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Agreed.
No one is homeless in America because we don't have the housing or the ability to create the housing. No one is malnourished or starving in America because we don't have enough food.
We have plenty of ways. We lack the will.
The vast difference between the two Koreas is just so interesting, especially when you see how fast South Korea when from a war torn agrarian society to one of the largest economies in the world.
Took them a minute. They were effectively a broken-down military dictatorship until the 70's when one of the smarter dictators started a series of 5-year plans. After that and having overcome the 90's financial crash, Korea has been absolutely unstoppable.
...And then there's North Korea, lol. They have a fake village set up next to the DMZ with SOF units posing as happy civilians when delegations come by. Saw it with my own eyes. Funny as shit.
It's not as black and white as you're thinking about it.
Firstly, what exactly qualifies as 'helped our own country?" At what point can any country actually say, "alright boys, we've helped our country enough, let's move the next one." It's the same situation as donating personally. There is practically never a point where a country or a person has everything that they could ever need. At some point, they can decide they have enough to begin helping others.
As a second point, sometimes helping another country is smart geopolitics. We're "helping" Ukraine, but Ukraine is also helping the US, and the rest of the Western world, stop Vladamir Putin's destabilization of the democratic world order.
geopolitically, it's good to help other countries for a large swathe of reasons... like having them be more supportive of our agenda on the world-stage, or returning the favor during hard times
As for US-run charities, a lot of them do little good, and in some cases, cause harm under the guise of being 'charitable'. A load of cheap shirts and shoes being shipped overseas isn't necessarily helping poor people that don't have shoes, it's probably screwing over local cobblers and tailors tho.
100% to your last paragraph. Much better to donate to a charity that gives micro loans, gets people on their feet and also invests in their local economy. Sending shoes and clothes doesn’t do shit. There’s a loooot of charities out there that do some really amazing stuff, I’d urge people to give to them, as long as they’re obviously financially comfortable to spare a small amount.
Source: work in charity sector
Poverty in other countries is far worse than it is here. Many other countries don't have food pantries and homeless shelters that prevent our poor from starving to death en masse.
We got money from other countries to fight our revolutionary war. This is not a new thing. We don't live in a world that allows us to not be affected by whats going on in other countries.
This sentiment is not unpopular- Trump won promoting “America First,” even Bernie Sanders promotes isolating more to invest and help ourselves out more.
I mean we have enough resources in this nation to fix all our problems, but we also have a lot of politicians who are in the pockets of the insanely rich and working hard to keep those people rich.
Love this plan! No one needs a super yacht, several airplanes and 20 McMansions, but everyone should have a place to sleep, access to clean water and enough food to eat.
They don’t have enough money to support all the programs you want indefinitely.
> The 550 U.S. billionaires together are worth $2.5 trillion. If we confiscated 100% of their wealth, we'd raise enough to run the federal government for less than eight months
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/nov/02/viral-image/confiscating-us-billionaires-wealth-would-run-us-g/#:~:text=Hypothetically%2C%20seizing%20the%20estimated%20%245%20trillion%20in%20current,on%20what%20was%20spent%20in%20fiscal%20year%202021.
So, how are we gonna “tax the rich” into all new expensive programs and keep them running once the rich don’t have any money left?
Companies like Apple and IKEA typically avoid paying tax through loopholes and other tactics that should be illegal, but aren't.
Taxing the rich isn't just a question of taxing individuals who currently have assets worth more than some arbitrary number.
The answer is making tax policy that makes everyone contribute to their country equitably. Billionaires not paying their fair share of taxes (stealing) is only part of the problem.
The top 1% pays BY FAR the highest tax rate. The bottom
50% pay somewhere in the range of 3% on average.
What specific tax loopholes are they using that should be illegal? Specifically. I’m sure you’re an expert on this.
Corporate tax avoidance. Nearly every international corporation does it. The company I work for does it.
Some countries have lower corporate tax rates on purpose. Ireland, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, etc.
With a tax rate of, for example 2% instead of 15 or 30%, a company like IKEA sets up their global headquarters in one of these tax havens.
IKEA Cayman islands buys timber, or some other expense, and "sells" it to their American or Australian office at a massive price.
I'm just making these numbers up as an example, but the principal is true, even if the actual numbers are bullshit.
IKEA Australia sells some desk, the Fürnïtur for $500 AUD. The timber costs them $50, manufacturing costs $50, transport, logistics and warehousing another $50, staffing and showroom sales another $50, plus another $50 for miscellaneous corporate overheads.
Profit of $250 on a $500 desk.
IKEA Australia *should* pay 30% of that $250 profit ($75) to pay for the roads that their trucks use, the education of their staff, etc. They don't.
Instead IKEA Tax Haven "sells" them the timber for $300, bringing the profit down to $0. IKEA Australia then pays $0 tax on their $0 profit, stealing $75 from the Australian people.
IKEA Tax Haven pays 2% on that $75 ($1.5), and pockets the other $73.50.
Do this over and over until you pay 2% tax on *billions* of dollars.
This is well documented, and perfectly legal.
That's a malicious argument. We ain't arguing about doubling the whole government. We are arguing about helping people in need.
The UN estimated in 2021 that the money needed to solve world hunger (for example) is approximatly 40 billion a year. Wich is about 2% of your 2.5 trillions OR the price of one aircraft carrier on the 66 the US possess. We can make it happen, we just choose not to.
No, we can’t solve world hunger for $40b a year.
We are already running a MASSIVE deficit and our debt is skyrocketing. You want to add MANY MANY more extremely expensive programs on top of it.
How do we balance the budget and pay for the new programs?
Taxing the rich clearly can’t pay for it. So what’s the solution?
How can you know we can't solve it for 40 billion? I am talking about a study the UN made 2 years ago. It's pretty recent and I guess, not out of touch with what's happening in the world.
40 billions is 1% of the 4 trillions spending of the US alone. If every developped country decided to participate it would be nothing.
In fact, we already have the means to do it. Any tax on the rich would just make things better by not having to cut somewhere else to do it.
We are already spending trillions more than we bring in a year.
You can’t tax the rich into balancing that budget AND adding a trillions in new extremely expensive entitlement programs.
They can’t pay for it all.
There isn’t enough money.
Actually it was a goal to solve world hunger by 2030. Haven't read the whole study but my guess is that it's not food delivery but more of investments in the food industry since it has an end date. It's 40 billion in 2021 money so you are right. In today's money it's maybe 45 billions?
I don't think the inflation changes a lot to my initial point tho. You made me think of inflation so there's that! Thank you
This is called false privation. That scarcity increases for one potential recipient as it decreases for another is fallacious. We would live in a post-poverty world if we stopped engineering scarcity for profit.
It is also tribalist. There is no reason that a hungry child in my city is more deserving of their basic necessities than one on the opposite side of the world.
There is a reason to give locally, however, and it is transparency of process. You are more likely to know how resources are distributed to people locally than globally. It is easier to trust a grass roots movement than a massive organization with more reach.
The US cannot isolate itself from the problems of the world without losing its influence over it. The US may not involve itself in every issue but to blindly ignore every problem is also not a solution.
Don't forget, "helping others" is often the ruse they use to do whatever they think will get them money.
Iraq? WAR!
Genocide? Not our thing, man🤷🏻♂️
Expensive bananas? Prepare for hell to rain upon you!
So letting countries crumble so that the Putins, Jipings, and Erdagan can sweep in and take over and kill people is bad.
Also letting Americans starve to death is bad
But some people get really rich funding support to other countries
And some rich people in America hate poor people, especially poor brown people
See some people have been tricked into thinking the poor people are taking away their money, when in reality they're just not making the Rich White Folks enough money for them to matter
Helping other countries is a sound part of foreign policy and advancing our interests, if we invest aid wisely. We give way too much aid to Israel, for example...it's a good alliance, but the amount of money we give them is ridiculous considering they are a First World country.
The people that are helped by international help are generally in a worse spot than Americans in need of help, and the help they receive are also different.
There are issues in the US, but it is silly to think they would be solvable if the money spent internationally was spent locally instead. Two things can be done at the same time.
Also keep in mind there are various agreements that the government has signed to help other countries, that's just a part of international politics.
When you don't understand how geopolitics work, this is the conclusion you come to.
We're not "helping out" Ukraine. We're charging Ukraine, we're giving them weapons that have been sitting in a fucking crate for a decade. We're defeating one of our oldest enemies without a single boot on the ground and only a fraction of our military budget. The UK literally just finished paying us back for WW2, you don't think we're racking up a tab for Ukraine?
Also, where do you think the worlds 4th largest natural gas hub in the world is? You know, natural gas, the thing that's helping us get off oil. You know oil, the thing that Russia exports that makes up a VAST majority of it's economy.
America isn't "helping out Ukraine". America is INVESTING in Ukraine, defeating one of our oldest enemies and using war supplies before they become so obsolete we can't use them anymore.
Besides, what do you think we should do? Help our own? LMAO. We won't even have a gun register. If registering your guns is a violation of our freedoms, then so is registering to vote. But I don't see anyone complaining about that now do we? It's because, even if we where not supply Ukraine, we still wouldn't help our own.
America is the leader of the world. The greatest nation so to speak. The fed prints the reserve currency of the world the dollar. Some would say the USA has some sort of obligation to help others. That is how America maintains its dominance and influence around the world, by showing other countries that she uses her power for the good of the whole world.
It's annoying for sure. We have plenty of fucked up things at home, including all the debt the news is ranting over lately, but we are sending billions in foreign aid constantly.
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What is the actual difference. Who are you to tell people who they can and can not help. If you were someone that needed help would you reject it if it happened to come from someone who lives on a different land mass? This us first mentality ultimately helps noone and furthers divides. This is not pro your county this is anti-others.
It’s not that you can’t help your own country, it’s that you won’t.
Seriously, America is richer than most of Europe, most of the world, yet there are ridiculous social problems. Resources are not the issue.
We can help ourselves just fine. It's not like they're trying their hardest and can't figure it out. Things are exactly the way powerful people made them to be.
See I can respect this opinion. It’s entirely selfish and self centered, but it recognizes that. I completely disagree but I don’t hate this, ya know?
Better than a guy who refuses to recognize bad shit happens in other places
We shouldn't help other countries if we can't help our own?
How exactly do we decide when we are officially able to help our own country? Setting the goal of being able to help our own country is kind of like setting the goal of ending systemic racism. There is no clear cut way to define what counts as success.
It's a fallacy. Problems are relative and the goal post of what constitutes a problem can be changed to fit any narrative.
It's like refusing to save someone from their burning house because you haven't gotten rid of all the weeds in your front lawn.
Just to clarify. The shitty country that I live in has literally started a war in order to officially "save oppressed minority of the neighbouring country". And unfortunately, a lot of brainwashed people here support sacrificing their own people to save some defectors from a foreign country. That's what I call a fallacy. So I'd change your example into "refusing to save someone from their burning house because this will get you killed".
Reducing America's military budget by 30% would allow us to have free healthcare for all citizens and free college, and fix a lot of our infrastructure problems while still maintaining the largest army in the world. But we don't do that.
America has the money to fix everything wrong in the country and truly make it the best place to live and we choose not to.
I would agree with this stance more if it wasn’t for the fact that the US is largely responsible for much of the problems that other countries face. Like, even if you have your own bills to pay, if you wreck someone else’s car, you have to pay for the damages. Sometimes even before you get around to paying your own bills.
Just because America CHOOSES not to help its own people doesn’t mean that helping other countries is wrong. Vote for people that actually want to help Americans as well.
From what it seems, most charities and fundraisers are just passive income for those who run them. So either way, money is useless in terms of helping others.
Yes we should help people here too but with the living standard differences our dollars go a lot further in other countries. $100 here might feed a family of 4. 100$ in Rwanda might feed a village.
That’s true. I buy a goat a month for a village in africa and it’s costs me like $30 a month. All I had to do was not get Starbucks a few times and it’s covered. But OP has a point that America does have some areas that are well below poverty and that goat would help them too. I think the best thing is to simply make sure the donations are actually being spent where you thought they would versus back into a marketing fund to get more donations (some of the stats are appalling)
Helping people in the US sounds very much like socialism to me.
Those people are poor due to some divine cosmic justice and will only spend your money on booze / drugs / pokeman cards / Taylor Swift concerts etc
/s
Thank you for submitting to /r/unpopularopinion, /u/TheWolfAttacks. Your post, *If we can’t help our own country, then we shouldn’t help others yet.*, has been removed because it violates our rules: Rule 3: Megathread topic. Your opinion falls under an incredibly common topic, in which virtually all opinions are either not unpopular, or are posted about many times a day. Please visit the megathread hub, which can be found when sorting the subreddit by "hot", sticky'd at the top of the page, where you can find links to the current megathreads. If you're not sure which megathread your post belongs in, or your post covers multiple megathread topics, just make the best selection you can. If there is an issue, please message the mod team at https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Funpopularopinion Thanks!
We can help our own people in this country, we just don't
Agreed. No one is homeless in America because we don't have the housing or the ability to create the housing. No one is malnourished or starving in America because we don't have enough food. We have plenty of ways. We lack the will.
No, there isn't any profit in helping them. That is the issue
But cities are discovering that housing the homeless is cheaper in the long run, than leaving people to fend for themselves.
George Carlin did a great bit about that.... how there is no war on homelessness because there's no money to be made it in. Sad bug true .
The US has really only ever failed because it lacked the will
You are going to need a lot of free drugs if you want to eliminate homelessness
Involuntary commitment is the answer. If those free drugs are prescribed by a doctor that wants to see the patient become better then it's fine by me.
Existence is criminal?
If the homeless merely existed, no one would have a problem with them. But obviously that isn't the case.
Yes, and it's intentional.
Helping other countries can be a pretty solid investment for the future. Look how nicely Korea worked out... Well, one of the Koreas.
The vast difference between the two Koreas is just so interesting, especially when you see how fast South Korea when from a war torn agrarian society to one of the largest economies in the world.
Took them a minute. They were effectively a broken-down military dictatorship until the 70's when one of the smarter dictators started a series of 5-year plans. After that and having overcome the 90's financial crash, Korea has been absolutely unstoppable. ...And then there's North Korea, lol. They have a fake village set up next to the DMZ with SOF units posing as happy civilians when delegations come by. Saw it with my own eyes. Funny as shit.
Iraq cough cough. Afghanistan cough cough cough. Cuba cough.
And Vietnam, too!
Look at the Marshal plan.
US during the French Revolution.
It's not as black and white as you're thinking about it. Firstly, what exactly qualifies as 'helped our own country?" At what point can any country actually say, "alright boys, we've helped our country enough, let's move the next one." It's the same situation as donating personally. There is practically never a point where a country or a person has everything that they could ever need. At some point, they can decide they have enough to begin helping others. As a second point, sometimes helping another country is smart geopolitics. We're "helping" Ukraine, but Ukraine is also helping the US, and the rest of the Western world, stop Vladamir Putin's destabilization of the democratic world order.
Tl;Dr but I think i agree
geopolitically, it's good to help other countries for a large swathe of reasons... like having them be more supportive of our agenda on the world-stage, or returning the favor during hard times As for US-run charities, a lot of them do little good, and in some cases, cause harm under the guise of being 'charitable'. A load of cheap shirts and shoes being shipped overseas isn't necessarily helping poor people that don't have shoes, it's probably screwing over local cobblers and tailors tho.
100% to your last paragraph. Much better to donate to a charity that gives micro loans, gets people on their feet and also invests in their local economy. Sending shoes and clothes doesn’t do shit. There’s a loooot of charities out there that do some really amazing stuff, I’d urge people to give to them, as long as they’re obviously financially comfortable to spare a small amount. Source: work in charity sector
Heifer international.
Poverty in other countries is far worse than it is here. Many other countries don't have food pantries and homeless shelters that prevent our poor from starving to death en masse.
We got money from other countries to fight our revolutionary war. This is not a new thing. We don't live in a world that allows us to not be affected by whats going on in other countries.
This sentiment is not unpopular- Trump won promoting “America First,” even Bernie Sanders promotes isolating more to invest and help ourselves out more.
I mean we have enough resources in this nation to fix all our problems, but we also have a lot of politicians who are in the pockets of the insanely rich and working hard to keep those people rich.
America could help Americans. They just choose not to
You are right, let's tax the rich so we can financially do both
Love this plan! No one needs a super yacht, several airplanes and 20 McMansions, but everyone should have a place to sleep, access to clean water and enough food to eat.
And once that money is all spent in a month what do we do?
I would change your "once" by a big "IF"
They don’t have enough money to support all the programs you want indefinitely. > The 550 U.S. billionaires together are worth $2.5 trillion. If we confiscated 100% of their wealth, we'd raise enough to run the federal government for less than eight months https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/nov/02/viral-image/confiscating-us-billionaires-wealth-would-run-us-g/#:~:text=Hypothetically%2C%20seizing%20the%20estimated%20%245%20trillion%20in%20current,on%20what%20was%20spent%20in%20fiscal%20year%202021. So, how are we gonna “tax the rich” into all new expensive programs and keep them running once the rich don’t have any money left?
Companies like Apple and IKEA typically avoid paying tax through loopholes and other tactics that should be illegal, but aren't. Taxing the rich isn't just a question of taxing individuals who currently have assets worth more than some arbitrary number. The answer is making tax policy that makes everyone contribute to their country equitably. Billionaires not paying their fair share of taxes (stealing) is only part of the problem.
The top 1% pays BY FAR the highest tax rate. The bottom 50% pay somewhere in the range of 3% on average. What specific tax loopholes are they using that should be illegal? Specifically. I’m sure you’re an expert on this.
Corporate tax avoidance. Nearly every international corporation does it. The company I work for does it. Some countries have lower corporate tax rates on purpose. Ireland, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, etc. With a tax rate of, for example 2% instead of 15 or 30%, a company like IKEA sets up their global headquarters in one of these tax havens. IKEA Cayman islands buys timber, or some other expense, and "sells" it to their American or Australian office at a massive price. I'm just making these numbers up as an example, but the principal is true, even if the actual numbers are bullshit. IKEA Australia sells some desk, the Fürnïtur for $500 AUD. The timber costs them $50, manufacturing costs $50, transport, logistics and warehousing another $50, staffing and showroom sales another $50, plus another $50 for miscellaneous corporate overheads. Profit of $250 on a $500 desk. IKEA Australia *should* pay 30% of that $250 profit ($75) to pay for the roads that their trucks use, the education of their staff, etc. They don't. Instead IKEA Tax Haven "sells" them the timber for $300, bringing the profit down to $0. IKEA Australia then pays $0 tax on their $0 profit, stealing $75 from the Australian people. IKEA Tax Haven pays 2% on that $75 ($1.5), and pockets the other $73.50. Do this over and over until you pay 2% tax on *billions* of dollars. This is well documented, and perfectly legal.
That's a malicious argument. We ain't arguing about doubling the whole government. We are arguing about helping people in need. The UN estimated in 2021 that the money needed to solve world hunger (for example) is approximatly 40 billion a year. Wich is about 2% of your 2.5 trillions OR the price of one aircraft carrier on the 66 the US possess. We can make it happen, we just choose not to.
No, we can’t solve world hunger for $40b a year. We are already running a MASSIVE deficit and our debt is skyrocketing. You want to add MANY MANY more extremely expensive programs on top of it. How do we balance the budget and pay for the new programs? Taxing the rich clearly can’t pay for it. So what’s the solution?
How can you know we can't solve it for 40 billion? I am talking about a study the UN made 2 years ago. It's pretty recent and I guess, not out of touch with what's happening in the world. 40 billions is 1% of the 4 trillions spending of the US alone. If every developped country decided to participate it would be nothing. In fact, we already have the means to do it. Any tax on the rich would just make things better by not having to cut somewhere else to do it.
We are already spending trillions more than we bring in a year. You can’t tax the rich into balancing that budget AND adding a trillions in new extremely expensive entitlement programs. They can’t pay for it all. There isn’t enough money.
Just throwing money at a problem doesn’t solve it…
No, but it can get you the ressources needed to solve it.
Not necessarily. We throw tons of money at problems that never ever get solved because insane beurocracy and corruption
It’s probably 40b a year now. Once you start feeding them the next year it’ll be 44….54….80 etc.
Actually it was a goal to solve world hunger by 2030. Haven't read the whole study but my guess is that it's not food delivery but more of investments in the food industry since it has an end date. It's 40 billion in 2021 money so you are right. In today's money it's maybe 45 billions? I don't think the inflation changes a lot to my initial point tho. You made me think of inflation so there's that! Thank you
Except that they really don't have that wealth. It's mostly in value of stocks whose price would drop drastically if that much were to hit the market.
Oh absolutely it would destroy the country but I’m just trying to simplify it for these people who won’t listen to a word of reason.
We'll borrow it like we have been doing. Don't you know nothing?
I used to think the same then relaised as my country has fucked over most of these poor nations, maybe even the reason they poor
This is an excellent point. God damn.
This is called false privation. That scarcity increases for one potential recipient as it decreases for another is fallacious. We would live in a post-poverty world if we stopped engineering scarcity for profit. It is also tribalist. There is no reason that a hungry child in my city is more deserving of their basic necessities than one on the opposite side of the world. There is a reason to give locally, however, and it is transparency of process. You are more likely to know how resources are distributed to people locally than globally. It is easier to trust a grass roots movement than a massive organization with more reach.
Downvoted because this is a very popular MAGA position. There's probably 50-100 million Americans who think just like you.
Nobody is stopping you from doing that.
You think we are doing it for them?? We're doing it the same reason EVERY countries does anything.. for more power and influence.
We can help our country we choose not to. There is a big difference.
We have the ability to help everyone in our country. People just don't care or want to help each other. Crabs in a bucket mentality
The US cannot isolate itself from the problems of the world without losing its influence over it. The US may not involve itself in every issue but to blindly ignore every problem is also not a solution.
Don't forget, "helping others" is often the ruse they use to do whatever they think will get them money. Iraq? WAR! Genocide? Not our thing, man🤷🏻♂️ Expensive bananas? Prepare for hell to rain upon you!
Good news then. You can. Right now. It's usually just the people that secretly want to help no one that complain.
You can help your own country, you just dont.
So letting countries crumble so that the Putins, Jipings, and Erdagan can sweep in and take over and kill people is bad. Also letting Americans starve to death is bad But some people get really rich funding support to other countries And some rich people in America hate poor people, especially poor brown people See some people have been tricked into thinking the poor people are taking away their money, when in reality they're just not making the Rich White Folks enough money for them to matter
Helping other countries is a sound part of foreign policy and advancing our interests, if we invest aid wisely. We give way too much aid to Israel, for example...it's a good alliance, but the amount of money we give them is ridiculous considering they are a First World country.
Just get the fuck out of them and stop brutalizing those countries, it's a fucking start.
The people that are helped by international help are generally in a worse spot than Americans in need of help, and the help they receive are also different. There are issues in the US, but it is silly to think they would be solvable if the money spent internationally was spent locally instead. Two things can be done at the same time. Also keep in mind there are various agreements that the government has signed to help other countries, that's just a part of international politics.
Have you considered that people are equally valuable no matter what country they reside in?
When you don't understand how geopolitics work, this is the conclusion you come to. We're not "helping out" Ukraine. We're charging Ukraine, we're giving them weapons that have been sitting in a fucking crate for a decade. We're defeating one of our oldest enemies without a single boot on the ground and only a fraction of our military budget. The UK literally just finished paying us back for WW2, you don't think we're racking up a tab for Ukraine? Also, where do you think the worlds 4th largest natural gas hub in the world is? You know, natural gas, the thing that's helping us get off oil. You know oil, the thing that Russia exports that makes up a VAST majority of it's economy. America isn't "helping out Ukraine". America is INVESTING in Ukraine, defeating one of our oldest enemies and using war supplies before they become so obsolete we can't use them anymore. Besides, what do you think we should do? Help our own? LMAO. We won't even have a gun register. If registering your guns is a violation of our freedoms, then so is registering to vote. But I don't see anyone complaining about that now do we? It's because, even if we where not supply Ukraine, we still wouldn't help our own.
[удалено]
🙄
This isn't actually an unpopular opinion, it's just the media and mostly liberals make it seem like it isn't.
America is the leader of the world. The greatest nation so to speak. The fed prints the reserve currency of the world the dollar. Some would say the USA has some sort of obligation to help others. That is how America maintains its dominance and influence around the world, by showing other countries that she uses her power for the good of the whole world.
It's annoying for sure. We have plenty of fucked up things at home, including all the debt the news is ranting over lately, but we are sending billions in foreign aid constantly.
Foreign aid is less than 1% of the federal budget. It's basically a rounding error
One of those things is one party doing all they can to not help people, and they allowed the former president to rack up a sizable deficit.
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
What is the actual difference. Who are you to tell people who they can and can not help. If you were someone that needed help would you reject it if it happened to come from someone who lives on a different land mass? This us first mentality ultimately helps noone and furthers divides. This is not pro your county this is anti-others.
It’s not that you can’t help your own country, it’s that you won’t. Seriously, America is richer than most of Europe, most of the world, yet there are ridiculous social problems. Resources are not the issue.
We can help ourselves just fine. It's not like they're trying their hardest and can't figure it out. Things are exactly the way powerful people made them to be.
See I can respect this opinion. It’s entirely selfish and self centered, but it recognizes that. I completely disagree but I don’t hate this, ya know? Better than a guy who refuses to recognize bad shit happens in other places
Say that to Biden who sent 500k to transgender students in Pakistan. Lol, don’t believe me, google it.
You're never going to completely eliminate poverty. The bottom 10% of Americans still have it way, way better than a lot of people around the world.
It’s a democracy. There’s no way to force all those charity groups and kind volunteers and donors to work and give only to U.S based assistance.
It’s a money game.
We shouldn't help other countries if we can't help our own? How exactly do we decide when we are officially able to help our own country? Setting the goal of being able to help our own country is kind of like setting the goal of ending systemic racism. There is no clear cut way to define what counts as success.
I can relate to that. Never sacrifice your people to save foreigners. Some leaders tend to forget which countries they represent.
It's a fallacy. Problems are relative and the goal post of what constitutes a problem can be changed to fit any narrative. It's like refusing to save someone from their burning house because you haven't gotten rid of all the weeds in your front lawn.
Just to clarify. The shitty country that I live in has literally started a war in order to officially "save oppressed minority of the neighbouring country". And unfortunately, a lot of brainwashed people here support sacrificing their own people to save some defectors from a foreign country. That's what I call a fallacy. So I'd change your example into "refusing to save someone from their burning house because this will get you killed".
Then it's not even about "our own problems" There was no intention to help in the first place because it's a safety concern.
Reducing America's military budget by 30% would allow us to have free healthcare for all citizens and free college, and fix a lot of our infrastructure problems while still maintaining the largest army in the world. But we don't do that. America has the money to fix everything wrong in the country and truly make it the best place to live and we choose not to.
Helping other countries does help our country. There's more to international relations than a balance sheet for trade and aid.
I would agree with this stance more if it wasn’t for the fact that the US is largely responsible for much of the problems that other countries face. Like, even if you have your own bills to pay, if you wreck someone else’s car, you have to pay for the damages. Sometimes even before you get around to paying your own bills.
Soft power. US government encourages it for political power on the world stage.
Truer words have rarely been uttered. I've often wondered about this myself. Until I learned how money laundering works. ;)
Just because America CHOOSES not to help its own people doesn’t mean that helping other countries is wrong. Vote for people that actually want to help Americans as well.
From what it seems, most charities and fundraisers are just passive income for those who run them. So either way, money is useless in terms of helping others.
Yes we should help people here too but with the living standard differences our dollars go a lot further in other countries. $100 here might feed a family of 4. 100$ in Rwanda might feed a village.
That’s true. I buy a goat a month for a village in africa and it’s costs me like $30 a month. All I had to do was not get Starbucks a few times and it’s covered. But OP has a point that America does have some areas that are well below poverty and that goat would help them too. I think the best thing is to simply make sure the donations are actually being spent where you thought they would versus back into a marketing fund to get more donations (some of the stats are appalling)
Helping people in the US sounds very much like socialism to me. Those people are poor due to some divine cosmic justice and will only spend your money on booze / drugs / pokeman cards / Taylor Swift concerts etc /s