under-10-seconds/

Lol...OK.....? He gave a clip that I imagine will be used in numerous political attack ads because it plays into a stereotype. There I fixed it with nuance! *Insert jazz hands* :-)
« Last Edit: February 28, 2020, 12:01:00 PM by Wolfpack Mustachian »

DavidAnnArbor

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2342 on: February 28, 2020, 08:33:14 PM »
Bernie stated that Castro's literacy program worked. (So does admitting that a literacy program worked mean that Bernie supported all the evil that Castro did? Of course not, that would be a completely idiotic assertion. In fact, Bernie stated the complete opposite).


What good is a literacy program if you get jailed for reading forbidden books or for writing improper ideas?

WHAT BERNIE SANDERS SHOULD HAVE SAID ABOUT SOCIALISM AND TOTALITARIANISM IN CUBA
By Masha Gessen
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-bernie-sanders-should-have-said-about-socialism-and-totalitarianism-in-cuba

"Sanders acted in a way that has long been characteristic of some members of the American left, who gloss over the crimes of totalitarian regimes as though they were footnotes to a greater story, or jokes.

"Both Obejas and Bruguera told me that Sanders’s reference to the sixty-year-old literacy campaign (for which both of their mothers volunteered) was particularly painful. Obejas explained how distant it is from contemporary Cuban reality, which is plagued by a shortage of teachers and doctors. Like the Soviet Union, Cuban society is profoundly stratified. These are essentially exploitative societies—each is no more socialist than war is peace, freedom is slavery, or ignorance is strength.

"But such is the power of Cold War framing—and such is the power of Soviet propaganda—that the decoupling of totalitarianism from socialism has not happened in American political culture. The right and the left both essentially continue to believe that the Soviet Union and its satellite, Castro’s Cuba, were socialist states. On the right, this has meant equating the ideas with the totalitarian nightmare. On the left, it has led to erasing or minimizing the nightmare.

"What Sanders could have said, and should have said, is that totalitarianism, that most horrible of inventions of the twentieth century, is one of the greatest crimes against humanity. But it should not discredit the ideas of common welfare and basic fairness that make up socialism. Totalitarianism can weaponize any ideology; socialism is no more essentially totalitarian than capitalism is essentially democratic. This would have been at once factually true and true to the politics that Sanders has espoused.

"Instead, during a CNN town hall on Monday evening, Sanders doubled down on his praise of Castro’s sixty-year-old literacy program. Then, he added, “China is another example. It’s an authoritarian country, becoming more and more authoritarian. But can anyone deny—I mean, the facts are clear—that they have taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history?” I could almost hear the collective gasp of many Chinese-American voters, who also stand on my side of the great unbridgeable gap. It’s as if Sanders didn’t realize that all of these good things that he cites—literacy, public medicine, access to culture and public transportation, and being lifted out of poverty—are good because they create the conditions for human dignity, which is precisely what totalitarianism destroys.


FIPurpose

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2343 on: February 28, 2020, 09:43:14 PM »
Bernie stated that Castro's literacy program worked. (So does admitting that a literacy program worked mean that Bernie supported all the evil that Castro did? Of course not, that would be a completely idiotic assertion. In fact, Bernie stated the complete opposite).


What good is a literacy program if you get jailed for reading forbidden books or for writing improper ideas?

WHAT BERNIE SANDERS SHOULD HAVE SAID ABOUT SOCIALISM AND TOTALITARIANISM IN CUBA
By Masha Gessen
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-bernie-sanders-should-have-said-about-socialism-and-totalitarianism-in-cuba

"Sanders acted in a way that has long been characteristic of some members of the American left, who gloss over the crimes of totalitarian regimes as though they were footnotes to a greater story, or jokes.

"Both Obejas and Bruguera told me that Sanders’s reference to the sixty-year-old literacy campaign (for which both of their mothers volunteered) was particularly painful. Obejas explained how distant it is from contemporary Cuban reality, which is plagued by a shortage of teachers and doctors. Like the Soviet Union, Cuban society is profoundly stratified. These are essentially exploitative societies—each is no more socialist than war is peace, freedom is slavery, or ignorance is strength.

"But such is the power of Cold War framing—and such is the power of Soviet propaganda—that the decoupling of totalitarianism from socialism has not happened in American political culture. The right and the left both essentially continue to believe that the Soviet Union and its satellite, Castro’s Cuba, were socialist states. On the right, this has meant equating the ideas with the totalitarian nightmare. On the left, it has led to erasing or minimizing the nightmare.

"What Sanders could have said, and should have said, is that totalitarianism, that most horrible of inventions of the twentieth century, is one of the greatest crimes against humanity. But it should not discredit the ideas of common welfare and basic fairness that make up socialism. Totalitarianism can weaponize any ideology; socialism is no more essentially totalitarian than capitalism is essentially democratic. This would have been at once factually true and true to the politics that Sanders has espoused.

"Instead, during a CNN town hall on Monday evening, Sanders doubled down on his praise of Castro’s sixty-year-old literacy program. Then, he added, “China is another example. It’s an authoritarian country, becoming more and more authoritarian. But can anyone deny—I mean, the facts are clear—that they have taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history?” I could almost hear the collective gasp of many Chinese-American voters, who also stand on my side of the great unbridgeable gap. It’s as if Sanders didn’t realize that all of these good things that he cites—literacy, public medicine, access to culture and public transportation, and being lifted out of poverty—are good because they create the conditions for human dignity, which is precisely what totalitarianism destroys.

So here's the typical right-wing/neo-liberal talking point. What I bolded above is basically what Sanders did say from his full quote:

Quote
"We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?"

*Cooper points out that many dissidents were imprisoned in Cuba under Castro’s regime*

"That’s right. And we condemn that."

But of course he didn't say it in the exact right way to satisfy the pundits. Despite their general hypocrisy about China, despite the economic warfare that we wage on Cuba that the UN condemns the US for annually.

Obama had similar remarks several times during his presidency:
Quote
“I said this to President Castro in Cuba. Look, you've made great progress in educating young people,”

But nope Bernie just has to say it just right or else all those Chris Matthews fears of Bernie secretly wanting to chop heads off in central park will awaken in the American Psyche. It's completely dishonest reporting and opining.

Here's the secret. No matter what Bernie said about Cuba, it was going to get spun that he was secretly saying that he supports the authoritarian regime. These pundits really need to stop talking out of both sides of their mouths.

MasterStache

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2344 on: February 29, 2020, 06:59:05 AM »
But of course he didn't say it in the exact right way to satisfy the pundits.
It still wouldn't have satisfied the pundits. They would have found something wrong with absolutely any positive affirmations. Let's be honest here.

redbirdfan

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2345 on: February 29, 2020, 06:15:34 PM »
I'm a Never Trump/Never Bernie Republican.  I would vote for anyone serious other than them.  I will say this.  Democrats can nominate Bernie on the strength of millennials and California or they can nominate someone who can beat Trump.  As far as I can tell Bernie doesn't have a single policy proposal that has a chance to be passed.  He seems to be popular because young people dislike corporations and student loans and what they see as hypocrisy.  Politics is about compromise and using leverage to get meaningful legislation passed.  Obamacare was a political bloodbath that was successful because people were willing to fall on their swords to get it done.  Bernie doesn't have the support necessary (Democratic or Republican) to be effective.  Bernie gaining the nomination guarantees that the Republicans maintain the Senate and will likely negatively impact the Democrats' ability to control the House.  His comments regarding Castro make it unlikely that he could make Florida competitive and that will impact House seats that flipped blue in '18.  Bernie will not be competitive in Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, etc.  What state does Bernie put in play that isn't already a safe blue state?  Please explain his path to an electoral college victory.  Keep in mind that many midwestern and eastern states have unions for which heath care is a big deal. 

I don't really have a dog in this fight.  I've come to terms with Trump's likely reelection.  The egos of Mayor Pete, Steyer, Bloomberg, Klobuchar and Warren will guarantee a Bernie nomination which will in turn guarantee Trump's reelection.  I hope I'm wrong, but it looks like the writing is on the wall.  Just my $.02

American GenX

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2346 on: February 29, 2020, 06:25:32 PM »

Trump had the good economy going for him, but that's going to change with the fallout from COVID-19.  That's really going to hurt his re-election chances.  This isn't something that's going to pass quickly.

Looks like Joe Biden is going to pull out a pretty big margin of victory in South Carolina.  Congrats, Joe.

Wolfpack Mustachian

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2347 on: February 29, 2020, 07:48:12 PM »
But of course he didn't say it in the exact right way to satisfy the pundits.
It still wouldn't have satisfied the pundits. They would have found something wrong with absolutely any positive affirmations. Let's be honest here.

Ok, first of all, I commented that there wasn't much worth talking about more and now I'm talking about it again, so my bad on that one. It's a personal flaw of mine, I can't help but run my mouth :-).

You both and everybody who is acting like this is no big deal keep referencing JUST the Cooper interview as if it was in isolation. FIPurpose threw out a quote from it. Sounds good, I'll see that one and raise you the actual interview from Sanders's past that (as best as I understand) triggered all of this:

"You may recall way back in what was it 1961 they invaded Cuba. And everybody was totally convinced that Castro was the worst guy in the world, all the Cuban people were going to rise up in rebellion against Fidel Castro. They’d forgot that he educated their kids, gave them healthcare, totally transformed their society. Not to say that Fidel Castro and Cuba are perfect, they’re certainly not."

Note, I didn't cut any of this out to make it sound worse in context (left the last sentence there). However, the last sentence in no way makes up for what is either absurdly naive/sheer idiocy at best, reprehensibly atrocious at worst. There's no two ways to look at this. Sanders implied that the reason there wasn't a groundswell of support to stop an invasion of Cuba was because of childhood education or healthcare? Oh my word. If he had said it was because it was an invasion and people don't tend to take kindly to being invaded regardless, it would have at least been a decent point. No, he acted like people just misrepresented the guy - Castro was this beloved leader who had made things so, so much better for everyone. NO! There wasn't political opposition of him or much if any opposition against him at all because he freakin' killed them or put them in labor camps. I don't make this analogy lightly, but this is an awful lot like someone who would say of a lady in an abusive relationship who didn't side against her abuser as, oh, well, people forget that the guy provides for her, brings her home money and buys her nice things, of course she wouldn't go against him. To make the argument in any way that there was not opposition to Castro, in a society where governmental dissenters were executed is abhorrent.

So no, there likely wasn't anything he could have said that would have satisfied the pundits. There shouldn't have been anything he could have said that would have satisfied anyone who actually cared about Cuba cares about human rights aside from a total and complete apology and explanation for why he made such a jacked up statement.
« Last Edit: February 29, 2020, 07:54:32 PM by Wolfpack Mustachian »

GuitarStv

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2348 on: February 29, 2020, 08:17:28 PM »
Do these people who "care about human rights" feel hypocritical focusing on Castro's past violations while fully supporting a government that is still keeping open an illegal prison of people (including children) kidnapped from around the world, held without hope of trial, who are beaten/tortured/raped/sexually humiliated/religiouly degraded/occasionally murdered?  A prison (ironically) located in Cuba?

Or supporting the same government's drone program - responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilian men, women, and children . . . and far more injuries/maimings.  Again, operating outside of international law, willfully violating the borders of other countries, recklessly endangering civilian life . . . because executing suspected terrorists apparently justifies any act?


Yeah, Castro did a lot of terrible things in the past while giving his people health care and education.  The US is currently still doing terrible things to folks while giving nothing back.  Authoritarianism is bad.  Democracy is certainly no guarantee of a moral government though . . . because it depends on the morality of it's people.

secondcor521

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Re: 2020 POTUS Candidates
« Reply #2349 on: February 29, 2020, 08:20:30 PM »
I predict Bloomberg does not get the Democratic nomination and runs as an independent.  I believe he has said he would support the eventual nominee, but I don't believe him on that point.  Just a gut feeling.