Thoughts on the 3rd debate

[admin_270 846]

1 hour ago, vcczar said:

She could make it seem like a Convention compromise.

Perhaps that's how she would do it, but at this point I think it's a block to her winning the nomination in the first place. Granted, less of an issue than in the general.

[vcczar 1,224]

Just now, admin_270 said:

Perhaps that's how she would do it, but at this point I think it's a block to her winning the nomination in the first place. Granted, less of an issue than in the general.

They'll all have to make adjustments, including Biden. Biden will have to move left in some areas and Warren will have to move in the center in some areas. I wonder who would have an easier, more convincing movement to stretch their electoral umbrella. 

[admin_270 846]

Just now, Patine said:

Maybe from the bad stereotypes

'too much' in terms of winning a general election in the U.S. as of a year from now.

Maybe I'm wrong and socialized health care will be a big winner in the general election, but according to polling I've looked at it isn't even a winner in the Democratic primaries.

[Patine 469]

9 minutes ago, admin_270 said:

'too much' in terms of winning a general election in the U.S. as of a year from now.

Maybe I'm wrong and socialized health care will be a big winner in the general election, but according to polling I've looked at it isn't even a winner in the Democratic primaries.

I notice the interesting turn of phrase in calling universal or public health care "socialized" health care in American political rhetoric. It's a very clever, but disingenuous, tactic. The first sovereign nation in history to adopt such a policy was the German Empire in the 1880's, under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck - a staunch Conservative. Many nations that identified in their political and economic scheme as "Socialist" or "Communist" never actually adopted the practice, really, including the USSR, itself. Even though Labour PM Atlee introduced the NHS in the UK, the Conservatives NEVER dismantled it, not even when Churchill returned or Thatcher was in power. But, so many Americans are hoodwinked by lack of education and belief in bad stereotypes to believe it's a strictly and exclusively "Socialist" policy. They really shouldn't have stopped with those old, "The More You Know" informative commercials on U.S. television (which I got via my basic cable package) from back in my youth.

[admin_270 846]

5 minutes ago, Patine said:

I notice the interesting turn of phrase in calling universal or public health care "socialized" health care in American political rhetoric.

It's socialized in that the state has very strong control over an industry.

[admin_270 846]

Definition of socialism 1a from Merriam-Webster

"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"

It's socialized medicine.

[vcczar 1,224]

6 minutes ago, admin_270 said:

Definition of socialism 1a from Merriam-Webster

"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"

It's socialized medicine.

I don't have any problem calling it socialized medicine, but it bothers me that Conservatives don't use the term when talking about VA Healthcare. Socialism in the US began with Rev War pension systems. 

[Sean F. Kennedy 14]

1 hour ago, Patine said:

 

 

I would just like to point out again, if I may, that Bernie Sanders is not REALLY a Socialist - he's a Social Democrat, and a pretty milk-sop, moderate one as the international movement goes. Despite a lot of accusations, labelling, and slander against a lot of elected U.S. politicians in many offices at all levels of governments, virtually all of the Democratic Party of the United States (especially by such engines of ignorance, misinformation, and outright lies like Fox News and such), there have not really been any true, died-in-the-wool Socialists elected in the United States since the 1940's, except maybe in a few city councils, but all such Socialists tend, and tended, to have Third Party labels of appropriately-aligned parties, and not to be Democrats.

Thank you for saying the obvious many Americans fail to piece together 

[Sean F. Kennedy 14]

31 minutes ago, admin_270 said:

Definition of socialism 1a from Merriam-Webster

"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"

It's socialized medicine.

Just how calling 911 gets you the socialized police force or socialized fire fighters. They don't send you a bill after an emergency.

[Patine 469]

6 minutes ago, Dr. Insano said:

Just how calling 911 gets you the socialized police force or socialized fire fighters. They don't send you a bill after an emergency.

 

39 minutes ago, admin_270 said:

Definition of socialism 1a from Merriam-Webster

"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"

It's socialized medicine.

Also, are the U.S. Military and CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS, etc., "socialist organizations," by that reckoning?

[RI Democrat 39]

51 minutes ago, admin_270 said:

Definition of socialism 1a from Merriam-Webster

"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"

It's socialized medicine.

Even in a single-payer system, though, there isn't necessarily much government *ownership* of production and distribution. The way I understand these Medicare For All proposals is that the government would act in place of the insurer, but most health care facilities and their employees would remain under private ownership. Certainly Medicare as it currently exists - as a program for seniors only - does not involve the doctors and nurses who treat seniors becoming government employees.

You could call Medicare For All "socialized insurance," I guess, but the actual practice of medicine would still be taking place mostly in the private sector. 

[RI Democrat 39]

15 minutes ago, Patine said:

 

Also, are the U.S. Military and CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS, etc., "socialist organizations," by that reckoning?

Of course not. Things are only "socialist" when Fox News and the RNC say they are. 

[admin_270 846]

1 hour ago, Dr. Insano said:

Just how calling 911 gets you the socialized police force or socialized fire fighters. They don't send you a bill after an emergency.

That's right, and if police or fire departments were currently mostly privately owned and operated, saying the proposal was to have socialized police or fire departments would be accurate.

[admin_270 846]

54 minutes ago, Patine said:

Also, are the U.S. Military and CIA, NSA, FBI, DHS, etc., "socialist organizations," by that reckoning?

Of course! The U.S. military is a large, socialized part of the U.S. economy.

Mercenaries hired by private interests would be capitalist, and this is sometimes how wars are waged.

[admin_270 846]

47 minutes ago, RI Democrat said:

Even in a single-payer system, though, there isn't necessarily much government *ownership* of production and distribution.

Right, not necessarily, but it tends to involve that. Where I live, the government controls who gets basic health insurance and what it will cover, how long they will have to wait for care, who becomes a doctor or nurse, how much they get paid and whether they can get paid for doing certain health care work, and the government owns and runs the hospitals. Pretty socialized.

[WVProgressive 56]

4 minutes ago, admin_270 said:

That's right, and if police or fire departments were currently mostly privately owned and operated, saying the proposal was to have socialized police or fire departments would be accurate.

No. That's not what Socialism is.

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another."- Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, which I recommend you read so that you can know what socialism actually is, rather than just repeating an inaccurate dictionary definition.

[Patine 469]

8 minutes ago, WVProgressive said:

No. That's not what Socialism is.

"What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another."- Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program, which I recommend you read so that you can know what socialism actually is, rather than just repeating an inaccurate dictionary definition.

The Gotha Program he mentioned, and that Marx himself critiques there, is, in effect, the genesis of the concept of "Social Democracy," a label I just clarified belongs to Bernie Sanders - not true Socialist, and certainly not Communist.

[admin_270 846]

@WVProgressive

Sounds like you're using a less common definition of socialism - in particular, what Merriam-Webster lists as definition 3.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

"a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done"

I am talking about definition 1a, which is how it is more typically understood.

[Patine 469]

1 minute ago, admin_270 said:

@WVProgressive

Sounds like you're using a less common definition of socialism - in particular, what Merriam-Webster lists as definition 3.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

"a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done"

I am talking about definition 1a, which is how it is more typically understood.

He's making a quote from the ideological father of the movement. You're quoting an American-printed dictionary.

[admin_270 846]

4 minutes ago, Patine said:

He's making a quote from the ideological father of the movement. You're quoting an American-printed dictionary.

The meaning of a word is in how it's used by the speakers of the language. This is why the meanings of words often change over time. It's not what someone decided 150 years ago. It's how it's used today.

You can debate that the meaning of 'socialism' *ought to be* solely 3, but all the same it *is* also (and more commonly) 1a.

[Patine 469]

3 minutes ago, admin_270 said:

The meaning of a word is in how it's used by the speakers of the language. This is why the meanings of words often change over time. It's not what someone decided 150 years ago. It's how it's used today.

You can debate that the meaning of 'socialism' *ought to be* solely 3, but all the same it *is* also (and more commonly) 1a.

But a lot of how the word is used today is uneducated and disingenuous political and economic slander and mudslinging - much as "Fascist" is also used in a similar light - and thus is not at all productive. It's no wonder an American-printed dictionary artificially expanded the definition of the term to allow such detrimental usage to be considered "correct terminology" as a form of "zeitgeist pandering."

[admin_270 846]

Just now, Patine said:

But a lot of how the word is used today is uneducated and disingenuous political and economic slander and mudslinging

Sure, so it sounds like you're arguing that it ought to be solely 3. I'm saying that 'socialized medicine' as I'm using it refers to 1a, which is the more common usage.

[Patine 469]

4 minutes ago, admin_270 said:

Sure, so it sounds like you're arguing that it ought to be solely 3. I'm saying that 'socialized medicine' as I'm using it refers to 1a, which is the more common usage.

But the term leads to the assumption that, as a policy, it's always attached at the hip to Socialist-leaning political parties or governments, which, in a broad scope, just isn't true.

[admin_270 846]

1 minute ago, Patine said:

But the term leads to the assumption that, as a policy, it's always attached at the hip to Socialist-leaning political parties or governments, which, in a broad scope, just isn't true.

Not sure the term leads to that. One might make that inference, but probably that's connected to whether one thinks of 'socialism' primarily in terms of definition 3.

[Actinguy 862]

Only Patine would spend his day arguing with a dictionary.