“It seems like he is at the point in his life when he is really saying what he is thinking,” said Olivia Sauer, 18, a college freshman who returned to her hometown, Ames, Iowa, to caucus for Mr. Sanders. “With Hillary,” she said, “sometimes you get this feeling that all of her sentences are owned by someone.”
February 4, 2016
"College students wear shaggy white 'Bernie' wigs on campus..."
"... carry iPhones with his image as their screen saver, and flock to his events by the thousands."
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The Childrens Crusade reinvented.
How did the first one turn out ?
Do these children even know where Venezuela is ?
How could someone so insightful regarding Hillary fall for Bernie's bullshit so completely?
Authenticity sells...
He is saying what he is thinking, and it's sophomoric gibberish, auto-heroic braggadocio and political revenge fantasy. No wonder why teenagers relate too it.
The presidential election that took place while I was in college was Bush v. Gore. Thank god that Al Gore was never considered to be even the slightest bit cool.
I've heard of girls having "Daddy issues" but Grandpa issues is new.
White college students for Bernie
Feels like all the John Andersen bullshit when I was in high school...
I'm not quite as old as Bernie, but when I start saying everything that pops into my brain, I'm hoping my friends and family intervene.
God! What an AWFUL education system we have.
It's pretty clever marketing for his campaign.
These kids are as dumb as I was as a freshman. Then I took an economics class.
That's a Bernie wig? Looks like a skunk.
Bernie wigs? Is that like a Beatles wig?
Children of the Corn, with Bernie walking between the rows.
....Spurning Hillary Clinton’s Polish and Poise
Polish and Poise?! Polish and Poise?!
What the hell are they talking about? Who looks at either Hillary on the stump or her campaign & thinks "Polish and Poise"?
Whatever that editor at the NYT who came up with that headline is tokin', I'm wondering if he can share some, bro?
Most of the guys are just pretending to like Bernie so that they can get leftest chicks to watch Netflix and chill with them.
A few observations:
1. Bernie wants us to be more like the Scandinavians. I imagine a lot of young people who've been to Europe and like the concept of a welfare state see nothing wrong with that.
2. Right wingers spent the last eight years calling Obama a socialist. Young people who came of political age during his presidency and like him now associate being a socialist with being a milquetoast center left politician who believes in gradualism. That makes Bernie more palatable.
3. A friend recently remarked that Hillary has never put herself on a ledge on any major issue and always agrees with the status-quo(ex: the war in Iraq). Bernie has been consistent even when he's unpopular and seems very principled. Ron Paul drew a lot of popular youth support for the same reason.
4. Young people don't see progressive taxation and universal healthcare as a slippery slope to totalitarianism. Hayek talked about the NHS in the UK paving a road to serfdom. That hasn't happened. They understand the difference between social democrats in the Labor and SDP mold and communists.
5. Classical liberalism should have room to accommodate pure free market libertarians on the right and general-welfare liberalism on the left.
Bernie and thought is not a combination that occur to me, it's like bananas and peanut butter.
Wigs? Good. Makes the useful idiots easy to spot.
I'm fine with all the young kids voting for Bernie, since they are the ones who will be paying for all of the 'free' stuff he's promising.
Authenticity is critical in political campaigns.
If you can fake that, you have it made.
Sanders is underappreciated as a campaigner. He has good message discipline and connects with people. This is a guy who played retail politics for a decade as a small city mayor. You can't hide behind your handlers in a small city.
Oh sure, he makes promises he can't pay for. Tell me something the voters haven't heard before.
Have you seen "Hamilton"? Hillary aversion to consistent, principled positions reminds me of that Aaron Burr fella.
Oh bless their hearts. But in all honesty I'll admit to voting for McGovern when I was 18, I'd have done anything to get in that blond chicks pants down at the youth center with the hip-huggers on. Come to think about it, after voting in 11 presidential elections, that's probably the best reason I've ever had for voting for any of them.
On TV the night of Iowa caucuses: A young, college-age male "I'm for Bernie. He's an outsider, who hasn't been hanging around Washington for 30 years, waiting his turn."
Speaks for itself, doesn't it.
Same TV interview, young college-age female: "I'm for Secretary Clinton, because I have a different hierarchy of needs."
Yep, a genuine student of sociologist in the flesh, undoubtedly looking for her self-actualization, mentioning Maslow and his now-abused theory, discredited that is, because if you're for a collectivist society (see: Sanders, Bernie) ...etc.
College students. So much fun. Were we this stupid?
"talked about the NHS in the UK paving a road to serfdom. That hasn't happened."
Oh yeah ? Go to a Midlands small city on Saturday night. The English, as opposed to the "British" are self-segregating to the southeast where brown faces are "probably an NHS doctor," as my friend told me last fall.
Look at Cameron twisting in the wind as Muslim run riot.
The only part of Britain with a positive GDP is greater London and the southeast. The rest is on the Dole.
Anyone gonna check to see if Olivia Sauer is voting in both IA and WI?
"1. Bernie wants us to be more like the Scandinavians." Sure, as soon as he demands a 25% VAT and a 31% tax rate for low incomes.
Scandinavian solidarity means everyone pays. Even people on benefits. Swedish social democrats are honest. American Progs aren't.
it's like bananas and peanut butter.
bananas and peanut butter is delicious!
how about lobster tail and cheese mold?
Eighteen-year-old's are idiots. This is not news. But it's a problem.
Are "young people" of one hive mind on socialism? I don't think so. Don't be fooled by the university idiots.
Sebastian said...
"1. Bernie wants us to be more like the Scandinavians." Sure, as soon as he demands a 25% VAT and a 31% tax rate for low incomes.
--
And Petro economics with off shore drilling..
And..an increasingly kinda rapey environment.
My son witnessed a profanity-laced shouting match between Bern and Trump supporters on Red Square at the U-Dub last week. It may be hip to support the Bern but, from what I'm hearing, a whole lot of young people are waking to the reality that the Left is the reactionary Establishment.
And I bet more than a few 20-something Bern supporters have built their own AR's. I've met a couple. The ideological lines are shifting and crossing in all kinds of ways but I've yet to hear a mainstream GOP or Donk politician acknowledge that reality.
Bernie's statements are owned by economic stupidity and historical ignorance.
They're not so dumb. Bernie is for free college. Bernie should solidify his lead and promise free mobile phones with free upgrades and free textings and some more free stuff. Students in college should also be granted a modest stipend of $500 per week so every one could have equal opportunity for studying, not just rich kids. Students studying liberal arts should be given $600 per week because they're nicer people and won't make as much money after they graduate.
Sebastian said...
"1. Bernie wants us to be more like the Scandinavians." Sure, as soon as he demands a 25% VAT and a 31% tax rate for low incomes.
Scandinavian solidarity means everyone pays. Even people on benefits. Swedish social democrats are honest. American Progs aren't.
2/4/16, 5:19 PM
This is so true. I supported Paul with Cruz as second choice. But now it looks like Trump vs Rubio. No small government Republicans left. That tells me the battle to restrain government is lost.
I would support Sanders if he would lead an honest debate about the size and scope of government. Tell us all the goodies we'd get to be like Europe. Universal health care, free education, good roads, smaller military, more prisons, lots of subsidies for art and music and lots of bureaucracy.
But also tell us that everyone pays 30-40 percent of their income in taxes. VAT, sin and gas taxes. Talk about the need for transparent, efficient and effective government. The world will be much more chaotic without US dominance. More burdened small businesses and more rent seeking large corporations. Explain the differences between Scandi countries, Greece, Venezuela and the Soviet Union.
But he's selling the same bullshit. Everyone gets goodies but no one pays. He's a phoney coward.
@MichaelK, could you share some statistics on that? Wikipedia says that 46% of British welfare expenditure goes towards state pensions, 10.55 % towards housing benefits. Only 4.31% of the budget goes towards income support. The problems you mention with immigrants in the UK don't have anything to do with economics unless you're suggesting that what attracts immigrants to the UK is the welfare state. Again, I don't think the numbers show that. This is from the Telegraph, which is by no means a left wing publication: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11255425/How-much-do-immigrants-really-claim-in-benefits.html . Again, it's important not to lump all welfare benefits under the same umbrella. For instance that includes certain tax credits awarded to people who work but don't make enough to survive without assistance...
@Sebastian, yes, the VAT is a bad idea as it tends to hit middle and working class people the hardest. But, It seems like the GOP winner in Iowa and some other candidates are in favor of it : http://www.wsj.com/articles/value-added-tax-catches-on-in-republican-presidential-race-1447374891 . It's also true that progressives aren't honest about tax increases across the board, except for Bernie. To increase revenues to pay for the welfare state taxes need to be increased across the board.
This little tool puts tax rates in historical context: http://www.remappingdebate.org/map-data-tool/new-interactive-tool-puts-tax-rates-historical-context.
I plugged in my numbers and while this tool has its limitations, I'm paying lower in taxes than I would've paid under Reagan, Nixon and other GOP presidents.
We're the new generation, and we've got something to say: "Hay hey we're the Monkees!"
"by no means a left wing publication"
You seem to be implying that "not left wing" necessarily means "against massive immigrant influx".
I plugged in my numbers and while this tool has its limitations, I'm paying lower in taxes than I would've paid under Reagan, Nixon and other GOP presidents.
I am sure you are 100% correct. Half of America pays no federal income taxes now. Isn't that just great? They send the rest of us off to work every day to pay their freight.
Plus it's pretty funny that you think that the president sets tax rates, and not the congress. But I know that this stuff is complicated and it is pretty pointless for you to try to understand it.
They know that the "blow-dried" guys (as Perot would call them) are the source of all our politics' hot air.
I think it's great the way they're "playing up" this idea of him being a vociferous old guy who tells it like it is and isn't going to stand for any shit.
Interesting comment @4:28, Nyamujal.
Nyamujal said...
This little tool puts tax rates in historical context: http://www.remappingdebate.org/map-data-tool/new-interactive-tool-puts-tax-rates-historical-context.
I plugged in my numbers and while this tool has its limitations, I'm paying lower in taxes than I would've paid under Reagan, Nixon and other GOP presidents.
2/4/16, 7:17 PM"
I'm sure as hell paying a higher rate under every Democrat president than I did under Reagan.
"The problems you mention with immigrants in the UK don't have anything to do with economics unless you're suggesting that what attracts immigrants to the UK is the welfare state."
Have you talked to the Muslims that are trying to stow away on trains through the Chunnel ? Why do they want to get to Britain ?
How many Muslims have more than one car to transport their multiple wives ? More than one.
Some people are trying to limit it.
Although bigamy is illegal in Britain, men who married more than one woman in countries where the practice was legal and then brought them to the UK have been allowed for years to receive multiple benefits.
Critics claimed the controversial system meant the state is effectively "recognising" polygamous marriages, of which there are thought to be about a thousand in the UK.
The practice is largely confined to Muslim men, who are permitted under some interpretations of Islamic law to have up to four wives in a harem – as long as they spend equal amounts of time and money on each partner.
The system of paying extra benefits for multiple wives was reviewed under Labour in an exercise involving four separate Whitehall branches – The Treasury, the Department for Work & Pensions, HM Revenue & Customs and the Home Office.
Do you still want to debate this ?
My friends have pretty much given up on London and the Midlands are the subject of Theodore Dalrymple's books.
These are the people who have been destroyed by the well-intentioned, but intellectually empty theories of the socialists and social reformers who believed they were delivering people from want, but in fact created a true dystopia. By making sure everyone could have a roof over their heads, food on their tables and changes in their jeans without lifting a finger, but by taking from the fewer and fewer productive people in English society, an underclass was created. With no reason to exert themselves and a popular culture that literally urges an endless regime of sex, drugs and rock 'n roll (or its equivalent), Dalyrmple has witnessed the destruction of English character.
That was before the Muslims arrived.
And they brought their own rules of behavior.
I saw the Muslim "refugee" camps in September.
Sorry, that last link was not correct.
The young and foolish college kids think that by voting for that old communist they are gonna get free this and free that. What they don't get they are just signing a layaway plan and when they get to be in their forties the bill will come due with a vengeance were Sanders to win.
Seems like cultural appropriation to me.
Can we all just vote for Sanders and get this childhood socialist fantasy over with quickly. It can't be reasoned with - only felt. So let's feel the Bern.
@tim, "Half of America pays no federal income taxes now. Isn't that just great? They send the rest of us off to work every day to pay their freight."
Interesting how you frame that. Sixty percent of the people who don't pay income tax are still working and pay towards social security and medicare, which BTW are the biggest Fed expense liabilities. They just aren't making enough to be taxed more. Another 22% of non-payees are retirees. Only about 7.9% of the people not paying any federal taxes are either unemployed or disabled or are students. I'm sure caring for them is a public good. That 53% non-tax paying number doesn't take into account state taxes and sales taxes.
"Plus it's pretty funny that you think that the president sets tax rates, and not the congress."
You are correct. Perhaps you could post some info about the congressional make up of the low tax years. I remember that democrats voted for the Bush tax cuts. I can research the numbers...
I plugged in my numbers and while this tool has its limitations, I'm paying lower in taxes than I would've paid under Reagan, Nixon and other GOP presidents.
What about Coolidge? That's my benchmark.
@MichaelK, The people you're talking about are refugees desperately fleeing war and persecution. I can't speak for them but I doubt the prospect of being on the dole is a prime motivator for them to seek entry to the UK. France, Germany and other European nations have welfare states too. Perhaps there are other factors involved. I can think of a few:
1. There's an existing Pakistani community which attracts Pakistanis and maybe some Afghans.
2. English is more widely spoken by middle classes around the world. If you speak English, it's easier to integrate into British society. It's a lot harder to integrate into Swedish, German and Danish societies.
3. The UK as far as I know doesn't have a national ID card system like France, so it's probably easier to find work.
I tend not to talk about muslims as a monolith. I doubt a muslim from India or Iran can be bunched with someone from Saudi Arabia or the North Western part of Pakistan. I'd like to know more about the number of honor killings, polygamous marriages, etc before I agree with your gloomy assessment.
Someone up thread (sorry I didn't note the name) said there are "no small government Republicans left. That tells me the battle to restrain government is lost." That's too pessimistic. 1) you can RESTRAIN the growth of government even if you can't, yet, shrink the size of government, and that's a positive step. 2) If we believe in small government, we need to make the sale, we need to show people how they will do better with less government. Given the enormous expansion of arbitrary administrative and executive power during the Obama years, and the unending tales of government inefficiencies and failures, we small-government types have a target-rich environment.
"@MichaelK, The people you're talking about are refugees desperately fleeing war and persecution. I can't speak for them but I doubt the prospect of being on the dole is a prime motivator for them to seek entry to the UK. France, Germany and other European nations have welfare states too. Perhaps there are other factors involved. I can think of a few:"
Ask them, as some interviewers have done. The answer is that "The salary is better in UK. " The Muslims are surging into Germany and Sweden and UK. They are NOT going to Hungary or Poland. Now, Merkel has invited them, in a gesture that should retire her from public life. Still, why the desperate efforts to get to UK ?
I know there is a Pakistani community in UK dating back to Labour efforts to import a new voting public. They have been importing wives from the same villages in Pakistan so that the Pak community is just relocated but has made no effort to become Britons.
Why are they overwhelmingly military age men ? And there are many reports of complaints about inadequate food and lodging.
They don't sound that desperate to me.
Here is a very interesting interactive page detailing tax rates from 1955 to present:
http://federal-tax-rates.insidegov.com/l/40/1955
Incredible to see that people used to have to give over 9/10ths of their earnings to the federal government. Outrageous- even at the height of the Catholic Church the popes didn't dare take 9/10ths of the peoples worth. I would storm the halls of congress with guns blazing if these bastards tried to take 90% of my money. The 40% they extort now is far too much.
Of course Bernie is a hero on college campuses. He promises to pay their tuition and student loans. Being economic illiterates, they don't understand that the bill will come due three-fold via taxes during their greatest earning years. They are signing away at least 30% of their paycheck for most of their life. It was a joke on the old "Popeye" cartoon where Wimpy said "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today." The current crop of college students are both Wimpy and wimpy.
@Nyamujal
Social Security was sold to the public as a form of annuity, one even gets an annual 'statement' as if it were a savings and investment scheme. So those people who don't earn enough to pay federal income taxes but consume a disproportionate share of federal spending are freeloaders. I don't see the need to support them. As for Social Security, it should be privatized for the young. A young person saving 12.4% of their gross income over a 40 year period of time would be no worse at the minimum and a lot better in actuality if the payroll tax were eliminated for the young.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, it was a huge mistake to lower the voting age to 18. Kids have no adult life experience, no sense of history and too few critical thinking skills, so they accept whatever they are told and parrot it back as if it were some unique revelation. The voting age should have been raised to 25.
These kids can recite historical income tax rates from different periods, and they think those rates correspond to actual tax collections because someone told him they did. Well here's what those different rates actually produced for the federal treasury: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205. Perhaps they should consider that those 95% top tax rates of the 1950's of which they are so fond never produced income tax receipts more than 7.8% of GNP, while today's, supposedly inadequate rates are projected to take in over 9% of GNP for the next four years. Wonder why that is? Anybody? Anybody? Nyamujal?
They believe that Bernie has some type of special insight into the economy because Bernie! Personally, I'm three years younger than Bernie, but I had been working for 22 years before Bernie drew his first steady paycheck (from the government, of course, in his late 30's.) He's never produced anything in his life; he even failed as a part time carpenter, but he's going to lead the country and the world's largest economy to the Promised Land? Exactly how does that work in real life? Are unicorns involved?
(to be continued)
(Contiued)
They think free stuff from European "social democracies" is actually free. Since I happen to live in one of those countries, I know from experience that the free stuff comes at a high tax cost and with lots of bureaucratic strings. College may not require the student to pay tuition, but a bureaucrat gets to decide who is worthy of college and who is not, and that's often done at age 16. So, if one is a late blooming student, tough. While you may not be allowed to go to college, you do get to pay taxes to support the ones who were selected. Sure, medical care is (mostly) performed without a direct payment, but it's all prepaid through taxes, then rationed. My neighbor waited in constant pain for two years for a "free" knee replacement until he couldn't stand it any longer and then paid for it himself. Got it within two weeks at the same hospital that couldn't find a spot to fit him in under the free system. Several years ago, my wife's 86 year old grandfather was sent home by one of those wonderful, free NIH hospitals in GB. Only problem was he had pneumonia, which the hospital knew, lived alone, which the hospital also knew, and died within three days of release, which the hospital had to have suspected would happen. No recourse for the family, no accountability for the hospital. Death panels can operate in a number of ways, you know. Want to buy a car? Taxes double the cost. Want to put gas in your car? Okay, but the taxes more than double the cost of a liter of gas. Want to buy anything else? There's a 21% value added tax. Want a job? The youth unemployment rate is around 30%. Going to put a new appliance in your house? Better get the municipal bureaucracy's okay for a higher electrical usage, then be prepared to pay a higher rate for the privilege. Moreover, do any of these child genious "Bernbros" realize that the average US family on welfare has more living space, a better diet, more creature comforts and more toys than the average, middle class European family? These kids also seem to be completely focused on income inequality in the US.
Do they not realize that $34,000/year income places one in the top 1% of the world's population and that the US because of it's economic system accounts for 49% of the worlds's top 1%. Yet, we need a revolution to fundamentally change the most successful economic system in history, then replace it with a system that has performed worse in every location in which it has ever been tried? That, for example, the poorest five per cent of Americans earn on average the same as the richest five per cent of Indians? Is it a mystery why Indians are trying to get H1B visas to work in the US? Do they not appreciate that the $1250/year median income of the world's population is one tenth the poverty level in the US? It boggles my mind that so many of the supposedly brighter kids in the US are so incredably naive or so thoroughly brainwashed. Hopefully, there are enough adults left to keep them from committing societal suicide, but there's no guarantee.
@Nyamujal - The EU admitted that the vast majority of the migrants are not coming from Syria. Only 20% are Syrian. The rest are economic migrants shopping for the best welfare. The places they are headed, have the most generous welfare programs in Europe. Over 70% are healthy, young, fighting age men. Why are they not back home protecting or supporting their families or working to make their societies better? Even before Obama f*cked up the middle east, there are camps of migrants from N. Africa and the ME on the shores of France (Calais), doing what they can to get to the UK as MichaelK pointed out. Mostly young men.
There is also a surge in 16 to 17 year old, unaccompanied, male 'children'. Why? It so happens that minors get more resources and cash thrown at them, along with the rights to family reunification. Just like the hordes of older teenagers they call 'children', streaming aceoss our border. With those incentives, and ages not being checked, they are finding adult men lying about their age.
@Cubanbob, I sorta agree with you. Social security reform is something that needs to be addressed. I'd like to compare policies of the current crop of candidates to see if they're even addressing it. I doubt they are since it's such a third rail, and senior citizens form a major voting block.
@jaydub, You're making a lot of assumptions about me. I don't support Bernie or his policies in any way. I'm just theorizing about why he draws popular youth support. But talking about dogma, conservatives hold on to supply side economic ideas without questioning its efficacy. They don't update their ideas even when presented with evidence to the contrary. That's just as bad as believing in a Scandinavian style cure for our economic problems. Economics isn't an exact science, and macroeconomics is even worse at prescribing solutions. Just look at Kansas under Brownback. He cut taxes to extremely low levels and now Kansas has a huge deficit, and has fallen behind on key indicators including personal income growth, gross state product increases, and employment. He has an approval rating worse than Obama in a state that Romney won by a huge margin. I'm pretty evidence driven. Give me some papers that show how supply side economics magically spurs the animal spirits of businessmen and grows the economy and you'll have me on board. Economics isn't Physics. The Nobel prize in physics was awarded to the likes of Feynman and Einstein. Economics Nobel laureates include Krugman and Black-Scholes.
Re: Changing the most successful economic system in history, that's another debate. The expansion of the American state in the form of the New deal led to a period of sustained growth and benefits for a lot of white middle class Americans. The nostalgia that a lot of baby boomers have for the America of their youth was an America that was built on the expansion of the welfare state.
@Annie, I doubt a lot of fighting age men have it in them to pick a weapon and fight against Assad who barrel bombs them, or ISIS and their reign of terror. Do you have kids? If something similar happened here in the US and you knew that their odds of surviving conflict were low, would you hand them a weapon and ask them to fight, or would you pack them off to some place that's safer?
We could debate the sexism in Syria that results in young women staying home while their brothers are being packed off to Europe. It's also possible that young women are more likely preyed upon by smugglers if they're sent alone...
To add to that, I agree with Michael that some of the migrants coming in from non-conflict areas need to be scrutinized more. I don't have enough info on that to comment. Anecdotally, it isn't easy to emigrate to the UK or Western Europe. Their immigration policies are a lot stricter than the laissez faire system you're implying.
Nyamujal, I don't make any assumptions about you. I was addressing the nation's youth and their love affair with a archaic socialist and European "democratic socialists." And, why would I cite any references to you? Are you not capable of looking up your on info?
If these commie want-a-be's ever get their wish and take the country to their utopia, I wonder how many unbelievers will be killed during their purge?
Nyamujal I doubt a lot of fighting age men have it in them to pick a weapon and fight against Assad who barrel bombs them, or ISIS and their reign of terror.
Why? I picked up a weapon and fought Al Qaeda on their own turf. So did a lot of my friends. And they and some of the Baathist holdouts fought us. What's more a lot of older men in my family fought in some ferocious battles, going back to our nation's founding.
Why should we want to take in their cowards? And why do you want to normalize or excuse away cowardice?
If they won't fight for their own lands and their own families, why should the Europeans expect them to lift a finger for our own western humanist values when the fight is upon us and the Ottomans are at the Gates of Vienna?
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