How is Hillary so bloody far head in the polls if all these Bernie fanboys are voting for Stein. Last I saw, like nobody was voting for her.
2016 US Presidential Elections | Trump Wins
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How is Hillary so bloody far head in the polls if all these Bernie fanboys are voting for Stein. Last I saw, like nobody was voting for her.
It's probably just my news feed on facebook then. Annoys me. I never comment because I believe anyone who discusses politics on social media has a double digit IQ
You wouldn't sleep well at night if you knew the F-16 was still the main multi-role fighter of the air force, would you?
Err, don't understand what you mean. Basically my argument is that higher education is already overpriced (from Harvard to McU online) because there's over-stimulated demand with the loans. Government paid tuition would just be more of a stimulus = even higher prices.
I love how they could´t even get any of those planes from the multi trillion dollar air force in the air on 9/11. What a scandal, without nary a peep. And who are all these trillion dollar air force keeping us safe from? The Boogieman?
University used to be so cheap. How were we able to manage? What happened? . . . cough cough Reagan. And great for business to get all these tax cuts and tax havens and loopholes, and get their skilled and educated labor force paid for by their workers. Talk about having your cake and eating it. Maybe that has a lot to do with high priced education
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Wow, that's just so not true at all. I can completely agree with you about being pissed with many Bernie supporters and can completely understand why you would be upset at them voting away from Hillary, especially that it could easily lead to Trump becoming President. But to say the rest about Bernie is just so not true at all. Bernie was way more than how you describe him, and if given the chance, the votes and the backing, he could easily accomplish an awful lot of what he intended to do. More importantly, the mans heart is 100% in the right place and he really cares and is passionate about what he speaks about. In my opinion, he is the single greatest politician I have ever seen or heard from in my 42 years on the planet. He is amazingly genuine and his record completely backs him up on nearly everything he was proposing. He is feck all like Trump who just says shit because he thinks it sounds good, compared to Bernie, someone who genuinely and passionately believes in everything he is saying, proposing and suggesting.
Again, I can completely see and understand your frustration at many of his supporters and especially the sanctimonious bollocks constantly spread across social media, but to malign the man himself the way you did is just only not fair, it is completely inaccurate too.
I don't meant to disrespect you but in the bold part is exactly why I can't take a lot of Bernie supporters seriously. I want you to understand the meaning of a politician before you make such claims.
I liked Bernie for some of his policies and ideas but the whole "genuine" and "emotional" part only means he is a very good speaker. He is a obviously a great politician (you don't get to that level without being one) but even someone like Bill Clinton was a better politician than Bernie.
If you think I'm maligning him by saying he tries to gain vote by emotional investment than I fear you do not understand the idea behind politics. There is nothing wrong with doing that. He just wants people to give him votes so he can guide the country the best possible way he can but it is what it is. You have fallen for it (and by that I don't mean it in a negative way. All politicians are selling something. You have bought what Bernie is selling) and I have bought what Hillary is selling.
But at the end of the day Hillary and Bernie are both politicians whereas from Bernie's supporters you get this feeling of Bernie being some god sent master that has it all figured out. It's like the man doesn't even have any flaws. I mean you just labelled a guy that can't win a presidential election as the greatest politician ever. Surely you see why people don't take Bernie supporters seriously?
I feel like I just read the CE equivalent of "you don't understand football".
Well saying Bernie is the greatest politician ever seen would be like saying Michael Owen is the greatest striker of all time.
I was going to reply, but I can't be arsed.Something like that is surely personal though, and if he speaks to Langster values and shows that through actions rather than just words then who are you or I to question it?
But is he Vaclav Havel worthy?
He's definitely doing a good job if he has you that convinced.
Ah....ffs Bernie Bros let it go lads.
It makes no difference to me at all, i'm not American, but I have an awful lot of friends and family who are. Just look at his record, it speaks for itself, and he wants everything for his countrymen and women that I take for granted really. It's no secret here what I and many Europeans think about free healthcare and education. The majority of us have it, we treasure it and we wouldn't be without it and we would fight against losing it. Bernie thinks they are basic rights, he also believes in a woman's right to choose regarding abortion, he fought for gay rights for years, and he is all about equal rights for everyone. He doesn't just say this shit, he walks the walk. Yeah, I may have come across as a bit of a fanboy in my post, but that's because he really is, genuinely the only politician I have seen and heard from that I truly believe in. I believe he wants what he says, I believe he would fight for it, no matter how hard and I believe he truly cares that much too.
I've seen them all come and go, and yes we have had great speakers and orators, and we have had superb Politicians like Obama whose heart is definitely in the right place and I believe he will think deep down he has failed and could have done more, which he would be right about, but Obama is also closely tied to the establishment, that might make him less naïve and smarter, but it taints him slightly in my opinion. Bernie is just slightly different in my opinion, I don't believe he could be bought and I don't believe he would pander to the establishment. I wish he was British so he could run here, I am pretty sure he would be elected here too. I may have worded my post poorly, but the long and short of it is I've never come across anyone like him before. Ive only voted for political parties here in the UK because their ideals and beliefs match mine, it was nice to actually see an actual person that pretty much mirrored my views rather than a party. Jeremy Corbyn comes close too, but I believe I disagree with him more than I would Bernie.
Take that however you like, it makes no difference to me at all, but that's what I meant when I said "the single greatest politician I have seen in 42 years"
However, despite all that, if I was from the USA and could vote, I would put my feelings aside and vote for Hillary because of how important it would be for me to do so. The alternative is unthinkable and too dangerous to allow to happen. The time for being stubborn and principled and cutting off your nose to spite your face is most definitely not now. Trump is not the person you would want in power to prove a fecking point just so you could satisfy your precious conscience or false sense of self righteousness so you can win an argument and take the moral high ground on social media or in the workplace or pub.
I don't agree with that either. But just because a war happened that I didn't vote for doesn't mean I need to want free college.
I was more addressing your point that . . . "but free college definitely wouldn't work in America." . . . yet somehow tax payers shelling out trillions and trillions and trillions for military boondoggles (with a Bush tax cut for the wealthy, to boot) seem to work rather fine, at least in the mind of Republican America.
There's more to free college than the costs. Mainly things like worth of degrees and all of that. The costs wouldn't even work either. I don't get how military costs can even relate when we can't afford them either. Kind of proves my point. Republicans being wrong doesn't make you right.
I sure wish the government would´ve put that same amount of money and effort into college education or social investment that they put into wars halfway around the world that have ended up biting us in the ass. My point is; if the tax payer can foot the bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, surely they could alleviate the high costs of college education and folks like you wouldn´t be saddles with over a hundred grand of debt off the bat. What´s the difference between a trillion of war sponsorship and a trillion for college sponsorship?
When I was in in my twenties, college was free and Cal State Universities cost 250 dollars a semester, and we had a manageable debt. What happened?
It's a wrong point because we can't pay for the wars either. We can't afford money for a war and we can't afford money for college. That's why we're in debt and struggling.
And to your second point, the state schools have gone up in price exactly for one of the reasons college wouldn't work... Because they are run by the government. Also because much less people went to school back then than they do now.
You know you can take people off your news feed without removing them as friends? Just do that?
Guess you missed my post about Bernies organisation going back on its principles?
Anyway, for my criticism of Clinton I repent and shall go the re-education gulag.
Edit: Guess I also missed the veil in my post, there wasn't meant to be any.
I'm interested from your perspective: is the subsidy to students for state-run college tuition (which Bernie proposed) comparable to Obamacare in terms of price escalation (since the cost is underwritten by the govt)? It's the most credible argument against the subsidy I heard.
Edit: google is scarily accurate at times. New on my youtube recomendations is a fox video, "clueless entitled undergrad gets completely destroyed on universal healthcare and free college", and the only other things I've been reading about healthcare have been left-wing pieces 2-3 months ago.
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I mean... I voted Bernie in the primary, but I'm voting Hillary in November
I was 50/50 between Bernie and Hillary but you know what I am talking about. People that never followed politics, didn't care for democrats vs republicans but were obsessed with Bernie.
I know what you mean man, I'm just ribbing you a little. I've seen/heard the same and it's getting annoying to me too.
That makes no sense. The point of education isn't just degrees, but the rise in awareness among the citizens. The worth of degrees is already on the decline. The equivalence of undergrad 30 years back is now graduate course and worth of graduate 30 years back is now a post grad. There is no doubt that we now have overabundance of overqualified workforce with poorer job prospects than we had 30 years back. But education is a quasi public good because it's externalities reach far beyond an efficient work force. Donald Trump's rise for instance (among various other important factors) can partially be attributed to poorly educated working class in the US. Among various arguments that can be made to privatise free education, devaluation of degrees is probably the weakest.
What is your objection to someone living in say, Texas or California (or any other solid states) voting for the candidate of their choice?
A good (trigger warning: in a socialist magazine) article about the history of Alex Jones and his relationship with Trump.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/alex-jones-donald-trump-infowars-clinton-conspiracy/
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/08/alex-jones-donald-trump-infowars-clinton-conspiracy/
Not true at all. There is nothing wrong with having a strong working class, even uneducated. If everybody has access to a degree the the value of a degree is going to plummet more so than it is. I also highly doubt giving free college is going to change things like people voting for Donald Trump. That's ridiculous to say. And even if it did, why is that necessarily a good thing? Does the opinions of working class America not count for anything?
And to the point in "rise of awareness."
There is no data that proves education is a strong means to elevate people from poverty. Furthermore, with the dilutment of the American education system college doesn't even make people any smarter than when they go in. It just makes them better at taking college exams and studying. Yes, a graduate degree is now the equivalent of a bachelors etc, but that only further proves my point because that only happened because so many more people have become educated. And we're not better off because of it.
Yep, education is worthless if others also get education.
I'm not saying it's pointless, just that making it free isn't going to help anything.
It's all about protecting how much better I am than stupid people, ya naw?
I would argue there are many many people who do not go to college that are smarter than people who get a four year degree in a pointless major. There is very little correlation between a college degree and one's intelligence.
Like I said earlier, I decided to go to college and I'm now in graduate school. It was the right choice for me, but not the right choice for everybody. With that said, I'm going to have north of $150,000 in debt. I paid myself through undergrad and took out loans to go to grad school. I'm fine with that. It also doesn't make me smarter than someone like my brother who opted to go into the workforce.
If people think college is important that's fine, let them pay for it themselves.
The two don't go hand in hand, but can you really say there isn't even the slightest chance that being in full-time education won't stimulate your mind more than someone who isn't? I think you're grossly underestimating the effect of spending time in an education environment.
I don't think anyone is talking about forcing people who don't want to be there or who are not academically capable into education. What they're talking about is the likes of your blithe final statement and the crushing pressure that could put on people who do not usually have access to education, who are excluded due to any number of reasons, trying to climb onto that ladder.
Does college stimulate my mind more than owning a business (what my brother does) or being an electrical contractor or a carpenter? I'm really not sure it does.
I know college is expensive, but that still isn't a good reason to make it free. I'm going to owe a lot in debt, but that's because I chose to go to universities that were really really expensive. The local community college by me is less than $4,000 a year. That isn't crippling debt for anybody. It doesn't have to be free for people to be able to go. But if it does become free, I just see more harm than good. I do think it should be cheaper though (but making it free will actually make it more expensive).
Having free college doesn't necessarily equal more degrees on the market as you could easily increase entrance requirements. The point on providing free education is simple fairness: everybody should have the opportunity to work hard and achieve academic grades.
You'll say that everybody can go down the student debt route but you can't really claim that these people have the same choice as those with parents rich enough to pay up front. It's also not unfair from the government's point of view as people with higher education will earn more and pay more taxes in return.
Edit: And it's not about intelligence (which we'd need to find a definition for anyway) but about job opportunities and income. College educated people tend to earn more (which helps in escaping poverty).
You'll say that everybody can go down the student debt route but you can't really claim that these people have the same choice as those with parents rich enough to pay up front. It's also not unfair from the government's point of view as people with higher education will earn more and pay more taxes in return.
Edit: And it's not about intelligence (which we'd need to find a definition for anyway) but about job opportunities and income. College educated people tend to earn more (which helps in escaping poverty).
If you increase entrance requirements it will be even less fair for "poor" people to get in.
I think the system is fair now though. I mean, to me, nothing is more fair than getting what you paid for. I don't see how it's more fair to make others pay for your education. If you want a cheap education you can get one (you can get a four year degree in New York State 4 year college for less than $20,000 (with no scholarships or financial aid) and a 2 year degree for less than $10,000) or, you can go to a private school and pay whatever you want. That seems fair to me.
Whatever about the first statement, I'm going to have to ask you to elaborate on that second statement.
I think that you're discounting the value of an educational environment based on personal experience. Your brother's business might be extremely intellectually stimulating, and there might be carpenters whose work is intellectually stimulating, but I would imagine that on the face of it, most people would agree a full-time studying environment in a 4 year degree course is going to be more intellectually stimulating that most people's jobs, not to mention the exposure to a university environment and all of the culture that that entails. For me, it would be very hard to encompass all of that in any other environment and I think you're underselling its holistic value.
It'd be good to get this back on-topic - do you think that exposure in a learning environment for a sustained length of time, where they're using their minds full-time, in a typically political environment as universities usually are, exposed to different viewpoints, opinions and cultures, wouldn't make people consider their vote more carefully?
What value does it actually bring though? How am I actually better off to society that I have a degree in history?
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