this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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[–] Jaysyn@kbin.social 47 points 1 year ago (15 children)

One of the best uses of my tax dollars in my entire lifetime.

[–] lemmyshmemmy@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (5 children)

First time in my lifetime I've seen the US military might truly used for something good.

[–] realitista@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Me too. I've opposed every US war that occured in my 50 year life except this one.

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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 (5 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.

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[–] anewbeginning@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (9 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?

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[–] 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 (8 children)

Why would countries just ignore global authoritarian threats

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[–] PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Meanwhile we are giving Almost 4billion/yr to Israel.

[–] zephyrvs@lemmy.ml 32 points 1 year ago

I mean, it's an apartheid state killing and looting brown people, so that's typical US foreign policy.

[–] agarorn@feddit.de 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

What is your point? Is the Ukraine aid too low, Israel too high?

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[–] red@sopuli.xyz 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)
[–] riodoro1@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This war is the best thing to happen to the military industrial complex since the cold war.

[–] djsaskdja@reddthat.com 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But you still have to pay back your student loans and pay a small fortune for healthcare because fuck you.

[–] pyromaster55@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Two have basically nothing to do with each other.

We are still the richest nation in the world. 2.3 billion sounds like a lot, but its nothing to the us gov, it's nothing to the defense budget alone, and it is actively wrecking the military capabilities of one of our top geopolitical rivals.

I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of the Russia/Ukraine situation, but I know this is peanuts compared to what it could cost us, and we don't even have boots on the ground. This is the deal of a century.

Be mad at the corrupt piece of shit republicans forcing you to go into crippling debt for healthcare and education, not the innocent Ukrainians fighting for their lives and democracy.

[–] zephyrvs@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 year ago

The good thing about a 2-party system is that you can always point to the other party as to why things are the way they are. :)

[–] regul@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Why would I only be mad at the Republicans? Joe Biden and most of the Democrats don't support single payer or free tertiary education either.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (7 children)

American pays mores per capita for healthcare than most countries with a single payer system.

You'd actually save money if you changed.

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[–] doppelgangmember@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

Yo can us citizen pleebs get some funding for our class wa.. living expenses.

[–] tired_n_bored@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Good 🇺🇦

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