Satellite Wrote:"Radical things" he's proposing are common sense in countries like Sweden, Denmark, Norway and here in Finland. Care to tell me again why "socialism" is the most terrifying thing, when last time I checked all 4 countries score above USA in metrics like education, healthcare, corruption, human rights etc.?

Yes, your taxes will be a little higher but I would imagine it's also getting expensive dealing with your homeless people problem, paying for 1% of your population that are in jail and spending way more on military than any country on earth while still failing your wars.

Justin Wrote:The military spending absolutely needs to be severely cut or flat out dropped. It is unreal how much we prioritize stupid weapons and fighting pointless wars when back at home we're slowly getting worse and worse. We need universal healthcare, we need better education and schools, we need a whole hell of a lot more than what we have now. We're turning into a country of idiots who care more about what the Kardashians did on television than what our own damn futures have in store.

Satellite Wrote:However, The BIGGEST reason US and the world for that matter need Bernie is because big corporations and billionaires should NOT be able to buy elections. I think that's a travesty of democracy and ultimately it has terrible consequences. Lets take take oil lobbyists for instance, they're trying to destroy the climate of this planet for their personal gains and making sure that US continues to support tyrannies like Saudi Arabia, no better than the communists that killed my and your relatives. Different ideology (Islamic Wahhabism), but extremist and undemocratic one either way.

Silvarien Wrote:America did not want to get involved in either WWI, or WWII. This is historical FACT, which you would know if you actually studied history. We were very reluctant to get involved, in WWI, the major European nations lobbied us, and in WWII, it was Britain. We finally got involved, in WWI, precisely because we got convinced. In WWII Japan attacked us -- but still, attacking Hitler before the Japanese was a conscious choice by us. By the Cold War, we didn't feel we had a choice left.

During World War I, Europe was two sides as defined by the Congress of Vienna, in WWII it WAS a hive mind because all of Europe, explicitly or implicitly, was trying to shake off Hitler's yoke. What the pineapple do you think "World War" to mean, other than that? He was going to kill or enslave everybody, and that gave everybody incentive to fight him. They were not a single government, but they all wanted Hitler gone. Jesus Christ, how ignorant ARE you?

I am not a funny guy, I am a serious guy. And no, you CAN'T argue with me, because you don't know basic history of your own continent that a smart person would know by the time they graduated high school or its European equivalent.

Flonne Wrote:Just as a side-note on this conversation, I consider Churchill to be the third worst person in WWII; he was a manipulative piece of pomegranate who did not follow any of the rules of war and escalated far more situations than he solved. The Bolsheviks obviously take the first slot, though, god damn were they appalling monsters, they killed many orders of magnitude more people than Hitler could have even dreamed of.

 Spoiler

Trump reminds me a LOT of Winston Churchill, and it's very unsettling.

Silvarien Wrote:Hillary Clinton is not really honest or trustworthy, but most effective politicians are total scumbags. JFK seemed like the leader of Camelot, but really he was cheating on his wife constantly, including with a Russian spy. Nixon did Watergate, Clinton did Lewinsky (literally) and so on. High echelon politicians are always charismatic, but beneath that fake warmth most of them are pretty psycho. Making a decision to send like 10,000 people to their deaths and then sleep like a baby, you kinda have to be. With some it's harder to spot than with others, but politics, in its totality, is not a profession where good honest people get to the top. The only exception I can think of is Mahatma Gandhi.

KhainiWest Wrote:

What a crock of sh`it

Silvarien Wrote:Bernie Sanders' salary:

http://www.therichest.com/celebnetworth/lists/celebrity-salary/senator-salary/

And his career in Washington, according to his own website:

https://berniesanders.com/about/

Bernie Sanders makes 174,000 a year. He has been in Congress for 16 years, and then another 10 in the Senate. 26 years in Washington's highest posts and with a salary like that, and you actually regard him as not-a-career-politician and as outsider? Yes, it IS a crock of sh ' t: it is the eternal self-con, "all politicians are scum except for the one I voted for." You're doing the same thing as Trump supporters who scoff at the notion of HIM being scum. You're just getting behind the scumbag YOU happen to like.

The US Senate is probably the most prestigious grouping in the world. You have some above them -- Supreme Court, and the Presidency, but a US Senator is not in there with a cheap suit on his body, nor is he winning elections on used toilet paper. Bernie Sanders, whatever he may portray himself to you as, has money for campaigning, simply because without such money he wouldn't be able to get his message across his electorate and win elections. He also knows how to campaign, simply because if he didn't, other ruthless politicians would have taken his seat from him. American politics are pay-to-win. It's not a "free" game, just as Maple is not a "free" game. To get stuff done in Congress and Senate, you have to compromise constantly, do shady-backroom-deals, take and give money under the table, etc. If you do not do this -- you have no voice, no victories, and no re-elections. And he sure as hell has had his share of re-elections.

"Normal people" running for high office is nothing new. Jesse Ventura was Governor of Minnesota on precisely the same premise, and both he and his electorate discovered that normal people don't do very well in politics. Bernie Sanders has been in office for a hell of a lot longer than Ventura managed it, precisely because he is a career politician. All effective politicians -- Bernie Sanders included -- have a particular type of personality whereby they seem like a "class act" to attract voters such as yourself, but that is a velvet glove over the steel fist of ruthlessness and pragmatism, whereby they steam-roll over competition to get their way in the actual Senate full of people just like themselves.

KhainiWest Wrote:The problem with most of your arguments is assumptions of people. You based your entire argument on a salary. Do you know why Mr. Sanders is regarded as an outsider? It isn't because he isn't apart of the system, but rather his opinions/issues GREATLY differ and his record shows that. Hilary is the polar opposite as she follows poll numbers, like literally her opinion is completely based on whats popular. If Sanders has one thing, it's conviction in his stances, he's genuinely looking to break up big companies such as pharmaceutical companies and trying to create affordable college. Those are things my generation needs and wants. I personally admire his convictions and appreciate them, but in today's current meta I don't think they are plausible.

Most of your opinions try to print a face on an individual because you can't argue idea's, you try to argue perceptions. I'm sure you are that obnoxious person in real life that tries to discredit arguments based on what a person is wearing, or their assumed opinionated stances. It's disingenuous, that's why people won't argue with you, you're the only one that has something to prove, apparently.

Silvarien Wrote:Not a face, a profession. And it IS ideas, because you're trying to paint a very experienced politician as somehow above politics, and I countered by saying that's what politicians do all the freaking time. Sanders' argument is used constantly by politicians in all tiers of competition. My Senator recently sent me an attack ad where he attacks his opponent as "politician." What is HE HIMSELF exactly, then? And how DO you regard as a "face" and not an "idea" me pointing out that your white knight makes as much per year as the Wall Street sharks he claims to hate, and has gotten through re-elections for 26 years when he's supposedly a choir boy? The "idea" here is the nature of the political profession. That is not perception, it's knowledge of the profession.

khainiwest Wrote: It isn't because he isn't apart of the system, but rather his opinions/issues GREATLY differ and his record shows that.

khainiwest Wrote:but rather his opinions/issues GREATLY differ and his record shows that.

Silvarien Wrote:The suit, like the public face, is part of a politician's image. They also have to look nice, have a firm handshake, smile just right, etc. Being a politician in many ways is like being a Hollywood star. Image. THAT is what they're wearing, and the "not-a-career-politician" is as much a part of it as a suit. I based my argument on his salary, yeah, but also his 26 years in Congress and Senate. You kinda forgot that whole later part. I went to school in Washington, with a ton of future politicians, and I spent two years walking down the street past people like Madeline Albright and Joe Lieberman. You're assuming of me that I argue "perception" when I am actually arguing the "political profession" which I've seen in nearly countless exemplars in my life.

Silvarien Wrote:I know what they look like, and I know what they actually are. They initially seem like very good people, but as you get to know them more and more, you realize they're very manipulative and will throw you away the moment that your usefulness to them has expired -- THAT is politicians. I see them on CNN, and I've seen what they say what they're not on CNN. Some of my classmates get mentioned in the New York Times, at this point. Politics is a very grim, very dreary profession that focuses on the pursuit of power and wealth at literally any cost while pretending they stand for squeaky-clean stuff that has nothing to do with it.

Silvarien Wrote:So, what AM I supposed to assume about a guy that's been in Congress and Senate for 26 years? Historically it's been difficult to elect a Senator to the White House because Senators HAVE to compromise in the Senate to get things done, and their resultant record makes them look like hypocrites, with tons of stuff to be used against them in elections. There have been sixteen senators who got elected to Presidency. It's usually much easier to be something like a Governor, because there's not quite as much seemingly-illogical compromise involved.

Silvarien Wrote:There is a difference between what Bernie Sanders is and what he wants you to think him to be. For all you know, he's cheating on his wife with three different women at the same time and has 120 million dollars secretly hidden in Swiss bank accounts. You don't WANT to think this of him, but in the reality of Washington it happens all the time, from Strom Thurmond post-humously having been discovered to have an illegitimate black daughter who he was paying money to all his life to keep her mouth shut, to Clinton saying "I didn't have sex with that woman," to Nixon being nuked by Watergate and Petraeus, one of the most respected politicians in Washington, having been discovered fairly recently to have been carrying on an affair. If everything about every Congressman and Senator suddenly became public, they'd all be replaced at the same time. If you want to think Sanders is different, well, many people don't think that.

Silvarien Wrote:For somebody that hates personal attacks, you sure use a lot of them.

My college is Georgetown University. I was one of the most prominent Republicans on campus while I was there, and while the liberals there did not exactly like me, we respected each other as opponents. As a transfer, I got in past a 9% admission rate. I don't care who your daddy is. That's all pimentos like you said in that college, "do you know who my daddy is?" or "my daddy has X boats and Y BMWs." Shut up.

Silvarien Wrote:I tried to make friends in that school, and most of them turned out to be politicians, all "kind" and "friendly," and once you're no longer useful, they're nowhere in sight. After graduating, I was in a Republican political meeting where a very liberal Republican woman was presenting in hopes of gaining their support. A drunk guy came in, he was screaming pomegranate at her to the point where I thought he was going to attack her. Nobody helped her or said a word in her defense. After her presentation, he's standing right by the door. I pulled her aside, apologized for what had been done to her, and told her this guy was really drunk and she needed to be careful getting out of there. She surrounded herself with her staffers and literally ran out -- after asking me to come help her on her campaign. After she left, I got the drunk thrown out of the meeting. I helped her on her campaign for three months, though she was much more liberal than what I am used to, and she didn't get the nomination. I eventually had a question for her, and I emailed her and she never responded. Just like the folks in Georgetown, she, as a politician, had no more use for me. I don't want your pity or your understanding, but don't talk to me about pols having the moral high ground. I've seen so many Bernies pretending to be non-Bernies, that I am not sure whether to laugh or cry when I see people like you fall for their pomegranate while behind your backs they're literally snickering at you being a "useful idiot." (Joe Stalin said that.)

Silvarien Wrote:Corruption in the Soviet Union was near-total, and that's what happened from the Bernies getting their way. Did your superior mind pause to think that once Bernie imposes his vision of the government on the United States, it'll be staffed by commie apparatchiks, and even if "clean Bernie" is "clean," (which I don't for a second believe,) corruption will permanently taint the country? Want me to describe Soviet corruption to you, dippomegranate? It was more total than cocaine dealer associations, and it wasn't Marco Rubio types that put it there. Gary Kasparov lived in the Soviet Union all his life, and he said Bernie = USSR. I am sure as a jerk employee near DC you'd know more about that than he would.

Silvarien Wrote:My liberal friends don't like me discussing politics, but they still hang out with me because they basically think I am a good guy. I'm jaded, particularly about politicians, because I've seen too many of them, and none of them behave above their profession -- not even the ones I vote for. I am not asking for any sympathy from you because I don't really like you as a person -- but honestly, the way you're road-raging on the internet right now, you talking about the higher ground over me is a pineappleing joke.

Silvarien Wrote:I usually remain civil until people start insulting the United States or become total hypocrites. I love my country, despite its pols, and I see people all over the world flat-out feeling entitled to this or that from us, while calling us various foul names. My military friends didn't go to Georgetown, but some of them lost friends for useless bastards that "didn't want them there" and they'll say what they think as plainly as I do when they're not around. And I'll respect them for it more than some armchair Prime Minister that sits in Grandma's basement while thinking he knows what's best for the universe. Here, you are moaning like a whore about my debate deficiencies, while making all sorts of assumptions of me as a person based on roughly 5 posts I've made on an internet forum.

Take your job and take your daddy, and shove them up your ass.

KhainiWest Wrote:

HAHAHAHAHA

Silvarien Wrote:1. Blocks of text filled with your impassioned assertions of superiority and overt maturity over me, and trying to convince me not to wrong people.

2. I finally edit out my post because I kinda started thinking you were right.

3. Came back, seriously considering to post an apology and leave for a couple days.

4. See you posted a bunch of stupid Trump pictures with HAHAHAHAAH. All that moral bullpomegranate, and you handle victory like a 12 year old on /b/ who hasn't learned to wash the cheese off his plantain.

Silvarien Wrote:Jesus, you almost had me believing you were a real person with real anger over something I really said. I actually felt bad. And you end up being just another internet troglodyte.

Silvarien Wrote:No, I am not superficial. My role here before I left was advising Fiel, who was my friend, behind the scenes, and he often told me my advice helped keep him out of trouble. I was also the original donator, before awards were meted out for that. Look at Derimed's profile, the name is black, that's the first colored name given here. You don't believe me? Go find Fiel and ask him. I do handle conflict worse than some, but I also know how to apologize after. But there's a difference between apologizing to a grown human being and apologizing to a troll pineappleing with you. Not possible to be both, buddy. Have a nice day, victory and all. You're not going to get another because I have some things I'd rather do before talking to you again, such as sticking my plantain in an industrial shredder or getting beheaded live on al Jazeera by al Shabab.

xparasite9 Wrote:real talk I'd probably prefer Bernie over Clinton and maybe I'd be okay with him being pres (though the thought terrifies me, and I'd be kind of pissed off at the fact that I've already mostly paid off my student loan debts) just for the sole fact that I could at least laugh at the ridiculous purple man he is whenever he gets up to the podium.
Clinton though is a screeching banshee whore and I wouldn't be able to stand having to go through 4-8 years of it all.

KhainiWest Wrote:Donald trump specifically IS the scariest candidate, he SCREAMS warmonger

xparasite9 Wrote:Good. War is a very profitable business. Let's Make America a Superpower Again.