Since his days as a political science major at the University of Chicago, Bernie Sanders has been and remains a committed, hard-core communist.
A traitor to our Republic, he collaborated with communists during the peak of the cold war. He supported the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua and railed against President Reagan. He made pilgrimages to the Soviet Union and Cuba.
Sure, he may now call himself an ‘independent,’ or run for president under the Democrat Party banner and refer to himself as a ‘progressive,’ but make no mistake. He’s pushing the same old Marxist story: Slavery to a brutal government bureaucracy in the name of forced equality and ‘free stuff.’ He wants to put his hand deeper into your wallet and use big government tyranny to redistribute it as he sees fit.
For some reason, many people—especially young people, see this as a good thing. Nearly half of the millennial generation sees socialism as a desirable form of government. While disconcerting, it should come as no surprise since socialism is heavily pushed at leftist indoctrination centers known as universities.
Bernie wants the government to control all aspects of American lives under the guise of ‘helping’ them. He wants free health care for all, free college education, free housing and higher wages for all. Nothing is free and what he wants comes at a very dear cost: Our freedom.
Bernie represents nothing new. He stands for an ideology that badly failed over much of the 20th Century. Communism always breaks the link between effort and reward. It has repeatedly destroyed economies. By means of war, starvation and gulags, communism has caused the death of over 100 million people. Supporting Bernie is equivalent to walking on their graves.
The same Reagan that committed treason by his involvement in and subsequent lying about/covering up of the Iran/Contra affair?
Brandon Lewis
Holy shit i didn't even notice Also Whos claiming that people have died "because of communism" in Venezuela? not even gonna bother reading the text on this post
Xavier Rivera
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Blake Howard
Of all the reasons I've heard for the causes of either world war, this is the first time I've heard they were because "people were allowed to own their own businesses."
*Though that was only because of the fact that the US was exploiting the conflict between Vietnam and Cambodia for their own benefit/revenge on the Vietcong.*
It really isn't surprising that the sort of dimwit that thinks googling the definition of something settles an argument, but that he doesn't know a fucking thing about history, either.
Christopher Howard
It sounds like your problem is with arms dealers. Would it have been better if the arms were produced and sold under a socialist economy?
Oh boy, is the man here going to really get a shock once automation combined with the other contradictions of capitalism starts to really hit society at large.
Evan Anderson
The concessions made during the surrender of WWI under the Treaty of Versailles was heavily interwoven with the capitalist mode of production and the ruling class's interests of competing imperialist (and capitalist) nations
Hunter Davis
Also
Nathan Lewis
Even if it's an unusual talking point these days, it was common at the time to believe that the World Wars had been caused by the growth of capitalism and it's tendency to export capital and acquire new markets (via imperialism.) The competition between various empires for domination of the global market led to WWI, which itself led to WWII.
Leo Sullivan
Yes? You may as well be asking how a socialist country could do that, but with oil instead of guns.
Adam Flores
I'm pretty sure Hitler didn't invade Poland due to it's standing as some kind of economic powerhouse.
The Nazis had already renegotiated most of that, before they threw an autistic fit because their Mefo ponzi scheme collapsed. With funds running out they had to switch to a "plunder economy". What followed was Ribbentrop's ultimatum to Poland demanding the immediate turn-over of Danzig. And when Poland refused, they invaded. Of course what even fewer people know is that they had already been preparing to invade even before the last ultimatum.
It was an imperial war of aggression instigated because Germany was on the brink of bankruptcy.
Since you seem to be the only one capable of anything other than shitposting;
I wasn't saying it was justified. But why did the Soviet Union invade Poland at the same time? I hear a lot about how "imperialism" is a symptom of "capitalism", but I don't get how the Soviet Union doing the exact same thing somehow doesn't count as "imperialism".
they were literally taking back land the polish stole
Brayden Baker
At the time, Great Britain still more or less controlled a quarter of the globe. Germany, however industrialized its economy, can't possibly compete with that, much less Russia, or the United States. To grow German industry, the only possible way to do that (at the time) is to grow Germany. Poland was Germany's colonial frontier since before Fredrick the Great. That's the entire point of colonialism.
Poland was more or less a Fascist state in all but name. Much of Eastern Europe was under the sway of Fascism, either outright, or due to extensive influence from strong Fascist parties within their governments.
The SU also tried to enter into an anti-German pact with France and Britain, and just about anyone else that would give them the time of day, and were told almost universally to go pound sand. Invading the Baltic states and Poland not only eliminated potential hostile countries on their borders, but also greatly diminished the potential front in the inevitable conflict with Germany, and extended their borders far beyond their heartland.
You have to keep in mind as well that this is the 30s, with the devastation of WW1, and then the White/Red civil war (and imperialist invasions), and the immense social turmoil brought about by trying to industrialize a feudal, agrarian economy and modernise a feudal, agrarian society as quickly as possible. Germany was economically devastated after WW1, but it's industry and infrastructure was still intact. By comparison, Russia had no industry or infrastructure to speak of and was rushing like hell to make up the difference.
Invading Poland was shitty but pragmatic, and a horse of another color entirely from invading their country explicitly to extract military resources, exterminate "subhumans," and Germanate the region to expand Deutschland's economic sphere.
Also, I don't even like Bernie, but supporting those movements makes him if anything a traitor to the capitalist elites who are destroying this republic. Compare Cuba and Nicaraguan life expectancy and quality of life to their neighboring capitalist shitholes (the ones that accepted Washington's economic model, but didn't get as nice a subsidy from the US as did Chile) like Guatemala or Honduras or Ecuador, and you'll see why Sanders' ideas make sense.
Finally, capitalism isn't an emergent behavior, it's an imposition by the state on common property. It would be impossible in nature to charge someone to use land if there was no state to evict them I'd they refused to "pay."
This image always cracks me up. Well shit, better switch to communism so that smoking no longer causes cancer.
Gavin Sullivan
Technically all OP did was copy what Ben Garrison wrote about to go with OP's pic. It isn't necessarily OP's opinion
Elijah Campbell
It's just using the same insane metrics used to calculate communist death tolls famalam
Jaxson Jones
Oh… then I'm a dumbfuck for not catching it.
Levi Watson
But yeah, a better means of calculating (if this is possible) would be to count the number of people who got cancer but couldn't afford treatment
Tyler Wood
That's the joke
Caleb Cooper
And that's EXACTLY how deaths are calculated for communism. The "communist death toll" includes such things.
Ayden Bennett
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Ryder Kelly
You missed the argument.
If we say communism killed 100 million people, then by the same exact logic used to come to that conclusion, we can come to another conclusion: that capitalism killed 1.6 billion people.
You can't have it both ways, taking an analysis methosology as valid but only applying it to one system and not the other.
Ayden Smith
Sure as soon as capitalist apologists do the same. Also, can you find anything wrong with it besides the smoking metric? Because otherwise you're still looking at 1.3 billion deaths.
James Reyes
Except no one has ever claimed "smoking deaths" as part of the death toll under Communism.
Most of the deaths are attributed to famine, because it's a historical constant that when you kill all the people who produced all your country's food, and then give their land to other people that are not used to the complexities are sustainably farming large tracts of land, it leads to famine.
Adrian Torres
Why would I waste my time doing that? You already said that the image was supposed to be a blatant shitpost.
Jack Davis
Uhhm..yes they have. Simply including "excess deaths" (what a wishy-washy category) includes people who die of natural causes, including smoking-related deaths and cancer, presumably because it's the fault of "communist healthcare" that these things weren't prevented or treated well.
James Thomas
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Christopher Sanchez
And many of these famines had no relationship to "communist policies", but were rather instances in a pattern of periodic famines stretching back to the 18th century (Russia and China, for instance), or were caused by civil war (1921 Russian famine), yet blamed on the communists, who apparently had godly weather-controlling powers.
Even if we just stick to famines and disease, capitalism still kills 100 million people every five years.
Huh? The Black Book of Communism, which is the origin of this 100 million meme, uses the methodology I described.
Because capitalism means more than just that.
First of all, on the point of owning your own business, we can easily say that socialism does a better job of making this a reality. Most people are never going to be business owners in a capitalist society; start ups have an extraordinary failure rate, etc. But a worker cooperative literally means that everyone in that firm owns the business.
Now, as ice already reminded you, capitalism is not an emergent property of nature; since you need private property for the whole thing to work, you need a state to allow you to claim natural resources and charge rent for them. A landlord couldn't charge his tenants in a stateless society, because there wouldn't be a state to evict them if they refused to "pay." Similarly, any other form of rent (mortgages, car rentals, etc) becomes unenforceable.
This is something even classical liberals understood, which is why they advocated for a state.
You can. But you would probably be wrong. Although I think co-cops are a good idea, being banned from owning your own business seems like a particularly bad affront to basic freedom.
It is. Which is a concept even older than language. Hell, even animals have a concept of private property. No, all you need is the ability to defend your claim. The state is simply the most convenient means to do that. Not really sure what you mean by that, but whatever. If he lacks his own means to enforce his policies, I agree, he wouldn't be a landlord for long. That goes back to the basic "being able to defend your claims". That goes back to the basic "being able to defend your claims".
Logan Thompson
Petit bourg will get the bullet first, though personally I have been considering just burying them alive like the Viet minh did. They aren't worth the bullets.
Samuel Moore
Only as much as the 100 million toll is. Stop moving the goalpost
Bentley Perry
So "capitalism", as it's actually defined, is a system where the state enforces exclusive claims to natural resources, which produce virtually all inequalities. The results are there is a well-endowed minority ownership class which forms most of the taxable base, and everyone else. The funding for any investment against natural disasters necessarily comes mostly from this minority because everyone else, although they wish to pay for it themselves, simply lacks the money because they pay all of theirs in rent to the ownership class. And this minority is usually unwilling to pay for it, since they're shielded from such disasters.
A bear does not own a cave it does not live in, and charges other bears to use the cave. Animals only own things they occupy for the moment. This is the difference between personal and private property. The latter allows a man to own a house he doesn't live in, a company he doesn't work in, a car he doesn't drive, etc, while getting charging some form of "rent" on the actual users: the shareholder gets dividends on the profits of the workers, the bank gets mortgage payments, the landlord collects rent. This is what makes capitalism possible, and what differentiates it from other economic systems (gift economy) where you still have goods flowing but no making money off of owning property.
All of this is unenforceable without a central institution that has a monopoly on the use of force, which can mediate disputes and set up standard "rules" (laws). This is the state, and it doesn't matter if you call it a private army. It's still a state, by the definition.
Luis Cox
You're running out of people to actually be a part of the revolution, famalam.
Nicholas Moore
How does "Having collective ownership of your workplace with your fellow workers" kill 100 million in 100 years?
Jose Reyes
Most people are proles. Contrary to Amerifat propaganda very few people are actually "small business owners." Most petit bourg hate their lives and are too scared to admit it. We will give them a chance to surrender and atone for their sins. Those that do will be spared. Any who refuse will be erased.
Nicholas Jackson
The actual definition was posted earlier. That is a hilariously naive and outdated understanding of how wealth is created. You seriously think farming and mining are where "the big bucks are to be made"? The distribution of wealth is what creates inequalities. Your average tech company makes more money than a 100 acre plot of land, using 1/1000 of the space, and next to no natural resources. I wish the rest of the left would seriously start focusing on "wealth", instead of "means of production". They're not synonymous. I have no idea where you thought you were going with the rest of your post.
Go to his cave and tell him that. Because bears lack an economic system. So your actual problem isn't capitalism; it's investment banking, and the fact that people rent their private property out to others. It doesn't require a state to enforce. If there were no "state", and I rent out a room, and someone doesn't pay, then I shoot them and take their stuff as payment. Tada, my private property and my renting are now enforced. The reason we have a state is to avoid this type of situation, not because "it's the only way to enforce owning stuff".
Connor Jenkins
I thought it would be fair to warn you that I stopped reading a single post that was nothing but "greentext with reaction image" a long time ago.
Lucas Jenkins
How's that going for you?
Jason Torres
Which cave? The one he personally lives in or the multitude of other caves he ""owns"" and collects honey rent from other bears by state backed rent agreements enforced by Bear police and the bear state.
A bear doesn't own a cave he uses and occupies the cave which is different from ownership. For him to "own" the cave, the bear would have to have a authority larger then him and the other rent living bears with a monopoly on violence to enforce the status of ownership.
Cooper Scott
This is a strawman. Nowhere did I claim that. Paying for intellectual property (software, music, patent license, copyright), all need the state to enforce, through IP laws, for example.
For many Americans, most of their income is spent on food and housing (either rent or mortgages). So much of their income is going to a minority ownership class.
People visit caves all the time that bears once used to live in. They can do that because the bear is no longer there.
It's unlikely this would happen given that this person could occupy any of the surrounding space for free, where he could construct his own habitat (or there may already be one constructed).
Noah Lee
Pretty well. I'm not sure if you realize this but an America socialist revolution is not something that actual socialists are working towards right now. We need America to fall (which it is already doing.) However there is absolutely no reason why amerifats should enjoy any form of socialism while their empire remains intact. In fact the more right wing it becomes the weaker its hold on international politics becomes as well. Trump and his successors are like the last czars of the Russian empire. They are surrounded by fat, old sycophants who jerk their tiny flaccid dicks to dreams of ages gone by when they would have been totally amazing warlords and generals when in reality then will die alone and burn in hell for all eternity until being thrown in the void at the end with all the other historical trash the chose to resist the dialectic.
the greentext is right though. your average tech company is probably burning through their vc funding hoping that either they turn into a monopoly and rack up the prices for their on-demand-blockchain-based-catered-cheese services, or by some miracle, they get to be able to "monetize" their userbase (sell your data/rack up their prices for their on-demand-blockchain-based-catered-cheese service) before they go bankrupt.
Austin Richardson
Has there ever been an intelligent Zig Forumsyp post on this board? They're always the same beaten horse of an argument and always without failed end with the OP getting lambasted while acting smug. Why is this country so stupid? Is it good praxis to level america with nukes? I'm at a loss right now. pic very related
please, read a fucking book. (we have a whole thread dedicated to it actually)
Go to his cave and tell him that. I'm pretty sure he'll manage to defend his property just fine from you, without the need for a "bear state".
Jack Reyes
Yes. You did.
Gabriel Baker
You're missing the point. The bear can't physically be in two places at once. If he wants to defend his home, he can't go out and forage. If he does leave, even temporarily, it's anyone's for the taking until he gets back.
The state makes this "problem" go away.
Ian Powell
lol the fuck is this is this person stupid how can you seriously confuse animal territory with fucking private property
do fucking elephants charge antilopes for grazing on the reg and i wasn't aware of it
lol what an idiot
Ryder Rogers
You're implying implications.
He doesn't have to be.
Then you can wait patiently for him to come back, and calmly explain to Mr. Bear how this cave isn't his cave anymore. I'm sure he'll be agreeable about it.
So is breaking into someone's home, until they get back and call the cops.
I'm still not sure what point you're trying to argue. I like "the state". It's highly convenient. It serves many useful purposes. It's a hell of a lot better than a stateless society, where if it had anything of value, would immediately be annexed by the first state to notice. I merely disagree with your assertion that things like "property" only exist "cuz the state". That's stupid. The state is merely a more effective and convenient means to enforce property rights without the need for individual violence.
Jaxon James
He does not own the cave he is occupying and using the cave, bears do not have slips of paper which are enforced from a higher power granting legal right to own the cave. First off lets make this clear, there is a difference between usage/occupancy and ownership, if the bear let a hypothetical cave get too run down when he was living in another one and didn't do anything to it he "owns" the cave but he is not using it.
A second example: How could a Bear "own" a cave in an entire different country (without the state) when ownership implys some sort of legal representative a higher power then both parties are enforcing the law, without the state the Bear is simply using and occupying the cave.
Jordan Thompson
You might have want to thought about that for more than 5 seconds before shitposting.
Jaxson Ramirez
yes idiot, you might want to look up what exactly private property means because literally everyone is laughing at you. protip: bears don't really need to pay rent.
Aaron Smith
You dense motherfucker Can a bear own a hundred different caves on the other side of the world and charge a bunch of other bears rent if they want to use them, with a bear-state to enforce his claims of ownership? I'm pretty sure the answer is no On the other hand, we have a bunch of wealthy ghouls creating a housing crisis in many first-world countries by buying up a fuckton of homes and either charge rent for them or even just let them sit empty while their value skyrockets
