The lengths people will go through to stop something that hurts nobody, but helps many always astounds me.
The lengths people will go through to stop something that hurts nobody, but helps many always astounds me.
I have to credit some rando Redditor for the insight that helped me understand why these people do this. I’ll paraphrase because I can’t remember the exact prose.
Nearly all actions of Conservatives can be explained by their two implied core principles:
- All policies are zero sum. For you to gain something means I am losing something.
- There is a naturally occurring societal class-based hierarchy system, and you are required to stay at your level, never rising.
So the reason conservatives oppose student loan relief applies to both rules.
- If student loan borrowers are having debts forgiven (they are getting something) that MUST mean the conservative is losing something.
- If they had to take loans for school because they couldn’t afford to pay for it outright, then they should stay in their economic station. Forgiving these loans may allow them to advance beyond their current class, which cannot be allowed.
Which number 2 blows my mind as they constantly vote for things which benefit those well “above their station” because they think they’ll be there someday.
You can’t change social class. Only I get to change social class. - Conservatives
because they think they’ll be there someday.
Sadly, I think its even worse than you’re describing. They think they are at that higher station now and its rule #1 that is preventing them from actualizing it. As in “I’m not experiencing a luxurious lifestyle because Group X is taking my share”.
My friend ran into a mutual acquaintance; dude’s now a majorly homophobic, anti trans, anti lgbtq, far right, freedumb convoy supporting redneck. You know the type. He’s ranting about how social programs need to be defunded and all the gays do is take and don’t contribute. My buddy then goes “so anyway, how’ve you been?” Dude says “oh I’m great! I got laid off so now I’m on employment insurance.”
Their hypocrisy and tone deafness know no bounds.
I don’t think it’s even that anymore. I think it’s just genuine fawning sycophancy towards their “betters.” They think privileged people deserve even more privilege by virtue of having “won,” even at their own expense. It’s sick and psychotic and completely foreign to my way of thinking, but I don’t think I’m wrong.
Or they think that the people above their station deserve those benefits–they genuinely think and support the rich getting richer is a good thing, regardless of whether they’ll see any benefit themselves. It’s the mirror image of the progressive mindset of voting to raise their own taxes to help the needy.
Not really as much as I feel we think. Having read more about Authoritarian mindsets, which includes the rank and file authoritarians, not just the leadership, they’re actually happy to be reinforcing the hierarchy regardless of their position in it. They’re happy to know their place and to ensure the ranks are kept in place. It brings comfort to many people to know that their position, regardless of how awful it is, is being maintained properly.
This means that they’re entirely okay with a dictator and/or an oligarchy as long as the people on the top are “supposed” to be there.
As Voltaire said: “The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.”
The idea broadly underpins modern capitalism, and it sums up why liberal politicians (whether left or right wing) do nearly everything they do. Democratic liberals want to keep the lower classes at least somewhat happy by throwing them scraps from time to time, while Republican liberals will only ever do just enough to keep the lower classes pacified.
Almost all the quality of life in the US is at the expense of the real global poor. Even our american minimum wage workers going into debt, living paycheck to paycheck actually live a life of privilege compared to billions despite the perceived suffering.
Don’t forget cruelty. If you aren’t in their circle or above it’s also about cruelty.
Fun fact, in the 1920s a high caste Indian man sued the US for the right to naturalize arguing that he was white. Arguing that he was verifiably genetically pure because of his caste and descendant from the Aryans.
The Supreme Court, 9 old white dudes, decided that he didn’t look white enough to be white. And so he wasn’t white, and denied him the right to naturalize.
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I don’t know about the second one, that one sounds like left fan fiction, but #1 is absolutely true.
As #2 I’d put “If something bad happened to you, IE student debt, it’s your fault so you should be punished. If something bad happens to me, it’s bad luck or societies fault, therefore I need help.”
It hurts everyone relying on debt and poverty to force people to accept inequitable exploitation of their labor.
Someone has to pay. Whether that is distributed to many or a few, a lot of people lose a little or a few people lose a lot. Someone has to lose something for someone else to gain it in this scenario.
Ok, how about people with more money they could possibly spend multiple lifetimes??? How about we tax billionaires so everyday citizens can have a decent education without being indebted for the rest of their god damn lives!?
If that’s the case, why is college so much cheaper in other countries? Why is it just the U.S. where education cost has skyrocketed?
Because Reagan opened the flood gates on raising the cost of higher education. Then the boomer generation, well known for pulling the ladder up behind themselves, saw this and ran with it. Also they aren’t the ones going to school anymore. Combine that with the general hatred for education and science republicans have and we have super expensive schools.
My last two years of college had over 10% tuition increases to pay for a new stadium…
No one is suggesting the colleges lose the money. They already got it. So what does their gouging have to do with it? Even if they had to pay off the loans, it would hurt them. Maybe they deserve to be hurt, but giving back money you thought was yours still hurts anyway.
What a bunch of bizarre responses.
You need better sources before arriving at a conclusion on this one. This is a topic that has been discussed at great lengths by people from nonprofits and activist organizations on many podcasts. I’m sure their info exists in written form if you look for it.
The money came from banks and went to the colleges via the students. If you take the money from the colleges, they will be “hurt.” They will lose something they had before. If you take it from the banks, the same. If you pay it from government coffers, then the government has less to spend elsewhere. If you raise taxes, then the money is reaped from whomever has their taxes raised. If you print the money, then everyone pays a little through inflation.
Someone gets hurt. I already said the hurt could be distributed. It could also be levied on people with vast resources who would notice it the least.
Can you summarize the podcasts and writings that suggest no one loses money when a loan is forgiven?
Separately, why is a clear statement of fact controversial? You don’t have to believe that loan forgiveness hurts no one to think it’s a good policy to put in place. So why the weird reaction?
Based on your upvote/downvote ratio it looks like basic economics is not very popular.
Remember, the president is absolutely above the law and can commit a coup or order political assassinations with impunity. But he can’t make decisions about how to implement policies, even when congress gives him that authority.
The seems like the perfect chance to use that immunity. He should use it to sign an executive order to cancel all student debt based on the supreme court decision. Let the republicans object and force the court to either allow it or rule that the president doesn’t actually have immunity.
They left the ruling open enough that SCOTUS can pick and choose what is and is not an official act.
Exactly, force them to decide on every order he makes. By November we will have a list of do’s and don’ts.
Hard to argue that an executive order isn’t an official act, but I dount they care about keeping the mask of legitimacy on anymore
The problem is that you have to find a way to cancel it before anyone can say no. But if it takes any time at all, they can tell those agencies to stop.
We are being governed by unelected judges. We need to reform the court system (starting at the top)
Neocons said that about the legalization of gay marriage. That’s why they cheated under Trump and went for the jugular when it came to supreme court judges. And the highmindedness (and cowardice) of the Democrats in not stuffing the courts in response will haunt America and the world for decades.
Stuffing the Supreme Court long predates gay marriage. It goes back at least to the '90s and perhaps to the '80s.
In the 1980s, the number of justices on the Supreme Court remained at nine, and the appointments made were part of the standard process of filling vacancies as they occurred.
In the 1990s, the number of justices on the Supreme Court also remained at nine. The appointments made during that decade were part of the standard process of filling vacancies as they occurred.
And unelected president… remember, we don’t actually vote the president into office. Instead, we vote, and if they feel like it, a bunch of random electors of the exclusive electoral college club actually elect our president.
That sounds fucking retarded to allow to do, yet, somehow, every time I bring it up, some idiot professor of history defends that. Like ohh, our grandfathers were so smart, they built that into the constitution… They also owned minorities and made them do the hard work around the house.
I mean it was very smart for the time when the average citizen couldn’t possibly know enough to make an informed decision and news that could change who someone would vote for could take weeks to arrive somewhere.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Both the Electoral College and the Senate were specifically created to thwart the will of The People if it was too inconvenient for the elites. What was that quote about the Senate being the “cooling saucer of democracy” or something like that?
The broken part of the legislative branch isn’t the Senate, it’s the House and the Reapportionment Act of 1929 that arbitrarily limited the number of Representatives to 438.
This means that the vote of a person in Wyoming is worth ~6x the vote of someone in California.
People in more populated areas essentially being disenfranchised for being in a more populated area. Something we should be encouraging.
Edit: I’ve been told it’s actually ~65x, not 6x. Don’t feel like doing the math right now but you can do it yourself its pretty easy. Either way its’ fucked, and if it’s actually 65x, that’s just INSANELY fucked.
Perhaps you should be more careful. They’re claiming, and I think accurately, that the judicial branch is making a power grab over both the legislative and executive branches. That has nothing to do with fascism.
(They may or may not be correct in the claim they’re making. We could debate that if you’re interested.)
It might be the case in the US, but usually this sentiment is being used by a fascist government to get support from the public to gut the judicial system of any power.
Biden should decree it as an official act, and order the branches to do it anyway.
Call their Bluff, and better yet do it with a “low stakes” issue so they have to put up or shut up.
Its open faced at this point, this kind of shit will continue until the rulings are ignored. The reason student loans got so much focus is because unlike other legislation proposals, student loans are entirely at the discretion of the department of education under the executive branch. Like how the DEA has authority over drug scheduling.
The executive branch has these authorities, the judiciary does not have the authority to rescind them, only congress can
The judiciary can strike them down for Congress having delegated their power. Judicial review has long been appreciated to be the province of the judiciary. The blame for this lies squarely with the legislature, the most accountable form of government. Vote.
