The US is not a Hollywood movie, sure, but neither is it anything like how foreigners on HN portray it. And for a supposedly 'extremely cruel' place, the US has by far the highest rate of charity in the world.
> And for a supposedly 'extremely cruel' place, the US has by far the highest rate of charity in the world.
Only if you count religious giving.
And why wouldn't you, you ask?
Well, even churches themselves say that six per cent or less of religious giving goes to 'charity'. The rest goes to church upkeep and events, church childcare, etc.
In fact, an ECCU study (http://web.archive.org/web/20141019033209/https://www.eccu.o...) stated that "local and national benevolence" receives 1 per cent of religious givings (2% going to church adult programs, bible study, etc, and 3% to youth programs and evangelization).
So we should probably pump the brakes on patting ourselves on the back for "highest rates of charity", considering that some of what is characterized as charity is "erecting the world's largest cross two miles down the road from the church which has the current world's largest cross".
You have places like ADX Florence, worst place on Earth, you have the highest absolute numbers of prisoners, you used to execute children,you still execute people, you have long sentences, there are laws like above where even if you are exonerated of a crime, you still kept in prison, you are cruel and your country home to a literal gulag. Your society is merciless, your empathy gone. Please, learn some empathy. Please, turn away from your cruelty.
Like someone already responded. How much is actually going to charity. Helping out your local church more than it needs to function does not and should not count as charity.
About a third of the population claims to go to church regularly. The amount who actually do is somewhat less, surely. And anecdotally, amongst my churchgoing friends & family, especially the non-elderly ones, tithing isn't particularly common. It's pretty common with LDS, though, I understand.
I've never seen anyone do 10% of their income, I think that comes from the medieval period, or just wishful thinking. People usually drop a $10 or $20 in the plate whenever I've been.
So here's some of the ways it's cruel. I assume you don't live here, or you are pretty well off:
1. Largest incarcerated population on earth.
2. No public health system until Medicare (60s).
3. Very difficult to discharge debt, for citizens, easy for business.
4. Impossible to discharge student loan debt.
5. Allowing of predatory loan practices to incur this debt.
6. Many public schools are absolutely horrible.
7. Mostly no recourse for violent and corrupt police.
8. Most if not all of the federal policies go to help the donor class at the expense of the citizenry. On the occasion where policies help the citizenry, it's a coincidence.
9. Systemic racism in many aspects of the government, particularly the justice system.
10. Very little social safety net for the poor. In fact, many poor are incarcerated.
11. Very strict justice system where just about anything is a felony.
12. No voting rights for felons.
13. Vicious drug war.
14. Patriot act.
15. Skyrocketing healthcare costs.
16. Skyrocketing educational costs.
17. MANY charities have a 90+% administration fee (meaning only 10% goes to the actual group in need). This is perfectly legal.
18. Many regressive taxes (gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, groceries).
19. Many instances where regulation isn't even done, or done so poorly, companies can do whatever they want (see nutrition labels for an example).
20. Not much done in anti-trust laws.
21. An insane amount of tax dollars goes to the war machine and soldiers get a minuscule amount. They are treated pretty horribly afterwards.
22. Government fully supports offshoring of jobs to slave-like conditions in China and elsewhere.
23. Loophole system where the well off pay very little taxes while the majority of the tax burden goes to the middle class (by income).
24. Massive income inequality and therefore political power and influence.
25. The amount of state funding for prosecution dwarfs the amount of funding for defense in most states.
These are just off the top of my head. I could probably do 20 more pretty easily.
Regarding charity, that's the citizenry. By and far the citizenry are decent people, it's the state that's cruel. Also we aren't "by far the most charitable country on earth," we're slightly about Myanmar, but we are still the top. In really poor states like West Virginia, the citizens are extremely charitable to each other. I would guess because they all need it desperately. Perhaps being so charitable is actually a symptom of the widespread cruelty of the state's policies.
I should have said "near impossible," there's just enough there so that impossible isn't technically correct. Looks like they included some forms of indentured servitude in there. Ah the classics.