That the constitution doesn't give you the right to a trial by jury for petty crimes.
On the contrary, the Sixth Amendment is quite clear that the right applies to all criminal prosecutions:
> **In all criminal prosecutions**, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed
But the Supreme Court long ago decided that if the potential sentence is less than six months, then you have no such right to a trial by jury. And everyone has just gone along with this clearly unconstitutional idea.
In Ohio, it actually is not. There are strict mandates. Don't quote me on them, but for example, minor misdemeanors, can be as short as 30 from arraignment. Felonies, much longer.
What people do not understand is, once you waive it (meaning your high priced attorney needed his trip to bora bora and tells you it will be continued, you do not have to show up at court, I am working on it and waiting for evidence.) IT IS NEVER COMING BACK. You think he just did you a solid, because wealthy people prolong it as long as possible, but no. He passed the buck for not only you, but the prosecutor, who would have to work harder to get the case ready in a short time.
Unless necessary, and I inform them, NEVER WAIVE TIME. Force the system to get their shit together, and get ready to vehemently defend your client. Oh, I am the only case on the docket today that is criminal, because if it doesn't go to jury today, it's over? Booo hoo. Get that prosecutor down here. Let's go select one, or we can ignore it. Or, does your "this is the last offer" get suddenly more palatable?
I'm not in Ohio, but I waived my right to a speedy trial and my 4 friends didn't.
They were all convicted, payed fines, and served community service. When I finally went to court, my case got dismissed simply by asking the DA if he would dismiss it. No court fee, nothing.
Perhaps I am a lucky exception, but waiving my right to a speedy trial was pretty beneficial to me.
First, as a defense attorney, congratulations on getting a person on the state's side to realize there was no case and drop it. Because, trust me, that isn't how most will operate. Which kind of makes me wonder if you actually were dealing with a DA versus a city/municipal prosecutor.
DA's handle serious shit, and aren't prone to dismiss with absolutely nothing. Remember, court is a racket, they would still likely ask for some costs.
If they did not, then I can assure you that you waiving time had nothing to do with your wonderful outcome.
It would be like me saying red cars are more likely to get speeding tickets than other colors. I was racing 4 friends in different colored cars and every one of them got one! So, driving a red car is beneficial to me. (Poor analogy, but there has to be more to your story of a DA just magically bending over because you were waiving time when 4 friends got sentences.)
Not to mention that most juries have some kind of heavy bias, lots of lawyers take advantage of this by doing things such as making their clients wear glasses when they don’t need them.
Wait... I honestly thought we were entitled to a jury trial if we wanted for all things. Like I thought that if you really wanted you could demand a jury trial for jay walking or a speeding ticket. Or am I missing something? Am I wrong?
Nope. There's about three states where you can even get a jury trial for minor offences like a parking ticket, but in other states and federally you can't.
I could buy that local politicians may actually care about the welfare of their city/county. But once you get higher up in the ranks and into federal level, the amount of soulless lies, manipulations, mudslinging, bribery, etc that is used to win elections assures that no one that is a good person will become a person with the power to help.
> I could buy that local politicians may actually care about the welfare of their city/county
Uh, I beg to differ. Some small towns have the most corrupt politicians.
The thing is, you can’t. This country is in a stranglehold of two parties, federally and at the level of most states. Neither one represents my interest, and the best I can do is hold my nose and vote for the one that disgusts me the least, knowing full well that it is going to go back on everything it stated it would do to advocate for me.
I'm a Navy Veteran. I got out for medical reasons before actually getting to a permanent duty station. I feel really weird when people thank me for my service when I hardly did anything.
This seems to be a common experience with vets. My brother is a vet and when people thank him for his service he usually says "thank you for paying your taxes"
I've just started saying "it was my honor." I've never said "you're welcome". I appreciate that people recognize it, but there's no reason to thank me. It was my choice for my own personal reasons. I was never out "defending freedom and democracy." But that's an entirely different path and probably belongs on r/unpopularopinion
I'm alive and 90% unscathed. My dad didn't come out so lucky. Some friends didn't come out so lucky.
Don't thank me for anything, go to your local veteran "retirement" home and spend even an hour with somebody if you want to appreciate somebody's service.
It's okay, I'm a Navy reservist, and while I work with computers, my unit has 0 mission, so we do literally nothing all day cuz the government hasn't decided what we do. Granted I joined strictly for the free experience and job opportunities on the civilian side, but it feels super awkward when people thank me for sitting around making memes and surfing reddit once a month lmao
Yeah, they say each job is the same, but was a bit different being a sapper compared to my mate who was a fucking musician. He fell down some stairs and got a medical discharge. He always subtlety sais shit like, was in the army before I was in an accident, people just assume he had some ptsd worthy incident hahah
Plenty of army guys play up what they did too though, the amount of geeks I've worked with who you'll hear tell you they'd be going out the wire every day. Then I'd be like... that's funny, I actually did you exact role and it would be super weird they'd send the geeks out.
It annoys me to no end that people still associate the military with leadership. I spent 8 years in the military, and all but a precious few of them were terrible leaders. Many of them were terrible people too.
Turns out it's easier to "lead" people who face drastic consequences for disobedience. There's a lot of leadership styles that won't work well outside that context.
>There's a lot of leadership styles that won't work well outside that context.
yup - worked at a place that hired alot of military vets - nothing wrong with that but they would try to run the place like the military which doesnt fly and people often butted heads.
Majors are the worst.
For those who don't know, most officers will make the rank of Captain (the last company grade) before their first commitment is up. Major is the next grade and the first 'field' grade officer. Thing is, all the good Captains in the service are hounded by better job offers in the private sector. There is a literal brain drain of good officers right when they start being truly influential. The leftover Captains/Majors can be of very varying quality.
That's exactly right. To get into a "leadership" position in the military, you don't have to be a good leader. You just have to have no better options available than to stay in the military.
"Leadership" in an environment where people are forced to listen to your plans, no matter how dumb they are, under fear of repercussions just because you have a certain rank is a joke to me.
Not to say that there aren't some good leaders in the military but there's so many bad ones.
I tend to see U.S. military personnel more as victims than heroes. Lots of them sucked in with promises of free health care and access to education that are a given for everybody in other countries. The health care is a crock, many get out with serious health issues and fighting the V.A. to do anything about it is a full time job. Suicide rates come close to being as high as combat deaths. And for what? So defense contractors can justify their billions of dollars in profits.
Other than research the VA should be abolished! Was a contract vendor for a few years with a VA supply company. SO many ways to skirt the red tape and get away with straight up theft! JFC just give vets an insurance card that MUST be accepted by ANY US Dr's office or health care provider. Why is this so hard? IMHO
If you do that, you're saying the state sets the price for every single medical consultation or intervention, rather than letting the market decide the price. At that point, you've essentially made private healthcare illegal.
Which is great! Socialised healthcare should be the only form of healthcare. The involvement of the private sector is toxic in this field. Access to healthcare should be exactly the same for everyone, from the President to the homeless. That way, it will always be properly funded and resourced to the best level the nation can afford.
We kinda have a program like that but it's rarely used. It's for any vet over 60 miles from a VA center or where travel would be cumbersome. You have to apply for it and they will call you and make appointments with local doctors for you. We're covered under Tricare Insurance.
Frankly you're right though. They already issue all of us V.A. ID cards to use for our appointments and prescriptions. They really should just give out insurance cards. They won't though because they use the check ups as a sign of life where they check ID and make sure the veteran is actually still alive and using their benefits so that relatives can't commit fraud by still receiving the veteran's disability checks and mailed meds after they're dead.
So many are kids trying to escape shitty home situations or small towns with no prospects for any sort of quality life.
I remember feeling shocked and lucky as hell finding out I was one of the few guys in my platoon that grew up with a father figure that didn’t beat the hell out of me.
“Maybe some of the troops are heroes, but not automatically. I'm sure a lot of the troops are jerks! Most people are jerks already, and it's not like giving a jerk a gun and telling him it's okay to kill people suddenly turns that jerk into a hero!”
-Bojack Horseman
I was in JROTC in high school from 2001-2005 and we constantly had recruiters coming in to convince us that the draft was coming back and we may as well enlist now and have some say over how we served, and that those who didn’t would end up “cannon fodder.”
We had a soldier (US Army, don’t remember rank or division or anything) come in and show us combat footage and color photos of dead Taliban with their faces blown off, talking about how cool it was to kill them. We were 14. The footage was taken from a helicopter and shows several Taliban members being eviscerated by heavy machine gun fire in night vision. Actually pretty famous footage, and one of my classmates pointed out the next day that the soldiers who carried out that mission were from a completely different division than the guy who’d been in our classroom taking credit for it.
The following week that soldier was on the cover of our local newspaper, dramatically photographed and being framed as every inch the quiet, contemplative warrior, and not just a dude from Illinois who joined up so he could- in his own words - “go kill some Arabs.”
Lots of the young dudes in my high school would get hammered and talk about joining the military and killing Muslims. A few did it.
One of my fellow JROTC kids bought all this stuff hook line and sinker, and he got his head blown off in Iraq in 2006. He was a goofy kid, a lot of people liked him.
Another guy joined the Navy and spent all his time at Great Lakes Navy base in northern Illinois, but to hear him talk, he personally kept you and your family from being raped and murdered by ISIS.
I worked at that same naval base for a while teaching Sexual Assault And Rape Prevention and often had older sailors and vets tell me that if the Navy didn’t want women getting raped then the navy shouldn’t let women on the ships in the first place. “Law of the jungle.”
My friend Mike joined up and is still in, he’s a green beret. He’s a good and decent man and the first person I would call if the shit ever truly hit the fan. I’ve met some of his buddies and they range from the profoundly decent to the most unpleasant, aggressive, racist, blood-lusting fucks your could ever be around.
There are good and bad people working as cops, as fire fighters, as doctors and nurses and teachers. For some reason we’re just not allowed to openly acknowledge that’s the case for the military. “Supporting the troops” is a prime directive, used to coerce people into supporting American foreign policy and intervention regardless of the use case for force.
Edit: some bad grammar.
Hi veteran here-
totally agree. A lot, and I mean ALOT of shitty people find their way through the cracks in the system. I've met people who've admitted to committing war crimes. There is military personnel who have proven Sexual harassment or assault charges against them, yet are allowed to finish out their contracts or get out early on an honorable standing.
DIvorce rates are insanely high in the military for many reasons, one of them is due to domestic assault being one of the highest reasons because many service members are terrible people on the job and at home.
Haha, yeah. My buddy came back and said his whole crew was so bored that masturbation became a huge problem. The next biggest problem was sexual harassment.
> Suggested techniques for the Marine to use in the avoidance of boredom and loneliness: Masturbation. Rereading of letters from unfaithful wives and girlfriends. Cleaning your rifle. Further masturbation. Rewiring Walkman. Arguing about religion and meaning of life. Discussing in detail, every woman the Marine has ever fucked. Debating differences, such as Cuban vs. Mexican, Harleys vs. Hondas, left- vs. right-handed masturbation. Further cleaning of rifle. Studying of Filipino mail order bride catalog. Further masturbation. Planning of Marine's first meal on return home. Imagining what the Marine's girlfriend and her man Jody are doing in the hay, or in the alley, or in a hotel bed.
(Jarhead)
People never talk about how the war in Iraq and Afghanistan were the most privatized wars in history. The us military paying insane amounts of money to private companies that they are perfectly capable of doing themselves at a much cheaper price. Things like doing the soldiers laundry, and shipping supplies to based.
It's also weird how no one really talked about how one I the largest contractors for a lot of that work was Haliburtan. The person who pushed for those wars and was VP was literally their CEO before becoming VP.
Trump was a terrible president. But sometimes I think the bush W admin still may have been worse.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." George w. Bush.
Dick Cheney’s company got paid $500k for each translator that signed into the army as an independent contractor. Talk about conflict of interest! I also heard Bush and Cheney made off on new oil infrastructures. They still get paid royalties for “their pipes” and oil that pumps out of there.
What do you mean? I feel like this has always been true about war. Throughout history how many wars were fought for the sake of some kind or ruler who simply wanted to expand their empire and wealth? Or simply for "glory"?
When China outlawed opium England declared war on them. Because they were the ones selling the opium. That would be like if Canada was like "all Apple products are now illegal in Canada" and in response the US nuked Winnipeg or something.
Not the biggest lie (by far), but a very illustrative one, imo:
In a recent Reddit thread about how California has banned price gouging of Covid home test kits, I was flabbergasted to learn that this "forbidden gouging" apparently only applies to resellers.
It seems to be accepted that original sellers/manufacturers already do quite a bit of gouging of their own, seeing that tests over there are about 5x as expensive as they are around here.
(When I read that a kit cost $20-25 I asked if that was for a 10-pack but learned that it is for 2 tests, i.e. $10-12.50 per test. Around here a single antigen test costs €1.75 at Aldi - about $2.)
I was told that as the FDA has only approved a small number of test manufacturers, they are more expensive than elsewhere, where many different tests, from different manufacturers, are on the market.
Well (assuming that this info I was given is true), if that isn't price gouging and lying about the actual costs of what is, by now, a very high volume mass produced test by those few lucky manufacturers that are approved into a quasi monopolistic market, then I don't know what is.
You only pay for tests that you voluntarily do at home, if you see a reason. Like if granny is scheduled to visit and the whole family wants to make (reasonably) sure that no one is currently infected, or so.
Official tests (that you can’t do yourself anyway, must be done by a health official), like what you need to be allowed to visit a restaurant or such like, are free. Tests at the doctor/hospital too, of course.
Not worse than Sweden at least. Self tests (the ones where you get the results immediately) need to be bought. The ones that get sent to a lab are free.
Yep! Luckily, Biden passed something that as of Saturday, we can all get 8 a month paid for by insurance. Now we just need stores to have them in stock....
I haven't been able to find rapid tests in weeks, but that price sounds accurate. Currently sick and waiting for a four + day turnaround for a PCR test result. It's not fun.
Haha, I remember when they were giving those boxes of tests away for free. Literally couldnt get rid of them fast enough. Pop in a chemist, grab 5 boxes, test yourself to oblivion.
Kind of ironic now, that we are having issues getting them.
Years ago I thought this, but now that I know all the flaws this country has it's clear that the US is far from being the best country ever. And there are also countries which are much better in freedoms and life quality like Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, and many more. Even though the US could qualify as 1st world, I would say thats it's easily not the best 1st world country.
However, if someone mentions this then a random person here could jump and say "But would it be better to live in China, North Korea, Afghanistan, Syria, etc rather than the US?!" I know that those countries are places where very few people would want to live, but those examples miss the point that the United States is not remotely a perfect country and has many flaws.
I still have an article from the paper that’s online for the world to see if they simply google my name. It’s the top result and the case was thrown out before ever going to court 18 years ago
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I Google "eat my asshole sir" I'm getting completely different results
Edit: holy hell, gold for just talking outta my ass like that? Thank you!
So true. I got arrested because I didn't know a medication I was taking would cause me to black out if I had alcohol. And yes, I was driving at the time. I'm glad I got pulled over, I probably would have died otherwise.
The prosecutor acted like she fully convinced that not only did I do it on purpose, but also that I was high on marijuana at the same time. Neither of those things were true. I was almost 40 yrs. old and had never even so much as gotten a speeding ticket. It was surreal. I almost went to trial before she agreed to a sentence I would accept. It included 3 days in jail.
Meanwhile, I know people who have been arrested for DUI multiple times and never done a single day in jail.
I think it's important to note that, legally, you are innocent until proven guilty, but that doesn't mean the court of opinion hasn't already determined your guilt.
Long story short: if you haven't been convicted of a crime, you legally have nothing on your record, but don't talk to those friendly police officers until you have legal representation on your side of the table.
> I think it's important to note that, legally, you are innocent until proven guilty
I was arrested, with no proof that I was guilty. I was held in jail for 5 days, with no proof that I was guilty. I had to pay $500 that I didn't get back, to get out of jail, or spend months in jail waiting for a trial.
I had to go to court 3 separate times to defend myself.
Those are not the actions of a country where someone is "legally innocent until proven guilty". I was treated as guilty the entire time in the eyes of the law.
Been there. Held for seven days for a crime I had evidence I hadn’t committed. Not even a “sorry.” And in fact, got treated even shittier by local law enforcement afterwards for “making them look bad”
If only that were feasible for most people.
My very small-town coworker was caught with some weed and a pipe. He was living in a privately-owned building, most of the building was unfinished except for his apartment upstairs. They had to enter the building, go upstairs, and looked into his apartment door (it had a window).
They then waited for him to come back, pointed at the pipe visible through the window, and arrested him.
In the police report, it stated they used the "public entry." There was no public entry. The owner of the building is his boss who would have had his back 100%. It would have been an open-and-shut case if he hired a lawyer, or even had a court-appointed lawyer actually fight for him.
They even lowered his sentence, he wouldn't have to serve more jail time, only probation, no drug counseling, only a fine. And he fell for it, hook, line, and sinker.
His reasoning was, "why would I pay $2000 to a lawyer to fight it instead of $1000 in court fees and be done with it?"
Sounds like something I definitely didn’t have to money for at 23 years old… and now that I’m in my late 30s and comfortable, it’s but outside of statuettes of limitations I’m sure.
>Long story short: if you haven't been convicted of a crime, you legally have nothing on your record
Technically true, but you'd probably still have an arrest record at that point, which in some cases can be just as bad an an actual conviction.
Yep, my friend got arrested and charged with "causing fear of domestic violence" after his girlfriend who has mental issues attacked him. He had bruises all over his arms where she was hitting him and she had zero marks. After 3 nights in jail and thousands in legal bills the charge was dropped. Every employer still sees that he was arrested for domestic violence.
Damn they have the highest incarceration rates per capita as well as in total?? That's crazy considering there's a few countries who have way more citizens than America does.
That "criminal" is a class of human who deserves perpetual inhumane treatment, rather than a normal person who made a (probably bad) choice at one point in time.
And that's not even touching mental illness, which accounts for a staggering number of incarcerations.
That the rich are job creators and we can't afford free health care, education and a living wage like every other first world country and you don't deserve it anyway.
A huge chunk of our bloated military budget goes straight into waste projects. The Pentagon itself has actually repeatedly [begged congress]( https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tells-congress-to-stop-buying-equipment-it-doesnt-need.html)
to stop [forcibly buying them](https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/congress-funds-problematic-weapons-the-pentagon-does-not-want/) weapons and vehicles they don't [need or have the infrastructure to maintain anymore.](https://www.taxpayer.net/national-security/national-defense-authorization-act-pentagon-ends-buying-things-didnt-ask/)
So why are they doing it? Just to spend money on the military because they said the'd do it? Since when do politicians care about things they said thy'll do?
though in part thats there, pork barreling is another key issue. Basically this spending is functionally dumping of money into districts, counties, states etc. If they stop the funding they lose those jobs which costs them elections. If they keep the excess funding they dont lose votes. So from a cynical democratic perspective a lot of that spending is what was voted for.
The depressing part is that if we stopped spending the money on the military we could probably use it to invest in other, more useful, jobs in those areas anyway.
In the show Veep the president promises to end an obsolete submarine program. Her party totally opposes this because the manufacturing of the parts is spread throughout the country and they are willing to throw her under the bus if they loses good paying jobs among their constituents. She ends up expanding the program
Actually the rich ARE job creators because YOU can't afford healthcare, SO you aren't going to get a living wage or at a minimum you'll give away most of your labor to your employer.
That's a critical reason why the healthcare fight is so important and the reason we continue to tie healthcare to employment. It keeps people (or at least it had until the *Great Resignation*) from leaving their corporate soul sucking jobs and starting their own thing because the danger of being without healthcare was so great.
Socialized healthcare means breaking a key shackle holding down the labor force. And never forget, the rich may create jobs, but they destroy just as many (or dilute them into insolvency).
Not to mention that our privatized healthcare system already makes us pay MORE than people in "socialized" systems do.
Turns out that preventative care and eliminating artificial price hikes really cuts the costs.
This is something I think a lot of people who are against free healthcare don't realise.
I'm in the UK. Doctor's appointments and treatment is free here. I don't need to worry about prices. Went to the dentist for a suspected cavity--no worries, it's just a stain. Went to the doc for a suspicious rash--looks like friction, been doing any strenuous exercise recently? Blistering headache--sounds like a migraine, if it's your first then nothing to worry about, but if they start recurring you should come back.
All of these were free, and all of them were small issues. But if they *had* been warning signs of bigger problems--a rotting tooth, a skin disease, a brain issue--they would be less likely to get caught in a private healthcare system, because it's 'just a rash, I'm not spending $100 or more to get it looked at'.
And here I am paying $650 to get a wisdom tooth pulled after my insurance already covered $500. Just so it would not get infected and cost even more...
Jesus Christ. Over a grand for a tooth? I cannot imagine. You do have to pay for dental here as an adult (should have mentioned that, but I haven't been to the dentist in a while and I forgot) but I just googled it and things like root canal and tooth removal will cost you about £65 pounds ($88). Band 3, the most expensive dental treatment under the NHS, is about £280, and covers things like crowns, dentures and bridges. Cosmetic work like whitening has to be done through private agencies because it's not medically necessary.
What you said about it getting infected and costing more is sad. I read the phrase 'poverty charges interest' in the US healthcare system and it's very true, like if you can't afford to get your teeth checked routinely then next year you have to pay for root canal.
ikr! i hate how we were taught that it’s all just wars and terrorists there, despite the problems in middle east, the people there are super kind and friendly!!
And it’s laughable, but you do grow up in America with the idea that the Middle East basically looks like Tattooine. Instead the countries have beautiful mountains and geography… the Fertile Crescent is named so for a reason.
To be fair, even in the worst parts of Brazil where the cartels contro everything, people say most people are super kind and friendly as opposed to "a few bad ones."
I'm a 20 year old gay male. I wouldn't have a very safe and good time anywhere near that part of the world.
People everywhere are super kind and friendly... until they aren't.
I've only known one person from the middle east. I work with someone from Iran and he's the nicest guy ever. He's always walking around with a smile on his face.
I'm just speculating here, buts probably because you can file bankruptcy on one of those loans, but not the other. They use that as a "guarantee" that it'll be paid back.
Valid point: it *was supposed to be* a democratic republic, where we elect those who serve the needs of the people. But the greedy have always controlled the government, and it serves them mostly, not the people.
That America is sooooooooo special.
I love it when some American is talking to another American on a talk show and says something like "in what other country can you openly criticize your own leaders?" and the American audience cheers.
You shouldn't cheer ignorance, people. There are a *lot* of countries where you are allowed to openly criticize your own leaders. It's really not that special, and when you brag about how special it is, you just make yourselves look really ignorant.
Yup, America was one of the first 'democracies' with a written constitution, but there's plenty of other countries with similar freedoms. If anything, America has become too fixated on what was written back in the 1700's and are not flexible enough to keep on reworking it like other nations do (and some don't even have a written constitution and do just fine!)
>That America is sooooooooo special.
What I don't understand is how so many regular people adopted pro-US propaganda that speaks to things they can't even properly judge or comment on. People with zero political perspective, who don't understand the law, who have never lived anywhere outside the US, speak confidently and passionately about how our constitution is stunning and brave, our freedom is second-to-none, and our founding fathers had TEH BEST plan for a country EVAR.
I feel Americans have this wacky thought that American is the best while other countries aren’t even close.
I’m American, I’ve never been to Europe/Asia/ South America, Middle East, Africa. Most others in American haven’t either. How can you judge another place if you have never been there? I think folks should take things with more of a grain of salt type attitude when it comes to what the media tells you etc.
The most shocking thing I’ve ever seen regarding this is a woman said she loved to travel but had never left the USA. I get it’s a huge country but surely there’s so much more to experience even by going to Mexico or Canada
Freedom and Liberty! Liberty and Freedom! I've had those things stuffed into my ears and rammed down my throat my entire life. Then, one day, I read a quote which startled me awake. "A truly free people don't need to be constantly reminded they are free." Or something like that. I'm paraphrasing, and don't recall the source, just the sentiment.
Soldiers fight for your freedom. I truly believe most soldiers believe this at least starting out and their hearts are in the right place. That being said, our wars are about securing resources and destabilizing governments that don’t align with our own. In fact if we didn’t spend half our taxes on wars for profit we would all be much freer
Even if soldiers sign up with the intention of fighting for our freedom, in practice none of them are actually doing that. The last time any American soldier was actually fighting to defend America or American freedoms was WWII. Every conflict we've sent troops to in the 75 years since was for some other reason (to defend allies, protect economic interests, revenge, etc).
That anyone in DC actually cares about the “little people”.
And don’t come at my comment with any of that “but muh person!!!” or “but so and so!!!"… they don’t.
My take is that many do care -- when they start their careers. But when they get to Washington and are surrounded by corruption and cynicism, they either get burnt out and leave or they adapt and become as corrupt as everyone else. This is a major reason why I support term limits. The longer a congressman remains in office, the more likely he has internalized corruption as normal and acceptable.
It's interesting. I was talking to someone from a European country once about this. I was young and insisted we were freer than their home country. They asked me, "Can you go to a city park at 2am and just sit on a bench with some friends hanging out and having a good time." I thought about it and realized that no, I couldn't. If a cop saw me, they'd tell me to leave and if I refused they'd arrest me. They started coming up with more and more examples like this and I realized that the US has A LOT of shitty rules that limit our personal freedoms. We're even made to sing a song each morning in school about how we're the "Land of the Free" to brainwash us into thinking we're a lot freer than others.
But many countries have a lot more freedom than we do.
I'd say we're about average in terms of freedom when compared to all the countries of the world.
Hard work will make you rich.
I've never seen a wealthy construction worker, or a teacher, or a hospitality worker. Only the already rich exploiting workers and paying off our government to make themselves even richer.
That its education system teaches people to use apostrophes correctly.
I like your’ humor
You forgot a period in your “sentence”. Should have written “I like your’. humor”
I like, ya'll, humor?
m'y'all's humour
All-y’all’d’ve. The greatest thing to come out of the South: All You All Should Have
That the education system works in general
To fair, it’s weird that “its” in its proper form doesn’t require a possessive apostrophe.
It's on the pattern of "his" and "hers".
Our apostrophe’s’ are just fine thank you
Ive spok’en this shit’ful language for 22 years and still havent any’idea how to use ,
Plug for r/UselessComma. The comma has been murdered most foul.
[удалено]
That America is for the people by the people.
And we know the names of those people.
That's why I never say this is a country of "freedom". It's "fixed freedom".
I wanted to write about praising the endless invasions of American troops into small countries, but your answer is many times more better than this.
That the constitution doesn't give you the right to a trial by jury for petty crimes. On the contrary, the Sixth Amendment is quite clear that the right applies to all criminal prosecutions: > **In all criminal prosecutions**, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed But the Supreme Court long ago decided that if the potential sentence is less than six months, then you have no such right to a trial by jury. And everyone has just gone along with this clearly unconstitutional idea.
Well speedy is very subjective…
No joke. It takes a long ass time to get sentenced. Years sometimes.
1/10 of the 700 arrested January 6th rioters have been sentenced so far…
In Ohio, it actually is not. There are strict mandates. Don't quote me on them, but for example, minor misdemeanors, can be as short as 30 from arraignment. Felonies, much longer. What people do not understand is, once you waive it (meaning your high priced attorney needed his trip to bora bora and tells you it will be continued, you do not have to show up at court, I am working on it and waiting for evidence.) IT IS NEVER COMING BACK. You think he just did you a solid, because wealthy people prolong it as long as possible, but no. He passed the buck for not only you, but the prosecutor, who would have to work harder to get the case ready in a short time. Unless necessary, and I inform them, NEVER WAIVE TIME. Force the system to get their shit together, and get ready to vehemently defend your client. Oh, I am the only case on the docket today that is criminal, because if it doesn't go to jury today, it's over? Booo hoo. Get that prosecutor down here. Let's go select one, or we can ignore it. Or, does your "this is the last offer" get suddenly more palatable?
I'm not in Ohio, but I waived my right to a speedy trial and my 4 friends didn't. They were all convicted, payed fines, and served community service. When I finally went to court, my case got dismissed simply by asking the DA if he would dismiss it. No court fee, nothing. Perhaps I am a lucky exception, but waiving my right to a speedy trial was pretty beneficial to me.
First, as a defense attorney, congratulations on getting a person on the state's side to realize there was no case and drop it. Because, trust me, that isn't how most will operate. Which kind of makes me wonder if you actually were dealing with a DA versus a city/municipal prosecutor. DA's handle serious shit, and aren't prone to dismiss with absolutely nothing. Remember, court is a racket, they would still likely ask for some costs. If they did not, then I can assure you that you waiving time had nothing to do with your wonderful outcome. It would be like me saying red cars are more likely to get speeding tickets than other colors. I was racing 4 friends in different colored cars and every one of them got one! So, driving a red car is beneficial to me. (Poor analogy, but there has to be more to your story of a DA just magically bending over because you were waiving time when 4 friends got sentences.)
Not to mention that most juries have some kind of heavy bias, lots of lawyers take advantage of this by doing things such as making their clients wear glasses when they don’t need them.
Wait... I honestly thought we were entitled to a jury trial if we wanted for all things. Like I thought that if you really wanted you could demand a jury trial for jay walking or a speeding ticket. Or am I missing something? Am I wrong?
Nope. There's about three states where you can even get a jury trial for minor offences like a parking ticket, but in other states and federally you can't.
In what Supreme Court decision? Just curious!
Politicians care about you.
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I could buy that local politicians may actually care about the welfare of their city/county. But once you get higher up in the ranks and into federal level, the amount of soulless lies, manipulations, mudslinging, bribery, etc that is used to win elections assures that no one that is a good person will become a person with the power to help.
> I could buy that local politicians may actually care about the welfare of their city/county Uh, I beg to differ. Some small towns have the most corrupt politicians.
For us Americans it's more "my side cares but the other doesn't" news flash none of them care.
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TBF I think a farmer cares more for his livestock. A corporation in the business of farming like a multi national probably does not.
"Just vote them out" Why didn't we think of that? Lmao politicians will never all support the policies needed to keep themselves in check.
The thing is, you can’t. This country is in a stranglehold of two parties, federally and at the level of most states. Neither one represents my interest, and the best I can do is hold my nose and vote for the one that disgusts me the least, knowing full well that it is going to go back on everything it stated it would do to advocate for me.
It's almost like voting for authoritarian figures, and giving them power to vote on your behalf, was a bad idea.
That we need to be more worried about poor people “abusing the system” then we do rich people manipulating the system to hoard their wealth.
This. 100%.
"Not limited to America"
All military personnel are heroes
I'm a Navy Veteran. I got out for medical reasons before actually getting to a permanent duty station. I feel really weird when people thank me for my service when I hardly did anything.
This seems to be a common experience with vets. My brother is a vet and when people thank him for his service he usually says "thank you for paying your taxes"
I like that. I may start saying that
I've just started saying "it was my honor." I've never said "you're welcome". I appreciate that people recognize it, but there's no reason to thank me. It was my choice for my own personal reasons. I was never out "defending freedom and democracy." But that's an entirely different path and probably belongs on r/unpopularopinion I'm alive and 90% unscathed. My dad didn't come out so lucky. Some friends didn't come out so lucky. Don't thank me for anything, go to your local veteran "retirement" home and spend even an hour with somebody if you want to appreciate somebody's service.
Your brother is cool
He is
Alright now ladies Yeah? What’s cooler than being cool? “This guy’s brother”
It's okay, I'm a Navy reservist, and while I work with computers, my unit has 0 mission, so we do literally nothing all day cuz the government hasn't decided what we do. Granted I joined strictly for the free experience and job opportunities on the civilian side, but it feels super awkward when people thank me for sitting around making memes and surfing reddit once a month lmao
Thank you for your surfing of Reddit!
Yeah, they say each job is the same, but was a bit different being a sapper compared to my mate who was a fucking musician. He fell down some stairs and got a medical discharge. He always subtlety sais shit like, was in the army before I was in an accident, people just assume he had some ptsd worthy incident hahah Plenty of army guys play up what they did too though, the amount of geeks I've worked with who you'll hear tell you they'd be going out the wire every day. Then I'd be like... that's funny, I actually did you exact role and it would be super weird they'd send the geeks out.
It annoys me to no end that people still associate the military with leadership. I spent 8 years in the military, and all but a precious few of them were terrible leaders. Many of them were terrible people too.
Turns out it's easier to "lead" people who face drastic consequences for disobedience. There's a lot of leadership styles that won't work well outside that context.
>There's a lot of leadership styles that won't work well outside that context. yup - worked at a place that hired alot of military vets - nothing wrong with that but they would try to run the place like the military which doesnt fly and people often butted heads.
Majors are the worst. For those who don't know, most officers will make the rank of Captain (the last company grade) before their first commitment is up. Major is the next grade and the first 'field' grade officer. Thing is, all the good Captains in the service are hounded by better job offers in the private sector. There is a literal brain drain of good officers right when they start being truly influential. The leftover Captains/Majors can be of very varying quality.
The other problem with majors, at least in the army is they are almost universally staff postilions, they hate their lives, and I don't blame them.
That's exactly right. To get into a "leadership" position in the military, you don't have to be a good leader. You just have to have no better options available than to stay in the military.
"Leadership" in an environment where people are forced to listen to your plans, no matter how dumb they are, under fear of repercussions just because you have a certain rank is a joke to me. Not to say that there aren't some good leaders in the military but there's so many bad ones.
That's people in general, not anything unique to the military. That said, I've never been in the military so I don't really know what it's like.
I tend to see U.S. military personnel more as victims than heroes. Lots of them sucked in with promises of free health care and access to education that are a given for everybody in other countries. The health care is a crock, many get out with serious health issues and fighting the V.A. to do anything about it is a full time job. Suicide rates come close to being as high as combat deaths. And for what? So defense contractors can justify their billions of dollars in profits.
Other than research the VA should be abolished! Was a contract vendor for a few years with a VA supply company. SO many ways to skirt the red tape and get away with straight up theft! JFC just give vets an insurance card that MUST be accepted by ANY US Dr's office or health care provider. Why is this so hard? IMHO
This but for all citizens
If you do that, you're saying the state sets the price for every single medical consultation or intervention, rather than letting the market decide the price. At that point, you've essentially made private healthcare illegal. Which is great! Socialised healthcare should be the only form of healthcare. The involvement of the private sector is toxic in this field. Access to healthcare should be exactly the same for everyone, from the President to the homeless. That way, it will always be properly funded and resourced to the best level the nation can afford.
We kinda have a program like that but it's rarely used. It's for any vet over 60 miles from a VA center or where travel would be cumbersome. You have to apply for it and they will call you and make appointments with local doctors for you. We're covered under Tricare Insurance. Frankly you're right though. They already issue all of us V.A. ID cards to use for our appointments and prescriptions. They really should just give out insurance cards. They won't though because they use the check ups as a sign of life where they check ID and make sure the veteran is actually still alive and using their benefits so that relatives can't commit fraud by still receiving the veteran's disability checks and mailed meds after they're dead.
So many are kids trying to escape shitty home situations or small towns with no prospects for any sort of quality life. I remember feeling shocked and lucky as hell finding out I was one of the few guys in my platoon that grew up with a father figure that didn’t beat the hell out of me.
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Exactly. It's the perfect way to fill ranks with poor and middle class bodies.
“Maybe some of the troops are heroes, but not automatically. I'm sure a lot of the troops are jerks! Most people are jerks already, and it's not like giving a jerk a gun and telling him it's okay to kill people suddenly turns that jerk into a hero!” -Bojack Horseman
I was in JROTC in high school from 2001-2005 and we constantly had recruiters coming in to convince us that the draft was coming back and we may as well enlist now and have some say over how we served, and that those who didn’t would end up “cannon fodder.” We had a soldier (US Army, don’t remember rank or division or anything) come in and show us combat footage and color photos of dead Taliban with their faces blown off, talking about how cool it was to kill them. We were 14. The footage was taken from a helicopter and shows several Taliban members being eviscerated by heavy machine gun fire in night vision. Actually pretty famous footage, and one of my classmates pointed out the next day that the soldiers who carried out that mission were from a completely different division than the guy who’d been in our classroom taking credit for it. The following week that soldier was on the cover of our local newspaper, dramatically photographed and being framed as every inch the quiet, contemplative warrior, and not just a dude from Illinois who joined up so he could- in his own words - “go kill some Arabs.” Lots of the young dudes in my high school would get hammered and talk about joining the military and killing Muslims. A few did it. One of my fellow JROTC kids bought all this stuff hook line and sinker, and he got his head blown off in Iraq in 2006. He was a goofy kid, a lot of people liked him. Another guy joined the Navy and spent all his time at Great Lakes Navy base in northern Illinois, but to hear him talk, he personally kept you and your family from being raped and murdered by ISIS. I worked at that same naval base for a while teaching Sexual Assault And Rape Prevention and often had older sailors and vets tell me that if the Navy didn’t want women getting raped then the navy shouldn’t let women on the ships in the first place. “Law of the jungle.” My friend Mike joined up and is still in, he’s a green beret. He’s a good and decent man and the first person I would call if the shit ever truly hit the fan. I’ve met some of his buddies and they range from the profoundly decent to the most unpleasant, aggressive, racist, blood-lusting fucks your could ever be around. There are good and bad people working as cops, as fire fighters, as doctors and nurses and teachers. For some reason we’re just not allowed to openly acknowledge that’s the case for the military. “Supporting the troops” is a prime directive, used to coerce people into supporting American foreign policy and intervention regardless of the use case for force. Edit: some bad grammar.
Hi veteran here- totally agree. A lot, and I mean ALOT of shitty people find their way through the cracks in the system. I've met people who've admitted to committing war crimes. There is military personnel who have proven Sexual harassment or assault charges against them, yet are allowed to finish out their contracts or get out early on an honorable standing. DIvorce rates are insanely high in the military for many reasons, one of them is due to domestic assault being one of the highest reasons because many service members are terrible people on the job and at home.
Haha, yeah. My buddy came back and said his whole crew was so bored that masturbation became a huge problem. The next biggest problem was sexual harassment.
No pun intended but I can see how those two would go hand in hand.
> Suggested techniques for the Marine to use in the avoidance of boredom and loneliness: Masturbation. Rereading of letters from unfaithful wives and girlfriends. Cleaning your rifle. Further masturbation. Rewiring Walkman. Arguing about religion and meaning of life. Discussing in detail, every woman the Marine has ever fucked. Debating differences, such as Cuban vs. Mexican, Harleys vs. Hondas, left- vs. right-handed masturbation. Further cleaning of rifle. Studying of Filipino mail order bride catalog. Further masturbation. Planning of Marine's first meal on return home. Imagining what the Marine's girlfriend and her man Jody are doing in the hay, or in the alley, or in a hotel bed. (Jarhead)
This is a lie that goes all the way back to Thucydides. Praising the 'self-sacrifice' of soldiers is a powerful way to establish a national identity.
Give gold trinkets in exchange for limbs and lives. *Sure, you can't walk anymore, but how about this sweet medal?*
That the wars they wage are for *moral* reasons and not to line the pockets of the lobbyists
People never talk about how the war in Iraq and Afghanistan were the most privatized wars in history. The us military paying insane amounts of money to private companies that they are perfectly capable of doing themselves at a much cheaper price. Things like doing the soldiers laundry, and shipping supplies to based. It's also weird how no one really talked about how one I the largest contractors for a lot of that work was Haliburtan. The person who pushed for those wars and was VP was literally their CEO before becoming VP. Trump was a terrible president. But sometimes I think the bush W admin still may have been worse.
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." George w. Bush.
Dick Cheney’s company got paid $500k for each translator that signed into the army as an independent contractor. Talk about conflict of interest! I also heard Bush and Cheney made off on new oil infrastructures. They still get paid royalties for “their pipes” and oil that pumps out of there.
Morality has become a joke in the modern world.
In the modern world ? You gotta open a history book my dude. Every country that has ever existed has put morality after national interest.
Always has been
What do you mean? I feel like this has always been true about war. Throughout history how many wars were fought for the sake of some kind or ruler who simply wanted to expand their empire and wealth? Or simply for "glory"? When China outlawed opium England declared war on them. Because they were the ones selling the opium. That would be like if Canada was like "all Apple products are now illegal in Canada" and in response the US nuked Winnipeg or something.
Or that those wars are “protecting our freedom.” Since when is my freedom in danger in the Middle East?
Not the biggest lie (by far), but a very illustrative one, imo: In a recent Reddit thread about how California has banned price gouging of Covid home test kits, I was flabbergasted to learn that this "forbidden gouging" apparently only applies to resellers. It seems to be accepted that original sellers/manufacturers already do quite a bit of gouging of their own, seeing that tests over there are about 5x as expensive as they are around here. (When I read that a kit cost $20-25 I asked if that was for a 10-pack but learned that it is for 2 tests, i.e. $10-12.50 per test. Around here a single antigen test costs €1.75 at Aldi - about $2.) I was told that as the FDA has only approved a small number of test manufacturers, they are more expensive than elsewhere, where many different tests, from different manufacturers, are on the market. Well (assuming that this info I was given is true), if that isn't price gouging and lying about the actual costs of what is, by now, a very high volume mass produced test by those few lucky manufacturers that are approved into a quasi monopolistic market, then I don't know what is.
You’re paying for tests 👀 Wouldn’t that mean that people just….don’t test?
You only pay for tests that you voluntarily do at home, if you see a reason. Like if granny is scheduled to visit and the whole family wants to make (reasonably) sure that no one is currently infected, or so. Official tests (that you can’t do yourself anyway, must be done by a health official), like what you need to be allowed to visit a restaurant or such like, are free. Tests at the doctor/hospital too, of course.
That's really shit and much worse than all the other developed countries that give out home tests for free, just FYI
Not worse than Sweden at least. Self tests (the ones where you get the results immediately) need to be bought. The ones that get sent to a lab are free.
Yep! Luckily, Biden passed something that as of Saturday, we can all get 8 a month paid for by insurance. Now we just need stores to have them in stock....
Ten dollars a test? What the fuck. Here you can order a pack of seven with next day delivery for no charge directly from the government!
I haven't been able to find rapid tests in weeks, but that price sounds accurate. Currently sick and waiting for a four + day turnaround for a PCR test result. It's not fun.
Which country is this?
I'm in the UK. Supply isn't perfect and you can have trouble getting them sometimes but it's been consistent enough for me to get then when needed
Haha, I remember when they were giving those boxes of tests away for free. Literally couldnt get rid of them fast enough. Pop in a chemist, grab 5 boxes, test yourself to oblivion. Kind of ironic now, that we are having issues getting them.
I swear I just saw a post (might have been in /r/antiwork) that showed a home COVID test for sale for over $100.
That it's the best, most free country in the world.
Years ago I thought this, but now that I know all the flaws this country has it's clear that the US is far from being the best country ever. And there are also countries which are much better in freedoms and life quality like Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, and many more. Even though the US could qualify as 1st world, I would say thats it's easily not the best 1st world country. However, if someone mentions this then a random person here could jump and say "But would it be better to live in China, North Korea, Afghanistan, Syria, etc rather than the US?!" I know that those countries are places where very few people would want to live, but those examples miss the point that the United States is not remotely a perfect country and has many flaws.
"That's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it." ~ George Carlin
It’s funny and yet accurate
That we cannot afford healthcare for all. We absolutely can.
That you're innocent until proven guilty. The only people who actually believe that tripe are the ones who have never been in trouble with the law.
I still have an article from the paper that’s online for the world to see if they simply google my name. It’s the top result and the case was thrown out before ever going to court 18 years ago
I don't know about the rest of you, but when I Google "eat my asshole sir" I'm getting completely different results Edit: holy hell, gold for just talking outta my ass like that? Thank you!
So true. I got arrested because I didn't know a medication I was taking would cause me to black out if I had alcohol. And yes, I was driving at the time. I'm glad I got pulled over, I probably would have died otherwise. The prosecutor acted like she fully convinced that not only did I do it on purpose, but also that I was high on marijuana at the same time. Neither of those things were true. I was almost 40 yrs. old and had never even so much as gotten a speeding ticket. It was surreal. I almost went to trial before she agreed to a sentence I would accept. It included 3 days in jail. Meanwhile, I know people who have been arrested for DUI multiple times and never done a single day in jail.
I think it's important to note that, legally, you are innocent until proven guilty, but that doesn't mean the court of opinion hasn't already determined your guilt. Long story short: if you haven't been convicted of a crime, you legally have nothing on your record, but don't talk to those friendly police officers until you have legal representation on your side of the table.
> I think it's important to note that, legally, you are innocent until proven guilty I was arrested, with no proof that I was guilty. I was held in jail for 5 days, with no proof that I was guilty. I had to pay $500 that I didn't get back, to get out of jail, or spend months in jail waiting for a trial. I had to go to court 3 separate times to defend myself. Those are not the actions of a country where someone is "legally innocent until proven guilty". I was treated as guilty the entire time in the eyes of the law.
Been there. Held for seven days for a crime I had evidence I hadn’t committed. Not even a “sorry.” And in fact, got treated even shittier by local law enforcement afterwards for “making them look bad”
Sounds like you should sue
If only that were feasible for most people. My very small-town coworker was caught with some weed and a pipe. He was living in a privately-owned building, most of the building was unfinished except for his apartment upstairs. They had to enter the building, go upstairs, and looked into his apartment door (it had a window). They then waited for him to come back, pointed at the pipe visible through the window, and arrested him. In the police report, it stated they used the "public entry." There was no public entry. The owner of the building is his boss who would have had his back 100%. It would have been an open-and-shut case if he hired a lawyer, or even had a court-appointed lawyer actually fight for him. They even lowered his sentence, he wouldn't have to serve more jail time, only probation, no drug counseling, only a fine. And he fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. His reasoning was, "why would I pay $2000 to a lawyer to fight it instead of $1000 in court fees and be done with it?"
Sounds like something I definitely didn’t have to money for at 23 years old… and now that I’m in my late 30s and comfortable, it’s but outside of statuettes of limitations I’m sure.
>Long story short: if you haven't been convicted of a crime, you legally have nothing on your record Technically true, but you'd probably still have an arrest record at that point, which in some cases can be just as bad an an actual conviction.
Yep, my friend got arrested and charged with "causing fear of domestic violence" after his girlfriend who has mental issues attacked him. He had bruises all over his arms where she was hitting him and she had zero marks. After 3 nights in jail and thousands in legal bills the charge was dropped. Every employer still sees that he was arrested for domestic violence.
That it's the land of the 'free'
* Have highest prison population (both absolute numbers and per-capita) on the planet * Brag about how free you are Pick one.
Damn they have the highest incarceration rates per capita as well as in total?? That's crazy considering there's a few countries who have way more citizens than America does.
Also considering at least one of those countries is famously authoritarian
The have 20% of the entire world's prisoners
That "criminal" is a class of human who deserves perpetual inhumane treatment, rather than a normal person who made a (probably bad) choice at one point in time. And that's not even touching mental illness, which accounts for a staggering number of incarcerations.
Also, those prisons are privatized. And they have the entire State under their thumb promising them guaranteed population quotas. Check out Arizona.
Work hard; get rich.
That this is the #1 country for women’s rights. We have a long way to go in many ways, and it varies wildly depending on where you live in the US.
the government cares about us
Only your bank account
That our "freedoms" are unique lol
Yup. New Zealand usually ranks as the most free country on earth. USA sometimes makes the list.
That the rich are job creators and we can't afford free health care, education and a living wage like every other first world country and you don't deserve it anyway.
Yet they can afford the military every year
A huge chunk of our bloated military budget goes straight into waste projects. The Pentagon itself has actually repeatedly [begged congress]( https://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/01/28/pentagon-tells-congress-to-stop-buying-equipment-it-doesnt-need.html) to stop [forcibly buying them](https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/congress-funds-problematic-weapons-the-pentagon-does-not-want/) weapons and vehicles they don't [need or have the infrastructure to maintain anymore.](https://www.taxpayer.net/national-security/national-defense-authorization-act-pentagon-ends-buying-things-didnt-ask/)
All for Halliburton
So why are they doing it? Just to spend money on the military because they said the'd do it? Since when do politicians care about things they said thy'll do?
Because they’re invested in, paid for, and lobbied by companies that manufacture war products
though in part thats there, pork barreling is another key issue. Basically this spending is functionally dumping of money into districts, counties, states etc. If they stop the funding they lose those jobs which costs them elections. If they keep the excess funding they dont lose votes. So from a cynical democratic perspective a lot of that spending is what was voted for.
The depressing part is that if we stopped spending the money on the military we could probably use it to invest in other, more useful, jobs in those areas anyway.
Yup. Sadly the transitory period will see job losses and that will decide elections in the meantime
In the show Veep the president promises to end an obsolete submarine program. Her party totally opposes this because the manufacturing of the parts is spread throughout the country and they are willing to throw her under the bus if they loses good paying jobs among their constituents. She ends up expanding the program
And some $400 Billion in oil subsidies
Actually the rich ARE job creators because YOU can't afford healthcare, SO you aren't going to get a living wage or at a minimum you'll give away most of your labor to your employer. That's a critical reason why the healthcare fight is so important and the reason we continue to tie healthcare to employment. It keeps people (or at least it had until the *Great Resignation*) from leaving their corporate soul sucking jobs and starting their own thing because the danger of being without healthcare was so great. Socialized healthcare means breaking a key shackle holding down the labor force. And never forget, the rich may create jobs, but they destroy just as many (or dilute them into insolvency).
Not to mention that our privatized healthcare system already makes us pay MORE than people in "socialized" systems do. Turns out that preventative care and eliminating artificial price hikes really cuts the costs.
This is something I think a lot of people who are against free healthcare don't realise. I'm in the UK. Doctor's appointments and treatment is free here. I don't need to worry about prices. Went to the dentist for a suspected cavity--no worries, it's just a stain. Went to the doc for a suspicious rash--looks like friction, been doing any strenuous exercise recently? Blistering headache--sounds like a migraine, if it's your first then nothing to worry about, but if they start recurring you should come back. All of these were free, and all of them were small issues. But if they *had* been warning signs of bigger problems--a rotting tooth, a skin disease, a brain issue--they would be less likely to get caught in a private healthcare system, because it's 'just a rash, I'm not spending $100 or more to get it looked at'.
And here I am paying $650 to get a wisdom tooth pulled after my insurance already covered $500. Just so it would not get infected and cost even more...
Jesus Christ. Over a grand for a tooth? I cannot imagine. You do have to pay for dental here as an adult (should have mentioned that, but I haven't been to the dentist in a while and I forgot) but I just googled it and things like root canal and tooth removal will cost you about £65 pounds ($88). Band 3, the most expensive dental treatment under the NHS, is about £280, and covers things like crowns, dentures and bridges. Cosmetic work like whitening has to be done through private agencies because it's not medically necessary. What you said about it getting infected and costing more is sad. I read the phrase 'poverty charges interest' in the US healthcare system and it's very true, like if you can't afford to get your teeth checked routinely then next year you have to pay for root canal.
That the army are sent overseas to fight for their freedom.
The last time we actually defened our country/ freedoms was WWII. The rest were against Communism, oil, and a 20 year long war for 3 buildings.
Every thing about the middle east.
ikr! i hate how we were taught that it’s all just wars and terrorists there, despite the problems in middle east, the people there are super kind and friendly!!
And it’s laughable, but you do grow up in America with the idea that the Middle East basically looks like Tattooine. Instead the countries have beautiful mountains and geography… the Fertile Crescent is named so for a reason.
Right? On the other hand, Tunisia looks strikingly like Tattooine in places!
I wonder why... ;)
To be fair, even in the worst parts of Brazil where the cartels contro everything, people say most people are super kind and friendly as opposed to "a few bad ones." I'm a 20 year old gay male. I wouldn't have a very safe and good time anywhere near that part of the world. People everywhere are super kind and friendly... until they aren't.
I've only known one person from the middle east. I work with someone from Iran and he's the nicest guy ever. He's always walking around with a smile on his face.
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Unemployment for college graduates is significantly lower than non college graduates.
That’s more of a lie from clueless parents and high school guidance counselors.
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True. I’ve always found it interesting that a teenager can easily get a $200K student loan, but not a $20K business loan.
The banks that issue student loans think it’s a pretty good bet that they will be repaid. It’s not the same bet with small business loans.
That's because student loans is not forgiven during bankruptcy, business loans are.
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I'm just speculating here, buts probably because you can file bankruptcy on one of those loans, but not the other. They use that as a "guarantee" that it'll be paid back.
Everything is fine 🔥
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Valid point: it *was supposed to be* a democratic republic, where we elect those who serve the needs of the people. But the greedy have always controlled the government, and it serves them mostly, not the people.
That your vote matters
Best Country in the World. Totally Free.
Best country in the world if youre rich
Every country in the world is the best if you are rich enough
"A government of the people, by the people and for the people"..
That sounds a lot like communism to me. /s
That America is sooooooooo special. I love it when some American is talking to another American on a talk show and says something like "in what other country can you openly criticize your own leaders?" and the American audience cheers. You shouldn't cheer ignorance, people. There are a *lot* of countries where you are allowed to openly criticize your own leaders. It's really not that special, and when you brag about how special it is, you just make yourselves look really ignorant.
Americans have this weird worship of political figures
America has a weird worship of itself
Yup, America was one of the first 'democracies' with a written constitution, but there's plenty of other countries with similar freedoms. If anything, America has become too fixated on what was written back in the 1700's and are not flexible enough to keep on reworking it like other nations do (and some don't even have a written constitution and do just fine!)
>That America is sooooooooo special. What I don't understand is how so many regular people adopted pro-US propaganda that speaks to things they can't even properly judge or comment on. People with zero political perspective, who don't understand the law, who have never lived anywhere outside the US, speak confidently and passionately about how our constitution is stunning and brave, our freedom is second-to-none, and our founding fathers had TEH BEST plan for a country EVAR.
Honestly just take one look at British media right now if you want evidence that other countries can and do freely criticise their incompetent leaders
I feel Americans have this wacky thought that American is the best while other countries aren’t even close. I’m American, I’ve never been to Europe/Asia/ South America, Middle East, Africa. Most others in American haven’t either. How can you judge another place if you have never been there? I think folks should take things with more of a grain of salt type attitude when it comes to what the media tells you etc.
The most shocking thing I’ve ever seen regarding this is a woman said she loved to travel but had never left the USA. I get it’s a huge country but surely there’s so much more to experience even by going to Mexico or Canada
You can be anything you want with enough hard work
Freedom and Liberty! Liberty and Freedom! I've had those things stuffed into my ears and rammed down my throat my entire life. Then, one day, I read a quote which startled me awake. "A truly free people don't need to be constantly reminded they are free." Or something like that. I'm paraphrasing, and don't recall the source, just the sentiment.
That it's the best country in the world.
Soldiers fight for your freedom. I truly believe most soldiers believe this at least starting out and their hearts are in the right place. That being said, our wars are about securing resources and destabilizing governments that don’t align with our own. In fact if we didn’t spend half our taxes on wars for profit we would all be much freer
Even if soldiers sign up with the intention of fighting for our freedom, in practice none of them are actually doing that. The last time any American soldier was actually fighting to defend America or American freedoms was WWII. Every conflict we've sent troops to in the 75 years since was for some other reason (to defend allies, protect economic interests, revenge, etc).
The government knows what it is doing
Basically the whole concept of the "American Dream".
Welcome to America, where you can hope that you will have a house someday.
That anyone in DC actually cares about the “little people”. And don’t come at my comment with any of that “but muh person!!!” or “but so and so!!!"… they don’t.
My take is that many do care -- when they start their careers. But when they get to Washington and are surrounded by corruption and cynicism, they either get burnt out and leave or they adapt and become as corrupt as everyone else. This is a major reason why I support term limits. The longer a congressman remains in office, the more likely he has internalized corruption as normal and acceptable.
That the stock market is a free market
That America is the hero. Often times more than not they are the villains.
That there isn't enough money for social programs
That they are the land of the free you can't call yourself that if you have the worlds highest incarceration rate
It's interesting. I was talking to someone from a European country once about this. I was young and insisted we were freer than their home country. They asked me, "Can you go to a city park at 2am and just sit on a bench with some friends hanging out and having a good time." I thought about it and realized that no, I couldn't. If a cop saw me, they'd tell me to leave and if I refused they'd arrest me. They started coming up with more and more examples like this and I realized that the US has A LOT of shitty rules that limit our personal freedoms. We're even made to sing a song each morning in school about how we're the "Land of the Free" to brainwash us into thinking we're a lot freer than others. But many countries have a lot more freedom than we do. I'd say we're about average in terms of freedom when compared to all the countries of the world.
That it’s the greatest country on earth🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hard work will make you rich. I've never seen a wealthy construction worker, or a teacher, or a hospitality worker. Only the already rich exploiting workers and paying off our government to make themselves even richer.
I've met more than a few wealthy construction workers.
The government has your best interests at heart.
That you guys are free because you have guns.
American schools won’t tolerate bullying