The jargon changes every few years. Over the decades, it’s gone from “bleeding-heart” to “politically correct” to “social justice warrior” to “woke.”
We have no shortage of derogatory terms for people who exhibit compassion toward others.
In contrast, we don’t alter our terminology to describe hardcore right-wingers. The word “sociopath” works just fine.
Of course, there are numerous reasons why conservatives mock those who express concern for others. There is sadism, self-loathing, selfishness, and a few other motivations that don’t begin with the letter S.
But one of the oddest is the bizarre fear of conservatives that any attempt to display basic decency will inevitably lead to widescale cultural weakness and, therefore, societal collapse. Republicans are constantly shrieking that Americans are lazy snowflakes dependent on government handouts, so we need to whip ‘em to keep them tough. In the GOP worldview, businesses that grant paternity leave are turning American men into effeminate wimps and emasculating the entire country in the process.
I’m pretty sure, however, that being too meek is not one of the American populace’s big problems. Look at our political discourse, social interaction, and rate of gun violence.
Does anyone seriously believe that the main issue with Americans is that we are too nice? Really?
But if you insist that keeping one’s nose to grindstone, feet to the fire, and balls to the wall is the only way to ensure Americans behave, you might be interested in a few statistics that show how well that hard-driving philosophy actually works.
For example, red states are less likely to offer government support to their citizens. This keeps their citizens honest and creates a thriving population of happy, prosperous… oh wait.
Red states are pretty much a hellhole when compared to blue states, evidenced by the fact that liberal areas outperform conservative areas in just about every economic or sociological category.
Even the Republican argument that a red-state existence is better because of the lower cost of living is not entirely accurate. Yes, it is cheaper to live in Mississippi than in Minnesota. But wages are usually lower as well, so it’s at best a tie, or even a slight advantagefor blue states.
OK, so rugged individualism isn’t such a winner in those cases.
But surely our approach to healthcare is tops in the world. After all, we don’t have socialized medicine and all the government dependency it fosters, so our citizens must be the healthiest on the planet.
Yeah, you saw that setup coming, didn’t you?
As everyone knows, the United States spends far more on healthcare and gets worse results than every industrialized nation in the world (and several non-industrialized ones), simply because we refuse to accept universal healthcare.
Studies show that just during the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of Americans died because we don’t have a system like Japan, Australia, or Finland.
But don’t worry, because “nationwide, many hospitals have grown wealthy, spending lavishly on advertising, team sponsorships, and even spas, while patients are squeezed by skyrocketing medical prices and rising deductibles.”
Still, at least all those sick, destitute people aren’t dependent on big government.
And speaking of poverty, America stands alone when it comes to our high rate of homelessness. Other industrialized countries have homeless citizens, of course. But those nations, big governments all, don’t just have a lot fewer homeless people. They actually try to solve the problem.
In America, we believe that giving people housing will make them soft, even though research has shown that providing free or inexpensive housing with no strings attached is an effective way to reduce homelessness.
No, we won’t be having any of that commie crap here. We would rather have a half-million Americans live on the street, even while there are “hundreds of thousands of vacant properties owned by city and state governments” that just sit there empty.
But at least we’re tough.
In fact, we’re so tough that we are committing suicide in record numbers. Yes, while the rate of suicide has declined in every industrialized nation, America is the “one high-income country [that] is a particular exception to the downward trend.”
And that’s part of a larger development brought on by “years of widening economic inequality, compounded by the pandemic and political storm and stress.” And this development is that “life expectancies have been falling” for Americans, which is odd for a nation that takes such great pride in being exceptional.
Yes, we can’t even keep our own residents alive, but we’re number one!
Our declining life expectancy has opened “a window on a set of pathologies unique to America among developed countries.”
And a root cause of this pathology is the belief that trying to help one another is wrong. In truth, however, this demented credo is only making us weaker.
