5 ms·

I agree completely. Something so striking about the situation as well is that on balance, we have a staggering amount of wealth to share with the less fortunate

I agree completely. Something so striking about the situation as well is that on balance, we have a staggering amount of wealth to share with the less fortunate. Yet these are children, specifically, who deserve every opportunity we can afford them by default. Not “hopeless addicts” or some other group deemed not worth saving by so many of us, but people quite literally the epitome of worth saving. These people need every ounce of reassurance that we care and that they can integrate and function in society. That they deserve opportunity as anyone else does. If we had to be self serving we could look at it like “each one of these people is statistically far more likely to be a burden on my own children in the future, so a small investment now could save a lot later”, but we seem to fail even in being selfish about it. I find this topic heart breaking.

pessimizer 3y ago
For me, state wards are one of the four metrics for judging the quality of a country. Wards of the state: our responsibility, through no fault of their own. Prisoners: our responsibility, their fault. Immigrants: not our responsibility, but an indication of how well we can manage our economy. We should be able to put anybody who comes here to work. Emigrants: we should let people leave who don't want to be here. The first three are connected because there's no way to sustain providing anything for prisoners and immigrants that you don't provide for regular citizens. Wards of the state are the nation's children; there's nothing that normal citizens get that they shouldn't get. If they don't get anything, normal citizens are getting less than nothing.
- shric 3y ago
  > Prisoners: our responsibility, their fault. What percentage (approximately) of prisoners in the United States would you categorize as "their fault" and not some product of their upbringing/situation?
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    At the end of the day, and this will be controversial it does not matter. Prisons should be a place to house people that have been deemed unable to function in society until such time they can (sometimes that is never). This is not necessarily only violence but violent offenders should be the majority, but people that simply refuse to follow the rules of a society also degrade and are a danger to the society over all. We see this today in the way of rampant shoplifting, and car thefts/breakins taking place in some communities. These are deemed "non-violent" so the offenders are just let go, however once these "non-violent" crimes reach an extreme level businesses close, people stop shopping in the area, insurance companies stop offering insurance, etc etc etc. That is all with out getting into the real psychological effects of having your property stolen and violated in that way. At the end of the day I am not concerned about their upbringing/situation, I am concerned about their criminality
    - bugglebeetle 3y ago
      Okay, but this logic is explicitly filtered through class in the US context. Some of the most antisocial members of our society are CEOs, politicians, and similar leaders. The damage they inflict on society often far exceeds that by individual acts of violence, fraud, thievery etc. Think about what has been wrought by Sacklers, the people running 3M, or those who led the country into war premised on lies. Indeed, your example of how urban cores have been affected by wealth inequality and real estate speculation is a great example of this. San Francisco was a lovely city until landlords and real estate speculators turned it into a casino for gambling on housing and office space.
      - phpisthebest 3y ago
        >>>San Francisco was a lovely city until landlords and real estate speculators turned it into a casino for gambling on housing and office space. before I even begin to address your others points, many I probably agree with we need to stop with this gas lighting narrative. landlords and real estate speculators are not the villains of the San Francisco of the story. The city government (and the larger state government) is. From the endless zoning regulations, environmental regulations, and building regulations that make it impossible to build affordable housing, and a decades long process to build any housing at all to the activist prosecutors refusing to prosecute crime in the city, to the "de-fund the police" movement that has put the local police dept at a huge understaffed situation.... Those are the root causes of the problems. not landlords and real estate speculators You want to have an honest conversation about corporatism I am game, but you are starting out with disinformation and lies so....
  - lr4444lr 3y ago
    You do realize that most people in a "bad upbringing" don't go on to commit crimes?
- nverno 3y ago
  > Wards of the state: our responsibility People that really feel this responsibility become foster parents. But saying the state should deal with them isn't taking on that responsibility - at the end of the day actual people need to be their parents. I'm happy to support those people by having taxes directed their way, but the state doesn't get credit for their good deeds.
  - Retric 3y ago
    It’s unreasonable to expect individuals acting on their own to solve social issues. I am perfectly willing to support 1% of the financial needs of a severely disabled child, but in no way willing to step up and provide 100% of the support they need. There are people willing do do so but it’s not 1:1 with the existing need and so it’s simply not an option. The common US system where foster families receive funds to provide temporary care for kids in the system isn’t parenting it’s a disaster that’s a massive disservice to kids in the system. In many individual cases it works, but overall it also results in unacceptable amounts of mental, physical, and sometimes even sexual abuse.
  - edmundsauto 3y ago
    IMO, the state bears the responsibility to structure the laws and regulations to make it easier for regular people to be heroes. Servant leadership is generally not a characteristic of democracies, as politicians need to take credit in order to win votes.
    - nverno 3y ago
      I agree, but this is also a problem with heavy reliance on government - people can just punt responsibility, and the wrong people get the credit.
      - edmundsauto 3y ago
        Is it because of a heavy reliance on government, or a general issue that we face when dealing with hard problems? Put another way, when we don't rely on governments to help with things like this - does that incentivize people to take on responsibility? I suspect not...
jewayne 3y ago
> we have a staggering amount of wealth to share with the less fortunate Many Americans will stop you at that first word. Who is this we you speak of? If the pandemic taught me anything, it's that to all too many Americans the most important freedom is freedom from strangers' problems. They don't want to see them, they don't want to hear them, and they sure as hell don't want to pay for them. Now, if THEY happen to have that problem, that's a different story...after all THEY are real people, unlike...checks notes..."foster kids".
- rayiner 3y ago
  I’m convinced this is a structural characteristic of America, resulting from the immigration patterns that built the population. If you look at polls worldwide, most people wouldn’t leave their home country even if they had the choice to emigrate somewhere else: https://news.gallup.com/poll/468218/nearly-900-million-worldwide-wanted-migrate-2021.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/468218/nearly-900-million-world.... In South Asia, where I’m from, it’s just 11%. Even in sub-Saharan Africa it’s under 40%. Immigrants are the outliers who are willing to leave everything they know behind. Of course over time there’s regression to the mean, and new communities form here in the US. But most of the US population traces their ancestry only back to the late 19th century or early 20th century. This constant population turnover means there’s a very limited ability to develop the kind of solidarity required to make sacrifices on behalf of strangers in your community.
- coffeemug 3y ago
  America is the most charitable country in the world[1]. But, as evidenced by the parent's comment, there is no shortage of people willing to spend other people's money, and Americans are justifiably cautious of that. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-charitable-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-char...
  - jewayne 3y ago
    I think what you will find is that a stunning amount of that "charity" falls within the giver's social circle. My understanding is it includes donations to the giver's own religious organization. Or even donating to a cause once it's touched you personally -- your mother dies of cancer so you donate to a cancer charity. Giving within your own monkeysphere, and being willfully ignorant of everything outside it, is what I am talking about.
stcroixx 3y ago
Not sure who we is, but I have 4 kids and live paycheck to paycheck and nobody helps me or my kids. We can’t spare what we don’t have.
- remote_phone 3y ago
  I think you deserve help as well. This is why I suppose universal basic income, because for someone like you, an extra $1000/month would help tremendously.
  - subsaharancoder 3y ago
    Who pays for this magical UBI? Pretty sure you'd have to at some point increase taxes for the very people you're trying to "help" in order to give them back that $1000
    - l33t233372 3y ago
      Taxing mega corporations more aggressively is one often cited approach, but I agree this doesn’t really provide enough for UBI. 1000 a month to each household would be about 1/20th of our GDP.
- blck 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - lr4444lr 3y ago
    Hypothetically, even if your rude statement were true, is that his children's fault? Why punish them by taking from their parent?
- steve_adams_86 3y ago
  "We" is North America collectively. I don't think it's on you to fix this at all; rather that our nations have the wealth to do a better job.

pessimizer 3y ago

For me, state wards are one of the four metrics for judging the quality of a country. Wards of the state: our responsibility, through no fault of their own. Prisoners: our responsibility, their fault. Immigrants: not our responsibility, but an indication of how well we can manage our economy. We should be able to put anybody who comes here to work. Emigrants: we should let people leave who don't want to be here. The first three are connected because there's no way to sustain providing anything for prisoners and immigrants that you don't provide for regular citizens. Wards of the state are the nation's children; there's nothing that normal citizens get that they shouldn't get. If they don't get anything, normal citizens are getting less than nothing.

shric 3y ago
> Prisoners: our responsibility, their fault. What percentage (approximately) of prisoners in the United States would you categorize as "their fault" and not some product of their upbringing/situation?
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  At the end of the day, and this will be controversial it does not matter. Prisons should be a place to house people that have been deemed unable to function in society until such time they can (sometimes that is never). This is not necessarily only violence but violent offenders should be the majority, but people that simply refuse to follow the rules of a society also degrade and are a danger to the society over all. We see this today in the way of rampant shoplifting, and car thefts/breakins taking place in some communities. These are deemed "non-violent" so the offenders are just let go, however once these "non-violent" crimes reach an extreme level businesses close, people stop shopping in the area, insurance companies stop offering insurance, etc etc etc. That is all with out getting into the real psychological effects of having your property stolen and violated in that way. At the end of the day I am not concerned about their upbringing/situation, I am concerned about their criminality
  - bugglebeetle 3y ago
    Okay, but this logic is explicitly filtered through class in the US context. Some of the most antisocial members of our society are CEOs, politicians, and similar leaders. The damage they inflict on society often far exceeds that by individual acts of violence, fraud, thievery etc. Think about what has been wrought by Sacklers, the people running 3M, or those who led the country into war premised on lies. Indeed, your example of how urban cores have been affected by wealth inequality and real estate speculation is a great example of this. San Francisco was a lovely city until landlords and real estate speculators turned it into a casino for gambling on housing and office space.
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      >>>San Francisco was a lovely city until landlords and real estate speculators turned it into a casino for gambling on housing and office space. before I even begin to address your others points, many I probably agree with we need to stop with this gas lighting narrative. landlords and real estate speculators are not the villains of the San Francisco of the story. The city government (and the larger state government) is. From the endless zoning regulations, environmental regulations, and building regulations that make it impossible to build affordable housing, and a decades long process to build any housing at all to the activist prosecutors refusing to prosecute crime in the city, to the "de-fund the police" movement that has put the local police dept at a huge understaffed situation.... Those are the root causes of the problems. not landlords and real estate speculators You want to have an honest conversation about corporatism I am game, but you are starting out with disinformation and lies so....
- lr4444lr 3y ago
  You do realize that most people in a "bad upbringing" don't go on to commit crimes?
nverno 3y ago
> Wards of the state: our responsibility People that really feel this responsibility become foster parents. But saying the state should deal with them isn't taking on that responsibility - at the end of the day actual people need to be their parents. I'm happy to support those people by having taxes directed their way, but the state doesn't get credit for their good deeds.
- Retric 3y ago
  It’s unreasonable to expect individuals acting on their own to solve social issues. I am perfectly willing to support 1% of the financial needs of a severely disabled child, but in no way willing to step up and provide 100% of the support they need. There are people willing do do so but it’s not 1:1 with the existing need and so it’s simply not an option. The common US system where foster families receive funds to provide temporary care for kids in the system isn’t parenting it’s a disaster that’s a massive disservice to kids in the system. In many individual cases it works, but overall it also results in unacceptable amounts of mental, physical, and sometimes even sexual abuse.
- edmundsauto 3y ago
  IMO, the state bears the responsibility to structure the laws and regulations to make it easier for regular people to be heroes. Servant leadership is generally not a characteristic of democracies, as politicians need to take credit in order to win votes.
  - nverno 3y ago
    I agree, but this is also a problem with heavy reliance on government - people can just punt responsibility, and the wrong people get the credit.
    - edmundsauto 3y ago
      Is it because of a heavy reliance on government, or a general issue that we face when dealing with hard problems? Put another way, when we don't rely on governments to help with things like this - does that incentivize people to take on responsibility? I suspect not...

jewayne 3y ago

> we have a staggering amount of wealth to share with the less fortunate Many Americans will stop you at that first word. Who is this we you speak of? If the pandemic taught me anything, it's that to all too many Americans the most important freedom is freedom from strangers' problems. They don't want to see them, they don't want to hear them, and they sure as hell don't want to pay for them. Now, if THEY happen to have that problem, that's a different story...after all THEY are real people, unlike...checks notes..."foster kids".

rayiner 3y ago
I’m convinced this is a structural characteristic of America, resulting from the immigration patterns that built the population. If you look at polls worldwide, most people wouldn’t leave their home country even if they had the choice to emigrate somewhere else: https://news.gallup.com/poll/468218/nearly-900-million-worldwide-wanted-migrate-2021.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/468218/nearly-900-million-world.... In South Asia, where I’m from, it’s just 11%. Even in sub-Saharan Africa it’s under 40%. Immigrants are the outliers who are willing to leave everything they know behind. Of course over time there’s regression to the mean, and new communities form here in the US. But most of the US population traces their ancestry only back to the late 19th century or early 20th century. This constant population turnover means there’s a very limited ability to develop the kind of solidarity required to make sacrifices on behalf of strangers in your community.
coffeemug 3y ago
America is the most charitable country in the world[1]. But, as evidenced by the parent's comment, there is no shortage of people willing to spend other people's money, and Americans are justifiably cautious of that. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-charitable-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-char...
- jewayne 3y ago
  I think what you will find is that a stunning amount of that "charity" falls within the giver's social circle. My understanding is it includes donations to the giver's own religious organization. Or even donating to a cause once it's touched you personally -- your mother dies of cancer so you donate to a cancer charity. Giving within your own monkeysphere, and being willfully ignorant of everything outside it, is what I am talking about.

stcroixx 3y ago

Not sure who we is, but I have 4 kids and live paycheck to paycheck and nobody helps me or my kids. We can’t spare what we don’t have.

remote_phone 3y ago
I think you deserve help as well. This is why I suppose universal basic income, because for someone like you, an extra $1000/month would help tremendously.
- subsaharancoder 3y ago
  Who pays for this magical UBI? Pretty sure you'd have to at some point increase taxes for the very people you're trying to "help" in order to give them back that $1000
  - l33t233372 3y ago
    Taxing mega corporations more aggressively is one often cited approach, but I agree this doesn’t really provide enough for UBI. 1000 a month to each household would be about 1/20th of our GDP.
blck 3y ago
[flagged]
- lr4444lr 3y ago
  Hypothetically, even if your rude statement were true, is that his children's fault? Why punish them by taking from their parent?
steve_adams_86 3y ago
"We" is North America collectively. I don't think it's on you to fix this at all; rather that our nations have the wealth to do a better job.