Bernie Sanders at his best

[Lurikeen]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Not voting is worse than any other action.

The least you can do is display non-confidence in the two party system by voting for an outsider anti-establishment candidate that aligns most closely with your ideology. Then at least you're doing some good, considering Democrats, Republicans, and their respective tribes are largely responsible for this shit.

Why so judgmental? Not voting can be the best thing to do. After all, the participation rate is tracked, in case you didn't know that.

[Lune]

Originally Posted by Lurikeen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Why so judgmental? Not voting can be the best thing to do. After all, the participation rate is tracked, in case you didn't know that.

They have nothing to fear from your not voting, it simply means they aren't being affected. Voting for their competition is a different matter. Completely withdrawing from the whole process because of disillusionment does nothing to help solve the problem. Even with the most pessimistic outlook, voting anti-establishment does very little to solve the problem. Very little is better than nothing.

If a substantial portion of the young people who you know damn well aren't going to vote, voted, then Bernie would win this election. It may not mean a lot to you because you don't agree with his platform, but a lot of people think he has a capacity to, at the very least, get the ball rolling on meaningful change.

[Lurikeen]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

They have nothing to fear from your not voting, it simply means they aren't being affected. Voting for their competition is a different matter. Completely withdrawing from the whole process because of disillusionment does nothing to help solve the problem. Even with the most pessimistic outlook, voting anti-establishment does very little to solve the problem. Very little is better than nothing.

If a substantial portion of the young people who you know damn well aren't going to vote, voted, then Bernie would win this election. It may not mean a lot to you because you don't agree with his platform, but a lot of people think he has a capacity to, at the very least, get the ball rolling on meaningful change.

The problem with your view of voting is it engenders voting for the most electable candidate which is antithetical to voting on principles.

[Lune]

Originally Posted by Lurikeen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The problem with your view of voting is it engenders voting for the most electable candidate which is antithetical to voting on principles.

I think I've been unclear.

Vote no matter what, but vote for your principles.

Consider the current election. Hillary is the most electable candidate. There's no way in hell I'm voting for Hillary, I'm voting for Bernie. I know Bernie will not win. Nevertheless, the fact that I voted for Bernie instead of Hillary makes a statement, and reinforces the viability of the non-establishment candidate. If enough people refuse to vote Democratic(establishment candidate), then one of two things happens:

1. An outsider actually wins an election, and change might happen.

2. Democrats are forced to change their platform to capture the errant voters.

Voting Hillary does nothing to inspire Democrats to be less despicable. Not voting also does nothing to effect any sort of change, and people become even more discouraged by the poor performance of outsider candidates. If Bernie manages to pull off decent numbers this time around, people will be that much more encouraged next time. Abstaining from voting is ultimately self-defeating.

Also consider what old people have done with the Tea Party. Old people vote like crazy, and they've managed to replace Republicans with radicals precisely because apathy has led to a lack of sane, moderate voters in many constituencies. If crotchety old racist assholes expressed their unhappiness with republicans by not voting, there would be no tea party.

Of course, general elections are a different story, as you risk Ralph Nadering your preferred candidate.

[iruinedyourday]

Originally Posted by Garg [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Let me ask you this Ruin, what is the incentive? I've skimmed over a lot of Sanders proposals ect. I have not come across anything that to me, show any reason to want to work hard. Currently that incentive I believe is there. Work hard to achieve bigger and better (even if its simply the idea of such). Where is the incentive to work hard when everything is mandated? How much money you make, how many days off you get, how you're suppose to live your life. I just don't see an incentive to read out and get ahead in this type of environment.

Even in our broken system we have now, I do believe that those who wish to work hard will get out and succeed. When everything is handed to them there is little incentive. This is my biggest problem with welfare in its current state. We seem to be so give give give and ask nothing in return. Thus we don't encourage people to get off of the welfare programs and back into the work force. Heck we come up with new means of welfare to make life even better.

I think we have a major problem with entitlement currently going on in this country. The way we administer welfare only seems to exasperate this problem. Given the way things are currently, I can't understand how adding more welfare type programs will ever make things better.

Frankly I think we'd see a heck of a lot more people succeeding if we cut the welfare. In place of the ungodly amount of money we spend on these types of programs create jobs. It doesn't have to be big jobs, heck even cleaning the parks would be better then nothing. Anything to force people to get off of the couch and into doing something, anything, useful and constructive.

Now, in your last paragraph you are right on the same page as Bernie. Use the money our government has been giving away to create jobs. The only difference between Bernie's plan and yours is he will give the money that we have been giving to the 1 and 2% by increasing their taxes, taxing speculation trades on wall street (that economists agree are not good for business growth) and cutting payouts to corporations and banks. (which i might add is far more than what the government spends on social programs right now)

If we cut welfare, i think the only thing you'd see is white middle class Americans who have lost there job, pan-handling and posting on craigslist for jobs cleaning houses. A good example of this is the Great depression.

Truthfully if you think there is a problem with entitlement in this country, and republicans have been running our economy for the last 30 years, then you blame democrats, well, your math is just not adding up.

If you give someone money to go to collage, on average they are better off than if you handed them a mop and said go ahead, 'make your own way in life kid, oh if you dont show up at 5am tomorrow morning you're fired.' (keep in mind they already have someone mopping floor anyway, so that job isn't even available.)

This is also a great post to respond to, because again you are reaching towards ideological beliefs and hoping that economic policies will change the way our culture behaves. The truth is, we've spent 50 years doing this and the only change is that its gotten worse.

So if you look at nations where they have solid a government like Germany, Canada, England, Denmark, Australia New Zealand, all kinds of countries, there's a whole bunch, they can help the poor, they can provide security for all, and they have strong economic growth across the board.

Its time we made a change and tried to fix real problems. Its time we started looking at examples of things that have worked, and applying them to our nation, instead of just doing nothing and wishing people would work harder.

[Lurikeen]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think I've been unclear.

Vote no matter what, but vote for your principles.

I think you are perhaps being a bit fundamentalist. Not voting IS a vote, of a sort. You don't like that? Well, then I suppose you can rally for your law against not voting.

[iruinedyourday]

Originally Posted by Lurikeen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think you are perhaps being a bit fundamentalist. Not voting IS a vote, of a sort. You don't like that? Well, then I suppose you can rally for your law against not voting.

hehe its a vote for campaign reform! then you get bernie sanders to do that, then you say you wont vote for him cus of a antiquated definition of a word [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Lurikeen]

Originally Posted by iruinedyourday [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

hehe its a vote for campaign reform! then you get bernie sanders to do that, then you say you wont vote for him cus of a antiquated definition of a word [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Actually, I won't vote for Sanders because of his political position and party. Unlike you, I am educated in politics at a university level. In fact, I have worked in politics. But none of that matters on a game board where some "dude" who has reached x number of posts (or levels in game) automatically thinks they are qualified to speak on all matters concerning the world, including politics.

[iruinedyourday]

Originally Posted by Lurikeen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Actually, I won't vote for Sanders because of his political position and party. Unlike you, I am educated in politics at a university level. In fact, I have worked in politics. But none of that matters on a game board where some "dude" who has reached x number of posts (or levels in game) automatically thinks they are qualified to speak on all matters concerning the world, including politics.

whoa whoah i wasnt attacking you, lets not get all flamy, there has been enough in that thread for all our lifetimes.

I was just making a little joke.

[Lojik]

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