How to NOT leave people to fend for themselves in the U.S

Politics and Social Issues
1

Question

We shouldn’t be leaving people to fend for themselves in the U.S.
But the problem is how we do that in the most efficient way, given our current U.S. economic/social structures?

Here is my take. And please don’t link to other places where you think this has been answered in a different context. I’ve seen those and they are either not focused on the U.S., or they go off on philosophical tangents rather than practical discussions.

The conservative right exaggerates self-responsibility as a cure without caring about conditions that place people in losing situations at birth. Child poverty rate in the U.S. is at 17% - Nearly 28% in Mississippi! link

Some of these poor children will indeed overcome their challenges and succeed tremendously, but most will, and indeed can, not.

The right also wants to forget slavery and racism from the late 18th century through, well, today - as indicated by their book bans.

We can start, I think, by picking low hanging fruit.

Things were pretty great economically in the U.S. when the super-rich were taxed as they were in the 50’s/60’s. We need neither more Musk stinking up the place nor Trumps destroying our democracy. Same with corporations.

Getting control of the population would help our species greatly as we run out of water and many other resources. This means, of course stopping the religious right from banning abortion and birth control. Fewer people means less pollution.

Change our political system so that the rich don’t hold all of the power. Oh, and get rid of the electoral college.

2

I have a lot to say about the other ideas in this OP, but I think this one is key. I recently heard the idea of taxing land as a way to get some control on the power that is held by wealth. It’s a hard sell because it’s ingrained in the idea of success and freedom, your personal acre. I haven’t run the numbers, but there is a correlation between accumulated wealth and the ownership of lots and lots of land. People were not happy when small farmers were put out of business, for example.

Dark money is a big issue. Surprisingly people don’t seem to care that much about this one. it leads to what is now called “being primaried”, where if you cross the line with the big money in your political power, they buy themselves a new candidate, and it’s not hard to win at primary time when hardly anyone is voting.

So many ways individual power is taken away, and somehow, individuals defend these laws as if they uphold individual power.

1 Like
3

Isn’t property tax a tax on land?

4

Yes, but that’s just homeowners. I don’t know enough to lay out a plan, but agricultural land is different, originally designed to help the small landowner farmers, now corporations have taken advantage of that. And rental property to, There are incentives to own property, not live there, not care much about it, just collect rent, and rent prices cover the taxes.

5

Before I say anything on this, Coffee, are you from the U.S.? I want to know what country you are from before I explain the insanity of the U.S. (if you’re from another country) or just continue as though I’m talking to a fellow U.S. citizen.

6

@mriana
Yes, friend I was born and raised in good ole USA. I see the insanity- have for years now. My wife and I went to John Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity in D.C.Link

That rally was great. It was so nice to see how many (>250,000) people also see the sanity. Gave us some hope.

7

Then you know, we need social nets and the little social nets that we have need to be reinforced, not cut, but the Repugs want to cut anything that helps people and deny any new programs that will help people. We need a basic income, like Social Security, a means to make sure everyone has basic healthy foods (not junk foods), health care, housing, clothing, and even a means of communicating with the outside world (I believe it was President Obama who set up a basic cell phone program for the homeless, so they can call for help if they need it). I don’t know who, I think Biden, wants internet in all homes because it is now a necessity- for school work and other things. Basically, everyone should have basic needs and then the rest is just to better oneself and their community. Yes, this does sound like a Star Trek world, but that is sort of where I got the idea from but it’s also Socialistic too.

8

I’ve seen every Star Trek episode and movie. I have a good friend, David R. George who wrote Star Trek novels. I am also a very big Dr. Who fan.
I love the idea of democratic socialism but as with any idea, how it’s implemented is everything. And of course a country of over 350 million needs a net.

1 Like
9

Corporate farming (and ranching) have certainly hurt family farming. Farm Aid

10

Limiting immigration would help a lot as well.

11

How exactly?

We need workers.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/22/economy/immigration-jobs/index.html

12

A constant stream of beaten down, low IQ people who are treated not much better than slave labor is just adding more stress to the system. Most of them end up in the permanent underclass OP is talking about.

13

I had a professor tell me once that there is no wrong or right form of government, but rather how the form of government is used that makes it good or bad.

1 Like
14

That is the most bigoted thing I think you’ve said on this forum yet. It is wrong on so many different levels. This is a warning. I’m sorry I was too tired to see it last night or I would have warned you then. We’ve been through this before and it is a violation of the rules, which we’ve been through before.

15

This is an evidenced based forum. Please look up this “fact” and see what you find.

16

Immigration reform has been needed for many years. But for this thread, I think it can fall under population control in general in order to remove any hint of xenophobia.

But classism is a sad part of our society. It is the poor class that is the important part of this thread. It’s very sad that some people believe the poor exist because they aren’t working hard enough. Trump should surely be an example of how effort is inversely proportional to wealth.

17

Yips that was back when you were still a young guy. :wink:

Oh Mriana, received your book a couple days ago.

A Source of Misery
A true story of on how religion can be miserable
By Mriana Brinson - Dec. 2023
ISBN 978-0-557-73438-2

:bouquet: Congratulations ! :clinking_glasses:

I purchased it out of curiosity, knowing that it wasn’t going to be a book for me since my feeling towards religion has been long resolved. At 8ish our parents told us they thought we should become familiar with Christianity and wanted us to attend Sunday School (and some weeknight programs - hmm were they trying to get us out of the house, 68yrs old and, ulterior motives never occurred to me before. Suddenly they do. ) a little storefront affair - it was a nice crowd and fun time so we liked going. Then circumstances & moving had us attending a small Lutheran Church School 6th and 7th grade. That’s where I got a full dose of Catholicism Lite and became infatuated. But by my sophomore year I took the trouble to formally renounce my Lutheran faith to the CA church priest where we had been attending, including their youth club and programs, my first ski trip :slight_smile: . By my mid-thirties, those religious elements of my mindscape faith, fear of judgement, hell, Jesus dying on the cross and coming back to save us had shriveled to irrelevance.

Somewhere in my 50s I started realizing the startling, for me, reality of Jesus being a metamorphosis of all the best qualities in humans, and the stages of his life, especial the difficult stations of the cross progression - it’s a perfect mirror of what we humans ourselves go through, the stuff that Russian authors wrote endless books about.

Jesus as one’s metaphorical coach and guide through one’s own most difficult times, and reckoning with one’s own sins, and the need sometimes to burn on the cross of one’s own building.

Because it turns out that faithfully, honorably facing one’s consequences, dying the petite death of roasting in the realization and acceptance of one’s own sins.
Enable a reawakening, the ashes opening up a totally different outlook on ourselves and others. A rebirth to more constructive possibilities. The ugly and dishonest of religion can never eliminate that core psychological truth.

Oops, more rambling, back to your book.

Scanning through the pages I was pleasantly surprised, some pretty interesting well written paragraphs, including some that resonate with me. Though I come at it from a very different perspective and with a different set of tools, emotionally, intellectually, experientially, still good reading.

I am very impressed with the typography and layout, nicely done.
For these old eyes it’s perfect and the pages feel open and inviting.
From my casual scanning, I find your writing accessible and it seems a well written narrative from the inside looking out.

On my walks with Maddy musing on the tidbits I’ve read I’m starting to think it’s probably a great introduction full of new insights for an unrelateable outsider like me.

18

I looked it up, and it’s bad.

19

Yeah, and there were strategies created to make sure that happened.

2 Likes
20

There is some conflation of racism and immigration going on here. Granted, there is some racism against anyone who clearly (skin color, accent, wardrobe, etc.) wasn’t born here. But that is separate from the racism that exists because of slavery and all of the things that @citizenschallengev4 correctly identified.

Regarding immigration, we all (hopefully) hated Trump referring to immigrants as thugs and rapists as that is certainly a very erroneous and damaging overgeneralization. But it seems to me that @thatoneguy has provided evidence that immigrants are disproportionately represented in the childhood poverty statistics.

Now, I am fully aware that immigrants are an important workforce in this country. They pick the apples in New York. They build the homes here in North Carolina. I love them! But as this thread is about helping the poor in the U.S., it has been shown, I believe, that immigrants coming into the U.S. do add to the poor. And we need to help them. Immigration reform is an important need in this country. Has been for a long time.

1 Like