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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Uh, Sanders has been calling for LGBT equality since the 80s. He's been arrested protesting with civil rights folks in college, and he pays a lot of attention to Native American issues, meeting with leaders of surviving nations and such. Socially, he's got a very progressive stance.
As for economically, he openly calls himself a Democratic Socialist. That's pretty left. For an American.
Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for youYou know, the funny thing is I didn't attack Sanders. I just denied that he's notably more progressive on social issues than the likes of Clinton or Obama. Because he's not.
No he hasn't. Seriously, this is a claim that gets floated every time that someone challenges any of Sanders' progressive credentials, and yet it never actually gets backed up. Sanders came out in favour of gay marriage in 2006. That's his first public stance on the topic. Now that's still earlier than a lot of his contemporaries but it's not the eighties.
This again. Sanders is in his seventies. University was fifty years ago for him. If this is the best his defenders can come up with when it comes to defending his civil rights' record there's a problem. I mean, if he's such a great friend to minorities surely he should have some legislative accomplishments to back up his college protests, right?
Because on the flip side of that equation we have 1) voting to ship nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic town that didn't want it, then refusing to meet with delegates from that town because "I'm running for reelection in Vermont" 2) dismissing Clinton's black supporters as the Confederacy (a line which is so insulting I'm still having trouble processing it months after the fact) and 3) repeatedly ignoring racial issues to worship at the altar of the White Working Class (TM).
And what exactly has he accomplished on that front? And I can't say I heard him talk about them during the campaign. Heard a lot about the WWC. Not much about Native Americans.
See above. See also his claim that women who don't start having sex at thirteen are more vulnerable to cancer and the essay that he wrote contending that all women secretly fantasize about gangrape. And before you inform me that "that was a long time ago" so was his marching for Civil Rights.
Which wasn't part of my critique. I called him an economic populist, which he is, and said socially he's not near as far ahead of his contemporaries as many would claim.
edited 3rd Feb '17 2:47:27 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
I really don't understand the fact that many people want equality for all, socially speaking, but when it comes to economical issues, it should be each one on his own and hope the big corporations are always going to have the interests of average Joe at heart.
Life is unfair...This is a response to my critique how? FDR, while one of my favourite presidents (and the one who, according to a Facebook poll I am most like), approved Japanese internment camps and had a record on race relations that could charitably be described as mixed.
And what do you mean "from what I've heard"? If you're going to argue with me (or anyone else), please do some research rather than relying on hearsay.
You're right that he first came out publically in favor of gay marriage in 2006 but he's been defending the LGBT community since the 90's at least.
http://time.com/4089946/bernie-sanders-gay-marriage/
Bernie's a lot more conniving than his ardent followers want to believe though.
edited 3rd Feb '17 2:54:40 PM by MadSkillz
Lionizing the wealthy is what creates that outlook.
@Ambar You need to chill out when you try and debate.
Whenever I see you on the forums, you're always ready to lobby an attack when someone pulls out an even mildly dissenting opinion. And I can tell you're about to pull an attack post on me if I respond in any way that leads to argument.
edited 3rd Feb '17 2:57:27 PM by MadSkillz
"Opposed Don't Ask, Don't Tell". God I hate it when people cite that as a good thing. Do you guys genuinely not understand what things were like for gays in the military before DADT? The Army (or Navy or Air Force) could literally interrogate you about your sexuality when you tried to join. Or after you joined. And not only could they fire you if you told them the truth, but they could discharge you dishonourably or even court-martial you if you lied about it.
DADT made it illegal for the Army to investigate a member's sexuality. It was a compromise solution that allowed gays who wanted to serve in the military to actually serve in the military. If it hadn't passed their situation would have remained utterly untenable. As bad as things got under DADT—and I do not pretend they did not get pretty bad—they were even worse before hand.
And you need to have an argument beyond "from what I've heard". Your point? I'm happy to debate any point you might raise, but I can't engage with hearsay from an undefined source.
edited 3rd Feb '17 2:58:26 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
If you think that's an attack, then you have clearly never actually been attacked. I'd have to go after you personally for it to be an attack and that hasn't happened. I've said I can't engage with statements like "from what I've heard Bernie has a lot in common with FDR" because I can't. That's not an argument. It's a vague statement of hearsay.
Oh, and before this goes any further I remind you that criticizing one another directly is a good way to get ourselves banned. So why don't we stick to the actual topic at hand.
edited 3rd Feb '17 3:01:39 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
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The bill was going to pass anyway, by opposing it, Sanders showed his point of view that what was necessary for equality was more than just a meak compromise. Not something productive, but shouldn't be condemned for it either.
edited 3rd Feb '17 3:02:12 PM by Grafite
Life is unfair...
Thing is I don't condemn Sanders for it. I just don't give him any points either. Like a lot of what he's done in his career it was grandstanding in the name of ideological purity. In this case, nobody got hurt so I do not especially care, but I'm not willing to cite it as evidence that he's a crusader for gay rights.
In general what bothers me about Sanders is not the man himself, who is a fairly typical politician record wise, with a fair amount of good calls and a not insignificant number of bad calls, under his belt, but the degree to which some people want to pretend he's something else altogether.
edited 3rd Feb '17 3:05:22 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Protest votes against reasonable compromises are how Trump happens.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Maybe it's my nation of origin ruining my outlook but whenever someone tries to tell me how radical and amazing Bernie Sanders is, I just end up thinking about how much I miss Jack Layton
. When I look at Sanders I don't see what I saw in Layton. I see a grandstanding blowhard. A well-intentioned blowhard, make no mistake, a blowhard with whom I have many positions in common, but a blowhard nonetheless.
I've softened somewhat on Sanders because he's indicated and acted on opposition to a lot of Trump's actions in a way that I hadn't expected (i.e. not just the stock "cabinet of billionaires" critique but also opposing assaults of reproductive rights, the Muslim Ban, and to my surprise, voter suppression). And to his credit, I believe he's opposed a lot of Trump nominees, probably more than at least some Democrats have.
On the other hand, it's hard for me to forgive the times before and after the election where he's framed the Democrat's interest in social equality as a bad thing as a way of presenting himself as someone who could speak to/belonged to the white working class.
I also would still say that his pitch is basically premised on the idea that all Democrats, except for the ones he himself supports are bad, which is not really helpful in terms of aiding the party in winning any elections, whether down ballot or national.
edited 3rd Feb '17 3:23:39 PM by Hodor2

Well that's just more or less how privilege works. You are limited to only your own experience. It takes effort to understand your own experience relative to others, and understanding the validity of your own struggles while still being able to accept that other people of different groups are disadvantaged in other areas you usually aren't. Even if you were capable of understanding intellectually, most people are self-centered and care more about their own dealings than a bunch of people they don't know, and they're consistently led to believe they're living in a zero sum game instead of bridge gaps and cooperate.
Like I said earlier, at some point someone with a far-reaching pulpit is going to have to start laying down some very harsh truths.