Words matter.
You aren’t writing an academic paper. Always use simple direct language.
- Help the poor
- Healthcare for everyone
- Good treatment at work.
Don’t use complex words.
Reminds me of how many people were really against Obamacare, but loved the Affordable Care Act.
Reagan’s smear campaign on welfare is still paying dividends
Anyone can be poor, but only they are on welfare.
Publishers note: They usually refers to African Americans, but can be used for any suspicious minorities.
its almost always used as negative connation against blacks, or unsavory demographics. while the people, white conservatives railing on these people are the biggest welfare queens.
don’t forget wall street and corporations. if you fuck up, congratulations now you’re homeless. if they fuck up, congratulations you’re gonna bail them out.
That actually follows from the traditional argument against possibility of welfare - if the state can do such help, it’ll first give it to closest to it, which are the people who need it the least.
But I think with direct democracy it’d be fine. At least some middle ground would be found between those voting for “free money” and those voting so that others wouldn’t get “free money”. Unlike now when depending on who you are it’s either always free money or always fuck you.
EDIT: In general radical political models are better thought through fundamentally. Real world ones work in arcane ways, usually not the ones publicly declared, and rely on lots of inertia to be functional. But both radical marxism (direct democracy and full on social involvement) and radical ancap (no common decisions at all, no common social involvement at all) lack such vulnerabilities. That’s unfortunately the reason people with real world power don’t need them. If you have real world power, you’d support the change that gives you more power or preserves what you have. So for a model to be plausible it needs to have vulnerabilities, to attract real-world support. Only disadvantaged people really want a perfect model, and they are not the ones deciding.
Hence another radical variant - radical agnosticism of political systems, try to always keep as variable and diverse mix as possible, so that power, advantage and disadvantage were more or less equally spread, allowing people to live maybe not in heaven, but not in hell too. Decision-making systems as mixed as possible, legal spaces as diverse as possible, and so on.
Why US americans are against welfare ? In europe most nations are pro welfare and pay appropriate taxes. Why are US americans against helping each other ?
Why are US americans against helping each other ?
For many people “freedom” only occurs when you don’t (think you) depend on others.
And, maybe it’s just a me issue, but I think a lot of Americans dislike receiving help because in their experience it always costs, and often costs more when the person giving it make it seem free.
But, mostly it’s Capitalist / Protestant propaganda that anyone that receives assistance is a moral failure due to the “sin” of laziness.
Why are US americans against helping each other?
There is no simple answer to your question. Generally speaking, the US ethic is largely built on a foundation of rogue settlers who were encouraged to take what they wanted by force and duplicity. Whether it was the attempted (and ongoing) ethnic cleansing of the tribes, or total destruction of the environment, or massacring fauna to extinction, or the brutal subjugation of African people, early americans operated at a level of entitlement, ignorance, and the absolute belief in a zero-sum competition.
This mindset has been useful to the people in power, and it has been frequently stoked to manipulate a large minority of the population into a fearful and angry existence, effectively preventing a cultural shift that embraces social enlightenment. Even the US education system is designed to perpetuate the propaganda while preventing critical thinking skills and empathy.
Interestingly, even the most virulent USers, on an individual basis, exhibit selective social welfare tendencies, while still maintaining their cultural bigotries. To be fair, most US americans are in favor of social welfare. The rich in the US, who are in control, will always fight reform, because it isn’t profitable to them.
Don’t use the buzzwords Republicans have spent decades poisoning.
yup, including entitlements, Woke,etc.
Entitlements is a weird one. A person who wrongly believes they are entitled to money/power/respect is “entitled” in a derogatory sense. A person who has paid into the Social Security and Medicare programs for three or four decades is truly, genuinely, entitled to the payout of those programs.
And Republicans believing entitlement programs are bad, when so many of them are dependent on these programs to maintain a basic standard of living, is an astounding level of doublethink.
I’d bet if we started calling them “societal subscription fees” people would be much cooler with taxes.
Nah, gotta go all in with that Battle Pass. Unlock perks like drivers license skins, use of the HOV lane, etc. really gameify the system and get those hardcore competitive type-A executives working on high scores.
As someone that works with the general public.
People are fucking dumb. Like not I’m not even kidding, there’s a skill gap to even get to a site like this…and not everyone has the ability to do it…I’m not even kidding. People are just stupid.
That’s just associations’ war.
Complex words have more specific associations. Except specific associations are easier to change via propaganda than generic associations. And people love to pretend to be smart like I do, so use complex words when they can.
This rule shouldn’t be limited to outsiders. It should be used when talking to your own as well. Using compound concepts of simpler ones in discussion helps preserve understanding (and filter the kind of people not better than tankies).
Yep. Never use a ten dollar word when a 50 cent one does the job better. The left wing needs to dump it’s highbrow (and cringe celebrity endorsements) and use the language of the common people in simple terms that cannot be demonised (or would sound insane to try).
Also, this is a prime example of how demonising words, especially buzzwords, is the strategy they use to make it lose all rationality with the public… the notion of being “woke” originally a good thing, welfare a good thing, etc…
They managed to make DEI a divisive word, I presume because they always used the abbreviation, because how else can you poison these words.
Doesn’t work, they take the cheap words too. “Fake news” was originally used for right-wing propaganda. The only solution is education so that future generations are more aware of and resistant to dog whistles and doublespeak.
Sadly, more than 50% of Americans a grade school vocabulary. Imagine trying to convince a kid in grade 6 that helping the poor is not bad.
Ngl but most of the kids have no problems with helping other people.
Psychological damage is present.
Nobody is immune to propaganda
Yup, I consider myself better than most at critical thinking, playing devil’s advocate, and identifying sources of propaganda. I’ll still find myself getting overly agitated and upset when I read five articles and posts within thirty minutes that all tell me why to be upset and who to be upset with.
Just want to point out that this negative association is based on racist dog whistles like the, “welfare queen,” which were propagated by right-wingers to convince low-income whites to hate the programs designed to help them.
And I think theres a place to break that association, but .aybe candidates that are running to change our system dont need to be the ones to do it.
I would actually say that would he a great strategy in building working-class solidarity. Making poor whites realize that their declining standard of living isn’t caused by minorities accessing social programs but the ruling-class gutting the those programs is key to building a progressive coalition.
One of many lasting “gifts” of Reagan.
Wym? Just a few more decades, and the trickling down will surely start. I can already taste it on their boots
We’ve got to get all those
welfare queens25 year old males playing video games back to work! They’re getting a free ride that they don’t deserve. People only have value when they are working!He started that evil welfare queen idea back in California. It gained traction there so he continued to use it on the national side.
dont you love the misogyny in that “queens” label? because who makes a better scapegoat than black mothers?
Currently? Mexicans and Middle easterners, it would seem. They’re all criminals and rapists apparently.
/s
I’m glad Reagan’s dead
I’m not. I much rather he lived forever. Forever wasting away, seeing his loved ones perish, losing his sanity little by ever so fucking little, inhabiting a hell all of his own.
Regan
loved ones
The issue is entirely a media problem. Can you tell yet?
Propaganda works
I’ve always said that if you really wanted communism or socialism to take off in the states you’re gonna have to call it something else
I also don’t use cis because the machine has already made that a thing people don’t want to be called
I don’t mind being called a cis male, but I’m secure in my sexuality and manhood. Conservatives not so much.
This one gets it. The key takeaway should be that humans are very fallible and propaganda works alarmingly well.
We shouldn’t be trusted with our own care.
Fucking lazy ass aliens taking their sweet time… Just invade and incorporate us into your galactic empire already!
… For what reason?
Not being too sarcastic, but what makes you think we’d be interested in a backwater planet full of hairless great apes?
Considering what we are already doing to ourselves with just conventional weapons, aliens might want to sterilize the planet out of fear of the threat we will become on the galactic stage
Yeah, straight/heterosexual people didn’t want to be called that, either. They want being cis and heterosexual to just be “normal” and any variation to be abnormal. Fuck that, they’ll do the same thing to whatever euphemism you pick instead.
Oh bullshit. No one in the history of ever has been offended by “straight/heterosexual”.
It might have something to do with the word ‘cis’ being used as a slur and a form of othering early on
What’s wrong with the Commonwealth of Independent States?
Hello fellow old person.
“Cis” is fucking silly, that’s why I don’t like it. We already had “hetero”. It’s like “they/them” for an individual. Try reading a novel where one charter is “they/them”. It’s needlessly confusing, and bring the hate, it’s a stupid fad. Seen this kinda thing come and go, 20-years, no one will be using it.
Cis is just the opposite of trans, but it has nothing to do with orientation. You can be cis and heterosexual, you can be cis and homosexual.
Honestly did not know that. Don’t know how I would have, given the context in which cis is commonly applied. Context being: heterosexual male. Additional context: Often as an insult. See also: Breeder. (Was that usage archaic? More on that in a moment.)
So we really need a word to define 99.5% of Earth’s population? When we have a word to define the remaining .05%? Do you have any idea how silly that sounds?!
20-years, no one will be using it
Been there, seen that, done that. And fuck anyone who doesn’t like it. I’ve equated trans rights with civil rights since before most of you kids touched social media.
Yes, we do need a word, because it’s useful to be able to describe things. That’s what language is for.
Further context you may not know: “cis” is indeed much older than even the internet.
Dude not even heard of Transjordan and Cisjordan?
Don’t know how I would have
School? It’s a scientific term, trans people did not invent it.
Context being: heterosexual male.
That is not the context it is used in.
“Blue” is fucking silly, that’s why I don’t like it. We already had “tall”.
Those are two different things. Please look up what these terms means.
Try reading a novel where one charter is “they/them”. It’s needlessly confusing, and bring the hate, it’s a stupid fad.
It’s literally been used in the singular for hundreds of years for any individual where the gender is not known, and has never in my life been confusing. For example:
“The suspect entered the store, then they exited through the back.”
English is my first and nearly only language and has been for 42 years, and there has never been a time that a singular “they” was not used. It is not a fad, the fad is taking issue with it. And hopefully in 20 years we won’t have to deal with this fake “all of a sudden” bullshit, whether it’s “they/them,” vaccines, or any other nonsense that people suddenly take issue with because some talking head told them to and acted like it was new.
While it’s true that the singular they/them has been used for a very long time, it was used in a very narrow context. It was used almost exclusively for an unknown person, or a theoretical person. In your example, the suspect is unknown, if it was known that it was a male suspect or a female suspect, the suspect would no longer be as unknown and so the sentence would probably be changed to “The suspect entered the store, then she exited through the back.”
You can tell that it had a very restricted use because of how “themselves” was used. For example, “anybody who wants one can get themselves a beer”. That’s a singular construction, but in a way that it might apply to multiple people individually. There was no need for “themself” because “they” was always used for unknown or theoretical people.
Using it for a known person, especially a person who might be currently sitting in the room, is a brand new and confusing use. Now, it’s not like English doesn’t have other confusions, even around pronouns. Take: “she was drunk and her mother was angry, and she slapped her”. Who slapped whom? Sometimes the pronouns alone aren’t enough and you need to restructure the sentence to make it more clear. But, the fact that the singular they is used with the same verb forms as the plural they can add extra confusion. Take a non-binary player playing a team sport: “They’re not playing well but they are.” If the personal pronoun version used “is” instead of “are” it would be less confusing in situations like this, but it would be more confusing in other ways because “they” could use both plural and singular verb forms.
It would be just as confusing if people suddenly started using “one” as a pronoun not used for a theoretical person, but for a concrete and actual person. One has been used as a subject pronoun: “One must remain vigilant”, and an object pronoun: “Wounds can make one weary.” But, it is always a theoretical construction, it has never been used to refer to a specific, known person. So, it would be confusing to start using it that way: “Give it to one, one doesn’t have one yet.” But, even that would be less confusing than singular “they”, because at least “one” uses singular verb forms, etc.
They/them for a specific, known individual is a new way of using “singular they” and it adds a lot of confusion You can argue that despite the confusion it’s necessary, but you can’t pretend that it doesn’t add confusion.
I don’t think it adds any more confusion than the pre-existing pronoun confusion you already described as part of the language (your she and her example) and there is already an established answer for it (you don’t use a pronoun for one of them, you use their actual name or what you are referring to).
Pretending that it adds some grand new confusion that makes it difficult to keep up with because in very rare circumstances someone who is already really bad at communicating with pronouns (because one would have to have problems with your “she slapped her” reference to have problems with singular they/them) might have difficulty communicating what they mean by “them.”
Language reflects the culture in which it is used. In these times, there’s more acceptance (though not universal) of the premises that a) sex and gender identity are separate concepts, and b) a person can have a gender identity that does not map onto a ‘male/man-female/woman’ scheme.
Given this, singular they/them makes sense - on discovering the identity of individual who, while almost certainly male or female (though intersex exceptions exist), does not neatly fit into the category of man or woman, they can remain a ‘they’ where someone who is distinctly a man or woman doesn’t. This assumes they do not use other pronouns (some do, but neopronouns get a lot of flack).
I’ll be candid and say I don’t get why this throws people off, and I’ve had to fight prescriptivist English profs about it before. It only makes sense to me if we discard the premises noted at the beginning, and that doesn’t make sense to me. To my fellow men - how many times have you been told you are/are not a man on the basis of factors beyond having an Y chromosome, a dick and male secondary sexual characteristics? And you’re still certain that gender identity is inherent on the basis of biological sex alone, rather than related but distinct social constructions?
does not neatly fit into the category of man or woman
What defines the category of man?
Great question, and one that’s pretty fraught at the moment. I don’t have an answer beyond a tautology - a man is someone who identifies as a man - and the knowledge that some cultures assign adherence to certain behavioural norms to that (ex. A man acts as breadwinner, is competitive, has a certain type of physicality distinct from women, etc.), most of which crumble with any hard look at them.
To be frank, I don’t really care about what a man or woman is. If identifying as a man if female, or a woman if male, makes it so someone doesn’t want to blow their brains out, then that’s a cool and good thing. But note the distinction - man != male and woman != female in my statement.
some cultures assign adherence to certain behavioural norms to that
Isn’t that sexism, something we should be fighting by saying “women can do that too?”
Hetero means straight, but was needlessly confusing (it’s literally Greek), right? So in the future, English will have a different pronoun that means the same as singular they.
because welfare has been propagandized as used by “lazy and homeless, and poors, and blacks” its usually based on racism as well, the true welfare queens are Conservative voters.
Oh the TRUE welfare queens are billionaires, corporations get more assistance than people
Oh this definitely
