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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. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-char... |