It's amazing to me just how well some political factions in the US have indoctrinated the public to believe that the defense of the common good is some sort of threat to American values, which include, in theory the support and participation in your community.
It's gotten to the point where not even poor people are willing to listen or support many of the policies that promote their well being while not being a significant burden to anyone.
I only know about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and e pluribus unum. Perhaps I'm indoctrinated, but are you sure you are free of indoctrination?
The poor aren't supporting policies that promote their well-being? Without evidence, that straw man is pretty easy to knock down.
Do I really have to go through the motions? I'll bite:
- The US is, among the developed nations, the one with the highest income inequality, and growing
- Unlike practically all wealthier and a remarkable number of poorer countries, the US has no social safeguard for people in case of medical emergencies. People die from not being able to pay medical procedures. And this is objectively a bad thing, from every possible metric.
- The inequality in education among the rich and poor impedes social mobility, again in a manner unheard of in many places.
- Countries who have succeeded or are succeeding in closing the inequality gap do so through a set of consistent, well-researched policies which all have the same effect and lead to overall greater quality of life.
- The power of law enforcement in the US has fewer and fewer checks, leading to the police to have an oppresive attitude towards the populance which, when combined with the privatized prison system, leads to the highest incarceration rate in the world, not coincidentially led by poor people, with an astounding amount of non-violent offenders.
This list can keep growing as long as I have time, so I'll just leave it at that and conclude the American working class has a naive to nonexistant notion of class struggle and suffers tremendously because of it.
It's gotten to the point where not even poor people are willing to listen or support many of the policies that promote their well being while not being a significant burden to anyone.