Ocasio-Cortez bans press from covering 2 campaign events

[Dukasaur]

Hey, I'm still waiting, any one, name a single country in the world where the education is free.

Denmark, for starters.

[Neoteny]

NASA made it from zero to the moon in about a decade

And about a half century ago to boot.

Hey, I'm still waiting, any one, name a single country in the world where the education is free.

Denmark, for starters.

He's putting up his rhetorical dukes and whimpering "fight me" over the shorthand referral to taxpayer-funded education as "free." He's not acting in good faith, Duk, and it's not worth the time to address beyond ridicule.

[armati]

"Also, nobody on this forum has heard of Ron Paul. There's no precedent on here for anyone talking about Ron fucking Paul."

Again, you win a "stupid" award, another one, how many is that now? lol

You pretend you're informed? Son of an american patriot right?

[Neoteny]

My dad was career army. So American patriot, imperialist collaborator. Depends who you ask.

[armati]

I shouldnt have givin gears to yahoo, he doesnt know any better.

Dukasaur, you didnt read patches post,

So Denmark has "free" education? Tell us then, who donates the pencils?
How long are the instructors expected to work for free?
Do the people that build the schools donate their time and labor?

Free, does not exist, somebody pays for it.

In Lybia, when Gadafi was president, they had what was called "free" education to all citizens, but it wasnt "free" it was paid for from oil revenues.

Free in that case was an allocation of funds from the public coffers. The "free" was paid for as all "free" is.

People love the idea of free, it gets votes, but people simply dont have the education to realize somebody has to pay for everything.

ALL DEBTS GET PAID, either by the borrower or the lender, but all debts get paid.

There is no free. Life dont work that way.

[patches70]

Hey, I'm still waiting, any one, name a single country in the world where the education is free.

Denmark, for starters.

Denmark spends 7.9% of it's GDP on education. Try again.

[Neoteny]

See?

[mookiemcgee]

Hey, I'm still waiting, any one, name a single country in the world where the education is free.

So politicians sell it as 'free' instead of Gov't funded, in the end the meaning is understood... Is that really so different from selling 'tax cuts for the middle class', that are really just tax cuts for the rich with a chance that maybe over some indeterminate amount of years it could trickle down and benefit the middle class?

[armati]

Taxes is kinda funny.

Why do we need them?

Why cant we just print the amount required?

Isnt that what qe1,qe 2,qe 3, zirp, nirp and every other form of printing money is? simply printing.

AAhhhhh, all that printing was for the banks, printing the taxes would go to the people, we cant have that.
People get to pay for the money givin to the banks with their taxes.
Gotta luv the guv.

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. Henry Ford
https://www.brainyquote.com/

[karel]

another left wing nut who should not get any press coverage

[armati]

We were told we had to save the banks and auto sector.
So we printed the bail outs. (so much for capitalism?lol)

What we could have done, is givin every person with a mortgage 55 and over a million dollars with 3 conditions.
1. pay off their mortgage......saves the banks.
2. buy a new car...saves the auto industry
3. retire for a minimum 5 years. opening up 1 million jobs. Saves the streets of san francisco from feces.

There would have been positives that were not so obvious, like an increase in the velocity of cash.
The whole country woulda had boom times.

But why didnt they do that?
Its not like the fed didnt understand the option, so there was a reason.

Quite simply, it was the largest theft of cash in human history and the people didnt have a clue.

O ya, had we done that, we would of had to print less than 1/2 what was done.
I dont have the numbers anymore, but at the time it was a major topic on economics blogs.

[HitRed]

velocity of cash

Like the sound of that...let's see it again

Velocity of Cash

Got it!

I'm moving at the velocity of cash!

[TA1LGUNN3R]

Socialism always comes down to a tiny group of elites who think they know what's best for each and every individual. And for these elites, who I assume are human beings just as fallible and flawed as the rest of us, always have to resort to authoritarianism, coercion and violence to enforce their vision of what society should be.

But it's different when they do it, it's for the greater good. Have faith and toe the line or you won't sink into the water like a proper good person.

[Dukasaur]

Dukasaur, you didnt read patches post,

So Denmark has "free" education? Tell us then, who donates the pencils?
How long are the instructors expected to work for free?
Do the people that build the schools donate their time and labor?

I'm well aware of what patches said, and it's based on a false definition. "Free" does not mean without cost.

Free means that we don't present people with a bill every time they partake of a public good.

We don't present you with a bill when you drive on the public roads. We all pay for them, and some of us get more use out of them than others, but we all accept that. But we'll get back to this later. First, a few other things.

Free, does not exist, somebody pays for it.

Of course someone pays for it. Again, free does not mean without cost.

In Lybia, when Gadafi was president, they had what was called "free" education to all citizens, but it wasnt "free" it was paid for from oil revenues.

Free in that case was an allocation of funds from the public coffers. The "free" was paid for as all "free" is.

People love the idea of free, it gets votes, but people simply dont have the education to realize somebody has to pay for everything.

ALL DEBTS GET PAID, either by the borrower or the lender, but all debts get paid.

There is no free. Life dont work that way.

Yes, all things have costs. Some places they pay for some things with oil revenues, other places they pay for them in other ways. Ultimately all things have a cost, and there's nothing particularly revolutionary about pointing that out.

The thing is, that humans form societies, which share costs in various ways. This is what the right-wingers want you to forget. They want to pretend that the natural state of man is the individual, and that any reliance on society is something dirty. Well, here's a little secret: no man has ever survived as an individual. From the beginning, we have been a social animal, pooling our resources and sharing our efforts. This goes back to a time even before we were modern humans, before we were Homo sapiens. All the great apes and all the homonids that rose from them were social species. None of us is individually very strong. It is through social action and pooled resources that we were able to survive and rise to being the dominant form of life on earth.

Some men were good at hunting, and some men were good at making spearheads to give to the hunters. From the beginning, human tribes survived because the men that were good at making spearheads shared them with those who were good at hunting, and in turn, those who were good at hunting brought the meat home and shared it with others. And likewise, some women were good at finding the blueberry patches and some women were good at nursing the sick back to health and some women were good at teaching the children. Even the most primitive sites explored by archeologists show signs of specialization of labour and complex social organization.

In modern times, the arrangements we make for sharing things are more and more complex, but the basic principles haven't changed. Nobody can survive long in isolation. The lone wolf who doesn't need anything from anybody is a great character for books and movies, but he doesn't exist in real life.

Now, there's three ways we can share things. There's the barbarian solution, where we fight over stuff all the time and to the strongest goes the spoils. There's the marketplace, where we trade for things, value for value. And there's socialism, where we pool our resources and share them based on need.

Nothing exceeds the efficiency of the marketplace for stimulating production. That part is beyond argument. However, the one weakness of the marketplace is that it creates big winners and big losers. Some people end up with a huge pile of cookies, and some end up with no cookies at all. That's okay when we're talking about motorbikes. Society isn't particularly injured by the fact that you can't afford a Harley-Davidson. There are some things, however, where your lack of it hurts everyone. These are better provided in a socialistic fashion.

Nobody benefits if you're stuck in your house because you can't afford to pay the road toll. Society benefits from your active participation, so we agree to pay for (most of) the roads in a socialized fashion, and you get to use them whether you can pay your share or not. That way, you can get to work and maybe improve your life and maybe one day you will pay your share. Or maybe not. Either way, we're willing to take the chance.

At some point the economy became complex enough that it was no longer served by having an illiterate workforce. At that point primary education became free, so that people could at least learn to read before being thrown into the rat race. Later, things got more complex and people with only a primary education were just as unemployable as those with no education at all, so secondary education became free as well. (And yes, free doesn't mean without cost. It's just that we're willing to share the cost as a society.) Today, we're nearing the point where those with just a secondary education will be almost as unemployable as those with no education at all, so one day tertiary education will be free as well. Again, it won't mean that it's costless, only that we're willing to pool the cost so that nobody gets locked out of society.

Hey, I'm still waiting, any one, name a single country in the world where the education is free.

Denmark, for starters.

Denmark spends 7.9% of it's GDP on education. Try again.

Yes, Denmark spends a substantial amount on education, and gets great results. It doesn't see anything to be accomplished by asking families to mortgage their futures to pay for an education.

See?

Oh, I knew exactly where he was going, but I'm not bothered by that. I'm on solid ground.

[Neoteny]

I'm mostly just concerned about your willingness to engage intellectually with a dishonest neo-fascist. I'm the last person who should be dictating who you're allowed to essay at, but consider who you're working with.

[armati]

Duk

You do have a point or two and I can agree with the idea of how a society works.
Maybe the word "free" threw me off.
Some people believe free means free, no cost to themselves.

[spurgistan]

Duk

You do have a point or two and I can agree with the idea of how a society works.
Maybe the word "free" threw me off.
Some people believe free means free, no cost to themselves.

For some things, yes. But when we talk about government programs, it's pretty universally understood by non-pedants to refer to "without substantial fees for the user, thanks to heavy government subsidies."

And just to get in on the title -
a) Why should Democrats be the only ones who have to talk to a sometimes critical press? Calling Republicans press openness anything but completely childish in avoiding unsympathetic reporters (or, really, actual reporters) is something. AND THEY'RE THE ONES IN POWER.


b) I think C-O's excuse for this holds some water. She was planning to talk to immigrant communities about sensitive issues, and having press poking around can rightfully make any recent immigrant scared in today's deportation-happy political environment. I kinda wish they'd thought of a way to accommodate the press while allowing for constituent anonymity, but it's possible they wanted to prioritize constituent/voter (remember she's not been elected yet) outreach over getting national press coverage.

[patches70]

I find it telling that you characterize compulsory taxation as "sharing". It's not. Your definition of free is also quite lacking. Free is "without cost or obligation". That's important. This applies to anything you wanna try and call "free". Be it person to person, company to consumer, government to citizen. I guarantee that you'll have to go through massive logic loops to apply your definition of free.
Let's take an example of something that is actually free.

You are walking through the mall and a nice girl has a platter of free samples of a tasty dish her restaurant serves. You can help yourself. You don't have to provide your name, your ID, your nationality, nothing. You are also under no obligation to actually purchase anything from the restaurant either. The reason they are doing this is obvious, they want you to go in and buy some of their tasty delights, but if you don't it's fine either way. It's a free sample. You didn't subsidize the restaurant, you don't have the restaurant taking taxes out of your pocket. The cost of the free samples is born upon the restaurant itself, and the samples are limited obviously because of one important economic rule- The Demand For Free Products Or Services Is Literally Infinite. That is, the restaurant can only afford to give out but so much of "free" stuff because there will be plenty of people who will gladly take a free sample and it's all good.

Now you, being the polite person you are, take only one sample, but you could take more if you wanted. After all, it's free and there are no conditions or obligations. As you are munching your tasty morsel, another person comes along and helps himself to three or four of the free samples, just gobbling them down. Do you care? I would hope not! You have no claim on those samples and they are free after all. Of course the guy finishes off the last of the free samples and the nice young lass heads back to work. The restaurant owner was able to entice a couple of people to come in and buy something and a few others though they didn't buy anything at that time, told themselves they'd come back another time and try the place out.

Now, keeping that in mind let's try another example of something you call "free" and see if we can come to any conclusion. In Canada they have "free" health care. Apparently it's a human right some claim. So let's go with that if you want to. I, living in the US, having no health insurance and living very close to the Canadian border, decide to go over to Canada and go see a doctor to get some of that free medical care. Afterwards, I'll head on back to the US and go about my business.

Now, if it is truly free and is truly a "human right", would you have any problem with this? I mean, it's free, it doesn't cost anyone anything so what is the harm if I come on over and help myself to some of that free stuff? It's no skin off of your wallet. So you should theoretically have no problem with that. Also, it's a basic human right, though such a distinction isn't recognized in my country, but your country feels that way and I'm a human being, so therefore it should be my right to come over and get some of that free healthcare, right?

Now you got a pickle. If you say you are good with that, then we just take it to the next logical step and have thousands of Americans heading over to Canada putting even more strain on an already rough situation. You can see how you'd quickly get overwhelmed because of the economic rule of infinite demand for free stuff. So it's not viable to let American's come over and use the Canadian system, unless you charge the Americans that is.

Now if you say "no" you aren't all right with that, then you have to admit it's because of the cost Canada would have to be burdened with. This undermines the idea of "free" now doesn't it? Then you can't claim it's "free". You also can't claim it's a human right either, what you really would mean to say is that the "free" medical care is a Canadian Right for Canadian citizens. After all you are paying for it.

Now, for the inverse, if a Canadian wants to come to the US and get the best medical care possible in the whole world, then by all means, the Canadian is welcome to come. He just has to pay for it. Seems fair, after all, a doctor has to eat like everyone else, he can't be giving away his services.

I can walk into a doctor's office and walk out after seeing the doctor and not have to pay a cent. I won't even have to ever look at the bill, is this free? It matches your definition, but I've been paying weekly premiums to my insurance company that allows me to go see the doctor and not have to worry about the bill. I can't call it free with any stretch of the imagination, I paid for that doctor's visit well in advance. In fact, so far barring any disasters, I'll end up paying more for insurance than I'll ever recoup back from doctor's visits. So it's anything but free, the exact opposite actually. But it's not a good idea to walk around without insurance, one never knows when one is going to have serious medical issues.

Which brings me around to the "free" education. The education is funded through taxation, it doesn't matter if it's a capitalist, socialist or any other "ist" system, everyone gets taxed. One is compelled through threat of prison or even death if one resists arrest to pay taxes. So one cannot say paying taxes is "voluntary". It is not. Now, I don't have the numbers, but the only way to determine if it makes economic sense to be taxed for education and the get "free" education, is to do a cost benefit analysis. This should be beyond dispute. Now, if you can determine exactly how much percentage of your taxes are paid just to fund the education program, then one can multiple that by forty years or so, your working life, and come up with a number. Now if that number is greater than the cost of the college education, then it makes zero economic sense for you to do that. Because you'll be paying multiple magnitudes above and beyond the actual cost of the education. The more money you make the greater your tax burden will be. You'd be better off not paying the taxes for education and simply purchasing your own education. I believe this is likely the case, but you don't get that choice, because the taxation is compulsory.

You don't get any price discovery. Without that information you can't determine what is the best way to allocate resources. That extra money you paid above the actual cost for education might have been used for other purposes, but you don't get to make that choice.

Now, there is one more thing I wish for you to consider, I'm primarily talking about the US and the problems a socialist runs into when trying to get their agenda accepted by the basket of deplorables like me. I'm supposed to trust United States politicians, politicians who are not known for their honest, that they are actually taking my best interests into account. I know they aren't, because they can't know what is best for me. Hell, I barely know that for myself, how the hell is a politician gonna know?

This is why it pains me when people use terms like "free healthcare" or "free education" or "free housing" because it's false. It's dishonest, and these politicians do this on purpose because when one thinks of "free" they automatically think "without cost or obligation", which is the actual definition of "free". Now Duk, you can make up your own definitions of free if you want, and you can assume that people will understand what you are talking about, but then understand that the US voter elected Donald Trump and then go ahead and explain how smart the American voter is. That's why it's already bad enough, it makes no sense to let politicians or people get away with calling things "free" when they are far from free.
You can call me pedantic, you can call me a fascist or anything else you want, but it doesn't change certain economic realities. No one can explain how they can actually pay for their socialist paradise in the United States. As much grief as you give Republicans, and the grief is warranted, deep down you know the Democrats are just as bad and just as dishonest. And you expect a person like me who asks questions, often, to just accept what these people claim?

Sorry man, I just can't do it.

But I do want the socialist to keep pushing. Economic times are good right now, so they aren't going to get anywhere. It makes them look crazy for the most part. And that's fine by me.

What they need is everything to crash down. They need a complete economic collapse to actually get people to buy into their fantasies. That's a tough position to be in, it's hard sell and it's a massive gamble because in such situation one never knows how it'll turn out. I have a feeling things won't work out like the Socialists envision, but I could be wrong about that. I guess we'll see.

But until then, keep working on the problems with finite resources, finite time, supply and demand issues, how to efficiently allocate resources without price discovery or how to implement social compliance without using coercion. After that, there are a whole host of more problems, but I promise you, if you can solve any of those problems then you'll at the very least will win a Noble Prize and be richer than you can ever imagine. Which would be a good thing for not just you, but everyone else as well.

[thegreekdog]

Education is not free you fucking morons. Seriously. i mean it's like you don't understand basic life. Denmark does not have free education (unless the teachers are slaves). A short play:

College student - "Mom, I'm going to be a teacher."
Mom - "Oh honey, teachers don't get paid."
College student - "What do you mean?"
Mom - "Education is free."
College student - "No mom, you silly person. Education is not free. The magic unicorns that live under the White House shit out money and then they give it to teachers and pay for books."

Related - Healthcare? Also not free.

You know why Oscario is mocked? One of the many reasons is because she has zero plans to pay for all her free shit. "Um, like, let's cut the um, like, military?" That saves 5% of what she wants to spend.

I think C-O's excuse for this holds some water. She was planning to talk to immigrant communities about sensitive issues, and having press poking around can rightfully make any recent immigrant scared in today's deportation-happy political environment. I kinda wish they'd thought of a way to accommodate the press while allowing for constituent anonymity, but it's possible they wanted to prioritize constituent/voter (remember she's not been elected yet) outreach over getting national press coverage.

Bad optics (it's a word I learned from Neoteny... what can I say? I went to free school).

[Neoteny]

Everyone look out. The tax explainers have logged on to tell you free education isn't free because you pay taxes.

Can we like, change the term to "free at point of use" or something so that they go away and we can all be happy? They'll be satisfied then, right? They aren't willfully being pedantic as an excuse to write unwieldy, self-fellating diatribes about how taxation is theft or something, right?

When they're gone, we can change it back to the easier to say and type phrase that we all actually understand and use as shorthand for taxpayer-funded education and healthcare. They'll never even notice.

[armati]

Yahoo.....can you find the U.S. on a map?

[Neoteny]

Sure! We're the red one. The big one, not the little one.

Click image to enlarge.

[HitRed]

Sure! We're the red one. The big one, not the little one.

Click image to enlarge.

So this is a map about safety? Getting the criminals off the streets.

[Neoteny]

It's a map showing that the US produces more criminals by population than almost every other country in the world.

This is fun! What other shit-laden sludge can we belch out about this map?

[armati]

No, its yahoo showing he can find the U.S. on a map, looks like he used google.