Every time Socialism and Marxism have been implement they have dramatically and painfully failed for the citizens. See Greece. Don't counter with the Norway nonsense either. They are a homogenized society of 5 million people....and they are propped up by State produced oil, which all these basement dwelling Socialists despise. You will always and quickly run out of other peoples money. This is an indictment of our education system the this lady can win any type of election. Pathetic and very dangerous.
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We are the wealthiest country on earth. We have the best institutions of higher education on earth. We have no business assuming that the ideas that we have studied and/or enacted are the only or the best.
Let's pivot; think; move forward; fail; and keep changing.
We should be looking at other countries, but not to copy, but to learn.
Why so negative about a person with ideas? You say we cannot look to Norway, but then ask us to compare our country to Greece. We stand alone in our responsibility to innovate.
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Interesting to browse through the comments and see the outright misogyny trolls so soon, among the first 12. They associate their rightist politics with hatred of women, deriding Ocasio-Cortez as "missy" and asking where the $$ to pay for socialism comes from as if she were unintelligent. They show themselves utterly ignorant by asking this. Obviously we're talking about the right balance of government vs. non-government in the economy. Anyone who thinks that balance is good now, or should be less government, is a rightist ideologue, a Fox News propagandist, or a Chump. But this Rightist-woman hater connection shows the deep desire of the trolls to unravel society entirely and act like hateful boys "free" from rules of civilization. It's really cowardice, trolling anonymously like that.
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While I despair the results of the current mob of Right Wing crooks running our country, it is clear that the Sanders crowd delivered us into their hands. This country is divided on the issues of makers versus takers even when those who complain the loudest are themselves on the dole. So those naive young Sanders people created this mess. It is up to them to fix it. That is a tough job when one is living in Mom's basement.
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Both the media and the candidates who have "upset" their opponents need to remember and act as if they know, that a special primary election often attracts only fewer then 5% of actual party members. It attracts NONE of the voters who the candate will have to face in the Fall. There are primary elections in NY and NYC where if you bring your entire family to vote, you'll beat the other candidate. In NYC, many vopters, unaware of the special elections, are not home, are off on vacations or simply ignored,(espcially under age 30 voters-none of those I knew voted), so winning one of these late June rain-out games is like observing an all but unknown saint's day. You may be able to enjoy it with your 20 friends but come November the mass of voters will not know who the opposing candidates are.
So lots of fun for the few upset winners-they will all probably be back at their day jobs in the winter.
Seems to me your advice is applicable to the incumbents. You seem to discount the tremendous effort it takes to unseat an incumbent who holds every card....every advantage...even in low voter situations like primaries. Give some credit where credit is due.
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Congratulations to Ms. Ocasio- Cortez!!
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On health care: we need real education in self-care with some human anatomy and physiology. On economics: we need real education in family economics and family planning. Some of these needs could be met by public service announcements, but much should be in Junior High Schools, before kids are distracted by hormones and before many of them drop out. American could do this: it wouldn't require as much sacrifice as World War II, and we did that.
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Just curious if you think better self care will remove the need for real medical care? If you do, I think you are either very lucky, or you are still young and will be disappointed later on.
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Hope and change!
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Health care as a human right.
As a family doctor of 29 years I am amused at her naivete.
Big shortage on and I am many other docs have had it trying to clean up messes in America's health care system.
The big doc and nurse shortage will worsen.
Tell me, young missy, where will we get those who will give this "human right? "
Cloning technology is advancing. Perhaps we can raise up a cadre of physician-slaves bred only to satisfy the human rights of others. Perhaps we can sacrifice the human rights of the clones.
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Young missy? Really? Seems to me that it takes a lot of courage for such a young person to run for public office, even if some of her ideas may be a bit idealistic. Are we not all idealistic when we're young? Can you remember what it was like to be young? At least she seems to care about other people and wants to work to make things better. I find your comment patronizing, juvenile and sexist.
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Seems like the rest of the developed world can do it just fine and at less than half the cost, per citizen. Perhaps the problem is the greed and complete lack of empathy and imagination within the medical community, insurance racket and political class as we know it?
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Pullman, Washington or under a rock? It's time to open your mind and find change. Sometimes it can be hard to see if mired in myopia.
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I will never understand the healthcare as a "right" slogan.
Until healthcare is fully provided by robots, artificial intelligence or some other near infinite resource it makes no sense to me. Healthcare is a highly labor intensive field. How does anyone have a "right" to someone else's labor without inducing slavery?
A right to life-saving care in emergencies? Yes and we already have a form of this with EMTALA. It could certainly be expanded in my view. What we consider an emergency is fairly narrow and we are often penny wise and pound foolish with how care is allocated.
The revolution that we need is in HS education. A vast majority of the population would be better served having a mandatory four-year curriculum of "life skills" where kids learn budgeting, basic investing for retirement, credit, physical activity (not gym class kickball), nutrition, grocery shopping and cooking. Then we actually had high standards for what was sufficient to pass this class and graduate.
Imagine how much better society would be if people actually knew how to manage their finances for the long-term and lead healthy lives.
It isn't a panacea but implementing robust social programs into our current society is a recipe for ruin. The order of responsibility for managing the basic aspects of one's life should go 1. Individual 2. Government. Flipping this paradigm is how you end up with Venezuela's economic disaster. Not anti-government by any means but we need a balance not free everything.
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Well, Tim, every other First World country has figured it out, and some of them are even doing better off than the United States in terms of quality of life, education levels, life expectancy, etc. Sounds awful, doesn't it?
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Well, Aaron, as someone that works in this field I can assure you that many of the quality studies are bunk. Please look up the methodology on infant mortality and then tell me that the numbers make any sense. Stillborn children are considered infant mortality in the USA but are typically excluded from data sets from other countries. If I take all the bad outcome from our data we will be #1, no? US healthcare needs improvements across the board but much of what is peddled as fact can be classified as half-truths.
Also, most of these countries have what many Americans would consider rationing of services. Take education for example. Free sounds like an amazing price. Now let's look at enrollment levels. USA 94%, Finland 94%, Denmark 80%, Norway 74%, Sweden 70%, Germany 62%, France 58%. Pretty plain to see how they pull this off. Restrict who can go to college in the first place and then further restriction what people are allowed to study. I would happily support the French and German systems. We can't afford to support our current enrollment at the French price (~$200/yr).
I'm actually in favor of expanding MANY government programs. What I oppose is the dishonesty about the sacrifices that need to be made to achieve these reforms. It will require fundamental change to who receives what service and at what time interval. I guess I was raised to believe that concealing important facts is the equivalent of lying. Clearly many soc. dems had different upbringings.
"I guess I was raised to believe that concealing important facts is the equivalent of lying."
So I trust you didn't vote for 'I'll release my tax returns after the election' Trump?
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Colbert could have asked Ocasio-Cortez, how she would pay for all the social programs she was advocating?! But, I guess that wouldn't have been funny!
9
I seriously hope by raising taxes. We live in a country of people whose public schools have been decimated by tax cuts -- some schools only go for 6 hours/day four days a week. Then they can't understand math: if you want schools; teachers; emergency services that extend to rural communities; passable roads; bridges that don't collapse; strong police, nursing and firefighters; libraries; community hospitals that serve the non-urban centers so patients don't die en route 90 minutes to the closest one; readiness for emergencies (both environmental and health) -- get it together! Think about the communities that support you and stop magical thinking.
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Ah, yes, taxing the rich. Hilariously absurd! I mean, obviously they need to keep all of their money instead of help pave roads, build better infrastructure, prevent climate change, and on and on and on. Hahaha I am sitting here laughing so hard I can barely keep from falling over.
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Perhaps you might know that the United States ALREADY spends far, far more than other industrialized nations to get a product inferior to that of other nations? The questions is not how much; it's how we spend it.
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