this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
228 points (96.0% liked)
Asklemmy
43818 readers
867 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
There's just a lot of inequality in the US that is both socially and politically unacceptable in the rest of the developed world. Extremes are more accepted here.
There are more extremely rich people than you would see in other Western countries and and many, many more extremely poor people than in other Western countries. Alleviating that would mean implementing policies to redistribute wealth that many Americans are not willing to implement, especially conservatives.
The US basically sacrifices the good of the many for the great of the few.
And they manage to get poor people on board by tying their policies to Jesus and Family Values. And it works like a charm and itβs so weird.
Which seems even stranger. In many other countries, Christians vote left of center to promote economic equality, reduce poverty, get green policies to protect God's green earth, make sure that everyone has universal access to healthcare and education, etc.
In the US, they vote oppotite of that.
Because if you're poor, it's because Jesus is punishing you for something. (This is a slight exaggeration of the mindset.)
For showing my point I like the joke that was made of the pastor in Katrina turning down help from the coast guard three times because God will save me, then drowning, getting to the pearly gates and asking why he wasn't saved. The response was "I tried three times. You didn't get on any of the helicopters I sent to save you." There are direct parallels to religious figures claiming God will save them from COVID and not wearing masks or getting vaccines or anything, then dieing of COVID not months later. And those weren't jokes. They were in the news...
Religion is taught very poorly here in a lot of places, and it's very predatory in a lot of the US. Any religious television here is only a scam.
Every American is a rich man who is temporarily down on his luck and making big societal changes would screw them over when they finally get their money.
I forget who said it, "The poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
"Limitless wealth, hand in hand with limitless poverty"