4 ms·

In civilised societies, women still give birth, but after they are born both parents are given the possibility to stay at home with their child. This usually ta

In civilised societies, women still give birth, but after they are born both parents are given the possibility to stay at home with their child. This usually takes the form of the birth-giving woman staying at home for the first few months, while the child is dependent on frequent breastfeeding, after which the other parent stays at home with the child for a few months until they are ready to to start kindergarten around the age of twelve months. In such societies kindergartens are affordable and in the course of little over a year both parents have had a break from work, with full salary compensation, to get to know the new human.

jimbokun 4y ago
This is one of those policies I believe is broadly popular with voters in both US political parties, but never gets implemented because capital has more say in our government than voters.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  I do not see how it can be popular with Republican voters. The proof is that every state with paid parental leave and extended parental leave is led by Democrats. And federal Republicans voted against paid parental leave in 2021’s build back better bill.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Republican voters' views differ strongly from what the party pushes and does. Exploiting this gap is how Trump got elected—remember that whole thing where the Republicans didn't even bother to generate an official party platform when he was running? That's because he threw theirs in the trash and just went with whatever ordinary Republicans chatting with other ordinary Republicans at a backyard BBQ say the government ought to do. Trying to come up with anything like their ordinary platform those years would have been pointless, or even harmful—explicitly adopt Trump's message, and you're in trouble if he ends up going down in flames and you have to backpedal, plus it'll piss off some donors; adopt your usual shit, and Trump's fans will be pissed off at you. So they just didn't make one, which was probably their best move under the circumstances. Now, the follow-through may have been lacking and any lip-service toward that sort of thing by his hangers-on and imitators may be entirely disingenuous (as his probably was, too, at least most of it), but the gap between R voter and R official or de-facto official policy is real and it's big and Trump's messaging was laser-targeted at using that against his Republican opponents to get the initial nomination. The "build a wall" stuff was lifted straight from that kind of actual-voter real-talk sort of thing. They literally want the government to just build a wall and assume they only haven't because of corruption and ill-intent among elected officials—it's obviously a good idea, from their perspective. On the campaign trail Trump even vaguely talked about "fixing healthcare" in ways that would surely have looked a lot like "socialized medicine"—because R voters support those policies when they're not being called "Socialist" or "Obamacare" or otherwise being demonized and mis-represented by their own media and politicians. Talk specifics, and they support them, talk about socialized medicine broadly and they tell you to fuck off to Venezuela with the other commies. That's another gap between R voter wishes and R party policy/actions. Republican politicians also tend to support neo-liberal economic and trade policy, in deed if not in word, while their voters largely hate it (remember the tough-on-China talk and America-first trade policy and the trans-national trade regime skepticism and all that? That's Trump aiming at the party/voter gap, yet again) "How can it possibly be that a major US political party can largely ignore the actual will of its own voters, for decades on end?" allow me to introduce you to our totally fucked-up electoral system and how it all but guarantees two viable parties at a time, both of which are also all but guaranteed to be disliked by a ton of their own voters. It's extremely bad. :-( [EDIT] Hell, I wouldn't even be surprised if you could get a very high percentage—maybe not 51%, but a lot—of Republican voters to say they support a federal abortion law that's identical to Roe v. Wade's (maybe even without PP v Casey's modifications) effects—legalizing early abortion, but leaving laws about later-term abortion mostly up to the states—as long as you described what it did instead of short-handing it as "codifying Roe v. Wade" (indeed, you'd have to avoid mentioning that it had anything to do with Roe v Wade at all).
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  > This is one of those policies I believe is broadly popular with voters in both US political parties, but never gets implemented because capital has more say in our government than voters. To be fair, we put it right in the name. It's not market-ism, or productivity-ism, or competition-ism, or higher-standard-of-living-ism. It's CAPITAL-ism.
- refurb 4y ago
  It's more like taxes would have to go up for the middle class to fund such support (see tax rates in Europe) and people don't want their taxes to go up.
tenpies 4y ago
It's quite odd that these "civilized societies" then have to rely on importing the best and brightest young people from "uncivilized" societies to keep their "civilized society" from suffering a demographic collapse. Almost makes one think that they're not quite civilized, they just put economics above all and rely on exploiting other nations to prop the whole thing up.
- klipt 4y ago
  It seems to be universal throughout history, that the existence of "civilized" upper classes has always depended on large "uncivilized" underclasses who do most of the hard work.
- JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  That's Marxism in a nutshell - capitalism requires a slave labor class to prop it up. We're supposed to be entering an age of automation. But now that the yoke of labor may be lifted from our shoulders finally, all anybody can talk about is "Full Employment".
  - hirvi74 4y ago
    > We're supposed to be entering an age of automation I like your usage of "supposed." I feel like I have been seeing "Automation will replace <insert entity> in <made-up unit of time>" for the past 15 years or more. I can't even get Siri to work 95% of the time let alone have her and her virtual brethren overtake society. I do not doubt it's possible one day, but assuming I am average, I have about 40 or so years left on this planet, and I doubt I will see it in that time. I'm not trying to discredit the wonder innovations and milestones we have achieved so far, but it's the new "flying cars" to me.

jimbokun 4y ago

This is one of those policies I believe is broadly popular with voters in both US political parties, but never gets implemented because capital has more say in our government than voters.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
I do not see how it can be popular with Republican voters. The proof is that every state with paid parental leave and extended parental leave is led by Democrats. And federal Republicans voted against paid parental leave in 2021’s build back better bill.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Republican voters' views differ strongly from what the party pushes and does. Exploiting this gap is how Trump got elected—remember that whole thing where the Republicans didn't even bother to generate an official party platform when he was running? That's because he threw theirs in the trash and just went with whatever ordinary Republicans chatting with other ordinary Republicans at a backyard BBQ say the government ought to do. Trying to come up with anything like their ordinary platform those years would have been pointless, or even harmful—explicitly adopt Trump's message, and you're in trouble if he ends up going down in flames and you have to backpedal, plus it'll piss off some donors; adopt your usual shit, and Trump's fans will be pissed off at you. So they just didn't make one, which was probably their best move under the circumstances. Now, the follow-through may have been lacking and any lip-service toward that sort of thing by his hangers-on and imitators may be entirely disingenuous (as his probably was, too, at least most of it), but the gap between R voter and R official or de-facto official policy is real and it's big and Trump's messaging was laser-targeted at using that against his Republican opponents to get the initial nomination. The "build a wall" stuff was lifted straight from that kind of actual-voter real-talk sort of thing. They literally want the government to just build a wall and assume they only haven't because of corruption and ill-intent among elected officials—it's obviously a good idea, from their perspective. On the campaign trail Trump even vaguely talked about "fixing healthcare" in ways that would surely have looked a lot like "socialized medicine"—because R voters support those policies when they're not being called "Socialist" or "Obamacare" or otherwise being demonized and mis-represented by their own media and politicians. Talk specifics, and they support them, talk about socialized medicine broadly and they tell you to fuck off to Venezuela with the other commies. That's another gap between R voter wishes and R party policy/actions. Republican politicians also tend to support neo-liberal economic and trade policy, in deed if not in word, while their voters largely hate it (remember the tough-on-China talk and America-first trade policy and the trans-national trade regime skepticism and all that? That's Trump aiming at the party/voter gap, yet again) "How can it possibly be that a major US political party can largely ignore the actual will of its own voters, for decades on end?" allow me to introduce you to our totally fucked-up electoral system and how it all but guarantees two viable parties at a time, both of which are also all but guaranteed to be disliked by a ton of their own voters. It's extremely bad. :-( [EDIT] Hell, I wouldn't even be surprised if you could get a very high percentage—maybe not 51%, but a lot—of Republican voters to say they support a federal abortion law that's identical to Roe v. Wade's (maybe even without PP v Casey's modifications) effects—legalizing early abortion, but leaving laws about later-term abortion mostly up to the states—as long as you described what it did instead of short-handing it as "codifying Roe v. Wade" (indeed, you'd have to avoid mentioning that it had anything to do with Roe v Wade at all).
yamtaddle 4y ago
> This is one of those policies I believe is broadly popular with voters in both US political parties, but never gets implemented because capital has more say in our government than voters. To be fair, we put it right in the name. It's not market-ism, or productivity-ism, or competition-ism, or higher-standard-of-living-ism. It's CAPITAL-ism.
refurb 4y ago
It's more like taxes would have to go up for the middle class to fund such support (see tax rates in Europe) and people don't want their taxes to go up.

tenpies 4y ago

It's quite odd that these "civilized societies" then have to rely on importing the best and brightest young people from "uncivilized" societies to keep their "civilized society" from suffering a demographic collapse. Almost makes one think that they're not quite civilized, they just put economics above all and rely on exploiting other nations to prop the whole thing up.

klipt 4y ago
It seems to be universal throughout history, that the existence of "civilized" upper classes has always depended on large "uncivilized" underclasses who do most of the hard work.
JoeAltmaier 4y ago
That's Marxism in a nutshell - capitalism requires a slave labor class to prop it up. We're supposed to be entering an age of automation. But now that the yoke of labor may be lifted from our shoulders finally, all anybody can talk about is "Full Employment".
- hirvi74 4y ago
  > We're supposed to be entering an age of automation I like your usage of "supposed." I feel like I have been seeing "Automation will replace <insert entity> in <made-up unit of time>" for the past 15 years or more. I can't even get Siri to work 95% of the time let alone have her and her virtual brethren overtake society. I do not doubt it's possible one day, but assuming I am average, I have about 40 or so years left on this planet, and I doubt I will see it in that time. I'm not trying to discredit the wonder innovations and milestones we have achieved so far, but it's the new "flying cars" to me.