Comments by "PM" (@pm71241) on "Sweden's Immigration Crisis (Pt. 1) | Dr. Tino Sanandaji | INTERNATIONAL | Rubin Report" video.

  1. What he says about Sweden not being a "socialist" country is an important fact - and the same goes for Denmark. All the "right wing" nonsense about Bernie Sanders, socialism and the scare tactics about "Venezuela" is completely nonsense. The difference between Denmark and Sweden is that in Denmark we've actually had the conversation during the last 30 years. Not always without smearing and prejudice, but we've had the conversation.
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  2. fredriksk21 Yes - socialism as in "Marxism" is when government owns the means of production. But in general "socialism" is a broad term (or can be) and social democracy is a kind of socialism too. That doesn't change the fact though, that a country like Denmark is not "socialist" as a country. We've had many social democrat government and they have played an important role in shaping the country during last century - but the country as such is not "socialist". Our current government is classical liberal (or at least claims to be).
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  3. ***** Yeah... I've also wondered why Bernie actively used the term, since it has so much baggage in the US which has nothing to do with social democracy. But I guess he's a principled man and just want to be completely honest ... regardless of how many are too ignorant to understand the meaning.
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  4. GrayFates It would be a much easier world if the general political ideologies (liberalism, conservatism, socialism...) had very well defined original meanings every where. ... but that's not the case. Nobody is "redefining" the terms. They've just all come to  mean a wide spectrum of things. So - today - you have people calling them selves "conservative liberals" (and "liberal conservatives") and "social liberals" ... all of which would have been oxymorons at when these things first began. It's not our fault that "socialism" split into several different branches.
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  5. ***** ... as a classical liberal my self.  Anarcho-capitalism is just as utopian as communism. However... it seems to be very popular these days amongst libertarians to have anarchist tendencies.
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  6. fab006 "True, except Bernie doesn't want Denmark, he wants Venezuela." I'm afraid you'll have to document that claim with a quote.
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  7. fab006 An answer to your 3 posts above: 1) No you didn't. There was no reasoning. You just postulated he wanted to do away with free markets venezuela-style. 2) More undocumented claims. I can't take such claims serious unless you provide references and documentation. But I know of at least one case where people had claimed the same as you just do - namely the Interview he gave about Nicaragua where he mentioned Castro. I've listened to the entire interview and such claims are taken out of context. He doesn't side with Castro. The topic is whether US intervention and regime change is a good idea. And he explains some of the reasons why it's not. For one thing, the US government constantly misjudges the reaction of the local population of where they invade. From Cuba to Iraq. 3) Not a very specific quote you gave there. So I read the entire article. You do realize that that article is a primitive smear job from one how wants to portrait Bernie as a Marxist and not a Social Democrat. - right? I could find ONLY ONE argument in the entire article which actually related to any of Bernies policies and had some truth in it and was not just to fabricated prejudice of the writer - and the was the argument about the size of the capital gains tax. ... and the comparison to Denmark was not entirely fair. Yes, the marginal capital gains tax in Denmark is currently 42%, but it has been higher. It's actually lowered a bit each year currently. Also ... There's a lot of other details about Danish tax which are different. We have a 25% VAT. ... To my knowledge Bernie does want to go there... so he find the revenues in different ways. The Danish tax system is changing constantly, so just because he hasn't got the exact same sources as revenue as we have it doesn't mean he wants "Venezuela" ... come on... don't fall for that nonsense. Wrt. the single payer healt care system and the claim about "centralization" , the author of the article conveniently switches from talking about the Nordic countries to just "Europe". We actually DO have a completely centralized health care system in Denmark. The author is simply wrong. Now, that doesn't mean that you cannot in addition buy private products, but to my knowledge Bernie has in no way proposed to ban private providers for offering service in addition to the national system. I regard that article as a bunch of nonsense... Actually ... it's absurd to read an article trying to convince the reader that "socialism" is not "liberalism" when the word "liberalism" has lost it's meaning anyway in the US and the author seems to deliberately want to conflate all kinds of socialism. Going back to the original meaning of "liberalism" (as we use in Europe - classical liberalism) ... OF COURSE socialism is not liberalism. ... I should know. I'm member of a classical liberal party. I'm not a socialist. ... but I care about FACTS. ... and I see were few in what you present.  
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  8. fab006 "Question for you: does Bernie want to do away with large chunks of regulation in the US?" That's a very broad question. Regulation is many things in different areas. Before I answer ... can we agree that the Nordic countries hardly can be said to in general have less regulation than the US. So not wanting to do away with a lot of regulation in the US doesn't suddenly make your goal "Venezuela" and not "Denmark". That's a non sequitur ... Anyway ... to my knowledge, Bernie wants to legalize Marijuana - which is illegal in Denmark ... so there... he's already more liberal than Denmark.  
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  9. German Realist Neither of your 2 unsubstantiated claims make any sense to me.
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  10. German Realist 1) I can't see how race matters. 2) I can't see why the size of the population matters 3) Denmark doesn't have plenty of natural resources. 4) You didn't always have that debt. It's simply bad excuses. And your last comment is an entirely different problem.
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  11. German Realist 1) There's probably a world in which that makes sense. 2) Tell that to be Belgians. 3) You obviously doesn't know anything about the Danish/Greenland relationship. ... or the current state of Danish oil. 4) It's not a rule that the US should have debt. nonsense... pure nonsense...
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  12. German Realist You know... you would probably be easier to take serious if you could formulate an argument without name calling.
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  13. divineslaughter Thinking it's a good idea to talk about political issues like this DOES NOT mean that you also agree with the often stupid immigration policies enacted. Unfortunately, we have a political party in Denmark  (DF) which has a pretty idiotic approach to solutions. Not just regarding immigrations, but also - say - the law banning knifes. I definitely do acknowledge that there's something completely broken in the Danish system when well integrated educated people are deported, but career criminals are not. We just had a few cases of good students being thrown out - it's insane. Many of those laws are anything but liberal. I'm a member of a liberal party with a clear agenda to abolish the 24-year rule. BUT! Acknowledging that the system is broken and that there are illiberal laws resulting in stupid situations, does NOT require you to think the Swedish way of making the topic taboo and not talk about it is a tolerable alternative. Actually - I would claim that if more political parties had been willing to approach the issue openly without deamonizing DF (by calling them not-house-trained), then we would have been more able to find workable solutions which didn't result in you having to live in Sweden. But the result of all the deamonizing has been that voters who think the topic needs to be addressed have flocked to DF because they were the only ones who listened. You see the same in Sweden now, with the rise of Sverigesdemokraterne. So - I acknowledge your problem and agree that it is wrong, but don't tell me the public discourse climate for this topic in Sweden is a better solution. ... Having such a topic be practically taboo will only make the situation explode at some point.
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  14. divineslaughter Well ... as long as the left wing in Denmark (R,S, SF, E, AL) refuse to acknowledge problems and talk about real solutions, unfortunately all the initiative is left at the idiots in DF (who recently stated you should go to church to be real Danish). !??!?! But lately, there has been some waking up - even in SF. I would hope that it would be obvious to everybody that nothing should prevent a Danish citizen from marrying a foreigner and living in Denmark ... but as long a the left keep ignoring actual problems, DF gets to call the shots and we will not see prober working solutions respecting basic liberal values.
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