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Bernie Sanders' 404 page

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Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#131

Post by slg »

marktd wrote: post #75
jerf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this phase in the run, the punditariat is greatly, greatly more confident than the facts justify. I don't mean that specific to this year... I mean generically at this phase of the campaign. If the punditariat was correct at this phase, Hillary Clinton would not currently be able to run, because she'd be finishing out her second term, having defeated Rudy Guiliani in the 2008 campaign by a small but significant ma…

In 2000, both Gore and Bush were always the frontrunners, and then they both won the primaries in landslides. I believe they both won every state, except Bush lost New Hampshire to McCain. Also in 2008, you're exaggerating the extent to which the punditry favored Giuliani; he was a frontrunner, but not at all considered a shoo-in the way Hillary is. The problem with Bernie is that he has very limited appeal outside o…

It is also worth noting that in 2008 the Clinton campaign was a lot weaker than it currently is and Obama's campaign was a lot stronger than Sanders' current campaign. [1]

[1] - http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bernie-sanders-youre-no-b...

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#132

Post by thisisdallas »

alwaysAttending wrote: post #99
philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

It's funny because that's a general sentiment among Sanders supporters. They like the way he sounds but don't really follow politics. The reality is his policy isn't all that good. It's just very utopian sounding so people love it. Take his Free College For all Bill. It sounds nice doesn't it? Free College for all! I can support that! But in reality it's quite flawed. Beyond the fact that it's just a new 50 billion d…

> The reality is his policy isn't all that good. It's just very utopian sounding so people love it. Take his Free College For all Bill. It sounds nice doesn't it? Free College for all!

This is what you get when people think with their emotions instead of logic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#133

Post by jerf »

School-Cotton wrote: post #94
jerf wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I know. That's my point. I don't accept that Clinton has it sewn up, and right now he appears to be the second in line, which isn't a bad place to be at this point in the race.

Biden?

Hard to be in second place when you're not officially running. Where he'd pop in if he does I have not seen polls on (not saying they don't exist, just that I haven't seen them), and I also wouldn't trust such polls anyhow. I'd want to see at least a month to settle in, the very first such poll results tend to be more "Do you recognize the name X?" rather than "Do you want X to be President?" Same is true of the very first primary polling for any run. (We're only mostly past that right now.)

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#134

Post by TimJRobinson »

philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

As someone who was born in Australia and now lives in Amsterdam I feel like he's the most sane politician in America. I still don't understand why Americans are so insistent on keeping their "Bad for the people, good for business" policies.

If you're in the 1% sure that makes sense, but for everyone else life is so much nicer with free healthcare, good vacation time, maternity leave, good public transport, proper prisoner rehabilitation, and strong welfare safety nets.

Having a high GDP country is cool and all but wouldn't you want a much nicer life instead?

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#135

Post by bring1 »

oluwie wrote: post #120
hyperbovine wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He favors European style social democracy. His whole point is that there actually exist functioning countries where health care is universal and free, college is accessible to all, gay people have rights, etc etc., and that America could be one of those countries if we wanted to. Btw I learned this by spending five minutes last night reading about him and watching a short interview, so I think your comment gives him…

The problem with the U.S. and why universal health care potentially wouldn't work is in terms of scale. The U.S. has over 300M people living in it, over 8x as much as the most populous European country. We also have a history of hating and evading taxes at all costs (Boston Tea Party). I'm not saying it can't work but the economics gets truly tricky when you're dealing with a country that big.

Germany has universal Healthcare with 82 Million people.

I don't see any fundamental problems from scaling 82 to 300.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#136

Post by vezzy-fnord »

zxcvcxz wrote: post #119
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founding fathers knew this [...] and that's why they intended on having a very limited federal government that had little control over social programs and whose main purpose was to see that states take it upon themselves to enforce rights provided by the constitution. Hardly. The Articles of Confederation only lasted some 12 years and was very quickly superseded by the Constitution which granted a much stronger f…

What you're saying is a bit disingenuous. I never said anything about the articles of confederation and I was referring to the constitution as we know it. No where do I say the founding fathers wanted the federal government to have no power, just that they wanted the federal government to have limited power, and this is pretty undeniable. If they wanted all power concentrated at a federal level they would not have al…

Considering Hamilton proposed and helped enact tariffs on imports to fund the Treasury, a national bank to, among other things, assume state debts, and was also key to the Federalist Party advocating strong central government, your polemic is an exercise in begging the question through and through. You've taken "limited power" to refer to whatever the current state of affairs is and draw a conclusion that any deviation is a slippery slope into Soviet-style bureaucracy.

Also, U.S. states don't have sovereignty by definition.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#137

Post by jxm262 »

philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

I would never call myself a political expert, but I do follow pretty closely. I think Bernie Sanders does have a chance, but much less than the media is making it seem. If Hillary's numbers slip too low, I think Biden will probably enter the race and the democratic establishment will attempt to coalesce around him. There's also the possibility that Sanders will run as an Independent which many are saying could fracture the party. Anyway, however it turns out, it will be fun to watch

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#138

Post by slg »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #134
philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

As someone who was born in Australia and now lives in Amsterdam I feel like he's the most sane politician in America. I still don't understand why Americans are so insistent on keeping their "Bad for the people, good for business" policies. If you're in the 1% sure that makes sense, but for everyone else life is so much nicer with free healthcare, good vacation time, maternity leave, good public transport, proper pri…

It all comes down to our "freedom" fetish. Why should the government force me to take 4 weeks of vacation when I can make due with 2? Why would I want to build my day around a train schedule when I could just get in my car and drive? And so on.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#139

Post by bring1 »

alwaysAttending wrote: post #99
philangist wrote: post #6

I don't follow politics at all, but the more I read and hear about Bernie Sanders the more I like him. I'm sure we've got a few political experts on Hacker News so I'd love to hear if you guys think he actually has any chance of winning the presidency.

It's funny because that's a general sentiment among Sanders supporters. They like the way he sounds but don't really follow politics. The reality is his policy isn't all that good. It's just very utopian sounding so people love it. Take his Free College For all Bill. It sounds nice doesn't it? Free College for all! I can support that! But in reality it's quite flawed. Beyond the fact that it's just a new 50 billion d…

Germany Has almost all the policies that Sanders advocates for.

And of course the Tax bill will be higher, he openly states that he wants to increase the tax for the high income earners.

Its ok to disagree with sanders, but please don't say he proclaims policies without details.

He always outlines the way he wants to achieve the goals he is talking about.

Its candidates like Hillary that just fluff talk all the time without any solutions.

And to the lurkers he, keep in mind HN is a "libertarian" place so you will find many here disagree with Bernie because they don't really understand the macroeconomics impacts that social policies have.

E.g. how free collage has a much higher ROI then other spendings.

Re: Bernie Sanders' 404 page

#140

Post by sssilver »

oluwie wrote: post #120
hyperbovine wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He favors European style social democracy. His whole point is that there actually exist functioning countries where health care is universal and free, college is accessible to all, gay people have rights, etc etc., and that America could be one of those countries if we wanted to. Btw I learned this by spending five minutes last night reading about him and watching a short interview, so I think your comment gives him…

The problem with the U.S. and why universal health care potentially wouldn't work is in terms of scale. The U.S. has over 300M people living in it, over 8x as much as the most populous European country. We also have a history of hating and evading taxes at all costs (Boston Tea Party). I'm not saying it can't work but the economics gets truly tricky when you're dealing with a country that big.

Only I'd argue that at that scale, if you can make a system work for 80 million people, you can probably make it work for 300.
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