It just seems like there are so many people in the US that are like “we can’t have more mandated vacation days! Chad doesn’t work as hard as I do and if he has something nice, I’ll die! Also my boss said the company is really depending on me- if I put in the extra hours he can buy another sports car this quarter!”
There’s shockingly low class solidarity among labor.
Glaring example being healthcare. Per Capita the US spends way more than any other country, twice as much as the OECD average. Yet not everyone has access to proper healthcare, the and statistics don’t look great for mother mortality and screenings for preventative diseases…
But you know, they’ll be damned if their moneys paid for someone undeserving (poor or person of color seems to be coinciding with who they think do not deserve healthcare), but wasting tons of money on bureaucracy and fat profit margins, that’s apparently a-okay.
Right? Even the most cynical perspective would say that it doesn’t matter if a freeloader gets healthcare since your costs are still going down. But a lot of people seem like they would rather pay more than risk someone else getting something for free.
Personally, I think a big part is people are used to the costs of healthcare, and so when someone says universal healthcare will cost $X Dollars a month, they put that on top of what they’re already spending.
Not necessarily consciously, but the cost of insurance is “spent” already, so switching to a different system is deducted from their mental budget that’s already factored in the insurance costs. $150 a week in tax increase is taken from $500 take-home, missing the $250 healthcare costs, since they never see that money.
I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew—at least they claimed to be Communists—couldn’t have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves.
It’s really gross how many people think everything in life is a zero sum game. The anti gay marriage folks are like that: if gay people can get married then somehow their own marriage is lesser. If people who aren’t working get healthcare, then it somehow takes away from them. It’s disgusting.
It’s a cover, they’re just trying to erect a stiff wall of turgid legislation with no gloryh- I mean, loopholes, in order to take that option away from themselves. Worried that the temptation will bulge out of them some crazy night in Vegas and they’ll wake up with a new husband like that one time in 1972 that he and his curiously close best friend never talk about (but think about often).
I’m sure there are a number of “we can’t allow gay sex because we’d all be having it if it was allowed and everyone should resist the sin like me” people, but there really are a lot of folks who feel it takes something away from them if others get what they have. It’s like the mentality of the guy who loves his BMW until his neighbor gets one too, and then he has to get a more expensive car.
Its usually that they dont like others getting what they have in an easier or different way. If they were treated like garbage to get where they are, then you should be too.
The percentage of people that would be just as happy with their neighbour having less as they would be with themselves having more is shocking and depressing. It’s all about comparisons. Crabs in a bucket.
Absolutely, you have to be very guarded about what you say around colleagues cause some of them will snitch behind your back to higher ups, that’s how I lost my job. I’ll never make the mistake of speaking my mind with anyone ever again. They will get a fake work persona I’ll construct from now on. Can’t believe how eager some people are to fuck themselves over just so long as they are doing better than those others they have been conditioned to hate
It just seems like there are so many people in the US that are like “we can’t have more mandated vacation days! Chad doesn’t work as hard as I do and if he has something nice, I’ll die! Also my boss said the company is really depending on me- if I put in the extra hours he can buy another sports car this quarter!”
There’s shockingly low class solidarity among labor.
America is basically “I got mine, fuck you” and “others don’t deserve a thing because reasons” all the way down.
It’s like a snake eating it’s own tail.
The really baffling thing is that often they didn’t get theirs in the first place.
It’s closer to “I would rather neither of us get it than you get it too”.
Glaring example being healthcare. Per Capita the US spends way more than any other country, twice as much as the OECD average. Yet not everyone has access to proper healthcare, the and statistics don’t look great for mother mortality and screenings for preventative diseases…
But you know, they’ll be damned if their moneys paid for someone undeserving (poor or person of color seems to be coinciding with who they think do not deserve healthcare), but wasting tons of money on bureaucracy and fat profit margins, that’s apparently a-okay.
Right? Even the most cynical perspective would say that it doesn’t matter if a freeloader gets healthcare since your costs are still going down. But a lot of people seem like they would rather pay more than risk someone else getting something for free.
Personally, I think a big part is people are used to the costs of healthcare, and so when someone says universal healthcare will cost $X Dollars a month, they put that on top of what they’re already spending.
Not necessarily consciously, but the cost of insurance is “spent” already, so switching to a different system is deducted from their mental budget that’s already factored in the insurance costs. $150 a week in tax increase is taken from $500 take-home, missing the $250 healthcare costs, since they never see that money.
:::
–John Steinbeck, America and Americans
It’s really gross how many people think everything in life is a zero sum game. The anti gay marriage folks are like that: if gay people can get married then somehow their own marriage is lesser. If people who aren’t working get healthcare, then it somehow takes away from them. It’s disgusting.
It’s a cover, they’re just trying to erect a stiff wall of turgid legislation with no gloryh- I mean, loopholes, in order to take that option away from themselves. Worried that the temptation will bulge out of them some crazy night in Vegas and they’ll wake up with a new husband like that one time in 1972 that he and his curiously close best friend never talk about (but think about often).
I’m sure there are a number of “we can’t allow gay sex because we’d all be having it if it was allowed and everyone should resist the sin like me” people, but there really are a lot of folks who feel it takes something away from them if others get what they have. It’s like the mentality of the guy who loves his BMW until his neighbor gets one too, and then he has to get a more expensive car.
Its usually that they dont like others getting what they have in an easier or different way. If they were treated like garbage to get where they are, then you should be too.
The percentage of people that would be just as happy with their neighbour having less as they would be with themselves having more is shocking and depressing. It’s all about comparisons. Crabs in a bucket.
People seem to not learn that lesson anymore. They dont realize they are focusing on themselves to the detriment of everyone around them.
Absolutely, you have to be very guarded about what you say around colleagues cause some of them will snitch behind your back to higher ups, that’s how I lost my job. I’ll never make the mistake of speaking my mind with anyone ever again. They will get a fake work persona I’ll construct from now on. Can’t believe how eager some people are to fuck themselves over just so long as they are doing better than those others they have been conditioned to hate