4 ms·

There's a fundamental disagreement among people on what "help" really is. Giving money to someone who could otherwise work is very different from giving food t

There's a fundamental disagreement among people on what "help" really is. Giving money to someone who could otherwise work is very different from giving food to a single mother who is already working 10 hours a day. Giving needles to a drug addict "helps" them in a certain way, yes. But it also enables their addiction to continue. Yea it's easy for everyone to say "I believe in helping people!!". But which side of the fence you sit on in the US is non-trivially determined by what you believe "help" looks like in practice.

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]
foxglacier 7mo ago
It's scary how blind people are to this. The right wing wants to help people in the long term and the left wing wants to help people in the short term. Both approaches seem obviously wrong to adherents of the other because they both disadvantage the group that the other wants to help. Approximately nobody is just bad and wants to harm people. That's a characterization both sides use against each other because they refuse to understand each other.
- hn_acc1 7mo ago
  If there are ANY people the right wing wants to help, it's rich people and grifters, and "long term" to them is like 3 months. Sorry, but the current admin IS "just bad" and DOES want to harm people - see ICE.
  - foxglacier 7mo ago
    Try thinking of honest examples. If you can't, you're not competent to have thoughts about the topic because you will only be able to feel emotions and pretend they're thoughts.
    - drfloyd51 7mo ago
      How is ICE anything but bad? If someone really wanted to stop illegal immigration, punishing the businesses that betray American workers by hiring cheap illegal labor. That seems a bit more efficient than hunting people on the streets with technology that can also be used to hunt anyone for any reason.
      - deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
- rootusrootus 7mo ago
  > The right wing wants to help people in the long term That sounds overly generous. It seems more like the right believes in social darwinism and feels like it benefits society overall by ridding us of lower quality people. The left believes there should be a fundamental minimum standard for existence that all members of society are entitled to.
  - drfloyd51 6mo ago
    > The left believes there should be a fundamental minimum standard for existence that all members of society are entitled to. I believe we should do this because if we are the greatest nation in the world, we should be able to do this. The greatest nation in the world should be unlike any other nation. An inspiration. A wonder.
- FireBeyond 7mo ago
  > The right wing wants to help people in the long term > Approximately nobody is just bad and wants to harm people Garbage. Mitch McConnell was on-record as saying during the Obama years that Republicans would be blocking any legislation from his administration that they could "even if it benefited the American people in any way" (his words, not mine) just so they could say it was a "do-nothing Presidency".
- dragonwriter 6mo ago
  > The right wing wants to help people in the long term and the left wing wants to help people in the short term. The right-wing wants to narrow the concentration of power and increase inequality and rigidity of social heirarchy, the left-wing wants to increase the distribution of power and decrease inequality and rigidity of social heirarchy. Each side views their orientation as being what helps people (or, at least, the people who should be helped) in the long term, and usually the short term as well.
drfloyd51 7mo ago
Giving needles keeps someone alive potentially. Until they can get more help for the addiction. Long term. Keeping the needles away makes increases the chances the druggie will die. Short term. The needles is really a distraction. It is a very narrow special case. Let’s talk healthcare. One side believes everyone should have the right to at least a minimum level of help regardless of who that person is. The other side believes everyone should receive at most the minimum level of care commiserate with the ability to pay. (Earned the help.)

deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

foxglacier 7mo ago

It's scary how blind people are to this. The right wing wants to help people in the long term and the left wing wants to help people in the short term. Both approaches seem obviously wrong to adherents of the other because they both disadvantage the group that the other wants to help. Approximately nobody is just bad and wants to harm people. That's a characterization both sides use against each other because they refuse to understand each other.

hn_acc1 7mo ago
If there are ANY people the right wing wants to help, it's rich people and grifters, and "long term" to them is like 3 months. Sorry, but the current admin IS "just bad" and DOES want to harm people - see ICE.
- foxglacier 7mo ago
  Try thinking of honest examples. If you can't, you're not competent to have thoughts about the topic because you will only be able to feel emotions and pretend they're thoughts.
  - drfloyd51 7mo ago
    How is ICE anything but bad? If someone really wanted to stop illegal immigration, punishing the businesses that betray American workers by hiring cheap illegal labor. That seems a bit more efficient than hunting people on the streets with technology that can also be used to hunt anyone for any reason.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
rootusrootus 7mo ago
> The right wing wants to help people in the long term That sounds overly generous. It seems more like the right believes in social darwinism and feels like it benefits society overall by ridding us of lower quality people. The left believes there should be a fundamental minimum standard for existence that all members of society are entitled to.
- drfloyd51 6mo ago
  > The left believes there should be a fundamental minimum standard for existence that all members of society are entitled to. I believe we should do this because if we are the greatest nation in the world, we should be able to do this. The greatest nation in the world should be unlike any other nation. An inspiration. A wonder.
FireBeyond 7mo ago
> The right wing wants to help people in the long term > Approximately nobody is just bad and wants to harm people Garbage. Mitch McConnell was on-record as saying during the Obama years that Republicans would be blocking any legislation from his administration that they could "even if it benefited the American people in any way" (his words, not mine) just so they could say it was a "do-nothing Presidency".
dragonwriter 6mo ago
> The right wing wants to help people in the long term and the left wing wants to help people in the short term. The right-wing wants to narrow the concentration of power and increase inequality and rigidity of social heirarchy, the left-wing wants to increase the distribution of power and decrease inequality and rigidity of social heirarchy. Each side views their orientation as being what helps people (or, at least, the people who should be helped) in the long term, and usually the short term as well.

drfloyd51 7mo ago

Giving needles keeps someone alive potentially. Until they can get more help for the addiction. Long term. Keeping the needles away makes increases the chances the druggie will die. Short term. The needles is really a distraction. It is a very narrow special case. Let’s talk healthcare. One side believes everyone should have the right to at least a minimum level of help regardless of who that person is. The other side believes everyone should receive at most the minimum level of care commiserate with the ability to pay. (Earned the help.)