Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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NonZeroSum
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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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BrianBlackwell wrote: Mon Sep 18, 2017 9:21 am Don't be fooled into thinking that Bernie's different:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBIKP4W50-I
What an idiot that interviewer, so cringeworthy. Bernie answered that people shouldn't have the right to go around using force on others under our current system because we delegate that to a job title you train for and have to adhere to strict rules decided on by representatives of the people. He never asked him would people have that right 'naturally' without government, to which the answer would be closer to yes in disorganised anarchy for survival, and no in an ideal people co-operating perfectly, to any degree that it's at least half yes's per person we can pool that together and delegate responsibility into a police force specifically skilled to do that job for us. Bernie would be the most sympathetic to transparency and accountability in policing, having a socialist critique of the limited progress in democracy since feudalism.
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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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NonZeroSum wrote: Mon Sep 18, 2017 10:47 am What an idiot that interviewer, so cringeworthy.
Yeah, he could have handled that better for sure, though he did squeak in his actual point, which is that people cannot possibly have the ability to delegate a right they do not have themselves. A representative, by definition, cannot have rights in excess of those possessed by the people he represents.

I suppose I can say, "Hey, I give you the right to dominate me", but this doesn't actually grant a moral right to dominate in the truest sense, because the agreement is essentially voluntary, which is not domination. In any case, one person clearly can't voluntarily agree that the chosen person can dominate others who have not voluntarily entered into the agreement -- that's just ridiculous. I never gave implied or expressed consent to be dominated by police and government, so even if the rest of the country did, that does not apply to me personally,

What's really going on is that the majority are dominating the minority against their will. Every act of voting is an overt act of violent aggression by proxy. Defensive force is not aggressive violence, such as in the case of a bodyguard. But a bodyguard does not have rights that we don't, he's just been delegated to perform them on our behalf. Police, no matter the level of oversight, still have been fallaciously granted the "right" to use force in a non-defensive capacity to enforce laws about taxation, substances, driving speeds, whatever. If you refuse to comply with these dictates, they will try to rob you; if you resist that, they will kidnap you and throw you in a cell; and if you resist that, they will beat you into compliance or eventually kill you.

The bottom line is that even a wholly benevolent dictatorship would be immoral because it denies man's inherent freedom and equality, purporting to grant rights to one person that the others don't have; namely, the right to violently enforce the will of another. Rulership in any form implies violence by necessity.
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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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BrianBlackwell wrote: Mon Sep 18, 2017 11:15 am I suppose I can say, "Hey, I give you the right to dominate me", but this doesn't actually grant a moral right to dominate in the truest sense, because the agreement is essentially voluntary, which is not domination. In any case, one person clearly can't voluntarily agree that the chosen person can dominate others who have not voluntarily entered into the agreement -- that's just ridiculous. I never gave implied or expressed consent to be dominated by police and government, so even if the rest of the country did, that does not apply to me personally,
Under an individual rights based approach (deontology) a person can condone force by "always act[ing] in such a way so as that, it would still be acceptable if it were to become a universal law"
Kant argues that insofar as you are a rational being, you must act under the idea of freedom. And a free will is one that is not determined by any alien cause—not determined by any law that it does not choose for itself. If you have a free will, then you are not, as Kant puts it, heteronomous. But Kant claims that the actions of a free will must be determined by some law or other. We have already looked at the argument for this in 4.4, the argument against particularistic willing, which shows that the will must always determine itself in accordance with some universal law. Since, if you have a free will, you cannot be heteronomous, and yet you must have a law, then you must be autonomous—you must act on a law that you legislate for yourself. And Kant says that this means that insofar as you are rational the categorical imperative just is the law of your will.

To see why, we need only consider how a person with a free will must deliberate. So here you are with your free will, completely self-governing, with nothing outside of you giving you any laws. And along comes an incentive, let us say, a representation of a certain object as pleasant. Being aware of the workings of that incentive upon you, you have an inclination for the object. And that inclination takes the form of a proposal. So the inclination says: end-E would be very pleasant. So how about end-E? Doesn’t that seem like an end worth pursuing? Now what the will chooses is, strictly speaking, actions, so before the proposal is complete, we need to make it a proposal for action. Instrumental reasoning determines that you could produce end-E by doing act-A. So the proposal is: that you should do act-A in order to produce this very pleasant end-E.

Now if your will were heteronomous, and pleasure were a law to you, this is all you would need to know, and you would straightaway do act-A in order to produce that pleasant end-E. But since you are autonomous, pleasure is not a law to you: nothing is a law to you except what you make a law for yourself. You therefore ask yourself a different question. The proposal is that you should do act-A in order to achieve pleasant end-E. Since nothing is a law to you except what you make a law for yourself, you ask yourself whether you could take that to be your law. Your question is whether you can will the maxim of doing act-A in order to produce end-E as a universal law. Your question, in other words, is whether your maxim passes the categorical imperative test. The categorical imperative is therefore the law of a rational will.

Inclination presents the proposal; reason decides whether to act on it or not, and the decision takes the form of a legislative act. This is clearly the Constitutional Model."
For better or worse it's written into the language of a lot of the American constitution, if you want anarchism to have mass appeal you have to effectively self-legislate better than the state such that you have better community cohesion and are productively reducing crime that can be recorded. I don't find the voluntaryist approach useful in that much of the bank rollers of those movements are oligarchs who make inordinate money off the sweat of other peoples labor then hide their money abroad so they don't have to pay in for schools, hospitals and roads of said workers.
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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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NonZeroSum wrote: Mon Sep 18, 2017 6:36 pm ...if you want anarchism to have mass appeal you have to effectively self-legislate better than the state... I don't find the voluntaryist approach useful in that much of the bank rollers of those movements are oligarchs who make inordinate money off the sweat of other peoples labor then hide their money abroad so they don't have to pay in for schools, hospitals and roads of said workers.
Well, I think the appeal of anarchy must come from its congruity with the nature of humanity (inherent freedom and equality) and reality itself (logic) to have lasting effect. To merely suggest that another "system" will work better than government fails to address the main issue entirely. Of course, on a practical level, we could note that the overwhelming majority of theft and murder are committed by governments, or that government doesn't actually contribute anything, other than a leech on otherwise-productive endeavors (government doesn't pay for roads, organize their construction, or build them; it only skims off the top and slows everything down with their own self-serving bureaucratic hurdles). But really, the argument against government should not be practicality, because this becomes a hornet's nest, laden with fear for most individuals (particularly as it relates to national defense and violent crime), and leaves the seed of authoritarian rulership in tact, to reveal itself again in the future.

The anarchist need not (and I would contend, should not) offer a new system in place of the old. It merely needs to be pointed out that it is a logical fallacy to suppose that a person may grant powers to a "representative" that are not possessed by those who he represents. Coupled with this, the cultural mindset must be shifted to one of personal responsibility, rather than our current belief in a parental authority who solves all our problems. A moment of lucid thought will reveal that this institution creates more problems than it solves, and that their solutions often do not correspond with the will of individuals.

It's the same old "philosopher's bane" of trying to get the sleepy-eyed masses to understand and embrace the most basic logical concepts. There's a poor track record here, but it is the only solution that actually solves. As for people taking advantage of these ideas for their own benefit, this is always a risk (all evil comes disguised as good intent), but one who actually grasps the ideas of anarchy cannot be fooled for long. I would speculate that a move in this direction on a worldwide basis is an inevitable result of man's progress in the realm of consciousness, but just how long this will take (or if we will survive long enough to see it through) is anyone's guess.
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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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BrianBlackwell wrote: It's the same old "philosopher's bane" of trying to get the sleepy-eyed masses to understand and embrace the most basic logical concepts. There's a poor track record here, but it is the only solution that actually solves. As for people taking advantage of these ideas for their own benefit, this is always a risk (all evil comes disguised as good intent), but one who actually grasps the ideas of anarchy cannot be fooled for long. I would speculate that a move in this direction on a worldwide basis is an inevitable result of man's progress in the realm of consciousness, but just how long this will take (or if we will survive long enough to see it through) is anyone's guess.
Well thank Zeus we've got you around to read the tea leaves and tell us what prophecies await, self ownership and arbitrary right to not be harmed by your arbitrary in-group, what could possibly go wrong.
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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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NonZeroSum wrote: Tue Sep 19, 2017 12:34 pm Well thank Zeus we've got you around to read the tea leaves and tell us what prophecies await, self ownership and arbitrary right to not be harmed by your arbitrary in-group, what could possibly go wrong.
I'm not sure what you're getting at, other than the fact that you've got a problem with me limiting the conversation to humans. We're talking about human society, namely government, so bringing animals into it at this time is an agenda-laden distraction. Fine, so the NAP is not wholly served unless we're vegan, now can we get back to the topic at hand? And really, sarcasm relative to my "prophecy" is redundant, since all speculations are overtly superfluous by their very nature. You really haven't addressed the larger point with this reply.
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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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Is Bernie gonna run in 2020?
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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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Red wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2018 2:05 pm Is Bernie gonna run in 2020?
My psychic powers are a little faulty today, but I think that if these shadows remain unchanged, Bernie will run and win!

If anybody didn't understand, I was joking. I don't actually believe myself to be a psychic.
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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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He would be a fool to run in 2020.

He had the support of the (Democrat/left leaning) populace in 2016, but as soon as Hillary won(stole) the democratic nomination, he stopped being "for the people!!" and veered straight to "for the establishment who stole the election from me, (who likely would have beaten Trump), but you know, just vote for Hillary now!" .

What little credibility he had is gone now. If he sold two of his three mansions though, he could afford to mount a decent campaign against whatever masochists wishes to go against Trump in 2020.
Alcohol may have been a factor.

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Re: Bernie Sanders- Does He Have A Chance?

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PsYcHo wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2018 11:09 pm He would be a fool to run in 2020.

He had the support of the (Democrat/left leaning) populace in 2016, but as soon as Hillary won(stole) the democratic nomination, he stopped being "for the people!!" and veered straight to "for the establishment who stole the election from me, (who likely would have beaten Trump), but you know, just vote for Hillary now!" .

What little credibility he had is gone now. If he sold two of his three mansions though, he could afford to mount a decent campaign against whatever masochists wishes to go against Trump in 2020.
I am not sure if Bernie would win the nomination in 2020, but I do not think would be a fool to run.

First, he didn't say "just vote for Hillary now", as if you should vote for her just because she is a democrat. He is not partisan, as evidenced by the fact that he is the longest serving independent in Congressional history. He said people should vote for Hillary because she would be a better President than Trump, which whether or not you agree with that opinion, is not inherently pro-establishment. Yes, Hillary is apart of the establishment, and Bernie Sanders is against the establishment. Just because he supported her over another politician despite her being apart of the establishment doesn't mean he isn't still against the establishment overall.
For example, I am a liberal who is against conservative beliefs. However, I would rather have a moderate conservative President than Mao Zedong. This does not mean I am no longer overall a liberal and overall against conservative beliefs. See what I mean?

Additionally, having wealth does not determine whether or not you would be a good President in my eyes, although Bernie Sanders has a lower salary than average in Congress. However, since you brought up the three mansions, please provide evidence that they exist... ;)

Btw - If Bernie spent his money to fund politicians, that might actually be against his message. His campaign was against the current campaign finance system that allows that.
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