OT - A "Diversity" Idea - OT

Eoin

thetrim said:

From the ardent socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez twitter the night of the primary.

Congratulations, @AndrewGillum! The progressive movement is transforming the country - and he proved that again tonight. Gillum ran on Medicare for All, Legalizing Marijuana, #AbolishICE & more. Thank you, Florida voters! On to November

He's also for a 40% corporate tax rate, funded by millions from George Soros and Tom Steyer, but labels himself as the only non-millionaire running in the race.  He's run Tallahassee into the ground.  Crime is high and employment low. 

In Europe Medicare for all isn't socialist, that's the policy for all parties, Left and Right. The pot thing would be socially liberal, which covers centre parties as well as Left.

40% CT is high, we pay 19% at the moment. Depends what he wants to spend it on and how the allowances work -  if he wants to balance the books with extra tax, that would be fiscally conservative.

Socialism here is about public ownership of industries (nationalising railways, utilities etc.), state subsidies for strategic industries / protection of industries (Trump has some socialist policies) and generous beneifts for the unemployed.

Eoin

DMW said:

The Republican base fled to the far right. Some Democrats are now fleeing to the far left. The centrists are meanwhile looking around going, WTF?

Plus, neither side in the US appears to want to deal with the budget deficit. Who do you vote for if you want to see Govt borrowing back under control?

TEXASBGE2018

Eoin said:

DMW said:

The Republican base fled to the far right. Some Democrats are now fleeing to the far left. The centrists are meanwhile looking around going, WTF?

Plus, neither side in the US appears to want to deal with the budget deficit. Who do you vote for if you want to see Govt borrowing back under control?

Libertarian Candidates. Who unfortunately at a national level get basically no coverage and have virtually no presence.

GATraveller

Oh the horror!!!!
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180829/NEWS/180829884

HeavyG

TEXASBGE2018 said:

Eoin said:

DMW said:

The Republican base fled to the far right. Some Democrats are now fleeing to the far left. The centrists are meanwhile looking around going, WTF?

Plus, neither side in the US appears to want to deal with the budget deficit. Who do you vote for if you want to see Govt borrowing back under control?

Libertarian Candidates. Who unfortunately at a national level get basically no coverage and have virtually no presence.

The Libertarian Party will never become a significant factor in US politics.

The Libertarian Party is too internally fractured to really become anything more than a niche party, just like the Green Party. The LP is too full of folks that read Ayn Rand when they were teenagers and never grew beyond that. Too many still think that the requirement of having a drivers license to drive on public streets is a form of government intrusion.

While the Libertarian Party had its best showing ever in the 2016 race I doubt they'll be able to do as well again in 2020.

Eoin

We have a libertarian party here too. They interviewed one of them during the last election, it was quite informative. He basically said that theirs was an ideology that would never be accepted in a modern society due to the expectation of the public for a certain level of public services. Their role is more to act as a lobby to try an push back state intervention / restrict increased state intervention rather than to achieve an ultimate goal. This seems quite reasonable and also useful in a society where Governments seem to be trying to grab more and more power from the people. My view is that increasing Government powers are usually designed to protect the Government rather than the people and should generally be resisted.