Since our general discourse has gotten so stupid: I did the math, and this was a Maine 9/11
They’re not going to give anyone healthcare. Make your own. Cost sharing nonprofits exist. Co-ops exist. Direct primary care exists.
I’m not beat down, but I appreciate your concern.
Maybe not billionaire class, but you certainly can become part of the class with healthcare without that much effort without begging politicians to hand it to you (which they are not going to do anytime soon). Although in some sense, we’re all richer than the billionaires of only a few hundred years ago. King Louis XIV’s house was famously covered in human poop because efficient plumbing wasn’t invented yet and everyone just pooped in the hall. Lol
Were it only so simple. Personally, I think that there are other causes, and that the oligarchy is as much a symptom of the disease as its cause. I saw a pithy comment on another post recently that the United States is the largest PvPvP… MMO in history. That is, we are a hyper-individualistic society, and we don’t do social connections and group solidarity well, if at all. Even our government social safety net is mostly holes, and designed to wear down and humiliate people who need it. Each person, or family, is on their own, sink or swim, and that’s a huge cause of the anxiety that grips, not only the poor, but everybody who’s not super-rich.
It also means that there’s nobody to extend a hand to people who are struggling, either to lift them up when they’re hurting, or restrain them when they might threaten the community. “Not my problem, Jack. 'Sides, I ain’t got time, got my own grist to grind.” Americans tend to regard fellow humans by default as a threat. You see it in the discussions of 15 minute cities, when people say that they hate other people and don’t want to live near them, or that public transit means getting stabbed, robbed, or raped. And, hell, there’s a whole U.S. political party whose only organizing principle is hate and fear of other people.
We lack the cohesiveness to create a society that benefits all of us, and that has allowed the oligarchy to arise and grow. Of course, they exploit this dynamic to stay in control, but I think that, like mildew, if we just scrubbed them from existence and didn’t address the environment that allowed them to flourish, they’d be right back in no time.
Maybe, I personally believe the guns are also partly responsible. Maybe who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This isn’t the only nation where this regularly happens, not by a long shot.
Here’s one I found from this year that took about 25 seconds to find.
“We did nothing and we are all out of options!”
