yep, but i fail to see why bringing up sweden is relevant? social democracy =/= socialism

Context, hun. The post I responded to with that article on Sweden wasn't even about democratic socialism...

Further, democratic socialism is a BROAD political spectrum that means that the economy and government are run democratically. This spectrum can make it to where there's little difference between it and what most European countries identify as socialism, to very little difference from a capitalist government. Socialism and democratic socialism aren't as different as Bernie's fans suggest. It just means he thinks the economy should be in the hands of the people, which is clear in his rhetoric and political beliefs already. People that argue he's a socialist tend to go for the idea of how far on that spectrum Bernie's views are. That label means little.

Exactly. Someone posted that socialism is great and you posted a link about Sweden (which is NOT a pure socialist country) to prove them wrong

It's like someone saying that Lady Gaga lip syncs and me linking them to an article about how Christina Aguilera never lip syncs to prove them wrong lol

I want to see Trump win just for the meltdowns

i'm pretty tired of the hyping up of nordic countries as some kind of example of socialist perfection but we have to keep in mind that sweden and the US are vastly different countries with much different cultures, and i don't trust this page as being completely unbiased either. i don't think it can be compared this succinctly. it'd take a much more indepth analysis than that to consider how different the countries are not just in their systems of government, but in their cultural attitudes towards business, money, and education and whether each other's systems would work better for that country's needs.

also, the "the people who don't work are lazy" argument is tired and i wish people would stop using it

Bernie Sanders constantly brings up Sweden (as well as Denmark and Norway) as an example of what our government should look like. It's entirely relevant to this discussion.

But Bernie identifies as a democratic socialist so... socialism isn't relevant to the discussion?

The next time you want to share examples of how bad socialism is, please link to articles about China or Cuba instead. Simple!

Bernie actually voted against this, tho. Maybe he voted for another version later on in the war? Not sure.

Democratic socialism is literally a term to make it appear nicer to people with a negative stigma towards socialism. That's literally it. Socialism has a bad stigma to it and is often viewed as being anti-democracy (which it isn't). One of socialism's main components is democratic control. Bernie's identification as a democratic socialist still makes him a socialist.

This Nordic countries happen to be more capitalist than the US itself. They aren't socialist, and their brand of government won't last long. With a declining and aging population, plus a population that won't be homogeneous due to certain trends will end it soon as it won't survive. You have an over educated population, extreme job competition, an immigrant population that feels excluded and you have a mess in a few years.

ok but wouldn't you agree that what we are doing now is failing just as much as socialism is in those countries?

& i dont think anyone wants a full blown socialist united states

My issue is I agree with a lot of Bernie's areas of interest: the environment, minimum wage reform, education reform, etc. However, the amount of progress he expects so quickly is unrealistic and terrifying and that's my issue. The United States has implemented socialist programs in the past that have worked (social security, for instance). But, I feel like pushing the minimum wage instantly to $15/hour, free public college, and the numerous other things he wants to do as president is too much to promise and is too much for our country to take all at once. We're built fundamentally different than any European country and we're much larger. So, while I agree with some of Bernie's areas of interest, he's wanting to adopt things too swiftly.

That's my main issue, if that makes sense. And I was mainly arguing against the idea that socialism would work here because I genuinely don't think it would.

YAS Queen Trump will bring meltdowns and fallouts

It hasn't worked well in practice (gotten many people killed) because it's a ****** concept that assumes the worst of humans.