bmdrocks21

no, no he does not. Until right before he decided to run for president he was still espousing republican policies. He pretends he believes in democratic values now because he knows he has to in order to have a chance, but in his heart he is still an authoritarian republican. 

i'm actually not all that concerned about the DNC letting him on stage. He had bought 15% support already. He was basically just getting to spin his own story without being challenged. Letting him on the debate stage opened him up to actually being questioned on his record, and he got obliterated. 

some of them do that. But many of those charities wouldn't even need to exist if proper taxation existed. we wouldn't need to wait for a billionaire to decide he wants some good publicity in order to provide services to people. If we had proper taxation in place we could consistently provide those services. 

he has no chance of winning the most delegates, but that isn't the point. The point is to bribe enough people so that he will be crowned during a contested convention. Here is a story about it. Basically the plan is to use corruption to steal the nomination. 

how? Are you going to pass laws about what they can buy? They can no longer buy newspapers, facebook ads etc. Will you prevent them from donating to causes to try to buy influence and endorsements? No matter how many laws you pass to restrict what they can do with their money, they will find a new way to use it to buy influence and power. The money itself is a threat. 

true, the analogy is limited in scope. But they are both extremely dangerous if they are not properly controlled. 

but if they successfully use their money to corrupt the system, they can prevent those kinds of fines from existing. Or build in loopholes to avoid them. It is true you could spend a lot of time and effort trying to fight them back, but in the end they have the resources to find new ways to use their money to corrupt the system. 

This is certainly debatable, but I would say a billion dollars is probably the point at which it becomes a threat. At that point they have the ability to drown out the voices of everyone else. Bloomberg (a republican) has dumped half a billion dollars into ad buys and bribes and managed to buy his way into 2nd place in a democratic primary (in some polls). That is extremely dangerous. 

agreed. people who work hard an innovate deserve to reap the rewards of that. But no one can spend 100 billion dollars in their lifetime. The way they tend to spend that kind of money is by dumping it into political campaigns, super pacs and various other ways to buy influence and corrupt the system. 

In some polls Bloomberg is in 2nd nationally. And he isn't just buying ads, he is paying off the media and politicians all over the country. That 500 million he has spent on ads didn't just disappear into the ether, it went to MSNBC, CNN etc. That kind of money buys you alot of good will. 

He also dumped millions into the DNC and various other political organizations all over the country to buy endorsements. 

i'm not saying he didn't do something innovative. He absolutely did. He deserves to be wealthy. He does not deserve enough wealth to buy democracy though. 

Fair enough. And bezos would struggle mightily to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in a single lifetime. That is a pretty massive reward on his investment and risk. But once he passes the line into billions, and god forbid hundreds of billions, he becomes a massive threat. He has the money to buy up news agencies, politicians, political organizations etc. America has had those kinds of problems before with railroad barons. The solution was to break up their companies so they wouldn't be such a massive threat. We need a modern day method of controlling that kind of insane wealth concentration. 

Honestly, it depends on the amount of wealth. A billionaire is a threat to democracy in the same way a nuclear weapon is a threat. Even if you put strict rules around how it can be used, the risk of it being used is huge. Someone like bloomberg has the money and connections to pay off virtually everyone in the halls of power. His wealth is a threat. 

ok, but he now has more money than he could possibly spend. He was certainly critical to the success of the company. But the vast majority of the work that was done to make that company a success was done by his employees, not him personally. Does he deserve to be rich for that, absolutely. Does he deserve to have enough money to destroy democracy, absolutely not. 

There are lots of improvements we could make to get their money out of politics, but the money itself is a threat. They will always find ways to use it to help them push their agenda (which probably isn't the same agenda as the people). Maybe they buy out all the news agencies, maybe they buy out social media platforms and use those to push their agenda. It doesn't matter what rules you put in place. A man with 100 billion dollars will find a way to use it to benefit himself. It will always be used to amplify his voice to drown out the voices of others. That is not healthy for a democracy. 

could not disagree more. Bernie spent a lifetime devoted to public service and helping people. Bezos designed a website that sells stuff. He did it really well and deserves to be rich. But to pretend that a lifetime of service to the people is worthless is insane. 

no one has argued you shouldn't do that. That is great. What you shouldn't do is spend your life accumulating an astronomical amount of money and then use that money to try twist the democratic system to benefit yourself and screw over the poor. That is what Bloomberg has tried to do and is still trying to do. 

1) most of that work was done by others. The idea that a CEO is solely responsible for building successful companies is a joke. It takes thousands, 10's of thousands of skilled and devoted employees. Without those employees, the billionaire is nothing. So saying he deserves 100 billion and his employees deserve to scrape by is horrible argument. 

2) billionaires are a threat to democracy. Simply by having that much money they are able to tip the scales of democracy in way that benefit them. You are seeing it right now. 2 billionaires are dumping hundreds of millions of dollars to try to protect themselves and their wealth. As the gap between people like Bloomberg and the rest of the country increases, democracy weakens. More and more power ends up in the hands of oligarchs. 

3) bernie's net worth is estimated to be 2 million dollars. Trying to say that both Bernie and Bloomberg's wealth is the same is like saying someone who makes 20 thousand dollars a year and 200 million a year are exactly the same.  They aren't even in the same league. 

lol that doesn't even make sense. The only reason he is a millionaire is that he wrote a book and people wanted to read what he had to say. He is a millionaire specifically because he has spent a lifetime fighting for people and building up credibility.

I suppose. If you group all the "moderate" candidates together then you would get a higher number than if you grouped the "progressive" candidates. But this is a misreading of the electorate. It's like saying if you group all the white candidates together you get more than the black candidates. Or if you group the people with a certain color of hair etc. That isn't how most people are deciding on what candidate to support. So trying to group them that way is misleading. 

2) it would be slow to react. If you prove that lots of jobs in that industry exist, then you needed to start training people like 4 or 5 years earlier. In a world where technology changes radically every few years, letting a government agency decide what people can or can't take would likely make the system very slow to adapt. 

Let's agree that guns have some utility.  I assume that I am rather more skeptical of a gun's absolute value in the purposes of self-defense and rebellion than the average gun lover.  I don't think I mind guns at schools so long as underage children don't have access and the armed personnel are vetted, trained, and licensed to  a rational degree.  Likewise, I'm OK with armed police and security at a festival but I think the public at that festival deserves some assurance that no armed people will be drinking or dancing or getting into fist fights so let's ask the festival-goers to leave their guns at home.

We ought to be able to agree that not every useful thing is useful in every context.  A uranium solid fuel rod is great in the context of a nuclear reactor but unwelcome at an orgy.  Tigers are important apex predators but should be kept out of nurseries.

You are citing JR Lott's research which does not claim that the majority of mass shootings happen in gun free zones but rather the majority of mass public shootings happen in gun free zones.  Lott defines mass public shootings as four or more deaths in malls, schools, churches, health care facilities, government buildings, and military sites.  In other words, Lott's report ONLY amounts to the unsurprising finding that the majority of shootings in gun free zones happen in gun free zones.  We should note that Lott excludes drug shootings, gang shootings, domestic and residential violence to conclude that there were only 28 mass public shootings between  2009 and 2016 or an average of 3 per year which seems like a pretty obvious low ball.  We should also note that Lott's list of gun-free zones included many sites where armed defenders were present and actively engaged- Ft. Hood, Washington Navy Yard, Pulse Night Club.

Anecdotal, although I do not dismiss the example as irrelevant. Should we not also consider the considerable anecdotal evidence that the presence of guns does not always save lives?  Four Broward County deputies were fired for failing to advance while students died at Parkland.  Armed Mandalay security guards engaged Stephen Paddock in the first minutes but failed to prevent the worst mass shooting event in US history.  An armed Las Vegas police officer was later fired for cowering in the stairwell while Paddock continued to kill and injure.

I don't deny the utility of guns although I suspect the utility of guns as tools for self-defense is both overrated and less effective than common sense measures excluding the violent, the addicted, and/or mentally ill from gun ownership.  I don't generally mind the notion of an experienced gun instructor sitting in back of the church for protection although I may regret any sense of necessity.  I do mind the notion of a church filled with armed parishioners who each feel empowered to assess and execute a defense of the congregation- mostly because in my experience, individuals attracted to such authority exhibit a poorer capacity for a correct assessment and righteous defense than individuals who decline that authority.  That is again anecdotal but important to informing my opinion regarding practical gun usage and control in my country.

Lightning oxidizes diatomic nitrogen into the nitrates which fertilize the growth of plants as well reacting with sunlight to produce ozone which in turn protects the planet from deadly ultraviolet radiation.

I left that to READERS to decide for themselves.