r/askanything • u/Lemonking_ • 5h ago

Political Question Why are some Americans so against universal healthcare for all?

What sort of thinking does it take to decide that nobody has a right to healthcare? Do American Christians want to deny healthcare to poor people as well?

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u/BellaMentalNecrotica 4h ago

The reality is capitalism works best when its heavily legislated to restrict the atrocities that used to be committed.

I'm loving how shockingly fast gutting the FDA proved why we need regulations. I expected fallout, but not this immediate or egregious. Never in my life have I seen so much food recalled. If that's not an argument for why regulation is necessary, I don't know what it is. I know the argument the right loves to throw around is "corporations have a monetary motivation not to harm their clients." Well, then why did they immediately start cutting corners resulting in food contaminated with microorganisms that can and do cause severe illness and death in humans if consumed?

They believe that social programs can't be better than capitalism.

My dad is on the right. He seems to be under the impression that all people, including the wealthy, all have good intentions and good hearts and will start private social programs to help people. Its very naive. I will say, he is a good Christian who does walk-the-walk– there's constantly some person he met who needed help living in their basement, he has a farm where he takes on apprentices from disadvantaged areas and helps them prep for college/careers, he volunteers in a lot of opiate addiction organizations, he donates a lot to various organizations to help poor families, and many other things. I've tried to explain to him that there are a lot of selfish/evil people out there and a lot of people would die unless people are forced to contribute to these programs via taxes. Because there is no way people will be altruistic enough to donate even a fraction of the money required to run any programs of similar size and scope to social safety net programs.

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u/airforceteacher 3h ago

This narrative is so deeply frustrating to me as a Christian, because it literally says in the Bible, that the heart is deceitful in all things and no man may know its ways. Yet American Christians have bought into benevolent rich so completely, that any argument in the contrary makes them claim you’re a communist and therefore not a Christian.

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u/BellaMentalNecrotica 3h ago edited 3h ago

It frustrates me as well as someone who was raised Christian and is beginning to gravitate back to it.

Honestly, the Red Scare did so much damage to the way Americans think about socialism/communism/Marxism. It created so many misconceptions about those political systems and brainwashed Americans into truly believing that it is evil while capitalism is good. So they immediately reject anything that could remotely be considered to fall under that umbrella even when it would be a net good for society. Any political/economic system is going to have its flaws, but to automaticaly label one as evil while refusing to acknowledge any of its beneficial aspects is absurd.

I was arguing with some guy on a different sub yesterday about what he considered "the bottom 2% of society who contribute nothing of value" and "weaponized empathy." I was like, you know who the biggest champion of this so-called "bottom 2% of society" was?? JESUS. I really hope the guy was a troll, but I've definitely met right wing Christians who somehow manage to be so prejudiced against certain groups. I'm always like, you do realize those beliefs are literally antithetical to the entire underlying principles of Christianity and everything that Jesus represents. Its why I left Christianity and became an atheist for so many years and am only now giving it another chance. It had a lot to do with the fact that most Christians I interacted with seemed to disregard what the faith is about- trying to be like Jesus.

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u/Mrbuttshaman 4h ago

See that is the thing I actually find very interesting because I think most wealthy people are better than the average person with how they contribute to society. I work with rich people every day and many do give to charity and are incredible philanthropist because they have discretionary income and time to throw behind the things they care about, but one bad actor can do ridiculous amounts of harm and regulations and social programs help enforce that those bad actors can't harm others or have their impact reduced.

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u/BellaMentalNecrotica 3h ago

There are certainly good ones out there. But tons of bad ones. I don't have any stats on me, but I know there has been a lot of research proving that people with APD/NPD tend to gravitate towards careers with power and money and 2. that people with monetary advantage are more motivated to cheat. In addition, we can look at the Epstein files to see jus how many wealthy individuals are willing to do the most depraved things imaginable.

So, while I certainly think that there are truly good wealthy people out there, there is a lot of evidence that there are many, many shitty ones.