I have a friend whom I have this argument with frequently, not about health care specifically but other socialized benefits (e.g. SNAP). He’s even a leftist, but still thinks he shouldn’t have to pay for people who “take advantage of the system” (e.g. spend their SNAP benefits on things he doesn’t believe should qualify, or receive SNAP benefits while spending their ‘real’ money on things he considers non-essential).
The fact that there are corporations getting orders of magnitude more in handouts, or that we’re spending an unreal amount of money on the military, or that there’s unfathomable amounts of corruption in the government, and that those benefits are in actuality a tiny fraction of what his taxes go to, makes no difference. He doesn’t want people at the bottom to get an ounce more than he believes they strictly need or deserve, and I cannot for the life of me understand that line of thought.
are you sure hes a leftist, or one in NAME only. almost everyone that believes welfare should not be for POORs/POC is almost always a conservative. i know a couple people that are ON THE left in name only, but says alot of talking points of a republican and would rather vote R, if not for the pontential ostracization from thier immediately circles.
I mean, I only know what I’ve gathered from our conversations, but his views align with mine on almost every other topic. That’s why it baffles me so much that we don’t agree on this one.
A while back, I was listening to a podcast that apparently had a fairly sizable conservative Christian audience, because there were a good number of ads for Christian “Health Care Sharing Ministries,” into which subscribers pay a voluntary “share,” and from which they draw when they need it.
I don’t remember the specific language the ad used, but I do remember it saying something that sounded almost dangerously close to “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” I started laughing at that one.
There’s a Fundamental Christian influencer named Aria Lewis who has that “insurance”. She’s been dealing with dental problems and basically made a post one day asking her followers if that insurance was a scam because she wasn’t able to get the care she really needed
It’s crazy what problems people fall into when they choose something has “Christian” in the name over what everyone else is using
Agreed 100%. Even as a Christian myself, I avoid businesses with “Christian” in the name. At best it feels like they’re trying to say that they’re the “Jesus-y” choice. At worst it means they’re crooks trying to look legitimate. In either case they’re probably maga.
dental insurance is kinda of a scam, if you are not using an employer-sponsered one, they dont cover most things outside of cleanings. the ones i looked from the 3 well known dental insurance, have approximately the same kind of coverage for all 3 plans, the only difference some of them are more expensive. Employer- sponsored plans have very different coverage from the individual plans.
i like how they rail about dental/health insurance as a scam, while they use a more expensive version which is likely paying the full cost of dental care. i would imagine the fund would drain pretty fast if people are getting multiple cavities filled, and not even for other things like extractions, root canal and crowns, or periodontal care, or implants.
I ALSO notice some dental offices, offer thier own “insurance” in house, may or may not be expensive but that could be another avenue if people dont want to pay for better insurance.
so every time he says he doesn’t want to pay for people taking advantage of the system, ask if he means the wealthy people denying healthcare to people so they can afford more yachts, their 8th mansion, their 30th sport car, their second helicopter. Because he’s overpaying for his private healthcare so they can take advantage of him.
Biden/Harris had the entire Epstein file suite and did absolutely nothing with it
Obama/Biden built the policy power to do the mass deportations and city-deployments of ICE that Trump is now using
Biden knew this and changed literally nothing about it when he was president
Obama/Biden deported more people than Trump has
Obama/Biden appointed Tom Homan as deportation czar - same guy Trump appointed in both terms
Biden/Harris deported/repatriated over 4M in only 4 years
Biden/Harris participated in the Israeli-led genocide of Gaza
Obama refused to provide arms to Ukraine. Trump was the first president ever to approve arms transfers to Ukraine.
Obama/Biden + HRClinton continued the Bush2 strategic plan for destroying 7 countries by completely destroying Libya, laughing at the public torture and execution of a 70-year-old man sodomized with a blade by people the HRC State Dept coordinated
800k people, on average, have died every year for the last 50 years due to US sanctions, and both parties are totally OK with it.
We could keep going, back to Clinton and the Biden-authored Crime Bill, back to every war and military action, to the School of the Americas and the training of death squads and terrorists. We can go through and show how these programs were continuous across party switches in every part of the government. We can show how every mass movement of people for self-liberation and self-governance was met with mass murder at the hands of the USA regardless of which party was in charge. We can show how the USA was the model used for EuroFascism and how the USA absorbed and protected the failed EuroFascists and then spread them around the world for decades with their protection, bi-partisanly.
The USA is the global reservoir of fascism, which, of course it is, because the USA is the torchbearer, inheritor, executor, and protector of EuroImperialism, which is what EuroFascism fundamentally is.
The crazy thing is, I actually agree with you about your list, and that the US has told a fairy tale for the past two and a half centuries about how we’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys, and so forth. But then
The Democrats are just as fascist
is just laughable in pretty much every conceivable way. Are they still bad? Yes! But have they sent a secret police around the country to tear “undesirables” out of their homes and send them to countries they’ve never been without due process? Are they currently plotting to overthrow the election or stay in power despite losing that election? Did they, in the past two years, allow an unelected billionaire to destroy entire government agencies by fiat?
Ah-ah-ah! I hear you saying “but they voted to approve ICE funding” or “but they didn’t do anything to stop any of it” or “but Obama deported a bunch of people too” or “Democratic gerrymandering”—no. I didn’t ask if they allowed it to happen. I didn’t ask for whatabouts. I asked if they were behind the worst, most criminal activities being perpetrated by the US government at this very moment. I asked if they are doing it now. Are they the prime movers?
No? Then you can’t say “just as fascist.” That might’ve been true ten years ago—actually, aside from the election fraud, it almost definitely was—and I could maybe even see an argument that their evil was in the same order of magnitude as recently as two years ago, but equating the two since Trump 2 is like comparing a viper bite to a meteor entering the atmosphere. They’re both imminently dangerous, sure, but the difference in the scale of damage would be almost laughable if the harm wasn’t currently in progress.
The country needs to be fixed. I don’t think the Democrats are going to do it. But I’m not going to do anything to aid the people who are going to make it more broken, so I’m going to leave off turning on people who will be on our team until after the existential threat to our loved ones and ourselves is past.
No, we don’t. We are always here. But you fucking dilletantes show up a few months before every election thinking that you can both rustle up some blue no matter who votes while spreading your blue MAGA bullshit and then accuse everyone else of being Russian bots and Republican trolls and you smug schmucks think it’s working without any sense of how propaganda actually works and how you are creating every opportunity for people to see how completely bankrupt you all are.
Sometimes, thought doesn’t have to be original. Sometimes, when something rings true, many people have the same thought, and can talk about it and agree with people who share the same thought and that isn’t an issue.
I have a friend whom I have this argument with frequently, not about health care specifically but other socialized benefits (e.g. SNAP). He’s even a leftist, but still thinks he shouldn’t have to pay for people who “take advantage of the system” (e.g. spend their SNAP benefits on things he doesn’t believe should qualify, or receive SNAP benefits while spending their ‘real’ money on things he considers non-essential).
The fact that there are corporations getting orders of magnitude more in handouts, or that we’re spending an unreal amount of money on the military, or that there’s unfathomable amounts of corruption in the government, and that those benefits are in actuality a tiny fraction of what his taxes go to, makes no difference. He doesn’t want people at the bottom to get an ounce more than he believes they strictly need or deserve, and I cannot for the life of me understand that line of thought.
are you sure hes a leftist, or one in NAME only. almost everyone that believes welfare should not be for POORs/POC is almost always a conservative. i know a couple people that are ON THE left in name only, but says alot of talking points of a republican and would rather vote R, if not for the pontential ostracization from thier immediately circles.
I mean, I only know what I’ve gathered from our conversations, but his views align with mine on almost every other topic. That’s why it baffles me so much that we don’t agree on this one.
guess he dint fully buy into the manosphere/ right grifting circuit.
“I’d rather 99 people get support they might not need if it means one person gets the support they definitely need.”
I’ve used that reasonably successfully.
A while back, I was listening to a podcast that apparently had a fairly sizable conservative Christian audience, because there were a good number of ads for Christian “Health Care Sharing Ministries,” into which subscribers pay a voluntary “share,” and from which they draw when they need it.
I don’t remember the specific language the ad used, but I do remember it saying something that sounded almost dangerously close to “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” I started laughing at that one.
There’s a Fundamental Christian influencer named Aria Lewis who has that “insurance”. She’s been dealing with dental problems and basically made a post one day asking her followers if that insurance was a scam because she wasn’t able to get the care she really needed
It’s crazy what problems people fall into when they choose something has “Christian” in the name over what everyone else is using
Agreed 100%. Even as a Christian myself, I avoid businesses with “Christian” in the name. At best it feels like they’re trying to say that they’re the “Jesus-y” choice. At worst it means they’re crooks trying to look legitimate. In either case they’re probably maga.
dental insurance is kinda of a scam, if you are not using an employer-sponsered one, they dont cover most things outside of cleanings. the ones i looked from the 3 well known dental insurance, have approximately the same kind of coverage for all 3 plans, the only difference some of them are more expensive. Employer- sponsored plans have very different coverage from the individual plans.
i like how they rail about dental/health insurance as a scam, while they use a more expensive version which is likely paying the full cost of dental care. i would imagine the fund would drain pretty fast if people are getting multiple cavities filled, and not even for other things like extractions, root canal and crowns, or periodontal care, or implants.
I ALSO notice some dental offices, offer thier own “insurance” in house, may or may not be expensive but that could be another avenue if people dont want to pay for better insurance.
so every time he says he doesn’t want to pay for people taking advantage of the system, ask if he means the wealthy people denying healthcare to people so they can afford more yachts, their 8th mansion, their 30th sport car, their second helicopter. Because he’s overpaying for his private healthcare so they can take advantage of him.
When you say “leftist” I assume you mean liberal Democrat.
Let’s maybe save the purity tests for when we’re not staring down the barrel of a fascist coup already in progress, eh?
The Democrats are just as fascist:
We could keep going, back to Clinton and the Biden-authored Crime Bill, back to every war and military action, to the School of the Americas and the training of death squads and terrorists. We can go through and show how these programs were continuous across party switches in every part of the government. We can show how every mass movement of people for self-liberation and self-governance was met with mass murder at the hands of the USA regardless of which party was in charge. We can show how the USA was the model used for EuroFascism and how the USA absorbed and protected the failed EuroFascists and then spread them around the world for decades with their protection, bi-partisanly.
The USA is the global reservoir of fascism, which, of course it is, because the USA is the torchbearer, inheritor, executor, and protector of EuroImperialism, which is what EuroFascism fundamentally is.
The crazy thing is, I actually agree with you about your list, and that the US has told a fairy tale for the past two and a half centuries about how we’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys, and so forth. But then
is just laughable in pretty much every conceivable way. Are they still bad? Yes! But have they sent a secret police around the country to tear “undesirables” out of their homes and send them to countries they’ve never been without due process? Are they currently plotting to overthrow the election or stay in power despite losing that election? Did they, in the past two years, allow an unelected billionaire to destroy entire government agencies by fiat?
Ah-ah-ah! I hear you saying “but they voted to approve ICE funding” or “but they didn’t do anything to stop any of it” or “but Obama deported a bunch of people too” or “Democratic gerrymandering”—no. I didn’t ask if they allowed it to happen. I didn’t ask for whatabouts. I asked if they were behind the worst, most criminal activities being perpetrated by the US government at this very moment. I asked if they are doing it now. Are they the prime movers?
No? Then you can’t say “just as fascist.” That might’ve been true ten years ago—actually, aside from the election fraud, it almost definitely was—and I could maybe even see an argument that their evil was in the same order of magnitude as recently as two years ago, but equating the two since Trump 2 is like comparing a viper bite to a meteor entering the atmosphere. They’re both imminently dangerous, sure, but the difference in the scale of damage would be almost laughable if the harm wasn’t currently in progress.
The country needs to be fixed. I don’t think the Democrats are going to do it. But I’m not going to do anything to aid the people who are going to make it more broken, so I’m going to leave off turning on people who will be on our team until after the existential threat to our loved ones and ourselves is past.
Geez, they really do come out of the woodwork just prior to elections.
No, we don’t. We are always here. But you fucking dilletantes show up a few months before every election thinking that you can both rustle up some blue no matter who votes while spreading your blue MAGA bullshit and then accuse everyone else of being Russian bots and Republican trolls and you smug schmucks think it’s working without any sense of how propaganda actually works and how you are creating every opportunity for people to see how completely bankrupt you all are.
Well, you know what they say about assumptions. Of course, when I see a post from .ml, I assume the poster is a tankie, so I guess we’re both guilty.
Ah, I’ve engaged a person without an original thought. My mistake.
Sometimes, thought doesn’t have to be original. Sometimes, when something rings true, many people have the same thought, and can talk about it and agree with people who share the same thought and that isn’t an issue.