Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Okay, so Hillary Clinton cares about children and families, what about everyone else? (6/16/16)

So, I saw a commercial today in which Hillary Clinton talks about how much she cares about children and how she voted for some CHIP related program or something. This is all well and good, but I really notice that Hillary Clinton’s priorities seem…limited. Everything she is for is about children and families. Nothing wrong with standing up for them, but when you make your campaign almost exclusively about children and families on economics, you start sounding a little like Mrs. Lovejoy.

Think about it. Paid family leave, expansions of healthcare for children, etc. Not bad ideas in and of themselves, but when your primary political opponent in the primaries is the dude pushing universal healthcare, your ideas sound a bit weak…and limited. Sanders wants ideas that help everyone. I want ideas that help everyone. Hillary…she’s for the same old dysfunctional hodgepodge of social programs full of extensive means testing, holes, blindspots, and ridiculous requirements. She helps only SOME people. This is better than helping no one, like the GOP wants to do, but to go a bit into my former conservative mindset again, this approach is a reason why a lot of republicans dont like social programs. They don’t like the idea of a democrat taking their money and giving it to someone else, without getting anything in return. Being told to pay for someone else’s healthcare, when they have trouble getting healthcare, creates some bitterness and resentment. Which is why a lot of conservatives will support social security while at the same time opposing programs like this.

The fact is, if we want to have a good safety net, it has to help everyone, and everyone has to play by the same rules. Yes, while technically everyone plays by them too, if we had a universal system, everyone would see the benefits of it. You see, even Canadian conservatives see the use in their healthcare system, and I think this comes down to the fact that it’s seen as a public utility or function taken for granted like roads or something. But here in America, we have trouble getting safety nets passed because we divide and conquer. We turn everything into “makers vs takers”, when taxpayers being ever vigilant of the government taking their money and giving it to someone else without getting anything in return. If everyone paid in as they were able, and everyone got out, with no discrimination at all, I think we would see not only a much better system that helps more people, but one in which people can rally behind because the majority of people benefit from it, even if they pay for it.

As such, Hillary’s ideas, while not bad, are misguided. In focusing on families and children, single people, the childless, the childfree, and men (because let’s face it, a lot of her ideas are there for women in particular), are going to ask “what about us?” And of course, the response to that is something something privilege, something something get a job and bootstrap, blah blah blah. This is how you make republicans, Hillary. Take it from a former conservative with insight into that mindset, who is now to the left of you. If you want social programs, you can’t afford these wishy washy divisive band aid approaches. You need comprehensive, holistic approaches, that don’t just help some people, but help everyone. We don’t need expansions to chip as much as we need universal healthcare. Yes, it’s good to focus on paid family leave and I think the goal is a worthy one, but we also need stronger labor laws, mandated vacation time like Europe, shorter work weeks, free higher education, and universal basic income.

The fact is, Hillary gives off the impression of not giving a crap about the groups she doesn’t explicitly mention and fight for. Families are important, children are important, sure. What about adults? What about single people? What about men? Screw us, right? Then they dare play the privileged card when we call them out on this crap. Again, I’m not opposed to Hillary’s goals. I just think she has a really crappy and divisive way of going about them. We need large, widespread, holistic reforms to help EVERYBODY, not this mess of all these different ABC programs with ridiculous requirements and means testing that help some while telling the “undeserving” they’re screwed. Because everyone is deserving in my opinion. Men, women, children. Families, single people. Workers, non workers (yes, I understand this one is controversial, but I stand by it for reasons mentioned in other articles). The democrats need to stop playing favorites and push for universal solutions for all. For the record, this is a huge reason I believe Bernie Sanders is a much superior candidate to Hillary Clinton here. He does this. He doesn’t want minor expansions to Obamacare, he wants universal healthcare. He doesn’t want some college compact, he wants free education. Universal solutions are better than wishy washy incremental ones. Period.

No comments:

Post a Comment