5 ms·

Americans cheered for the gutting of USAID because they thought that spending 25% of the federal budget was too much, and should be around 10% instead. The act

Americans cheered for the gutting of USAID because they thought that spending 25% of the federal budget was too much, and should be around 10% instead. The actual spend on foreign aid? Under 1%. Americans are systemically and catastrophically disinformed. Expecting us to be able to assess the real impact of the DOGE team's fuckups is a violation of GIGO.

TomK32 2y ago
It'd be fantastic if surveys would allow those surveyed to do a minute or two of research before answering or correcting their answer.
- jfengel 2y ago
  They are voting based on their opinions without doing additional research. Getting at that opinion via a poll is informative, and letting them research it would actually be counterproductive.
MisterKent 2y ago
People are not just cheering for that. They're cheering because of the stated causes that money was going to were "woke" and "not America first" The general public's understanding of soft power, a global economy, and maintaining an economic hegemony is just not there. We have a democratic Republic because our founding fathers were smart enough to realize the general public is not smart enough (or, doesn't have the time to) rule on every issue.
- mandmandam 2y ago
  > We have a democratic Republic because our founding fathers were smart enough to realize the general public is not smart enough (or, doesn't have the time to) rule on every issue. Maybe - maybe - a merry band of lily-white slave-owners born hundreds of years before solar power and social media don't know how best to run a modern government. And maybe we'd be smarter if our government didn't treat schools as a pipeline to factory work, or as a means to make billions from crippling and predatory student loans. "I love the uneducated", etc.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    We have this myth of the founding fathers as wisened, street smart old men. In reality, many of the signatories were in their 20s, often early 20s, hell the Declaration of Independence has a few teenage signatories.
    - Dracophoenix 2y ago
      Past a certain point, age has little to do with prudence. There are rational and knowledgable teenagers just as there are middle-aged dullards. One must also keep in mind that the man of the 18th century achieved the necessary milestones to become a self-sufficient adult by his late teens. He will have already lived a full life at the age his 21st century counterpart crosses the starting line.
      - FireBeyond 2y ago
        Of course. Although being self-sufficient does not mean that you have a fully developed brain and cognition, either. And absolutely, rational and knowledgeable is certain. But we seem to treat their edicts as the height of infallible perfection in government, and view it as anathema to even suggest ideas that don't precisely align with their statements.
    - Keyframe 2y ago
      many of the signatories were in their 20s, often early 20s, hell the Declaration of Independence has a few teenage signatories. really? i tried sourcing this and I can see there were only two in their 20s (26 each) out of 56. no teenage. 2 in 20s, 17 in 30s, 12 in 40s, 9 in 50s, 6 in 60s, and 1 in 70s (well, 70 exact - Benjamin Franklin).
      - FireBeyond 2y ago
        https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the-founding-fathers-the-leaders-of-the-american-revolution-were-younger-than-we-imagine.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the... "As it turns out, many Founding Fathers were younger than 40 years old in 1776 ... more than a dozen of them were 35 or younger." Peter Salem was the youngest signatory at 16. Alexander Hamilton, 21. Thomas Lynch, Jr, and Edward Rutledge, 26. George Walton, 27, and Thomas Heyward, Jr, 29.
- jfengel 2y ago
  They didn't seem to reckon that against representatives who are sent to reflect the will of that same general public. They are not incentivized to contradict their constituents. In particular they do not have the responsibility to represent the demographic of their losing opponent, and in many ways are encouraged to do exactly the opposite. It may be the best of all bad plans. But it clearly does not succeed in producing compromises. At the very least it relies on some kind of good will between constituents. When you lose that you no longer have a nation.
- rayiner 2y ago
  “Soft power” and “hegemony” are fake concepts invented by credentialed elites. Americans are properly distrustful of those ideas. The point of a Republican democracy is so the public doesn’t have to decide the best way to build warships. But what values America should spend its money supporting absolutely are what should be decided by the democratic process.
  - derriz 2y ago
    How is soft power is a fake concept? At the scale of organizations and business, it's probably the most important tool you need to learn if you want to be at all effective. I've never seen a manager who was able to actually "get things done" who didn't skillfully wield soft power. The least effective managers I've worked beside needed to constantly resort to the use of authority and/or bullying to achieve results. Which also generally pisses off lots of people. Then again some people seem to get a kick out of pissing off others. It's quite reasonable to assume that a similar dynamic works at larger scales also.
    - rayiner 2y ago
      “Soft power” as a term of art used by liberal internationalists is bullshit. It’s just a way to proselytize foreign countries in a way that makes them resentful. E.g. Biden’s “human rights” push in Bangladesh. How did it help America to undermine the government’s ability to kill Islamists? It didn’t. It simply was ideologically captured Americans wanting to export their value system and use public dollars to do so.
      - alienthrowaway 2y ago
        > Americans wanting to export their value system and use public dollars to do so This is a cynical, but accurate definition of soft power: exerting your will using words. Your argument is all over the place - you call soft power a "fake concept", and then "bullshit", and here, you seem to suggest that it works, but you don't agree with Biden ideologically? So which is it?
    - deleted 2y ago
yadaeno 2y ago
I agree but condemning government budget cuts because USAID seems reactionary. I think the spirit of cutting budget is still overall popular, and is impossible to do painlessly. Also in the context of federal budget, 1% is a huge number since most of the budget (like social security, interest payments, and Medicaid) is non negotiable. ~30B a year (USAID budget) is enough to make improvements domestically, e.g free college for 10% of students, transportation, housing, etc.
- oezi 2y ago
  I don't understand why the US is forgetting that it isn't alone in the world. Spending a little money on international aid has been exerting American soft power for decades and likely flowed back multiple times in additional trade. Should China be left alone on the world stage to take over?
- jwkpiano1 2y ago
  That’s for _Congress_ to decide, not the executive. That’s the issue here.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  > ~30B a year (USAID budget) is enough to make improvements domestically, e.g free college for 10% of students, transportation, housing, etc. if only that's what they would spend it on. Instead, it's going to go to the military.
refurb 2y ago
USAID is not "international aid". It's an arm of the CIA that uses "international development" as a cover for it's activities. Look at the role of USAID during the Vietnam War under CORDS. It funded the "strategic hamlet" program which uprooted rural civilians into barb wire enclosures and provided arms and training to militia. That doesn't sound like international aid. Look at the Phoenix Program during the same war. It was an intelligence program which sough to identify "VC infrastructure" within rural villages and "capture or kill". One can argue that such activities are beneficial to the US, but claiming it's soft and cuddly "international aid" for countries in need is just not accurate.
- corimaith 2y ago
  The two are not mutually exclusive, providing HIV assistance or maternal aid both is definitionally international aid while also furthering US interests. If you define international aid as purely unconditional or even counterproductive to self-interest then you'd be hard pressed to find any sort of example, nor would it be a definition I would think many agree with.
  - refurb 2y ago
    If you're arguing other countries will suffer with the end of USAID programs, that will be a hard argument to win. Providing HIV assistance while undermining political stability is a high price for other countries to pay and I'm sure is a net negative for them.
    - corimaith 2y ago
      >Providing HIV assistance while undermining political stability You're taking that as a prior when in reality US FoPo prefers political stability after the Cold War. You need to get a grip here if you're seeing everything through the lens of dubious paranoia, if not just leftist resentment.
      - refurb 2y ago
        > You're taking that as a prior when in reality US FoPo prefers political stability after the Cold War. You need to get a grip here if you're seeing everything through the lens of dubious paranoia, if not just leftist resentment. I should rephrase that to "political instability with regards to the perspective of locals". I agree the US is seeking "political stability" with these activities. But it's on US terms which is often in direct opposition to the locals. And I'd argue my view is not "dubious paranoia". The purpose of USAID is to use development activities as a cover for interference in other country's politics.

TomK32 2y ago

It'd be fantastic if surveys would allow those surveyed to do a minute or two of research before answering or correcting their answer.

jfengel 2y ago
They are voting based on their opinions without doing additional research. Getting at that opinion via a poll is informative, and letting them research it would actually be counterproductive.

MisterKent 2y ago

People are not just cheering for that. They're cheering because of the stated causes that money was going to were "woke" and "not America first" The general public's understanding of soft power, a global economy, and maintaining an economic hegemony is just not there. We have a democratic Republic because our founding fathers were smart enough to realize the general public is not smart enough (or, doesn't have the time to) rule on every issue.

mandmandam 2y ago
> We have a democratic Republic because our founding fathers were smart enough to realize the general public is not smart enough (or, doesn't have the time to) rule on every issue. Maybe - maybe - a merry band of lily-white slave-owners born hundreds of years before solar power and social media don't know how best to run a modern government. And maybe we'd be smarter if our government didn't treat schools as a pipeline to factory work, or as a means to make billions from crippling and predatory student loans. "I love the uneducated", etc.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  We have this myth of the founding fathers as wisened, street smart old men. In reality, many of the signatories were in their 20s, often early 20s, hell the Declaration of Independence has a few teenage signatories.
  - Dracophoenix 2y ago
    Past a certain point, age has little to do with prudence. There are rational and knowledgable teenagers just as there are middle-aged dullards. One must also keep in mind that the man of the 18th century achieved the necessary milestones to become a self-sufficient adult by his late teens. He will have already lived a full life at the age his 21st century counterpart crosses the starting line.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      Of course. Although being self-sufficient does not mean that you have a fully developed brain and cognition, either. And absolutely, rational and knowledgeable is certain. But we seem to treat their edicts as the height of infallible perfection in government, and view it as anathema to even suggest ideas that don't precisely align with their statements.
  - Keyframe 2y ago
    many of the signatories were in their 20s, often early 20s, hell the Declaration of Independence has a few teenage signatories. really? i tried sourcing this and I can see there were only two in their 20s (26 each) out of 56. no teenage. 2 in 20s, 17 in 30s, 12 in 40s, 9 in 50s, 6 in 60s, and 1 in 70s (well, 70 exact - Benjamin Franklin).
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the-founding-fathers-the-leaders-of-the-american-revolution-were-younger-than-we-imagine.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/08/how-old-were-the... "As it turns out, many Founding Fathers were younger than 40 years old in 1776 ... more than a dozen of them were 35 or younger." Peter Salem was the youngest signatory at 16. Alexander Hamilton, 21. Thomas Lynch, Jr, and Edward Rutledge, 26. George Walton, 27, and Thomas Heyward, Jr, 29.
jfengel 2y ago
They didn't seem to reckon that against representatives who are sent to reflect the will of that same general public. They are not incentivized to contradict their constituents. In particular they do not have the responsibility to represent the demographic of their losing opponent, and in many ways are encouraged to do exactly the opposite. It may be the best of all bad plans. But it clearly does not succeed in producing compromises. At the very least it relies on some kind of good will between constituents. When you lose that you no longer have a nation.
rayiner 2y ago
“Soft power” and “hegemony” are fake concepts invented by credentialed elites. Americans are properly distrustful of those ideas. The point of a Republican democracy is so the public doesn’t have to decide the best way to build warships. But what values America should spend its money supporting absolutely are what should be decided by the democratic process.
- derriz 2y ago
  How is soft power is a fake concept? At the scale of organizations and business, it's probably the most important tool you need to learn if you want to be at all effective. I've never seen a manager who was able to actually "get things done" who didn't skillfully wield soft power. The least effective managers I've worked beside needed to constantly resort to the use of authority and/or bullying to achieve results. Which also generally pisses off lots of people. Then again some people seem to get a kick out of pissing off others. It's quite reasonable to assume that a similar dynamic works at larger scales also.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    “Soft power” as a term of art used by liberal internationalists is bullshit. It’s just a way to proselytize foreign countries in a way that makes them resentful. E.g. Biden’s “human rights” push in Bangladesh. How did it help America to undermine the government’s ability to kill Islamists? It didn’t. It simply was ideologically captured Americans wanting to export their value system and use public dollars to do so.
    - alienthrowaway 2y ago
      > Americans wanting to export their value system and use public dollars to do so This is a cynical, but accurate definition of soft power: exerting your will using words. Your argument is all over the place - you call soft power a "fake concept", and then "bullshit", and here, you seem to suggest that it works, but you don't agree with Biden ideologically? So which is it?
  - deleted 2y ago

yadaeno 2y ago

I agree but condemning government budget cuts because USAID seems reactionary. I think the spirit of cutting budget is still overall popular, and is impossible to do painlessly. Also in the context of federal budget, 1% is a huge number since most of the budget (like social security, interest payments, and Medicaid) is non negotiable. ~30B a year (USAID budget) is enough to make improvements domestically, e.g free college for 10% of students, transportation, housing, etc.

oezi 2y ago
I don't understand why the US is forgetting that it isn't alone in the world. Spending a little money on international aid has been exerting American soft power for decades and likely flowed back multiple times in additional trade. Should China be left alone on the world stage to take over?
jwkpiano1 2y ago
That’s for _Congress_ to decide, not the executive. That’s the issue here.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> ~30B a year (USAID budget) is enough to make improvements domestically, e.g free college for 10% of students, transportation, housing, etc. if only that's what they would spend it on. Instead, it's going to go to the military.

refurb 2y ago

USAID is not "international aid". It's an arm of the CIA that uses "international development" as a cover for it's activities. Look at the role of USAID during the Vietnam War under CORDS. It funded the "strategic hamlet" program which uprooted rural civilians into barb wire enclosures and provided arms and training to militia. That doesn't sound like international aid. Look at the Phoenix Program during the same war. It was an intelligence program which sough to identify "VC infrastructure" within rural villages and "capture or kill". One can argue that such activities are beneficial to the US, but claiming it's soft and cuddly "international aid" for countries in need is just not accurate.

corimaith 2y ago
The two are not mutually exclusive, providing HIV assistance or maternal aid both is definitionally international aid while also furthering US interests. If you define international aid as purely unconditional or even counterproductive to self-interest then you'd be hard pressed to find any sort of example, nor would it be a definition I would think many agree with.
- refurb 2y ago
  If you're arguing other countries will suffer with the end of USAID programs, that will be a hard argument to win. Providing HIV assistance while undermining political stability is a high price for other countries to pay and I'm sure is a net negative for them.
  - corimaith 2y ago
    >Providing HIV assistance while undermining political stability You're taking that as a prior when in reality US FoPo prefers political stability after the Cold War. You need to get a grip here if you're seeing everything through the lens of dubious paranoia, if not just leftist resentment.
    - refurb 2y ago
      > You're taking that as a prior when in reality US FoPo prefers political stability after the Cold War. You need to get a grip here if you're seeing everything through the lens of dubious paranoia, if not just leftist resentment. I should rephrase that to "political instability with regards to the perspective of locals". I agree the US is seeking "political stability" with these activities. But it's on US terms which is often in direct opposition to the locals. And I'd argue my view is not "dubious paranoia". The purpose of USAID is to use development activities as a cover for interference in other country's politics.