Is Bernie Bro over the edge?

[bilby]

That's completely bass-ackwards.

A progressive is, by definition, one who advocates progressive action.

Advocating a 155 year old idea is clearly NOT progressive; so those advocating this idea can only be 'progressives' if they have some unrelated progressive ideas that they are advocating - something that your selection of Post Office banking services as an example strongly suggests is not the case.

Unless you are happy for the definitions to be circular, and therefore completely meaningless - which seems to be a common trend in US politics.

"Joe is a progressive; we know this because he supports progressive policies. We know the policies are progressive, because they are supported by progressives such as Joe" is only a useful set of statements if you have lots of airtime or column inches to fill, and nothing with which to fill them. Certainly we learned nothing about Joe, his preferred policies, nor what the label 'progressive' might mean.

Elizabeth Warren is the most prominent advocate of USPS banking. By all accounts, she's among the most liberal, or progressive, members of Congress.

I see nothing in any definition of progressivism, yours included, that relates to the age or provenance of a policy or idea. Yet that's critical to your "argument".

Progressive actions are actions advocated by progressives, no?

NO! Progressives are people who advocate progressive actions.

In the same way, if you practice surgery, that makes you a surgeon; but being a surgeon doesn't render all your actions 'surgery'.

If a surgeon is seen eating pizza, that doesn't mean that eating pizza is surgery.

If a progressive advocates Post Office banking, that doesn't make Post office banking progressivism, any more than a fascist advocating vegetarianism makes vegetarians fascists.

Progressive actions are actions that move society forward; that make progress.

Advocating an old idea that has been in place for 150 years is the antithesis of progressive.

The fact that US Political pundits have completely mangled the English language, so that almost every word they use has a meaning in US politics that is wildly different from its meaning in standard English, does NOT give anyone the right to claim that this new, specialist usage is the correct, or primary usage.

The USA is 5% of the world. The rest of us did that and moved on. Reinventing our wheel is NOT progress.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Post#1:

[Bernie] doesn't have a clue on how to run the country.

Later in the thread on page#6:

So you don't have a clue on how he would run the country.

I don't.

Note that you don't have a clue ==/==> Bernie does not have a clue.

Besides that, Harry, you do realize that when you write an op, people respond to the particulars of the op, right? And now you've changed from Bernie doesn't have a clue, to you don't have a clue. If your original op was that you don't have a clue on how Bernie would run the country, I might have agreed with you.

 

[Horatio Parker]

Elizabeth Warren is the most prominent advocate of USPS banking. By all accounts, she's among the most liberal, or progressive, members of Congress.

I see nothing in any definition of progressivism, yours included, that relates to the age or provenance of a policy or idea. Yet that's critical to your "argument".

Progressive actions are actions advocated by progressives, no?

NO! Progressives are people who advocate progressive actions.

In the same way, if you practice surgery, that makes you a surgeon; but being a surgeon doesn't render all your actions 'surgery'.

If a surgeon is seen eating pizza, that doesn't mean that eating pizza is surgery.

If a progressive advocates Post Office banking, that doesn't make Post office banking progressivism, any more than a fascist advocating vegetarianism makes vegetarians fascists.

Progressive actions are actions that move society forward; that make progress.

Advocating an old idea that has been in place for 150 years is the antithesis of progressive.

The fact that US Political pundits have completely mangled the English language, so that almost every word they use has a meaning in US politics that is wildly different from its meaning in standard English, does NOT give anyone the right to claim that this new, specialist usage is the correct, or primary usage.

The USA is 5% of the world. The rest of us did that and moved on. Reinventing our wheel is NOT progress.

No, it's the same. Both constructions can be distorted; all activities are progressive if done by a progressive, or anything a progressive does is progressive activity. They're equally stupid and unhelpful. Unless one wishes to exploit pedantry as a vehicle for ranting.

 

[coloradoatheist]

As a side note, Metlife won a court case for now that they aren't too big to fail

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/metlifes-escape-of-too-big-to-fail-label-is-defeat-for-obama-administration/2016/03/30/9b9859b4-f6a3-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_story.html

- - - Updated - - -

Using the label progress and conservative isn't a good way to look at things. All it is a summary of to make it easy to identify which policies one group supports then actually defining it to mean wants change or doesn't want change.

 

[bilby]

NO! Progressives are people who advocate progressive actions.

In the same way, if you practice surgery, that makes you a surgeon; but being a surgeon doesn't render all your actions 'surgery'.

If a surgeon is seen eating pizza, that doesn't mean that eating pizza is surgery.

If a progressive advocates Post Office banking, that doesn't make Post office banking progressivism, any more than a fascist advocating vegetarianism makes vegetarians fascists.

Progressive actions are actions that move society forward; that make progress.

Advocating an old idea that has been in place for 150 years is the antithesis of progressive.

The fact that US Political pundits have completely mangled the English language, so that almost every word they use has a meaning in US politics that is wildly different from its meaning in standard English, does NOT give anyone the right to claim that this new, specialist usage is the correct, or primary usage.

The USA is 5% of the world. The rest of us did that and moved on. Reinventing our wheel is NOT progress.

No, it's the same. Both constructions can be distorted; all activities are progressive if done by a progressive, or anything a progressive does is progressive activity. They're equally stupid and unhelpful. Unless one wishes to exploit pedantry as a vehicle for ranting.

This is an Internet discussion board. If you didn't allow people to exploit pedantry as an excuse for ranting, that would eliminate about 86.3735% of the posts here.

 

[untermensche]

Does the president "run" the country?

Are we three years old?

 

[ksen]

There is no money in checking accounts.

Ain't that the truth.

 

[arkirk]

I think voting properly on the Iraq War and the USA PATRIOT Act and decades of experience in office qualifies him to know how to run the country.

I didn't say that he isn't qualified. I don't think that he has a great grasp of complicated issues. Trump also claims that he was against the Iraq war, does that make a great candidate?

You really just have your own prejudice against Bernie. He is a good man. His grasp of complicated issues is far superior to yours.

 

[untermensche]

Presidents are surrounded by many many advisors and can get more with a word.

They do nothing on their own, but they do make final decisions.

Like deciding to authorize the invasion of Iraq or not.