Interesting thread about the current state of affairs
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I feel like these little rants are getting old. Don't get me wrong, they are all mostly on point. But they all act like people haven't known this for decades, or that it can be fixed by voting as long as enough awareness is raised.
That's bullshit. It's not going to stop nor get better because it's not an accident nor a mistake. Instead of framing it as some kind of failed experiment, call it what it is: a ruling class whose only job is to siphon money from your pocket into the pockets of their rich buddies who helped get them elected. That's it. That's all that a country really is.
Every four years, that ruling class plays a little game amongst themselves, and the winner gets granted a position of power from which they can siphon that money to wherever or whomever they want. That's the prize: your tax money. There is NOTHING more to it. None of them are doing it to help the stupid dirty plebs; the game is stacked against that type of player. Instead, the game favors liars, cheaters, and heartless bastards i.e. players who will do ANYTHING to win. Being compassionate or doing "the right thing" are nothing but self imposed disadvantages in this game, which is why those players almost never win. The most successful player is the one who plays the dirtiest while making themselves appear as the most noble. That's the strongest meta.
tl;dr nothing is "broken", this is all going according to (their) plan. You've already been defeated. The "bad guys" won decades ago. You are NOT in an ongoing battle for the future of your children; your great grandparents already fought and lost that battle. What you and I and the author of that little thread are living through is the aftermath. Stop talking like you can pontificate your way out of this. You can't change the outcome of a lost war, but you CAN start and win another war.
That realization doesn't come easy. To accept it would require them to abandon a lifetime's worth of indoctrination about how the world works. It's simply too much to compute at once, so most people pick the least intellectually disruptive reality: "If that were true then that means the whole world is fucked beyond repair and we've all been hoodwinked into believing otherwise. That would be catastrophic...that couldn't happen...you're just a conspiracy theorist".
Frankly, giving Mark Zuckerberg a tax cut isn't my top priority. In fact, I'm OK with him having just 349 yachts rather than 350 if it means better health care and more funding for police.
That's not how it works. The government takes more money, you end up poorer, the police get defunded and the money goes into "social services" (to Democratic clients, that is), health care gets more funding which just vanishes into a bureaucratic maw and you get worse health care for higher premiums. And Zuck probably still gets 350 yachts.
sounds like commie talk
He is a commie. He's also a vax pusher who whines about "muh racism" when he can get away with it.
He is a bog standard reddit leftist janny.
American right-wingers claim that Zuckerberg is a 'commie', but not giving that commie more money also makes you a 'commie'.
Looks like there is some confusion about what this word means.
I even hear that Google is 'commie'. Then some convoluted explanation as to how communism is the union of state and corporate power, and that since corporations control the state, it's communism.,
Nice linguistic chicanery you are trying to pull there.
Equating not stealing someones money under threat of government guns with "giving them more money".
A tax cut isn't giving someone money, a tax cut is stealing less.
Charming that you managed to convince yourself that scummy billionaires and tech monopolies are the victim here. Imagine wanting them to have more money and power.
like I said, commie talk
Imagine wanting the corrupt and incompetent government to have more money and power
Didn't know taxation was 'commie talk'. Apparently, the communist world revolution is already here, since every country has taxation.
As for the corrupt and incompetent government, I'd rather have the government waste $400 million than Zuckerberg use it to corrupt elections, as he did. Your mileage may vary, as may your Stockholm Syndrome.
Ideally how would you run health care? Serious question? I just think the government is pretty inefficient
I agree that government is almost always inefficient, and that it takes away people's freedom to boot.
I'm hardly qualified or knowledgeable enough to make any sort of claim about what health care system would be best. All the things that I have read about this are propaganda, either left-wing or right-wing, which I do not trust.
But you can make improvements on the margins, by for example giving poor people vouchers with which they can cover (part of) the cost of health insurance that they buy.
Problem with that is you will have people get mad over that and they will cave. Anything less than giving everyone everything they want is seen as hating the poor
Healthcare is, unsurprisingly, a reflection of the nation’s health. America is a very sick nation.
Good points. And welcome back
Weird that the wealthy continue to get richer and richer despite taxation. Almost like it doesn’t really affect them…
But small governments lead to large governments. Tough men of principle built the structures that lesser men occupied and then expanded to suit their own needs.
It’s somewhat of a natural cycle of death and rebirth. Greedy, selfish people create the conditions for morality to return by their disastrous policy, which produces the success and wealth that tempts men into corruption.
The only way to avoid the cycle is for people to remain moral.