Bernie is winning the nomination race and here's whyFollow

Check it out.. I've recently decided that if Trump gets it... there a chance I'd ...feel the Bern.. Matter of fact.. if Cruz gets it.. there is still a (perhaps smaller chance) I would also vote for Sanders...
My usual stance is "whoever is least likely to try to take away guns" in lieu of pretending like I believe anything any of them say... BUT NOW.. it seems I have to shift that view to "whoever is least likely to cause World War 3 in my lifetime" .

In my unabashed view: Government should provide free healthcare and education, period... no questions asked. How this gets done is another matter.. as I also think that all of these things would be more than possible to achieve were it not for the utter corruption that rots our system to the core...

I think I read that even for free community college it would be like 50 billion or so... CHUMP CHANGE compared to the trillions wasted on worthless crap like the F-35 Lightning II that has $400,000 helmets..

..so I'm going to use the opinions in this thread to inform my decision.. as trust this more than crap elsewhere.

Didn't you read the title of this thread? Bernie is winning!

The US has the ninth most educated work force as is, with something like 45% of it having some kind of certificate or diploma. The thing is the ones that are higher up on the list are significantly higher on the list, like South Korea with 67% and Japan and Canada with 57%. The catch here is that all three's systems charge tuition, at rates similar to our own, and places that offer free tuition don't have a more educated workforce. So the whole "free education!" pitch really isn't all that convincing. The cost isn't really an issue, since studies shows it'd probably end up paying for itself. It's just not really all that worthwhile a venture.

Besides, Bernie isn't going to get the nomination etc etc.

If there's no real benefit, yeah.

Since he is purported to not be in bed with 'cronies' (or whatever) he could have the gumption to rearrange the actual priorities to reallocate funding... Perhaps he is only showing a shadow of his actual plan because he doesn't want to alienate the party base too much too soon... assuming his head is in the right place...

Why would he demand states be responsible for this? Is it just to prevent being labeled even more of a socialist? That is kind of strange.. it seems like there would be better ways to achieve this rather than robbing the left pocket for the right.



Are you a collectivist? Just because people don't make it to upper echelon workforce means we forfeit the personal benefits of cultural enrichment leading to more understanding.. less crime.. more tolerance... ? Even if every free-college student did nothing but major in something wholly useless (like Philosophy) it challenge that it would still make a better society than if those people had a big fat goose egg in their mind where there could have been enlightenment.

Well, his published plan has the states picking up 33% in order to qualify for any federal funding so I'm going to assume that that's his actual plan rather than guessing that maybe this is just a pretend plan and his real plan is a secret.

true enough... but it sounds like you'd be advocating for a caste system.



yeah. that's crazy.
heh

His stump speech was great. "Dying."

It's laughable he thinks either of them are outsiders, but the first part was funnier to me. Well, I guess actually the second part. You don't need to defend a minor. It's a minor.

Edited, Apr 20th 2016 12:14pm by lolgaxe

I wouldn't go that far. There's no reason to assume those people are going to be sitting in a darkened room for 4 years instead of going to college. I mean they might, but I'd argue most people will actually do something with their life instead. The classroom is hardly the best place to get an education anyway, and personally I'd rather put more effort into improving the education system we have before we think about subjecting more people to it for a longer period of time.

Crap, I just realized that next Tuesday will be with five states. I might as well not watch Agents of SHIELD at all. It probably says something about me that I'm more concerned over a fantasy show about comic book characters than I am about the leadership of my country, but then again the characters are more realistic and ultimately don't believe the person in charge really makes a world of difference.

This may sound trite, but I'd argue that people tend to place value on things based on how much it cost them to obtain. They also certainly take more care to get the most out of something when they're paying for it versus when it's free. What we're already seeing is a lot of kids going to college because that's what they're expected to do, and what they think they should do, but then having no clue what to do with it once there, and often little or no motivation to utilize the education system to provide useful skills that'll actually pay off for them in the long run. This can certainly happen when the parents are shelling out the cash, but it's also happening with our current student loan system. At that age, they just don't necessarily get the cost bit. It's just numbers on some piece of paper somewhere to them. And for many of them, they've never held a job, and really have no context for that number.

We're certainly not seeing a great return on secondary education dollars spent versus usefully skilled graduates today, and I suspect if the only change you make is to make it "free", that return will only get worse. There's a whole host of reforms we'd need to make to the system before we could even begin to talk about funding it directly/publicly.



Eh. You'd think that, but the opposite is what tends to happen. Parents who are working multiple jobs to provide for their kids may not have as much direct time with the kids, but they provide an example just by doing what they are doing. And IMO that's far more important in terms of motivation for the kids. When kids see their parents working hard to provide for them, they learn that this is what you have to do to succeed, and they will tend to emulate that behavior and thus work hard on their education. The kids who get "left behind" tend to come from families where the lesson they learn from their parents is that sitting on the couch and waiting for the welfare check to come to provide for them is the way to get through life.

The poor working class kids may not go to college, but they do tend to find gainful employment elsewhere via other paths. Paths, btw, which I happen to think are just as legitimate as the "4 year university or bust" path we push (too hard) on our kids today. In those reforms I'd include those other paths as well. But those paths don't involve funneling public money into the coffers of big universities, so it doesn't tend to get a whole lot of political traction.



Again. I think that trying to make things "easy" for people doesn't usually generate the results you're looking for. I just don't think it's as simple as "make people more prosperous". There's no magic switch you can flip to make this work. And I'll also point out that most of what makes things "harder to make a living" is the gap between "very generalized high school education" and "4 year university education" that we have nearly eliminated in our society. For those who *don't* go to college, the opportunities for success have dwindled. And without that success, it's harder for them to help elevate their children to an even better life. The key IMO, is to put those stepping stones back in.

But again, it's pretty hard to get our primary educators to stop telling all their students they should go to college and get them to encourage (or even prepare them with alternative curriculum) for a more direct trade based path. We've filled our K-12 schools with people who steadfastly believe that the best and only route is the same one they took. Sadly, this just isn't true for most of the kids they're teaching, but it's what they want to be true, so it's what they teach. And so we get an alarmingly high number of kids who either think of themselves as abject failures for not going to college and have a steeper route to success than they should, or who beg and borrow to go to college, and maybe drop out (and see themselves as failures, but now with student loan debt), or who manage to struggle through and get a degree, but in something that doesn't really make them much more valuable to the job market than if they'd just spend the previous 4 years working.

I don't think it's really about just counting up the percentage who get college degrees. That seems like starting with the assumed definition of success (get a degree) and then measuring to that definition. A degree is not the only route to a successful life. We should be measuring actual success. Like maybe what percentage of each generation are able to gain employment that provides enough money for them to support a household. I'm a big fan of a classical education, and studying philosophy, and exposing yourself to all sorts of different ideas and concepts. And that's all great and all. I'm just not sure that the priority of our government should be paying for that. If we focus more on making sure people have sufficient education and skills to be valuable in our work force, then more of them in the next generation will have sufficient financial standing to allow them to choose to go that route if they want.

IMO, that's how you break that cycle. One step at a time.

Edited, Apr 20th 2016 5:23pm by gbaji

It's honestly not about left or right though. You do point out something I've noticed with the media coverage, where it honestly seems as though the journalist are so caught up in the narrative of "party elites" running everything, that even though every single guest they have tells them the same thing "It's not the elites, it's grass roots activists", they will ignore that, or not understand it, and the next journalist in the very next segment will repeat the same wrong claim.

I didn't watch that clip, so I can't speak to whether the guest on the show was actually vapor locked, or even a party mouthpiece, but if it's anything like what I've seen, it went like this:

BO: Here's my conclusion based on <assumption>
Guest: Your assumption is wrong though.
BO: So you're saying it's ok for <conclusion based on assumption>
Guest: Um... No. Because your assumption is wrong.
BO: Let me clarify this. You're claiming that my conclusion is wrong?
Guest: Yes.
BO: But how can that be since <assumption>?
Guest: <facepalm>


I've also noticed the same kind of silliness when discussing the GOP convention. When discussing (with a clear negative tone) the possibility of someone like Ryan or Romney being given the nomination via some sort of nefariousness at the convention (complete with images of smokey back rooms, and whatnot), they don't even mention something like rule 40, which would have to be bypassed or eliminated for that to be possible. But I've actually seen the very same journalists in the very next segment on the same show then turn around and discuss (again with a negative tone) how wrong it is for Kasich to still be in the race (or even Cruz) since he's got no mathematical chance to "win the nomination". And they'll parade rule 40 around as proof that he can't win, so why is he still there? Um... So someone with zero delegates and who hasn't participated in the process at all will surely be selected by the delegates via <nefariousness> if no one gets a majority of pledged delegates, but anyone who has actually run in the race and has actually won delegates, but who can't or doesn't get a majority of pledged delegates has no chance of winning the nomination? Really?

It's like their brains switch off between segments or something. Which is probably not far from the truth. They're presumably handed a script of what to talk about in each segment and the angle to take, and the arguments to present. It's just funny that they fail to notice (or don't care to) that the argument for one segment is inconsistent with the argument they made in a previous one. Trained monkeys indeed!

For what it's worth, I don't think Gbaji is wrong in his opinion about the primary process. I don't take his opinion as far as he does but I don't think it's wrong if a party has a closed system. Where we disagree is that Gbaji would close it off considerably more than I would and keep it more "die-hards only" whereas I'm more in favor of making it as easy as possible for all registered party members to vote (but I'm not too worried about non-party members getting the chance to vote). But his opinion is legitimate even if I don't share it.

In my world, each state would have a primary election and decide if they wanted it to be open or closed but the default would be closed. In Gbaji's world, from what I gather, each state would have a closed caucus system to discourage all but the most faithful from muddling with the results.