Political discussions between a liberal and a conservative.
Seriously, how are people still defending this dumpster fire of a system?
We’ve got billionaires hoarding wealth like dragons while regular folks can’t even afford insulin or a roof over their heads. But sure, keep licking those corporate boots and pretending “trickle-down economics” isn’t a scam.
If you’re against universal healthcare and housing, you’re either brainwashed or part of the problem. Wake up, sheeple!
This thread is the funniest thing I've yet seen on lemmy. Two political extremists, who are apparently charicatures of their positions, have come together to moderate a sub where they can insult each other. Oh, internet, I missed this side of you. Can we debate the existance of God next?
First, let me just say that I think this is a great concept for a community. Seeing how much engagement this post has is great.
I just would suggest to the moderators to make is to that various people can make new topics? Or is it your plan to dropping new topics in a set fashion and avoiding the drama of having people potentially come & shit all over the community?
Gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette. But ok, no more safety net for you, Raw dogg
so you're fine with denying everyone a better life because you feel like some people don't deserve it?
Oh Ryan, still tilting at windmills I see. Let me ask you this—when has government-run anything not turned into a bloated, inefficient mess? You want healthcare? Look at the VA—vets dying on waiting lists while bureaucrats shuffle papers. Housing projects? Breeding grounds for crime and dependency. Your utopia requires confiscating wealth from those who earned it to subsidize those who didn’t. That’s not compassion—it’s theft with a smiley face. And spare me the “billionaire” boogeyman. Those dragons, as you call them? They create jobs, fund innovation. Meanwhile, your “free” everything disincentivizes work, ambition, personal responsibility. You want to help people? Teach them to fish. Don’t just steal my catch and call it charity.
that's a load of capitalist propaganda if I've ever heard one. You're just regurgitating the same tired talking points the elite want you to parrot. The VA's problems are because of underfunding, not government inefficiency—starve the beast and then complain when it's weak, classic move. And housing projects? Maybe if we actually invested in communities instead of prisons, people wouldn't be desperate.
Your "teach them to fish" nonsense ignores systemic barriers. How can someone learn to fish when they're drowning in medical debt or sleeping on the street? Billionaires don't create jobs; demand does. They hoard wealth offshore while workers struggle. Trickle-down is a lie, and you're either too naive or too privileged to see it.
And calling taxation theft? Please. Society functions because we pool resources. Roads, schools, firefighters—you benefit from them too. Unless you're living off-grid, you're part of the system you're criticizing. Hypocrite much?
Let's dissect this. First, the VA's failures aren't due to funding—throwing money at bureaucracy doesn't fix structural rot. The Pentagon loses billions annually, yet you trust these same institutions with healthcare? Systemic barriers exist, but your solution—confiscatory taxation—punishes success and stifles innovation. Those "hoarded" offshore funds?
They're often reinvested globally, creating opportunities even you benefit from indirectly.
As for "trickle-down," it's a strawman. Real economics is about voluntary exchange, not forced redistribution. And taxation isn't theft when limited to essential services, but your vision expands it into outright plunder to fund utopian pipedreams.
You accuse me of privilege, yet your ideology infantilizes the poor, denying their agency. Empowerment comes from meritocracy, not handouts. And yes, I benefit from roads and schools—I pay for them. But healthcare and housing? Those aren't rights; they're commodities. Redefining them as such is semantic tyranny.
Lastly, hypocrisy? I advocate for personal responsibility within the system. You want to burn it down and replace it with a leviathan. Careful—history's graveyard is full of such "noble" experiments.
You're just parroting libertarian fairy tales. The Pentagon's waste is a problem, but that doesn't mean all government is bad. You cherry-pick examples to fit your narrative. And "voluntary exchange"?
Tell that to someone dying because they can't afford insulin—how voluntary is that?
Meritocracy is a myth perpetuated by the privileged. People aren't poor because they lack ambition; they're trapped by systems designed to keep them down. Your "personal responsibility" crap ignores reality. And calling healthcare a commodity? Disgusting. Human rights aren't semantics—they're necessities. You talk about history's graveyard, but capitalism has body counts too.
Colonialism, exploitation, climate crisis—all fueled by greed. But sure, keep defending the billionaires while they laugh all the way to the bank.
Your moral posturing doesn't negate economic reality. Insulin prices are high due to FDA overregulation, not capitalism. Remove gatekeepers and watch competition slash costs. As for "systems designed to keep people down," that's conspiracy theory masquerading as analysis. The greatest poverty reducer in history? Free markets.
Human rights require negative liberties—freedom from coercion. Positive "rights" like healthcare demand others' labor and resources. That's servitude, not liberty. And capitalism's "body count"? Compare starvation rates pre- and post-industrial revolution. But no, let's romanticize pre-capitalist squalor because it fits your narrative.
Privilege? I earned my PhD through discipline. You reduce success to luck to justify confiscation. Pathetic.
Haha the lie of the market will regulate itself is funny. When does a corpo ever reduced its price ? Your so full of capitalist propaganda that crash to see.
You're delusional if you think deregulation fixes everything. The free market left unchecked leads to monopolies and exploitation. And your PhD? Congrats, but not everyone has that privilege. Most are born into circumstances they can't escape because of systemic inequality. Capitalism didn't end poverty—labor movements and regulations did. Keep bootlicking though.
Deregulation isn't anarchism—it's removing barriers to entry that crony capitalists love. Labor movements? They thrived in free markets, not socialist states. And privilege? My single mother worked three jobs. I studied by streetlight. Stop equating merit with luck. Your victim narrative insults the striving poor.
Oh wow, pulling out the "single mom" card to justify your bootstrap nonsense. Newsflash: not everyone can grind like that, especially when the system's rigged against them. Labor movements fought against free market exploitation, not within it. You're rewriting history to fit your capitalist fantasy. Keep living in denial.
Your "rigged system" mantra excuses personal failure. Labor movements succeeded in free societies where property rights allowed collective bargaining—something socialism abolishes. My mother's struggle wasn't "bootstraps"; it was seizing opportunity in a system that rewards effort. Your ideology offers only envy and stagnation.
You're just blind to your own privilege. Capitalism rewards luck, not effort. Your mom got lucky, period. And collective bargaining only works when workers have power, which capitalists constantly undermine. Keep licking those boots, Billybob.
Privilege? Luck? Your worldview is a hall of mirrors where achievement reflects oppression. Capitalism didn't "luck" my mother into working three jobs—it gave her agency. Your socialist utopias? They bulldoze agency under bureaucracy. Collective bargaining thrives in free markets; it dies when the state monopolizes labor. Keep projecting your envy onto billionaires—it's easier than admitting your ideology failed every time it was tried.
Whatever, You're just a brainwashed capitalist shill. Keep defending the billionaires while people suffer. Your "facts" are all lies anyway. I'm done with this convo you moron.
Yes it is luck that you had possibility to go study. Any health issue, accident or unknown issue and you would have failed everything thank to capitalism. You work only account for a négligeable part of you success, you can lie yo yourself as Mich as you want this will not change.
Yeah it reward effort... She made so Mich effort than you are at least billionaire now ? Or are you spouting nonsense ?
You are really lucky that your mom could afford that and that you didn't had to go work at 16 to pay things like facture linked to health issue or other. You should be thankfully of your luck. Not everyone have so much of it.
The greatest poverty reducer in history? Free markets.
Nope! That's an easily measurable metric and it's communism and it's not even close.
The vast majority of evidence for the "free markets eliminate poverty" uses cherry-picked data from specific overthrown dictatorships, and then very intentionally missatributtes china's gains to the general trend of global liberalization. With it being the largest country on earth, it makes it real easy to skew the data.
It also needs to be said that poverty rate was a thing created towards the end of the cold war to discredit communism. The fact is does the opposite is extra damning.
If you have quantifiable metrics that show otherwise that don't have the issues above feel free to share!
China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms
1.90 a day. lol
"purchasing price parity" is the key term there.
But also it makes it that much more embarrassing that in 2021 China had 0.1% of it's population under that bar while the USA had 2%
"Economy is about real exchange" so you admit that capilatism reached an end by allowing billionaires to stockpile money and freezing it out of the people hand ?
Let me ask you this—when has government-run anything not turned into a bloated, inefficient mess? You want healthcare?
Yes, there are multiple successful US government run health care systems that provide a variety of very wide coverage or stellar coverage:
And spare me the “billionaire” boogeyman. Those dragons, as you call them? They create jobs, fund innovation. Your utopia requires confiscating wealth from those who earned it to subsidize those who didn’t.
Billionaires that "earned" it did so in a society that built the civil, legal, and logistical infrastructure for them to do so. All of those things they required to "earn" it were provided for free to billionaires being citizens of this nation. So try again on the plucky bootstrapping billionaires being entitled to individual wealth never accumulated before in the history of humanity at the cost of basic food, housing, and healthcare of the rest of the nation.
Don’t just steal my catch and call it charity.
Don't worry, its not your catch anyway. I am HIGHLY confident you are not a billionaire. I believe it much more likely you're one of Steinbeck/Write's "temporarily embarrassed millionaires".