There's already a lot that the US taxpayer is on the hook for that's a lot less valuable than a best on the next big thing in software, productivity, and warfare.

It shouldn't be the job of the US taxpayer to feed someone that doesn't want to work, study, or pass a drug test, and it absolutely shouldn't be the job of the US taxpayer to feed another country's citizens half a world away.

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ben_w 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Hello, I'm British by birth.

That's pretty close to the story other Brits give themselves for why losing the empire was actually a good thing for the UK.

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epolanski an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It shouldn't be the job of the US taxpayer to feed someone that doesn't want to work, study, or pass a drug test

This would make sense if every person was given similar opportunities, like providing quality education to all of our youngest and making higher education a mission rather than a business as a starter.

As a society we move at the speed of the weakest among us, we only move forward when we start lifting and helping the weakest and most vulnerable.

You also need to realize that not doing that work is also cause for other taxpayer money to be spent elsewhere, such as spending an average of 37k $ per incarcerated person, and that ignores all the damage that criminal might've caused, all the additional police staffing and personal security that is needed to be spent outside prisons, etc.

Those are complex systems, are you sure it wouldn't be better to spend the same gargantuan amount of money that's spent on millions of inmates and fighting crime into fighting the causes that make many fall into that?

Again, those are complex, but closed systems and the argument of "we shouldn't spend on X" often ignores the cost of not spending on X.

	▲	c1sc0 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		No that’s the system working as intended: there’s good private money to be made on incarcerating the poor and uneducated!

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nielsbot 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> It shouldn't be the job of the US taxpayer to feed someone that doesn't want to work, study, or pass a drug test

What about someone who works and still can’t afford enough housing/food?

> shouldn't be the job of the US taxpayer to feed another country's citizens half a world away.

I mean where’s the profit in that, am i right?

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Ar-Curunir 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The modern welfare state is the compromise reached by capitalist democracies to stave off communist revolutions. If you’re going to kill of the welfare part, be ready for the uprising part.

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nosianu 2 hours ago | parent [-]

That's where the surveillance and the militarized police force(s) come in. Especially the former now has reached extraordinary levels, given that almost all communication now is easily trackable.

Compare that to when we still had revolutions, where it was very hard for government to know what is going on, and to find individuals without a huge effort.

I think revolutions have become next to impossible, unless it is lead by significant parts of the elite that controls at least part of the apparatus.

That's not even counting the far more sophisticated propaganda methods, so that many of the affected people won't even begin to target the actual culprits but are lead to chase shadows, or one another.

	▲	victorbjorklund an hour ago \| parent [-]
		We still have revolutions because if enough people go out on the street it doesn’t matter how good your surveillance state is. You can’t kill/arrest 25% of your population. That is why Russia/China/etc are so scared to let any protests begin even with 5 people because if they grow there comes a point it can’t be stopped with violence.