• im_fine_sandy@nord.pub
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    1 day ago

    Again, to be blunt, what you call “trust” as a non-American, I call my own American tax dollars that went somewhere other than helping me. So don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all to me that we’ve lost it. I’d like some fucking healthcare and not have to pay $2k for a goddamn thyroid panel (insurance thing, true story), and you can build your own national resources.

    Trust isn’t about money. That “America first” bullshit is trumpism.

    Australia for example is not a recipient of international aid, but a long standing strategic partner. America needs us on order to project power in SEA. Trump sought to manipulate us with tariffs to discard our single payer healthcare system, so Australians could be milked by US pharma.

    That’s a loss of trust, and Australians don’t wasn’t to build closer ties with partners who don’t have mutual benefits in mind. It’s the same everywhere.

    Its very short sighted to say you want tax dollars spent at home. Everyone does better when everyone does better. The rising tide lifts all boats. It’s settled economic science. Australia is a much smaller economy but even we invest in stabilising and supporting our neighbors.

    Your health insurance is a shitshow because it’s a shitshow, and throwing tax money at it won’t fix it.

    • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      That “America first” bullshit is trumpism.

      Oh, and one other thing: don’t try to tell me about what is Trumpism and what isn’t. You haven’t been having to hear the details of that propaganda daily for the last decade and it’s one more thing about which you have no idea: it’s a lot more than diverting more tax money to basic domestic purposes, a LOT more.

      And if Gina Rinehart and Pauline Hanson get their way – via very similar means to what has been going on in the US for the last eleven years or so – and One Nation continues to get seats, you’re not going to know what hit you. What looks like a joke today, something your good country would never even think about voting for, will be anything but a joke tomorrow.

    • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      You don’t even see that the only way you can even say all that is by not being an American.

      You have healthcare – excellent healthcare – and you are not in a situation like mine where you have none, and what few tax dollars are being spent domestically are being cut off in favor of more aid to (for example) Israel, a country not only with excellent socialized healthcare but subsidized higher education, so that they can enjoy a much higher standard of living while our money goes to fund their genocide because our president – NOT us, which we proved yesterday – wants to prop up a failing authoritarian whose days are as numbered as the war he is waging.

      You literally have no idea what it is to try to manage chronic health conditions without healthcare, none. Zero. But that is my situation as I am writing this. You claim Australia is supporting your neighbors, but you are managing to do it while maintaining a standard of living at home, which is something we Americans have not enjoyed in a long, long time. Right now, my tax dollars go EVERYWHERE ELSE but my own needs, to the extent that many rural hospitals are already closing, people are going hungry, all these things that your propaganda does not show you about how it is here.

      “America first” is what you distilled my comment into, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I don’t need or want your trust, anymore than I want to be a partner in ASIO or “project power in southeast Asia”. And more importantly, you don’t need to be sitting here trying to sell it to me. Why are you?

      What we all need to be doing is not looking back to what is gone, but what to build with what is left that will serve all of us. And by “all of us” I do mean ALL of us, not just the historical winners.

      For example, if there are trade agreements that are unfair to Australia, such as your claim to US pharma, then why are you still in them? Your government gave you up for that, it’s not all on us. You should see all this as an opportunity then.

      Your health insurance is a shitshow because it’s a shitshow, and throwing tax money at it won’t fix it.

      You have no idea what you don’t even know, lol. Enjoy your socialized healthcare, because your tax dollars – and mine – are going toward it. We’re helping to pay for your security so you can afford to spend on your healthcare. I want to turn that around.

      The rising tide lifts all boats.

      Yes! And that’s exactly what I want. For all of us. Myself included.

      • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Enjoy your socialized healthcare, because your tax dollars – and mine – are going toward it. We’re helping to pay for your security so you can afford to spend on your healthcare. I want to turn that around.

        Oh don’t worry. The entire world have put plans in motion to cut out the US.

        And I don’t mean that sarcastically. Also, we really do enjoy our healthcare. Every time I show up at the doctor to get something looked at I don’t get a bill. It’s awesome.

        Also the US isn’t “funding” the security of other places. That’s just a consequence of the US projecting hard power globally for capital interests. The impact of providing “security” for other nations is just a convenient side effect that’s used for soft power.

        • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          The entire world have put plans in motion to cut out the US.

          That’s great if it’s true – but if it IS true, then why is everyone in this thread all upset by me being fine with it? Why are people trying to sell me so hard on keeping the status quo, telling me about “trusted partnerships,” using vague and awkward hypotheticals like “punched in the face” and even pulling out the ad hominems when I say let’s accept what it is?

          It appears that a great many of you are deeply, deeply upset that we Americans did in fact beat the odds and do the impossible and you do NOT actually want to accept that the old world order is gone.

          Whatever this new day is, I am perfectly fine with moving forward into. I don’t care what other countries trust and don’t trust, because it no longer matters: the orange chancre has destroyed everything that once did. I am not for resurrecting it.

          So why are you all so upset? Why do you need me, specifically, one American guy, to want your trust? Why do you need me to pretend like I don’t like the status quo?

          You’re all telling me that you’re doing great without the US, and that’s the best response that could be hoped for. You’re all telling me you don’t trust the US, and that’s perfect too: rebuild yourselves without us. You’re all telling me that the US has nothing to do with funding the security of other countries: great! You can’t miss what you never had, then.

          And your own entire comment. Clearly, it is intended to trigger some visceral response in me, because healthcare does that to a lot of people, and your response was crude and ugly. But the question is, and remains, why? Why is that such a threat to you personally that you have to come back with something you thought would personally discomfit me?

          So why all the long faces? What is it you all REALLY want from me that you’re not getting? What’s all the bad attempts at sophistry in aid of? When the other day everyone was insisting “Fix your shit!” and we pulled off a miracle, and you’re all happy as clams exactly the way you are, and you don’t need the US and you don’t trust us and you never will again if even then, WHY do you need me to give a shit about your trust?

          Because I honestly cannot be bothered. Find someone else to mirror your hypocrisy to. You got the wrong guy.

          • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Because I honestly cannot be bothered. Find someone else to mirror your hypocrisy to. You got the wrong guy.

            You replied to me. And you’re the one replying to everyone with a novella’s worth of words.