this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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[–] zephyrvs@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Who doesn't like their tax dollars being spent on killing people instead of socialist stuff like healthcare, education, social workers and government services that actually serve citizens.

[–] UFODivebomb@programming.dev 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The USA could afford what's being provided to Ukraine and socialized benefits. But chooses not to because of some dumb reason or another.

[–] sparkl_motion@beehaw.org 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the answer. It isn’t a zero sum game.

[–] ZombieTheZombieCat@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago

It's more the hypocrisy of some people. The ones who cheer for a huge defense/foreign aid budget year after year no matter who it's for, and then leave bitchy comments on FB about student loan forgiveness being "unfair" because it uses their tax dollars.

[–] anewbeginning@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So, in your mind, helping to prevent civilians from dying in a war zone and stopping countries being taken over by foreign powers to be exploited is not a worthy humanitarian effort?

[–] zephyrvs@lemmy.ml -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

European countries are taking somewhat decent care of Ukrainian refugees, which can't be said for refugees that aren't white skinned.

And did you just collate military equipment with a humanitarian effort or am misreading that?

I'm in full support of any real humanitarian aid possible: Support their wounded and sick, support their people with basic needs (generators/energy, food, water, clothing, temporary housing, psych support etc).

Sometimes I'm really surprised at some of these questions you people come up with.

Edit: Typo.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The main difference between Ukrainian refugees and what we usually get is that Ukrainians are, without exception, well-educated enough to start working right away, and not just in unskilled low-income jobs. Compare that with, say, Somalis with virtually no education, and not even able to sit through a class because they never got accustomed to as kids, then competing with natives for a very limited number of those low-income jobs. That's why Ukrainians get working permits straight away while we'd rather pay welfare for the Somalis until they're ready.

I don't know what it is with Seppos and making everything about race. There's actual fucking issues with integrating people from non-developed countries that are completely absent in the case of Ukraine. Ukraine may be piss-poor, yes, but its fundamentals are solid, quite a bit better than Romania and Bulgaria even I'd say and those are EU members.

EDIT: While PISA numbers are to be taken with a whole salt shaker as measuring good education is notoriously difficult (see "teach the test") Ukraine outranks Greece across the disciplines. More or less head-to head with Italy.

[–] zephyrvs@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was talking about the way they were treated, not which refugee is the better worker drone.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ukrainians don't burn their passports and refuse to aid in their identification, if that's what you're alluding to because that's the kind of stuff gets you shitcanned in the "You can stay in a camp with full board and meagre pocket money and leave the country at any time but forget starting a life here" way, as the only reason to do that is if you don't actually qualify for refugee status or asylum. But, again, nothing to do with race.

[–] zephyrvs@lemmy.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your basically proving my point, I rest my case.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

What, because I assume that people would rather have a life than hang around in limbo in a camp? Yes, yes I do. OTOH it's also completely besides the point as I'm describing, plain and simply, the difference between your "brown" and "white" immigrants. The difference is that they come from different conditions, not that they have different levels of melanin -- I mean seriously they often don't. You have yet to make even an inkling of an argument to the contrary.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The US is already spending as much federal tax dollars per capita on healthcare as the UK spends on the NHS. Figures that bailing out hospitals when patients invariably default on their debt is expensive: In the US they have tons of people ending up in ER requiring expensive treatment that would've been way cheaper and easier to treat preventively -- but to do prevention you need to be able to afford a doctor's visit. Sure you can stop spending that money but then you either let hospitals go bankrupt, or you have to allow them to reject patients and have them dying on the streets. Even for Americans that's a bit too much.

I don't really have the numbers for education but one big point there is that in the US, education is largely funded by local taxes, that is, schools in low-income areas are severely underfunded, while those in high-income areas are overfunded. If anything it should be the exact opposite, the worst areas need the best schools to lift them up.

But fixing either would cut into corporate profits and/or severely alleviate income equality (and, in the US, thereby, race inequality) so, yeah, don't hold your breath.

[–] lemmyshmemmy@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Why would countries just ignore global authoritarian threats