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I don't see how liberal policies benefit working class Americans.
Because you don't see something doesn't mean its not there.
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Is it allowing illegal aliens to flood into the country and drive down wages and take jobs from US citizens? I've seen this happen personally with American friends who used to work in landscapping and roofing and housekeeping in Maryland until illegals drove the wages down so low. Illegals of course live 20 to a house so they don't mind those wages, 20 to a house is a big improvement to their Third World lifestyle in Latin America.
Cheaper roofs over your head
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How about the war on coal that has put tens of thousands of miners out of work and destroyed the economies of hundreds of rural Appalachian communities? Or the government overregulation and unfair trade agreements that have pushed US manufacturing to foreign nations????
Cleaner air
Of course, nothing looks good if you only look at the bad parts of it.
NOTE: If you're not intellectual enough to see that this is not me endorsing any government policy, please do no respond.
The problem is that true free capitalism always leads to crony capitalism. It's a system that feeds on itself, which is why we need to keep it in check with a democratic government that is not run by lobbyists like today's version, but truly representive of average Americans.
That's true of any system you have. It requires constant vigilance to maintain its integrity. You could say the same thing about our Republic. There's always somebody who wants to game the system and make it authoritarian (communism/fascism...whatever). They will use any and all means necessary to achieve what they want. The only answer is constant vigilance. Problem is, the generation that wins a measure of freedom and makes life more comfortable for future generations. Those future generations get more comfortable and complacent. Then the authoritarians get a firm grip on society. People don't get strong again until things get really, really bad....unfortunately.
Defining improving one's life is subjective. And besides that maybe they just don't believe the politicians promising it would follow through anyway.
Agreed. The same government that runs the welfare state also runs the warfare state. Welfare is to keep people quiet so they don't pay attention to what's going on.
The other piece of it is the U.S. government simply doesn't manage things well. If they did, medicare/medicaid would be vastly cheaper and better than private insurance. It isn't either one of those.
Without immigrants our agricultural system would collapse. Instead of pointing fingers at immigrants maybe blame the rich for undercutting native peoples wages in the pursuit of profit.
It's pretty funny how liberal people are so big on high minimum wages and reducing income inequality but sound like right wing Republicans when talking about the need for slave wage illegal immigrant labor.
The "what's matter with Kansas" question has a lot to dissect on it, but the short answer is, it's questionable whether they do. It is true that some policies like single-payer and lower-cost education would help them (though in Europe and Canada for example, liberals and conservatives support these). OTOH many Democratic liberal policies are quite harmful to them, for example the support for mass immigration and H1b visa to the USA which pushes down wages, affirmative action (a big Democratic cause) leads to major damage to that demographic.
1) Prices are non-transparent
2) Prices are unpredictable (went to the doctor planning to pay for strep treatment and came out diagnosed with leukemia? Oops.)
3) Healthcare is something that by nature, can't always be shopped around for (generously assuming the above points were no longer an issue). How much smart comparison shopping can be done when having a heart attack on the kitchen floor?
4) It's impossible to predict and completely plan for future needs
5) You don't always get a choice of whether you receive healthcare. If you fall and lose consciousness in public, someone's gonna dial an ambulance for you and you'll be taken in for treatment, without factoring in your budget/insurance at all.
6) Nor do you get to choose where you go. Go to an in-network hospital and get seen by an out-of-network provider? Oops.
7) Patients are largely a captive market. Someone's 4-year-old is a T1 diabetic? If they're decent parents, they will get their kid treated no matter what. Hospitals and insurers know this and exploit it to the hilt.
8) Americans are disallowed from purchasing prescription medicine from other countries, and the US is the only country that signed away its right to negotiate for lower prices.
9) Health issues can affect others. If someone is homeless and starving, it won't bother you beyond being an eyesore on the street on your way to work each day. If someone has untreated TB or scabies, it's gonna cost others.
10) Health is essential to being a productive citizen, and it's something that tends to worsen the more someone ignores an issue. If people are too afraid to get checked out when they first notice things awry because they're afraid they'll end up being listed as having a pre-exposure condition or walk away with a five/six figure bill, they might get better spontaneously.. or they could find themselves get worse until they're unable to work at all, maybe even permanently.
Yet, despite all those issues, countries in Latin America where people largely pay cash for their health care will pay much less for it and get better service. Yes, they can't get some advanced things, but most health care isn't in the advanced stuff. They have more of a free market in health care than the U.S. does...and their free market works better than the nightmare we have.
Not to mention confusing socialism with communism.
The first is a stepping stone to the second.
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Originally Posted by Phil75230
Also, a lot of people equate communism and even socialism with atheism, when they're actually two different things.
There's a strong correlation between the two. When all your basic needs are guaranteed, you tend to not look outside to a higher power. You tend to think the government is the highest power. Just how the elites want it. They don't want anyone thinking there's a higher power than them. It's the divine right of kinds repackaged.
Most rich countries have become more and more socialist and less and less religious over time. It could be socialism, or perhaps increasing affluence...or maybe both.
So, that's the problem. We're dealing with people on the far right who are willing to change their own life story - rewrite events that they and other people eye-witnessed - just to fit their partisan bias that "everything, everywhere that has ever gone wrong is the fault of liberals/Obama/gays/Muslims/blacks/the poor." People who are willing to deceive themselves on that level cannot be counted on to vote in any non-partisan fashion. So, they'll vote to destroy themselves if that's what it takes to keep on voting R.
I don't deny your friend's story....but do you really think this is unique to people on the right?
It's pretty funny how liberal people are so big on high minimum wages and reducing income inequality but sound like right wing Republicans when talking about the need for slave wage illegal immigrant labor.
Without immigration (legal and illegal) we lose population, which means fewer younger taxpayers supporting an ever increasing number of retirees. Does. Not. Compute. It just makes our top heavy age pyramid that much worse.
Yes programming is difficult and very complex. Most of the population isn't capable of doing it. Thats just how it is.
I chuckle when people do this. The claim was not that most people can do it. Why the dishonesty?
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