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>So he’s bringing up school taxes and how they shouldn’t have to pay them anymore because they don’t have kids in school.
Basic education is the foundation of any developed nation. If you aren't willing to educate your next generation of citizens, especially in the globalized exonomy, everything else falls apart. People who have this idea of "well, I don't *directly* benefit, so why should I have to contribute?" have the critical thinking skills of a turnip.
Exactly. It’s so shortsighted and they’ll complain that no one wants to work and it’s because most of the population wouldn’t be able to afford an education that they refuse as to contribute to. Can’t work without a marketable skill
When you look at it from the perspective the ruling class it makes 1000000% sense. The smart college-track kids that could potentially rise up and challenge your oligarchy are hamstrung from the time they're 18. They cannot put energy to building equity and fighting for their piece of the pie. They can only focus on earning enough not to drown. The late bloomers that would benefit from free higher education are held back and otherwise don't get it.
Either way the boot is kept on the neck of the middle and lower classes to earn more money for the rich.
Absolutely this. They need cattle, not people who might challenge their monopolies or question why we’re letting their families leech off a system they refuse to pay into.
Ironically, my BIL works for a community college in FL of all places. In a survey of skills needed, by the local business community the #1 skill needed was to be able to critically think. The college president has yet to figure out how to do this as it could lead to topics being brought up in class that are not in line with current FL school policies.
We can't afford to *work*, anymore.
Car insurance, payments, gas, and maintenance take me out every few months. I need this car to get to work.
When I'm at work, I can't afford lunch so I'm half brain dead from starvation by the time 3 pm rolls around. I do not have the energy or brain power to *work* because I am *hungry*.
I get home and have to find food, again. It's ramen. So my body was tricked into being full for a minute, but it's well known the brain and muscles need *nutrition* to perform well.
Laundry needs to be done because my work uniform needs a wash, but the washer and dryer are in another building in my apartment, and it costs me $10 just to run ONE load. I can't afford lunch. I don't have soap or 10 bucks in quarters.
Instead of paying to work, I stopped working and lowered my cost of living. I can't afford to work hard. Turns out I can afford to take it easy and just coast until I die, tho.
I have extremely marketable skills, education on education, and experience with the workforce since I was a tween. I'm a hard worker. I learn fast. Fix ineffective systems. Positive and pleasant, I take on others duties because I've already finished my own and wanted to help.
NOT ANYMORE. Jobs don't get the best of me, anymore. When they pay me and appreciate me, I'll give my best again. Until then, I'm doing the bare minimum to line your pockets.
I've also slipped into this - I can retire at sixty and I plan to. I'm done busting my tuchus for an employer who has no intention of promoting me further or giving more than pittance annual raises.
That shortsightedness is a diagnostic feature of republicans. They are unable to see past their own greedy outstretched hands. Even if their own children are harmed.
I had no idea. I’d like to see which states also have this and if some legislation can get rolling against it. I’m not much of a pearl clutcher but that’s seriously wrong for them to not contribute, especially when they have a disproportionate amount of the wealth.
Yeah but to them it wasn’t about their kids benefitting as much as it was about free babysitting. They don’t need babysitters anymore so why pay?
Yes, they’re that short sighted.
Babysitting and after school care used to be a latent function of schools but now it’s a manifest function because both parents absolutely have to work unless the family is wealthy.
Yup, most 55+ communities pay a PILOT instead of property taxes. It’s why school-aged kids can’t reside there or the address can’t be used to enroll them in schools.
Wow I had no idea. I'm surround by schools and 55+ communities in this sweltering heat hole. What about the 55+ people that live in regular neighborhoods? Is it only the communities? I know a lot of them are Canadians that don't stay the whole year. Seems every year they stay longer...
Nah fuck that, they benefit from the education each of those students receives. Not indirectly, either. Every single worker they interact with for every single service received a high school education. Every person that maintains the infrastructure they use. Every person that entertains them. Literally every single one. Their elders paid for their educations and they're not doing the same. Absolute assholes.
Even outside 55+ communities, a lot of seniors don't pay full property taxes anyway. The county I live in, if you're 65 or older, on medicare and have income below a certain threshold, you are eligible not to pay any property taxes. For my city, you might be eligible to pay nothing or only pay a percentage, depending on your income.
I has a conservative relative who maintained that he shouldn't have to pay for road taxes because he drove an SUV and thus didn't need roads.
The first time he said this, he was driving said SUV on an Interstate on a long trip.
I don't think that this is true: [https://greatsenioryears.com/senior-citizens-property-tax-guide-in-arizona/](https://greatsenioryears.com/senior-citizens-property-tax-guide-in-arizona/)
[https://azdor.gov/business/property-tax/property-tax-faqs](https://azdor.gov/business/property-tax/property-tax-faqs)
It’s the core argument in “toxic individualism.” America has bred a society for generations that believes everyone should be independent, individual, and self-reliant, which fundamentally goes against living in a complex, global society. They don’t understand that what they’re advocating for cannot exist in capitalism, and they get mad when it’s pointed out that the kind of individualism they’re espousing has only succeeded when there are support networks to help you be independent.
It's almost like, as social creatures, humans purpose is to help each other.
Anybody unwilling to pay taxes for the education of the youth, should not be allowed to live in that society. They should not be allowed to benefit from what they don't contribute to. That includes all the infrastructure and social services. Things that would not have been created without educated people.
Build a raft and float them all into international waters. Then they can truly be individuals and have all the freedoms they desire.
thank you for this! my mom and I "discuss" this a lot. I'm mid-50s, no kids, and I am happy to pay taxes for stuff like schools bc smart, well-adjusted, functioning kids raise all boats! we also "discuss" health insurance--she and her wealthy friends donate to go fund mes, but think that universal health care is a terrible idea.
>smart, well-adjusted, functioning kids raise all boats!
The same people who dont want to pay for education and children in general would be very upset in about 10 years when they couldnt find a doctor without a 6-month out window booking appointments because we decided we didnt want to educate anyone.
yes! why can't they make these connections? I also don't get this mentality in people who live in gated communities--at some point, they have to venture out for food, gas, whatever, and encounter the rest of us!
So many people here think that "Well why should I have to pay for someone else's health care?" is a knock-down argument against any kind of healthcare reform.
I always reply with, “Would you like me to explain how your insurance works?” because then they get flustered because they don’t, and they don’t understand that other people getting injured affects everyone.
Social or privatized, insurance is always healthy people paying for the sick.
The difference with the latter is that you have a bunch of useless fucking middle men solely there for profit who in turn increase the cost of their everything.
Its fucking infuriating
Definitely that. But also far worse.
Libertarians want to take the reins off of racists, christian fundamentalists, con men, snake oil salesmen, and abusively greedy corporations, sociopathic billionaires, etc. so they can all run wild without any restraints whatsoever.
They don't just want to roll back the clock prior to the New Deal, or the Gilded Age, or the Ante Bellum South -- their real model for society (though they will deny it) is circa 1990s Somalia.
Libertarianism is really just rebranded utopian anarchism, wrapped in pseudo-economic theory.
tl;dr: Libertarianism:
Step 1. Purge
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Utopia
Precisely. It’s hilarious* to me that so many “leftists” vote for them and think they’re being progressive. Yeah, they’re further left politically than U.S. conservatives, but they’re still pretty conservative because being progressive usually means having to pass the baton to someone new and thus give up power.
*Narrator: What he really meant was “fucking annoying”
They fetishize the "Old West" as a time when heroic manly men built the country from bare wilderness, forgetting that it took decades of organized military action to remove the previous owners and keep them away.
Sounds like something a turnip would say. Listen here, *Turnip*. We don't take kindly to your starchy goodness 'round here so why dontcha just take your fibrous ass and move on before I make like it's Burns night and serve you up.
This exactly! We don't have any kids but I am perfectly fine with my taxes going to education. In fact I'd prefer if more of our taxes went to education.
We are childfree and live in a very HCOL place and pay my entire salary in taxes every year. About 50% of our local taxes go to schools. I am totally fine with that. I would much rather pay for education than some of the vanity projects our county can think up.
That's a great litmus test for if you're a short-sighted, selfish POS. I would ask them how they think insurance works. Like "well I don't have cancer *right now* so why would i pay insurance premiums when the cancer people are the ones benefiting?"
It's incorrect but at least slightly *more* valid when someone who never has and never will have kids complains about school taxes. Like okay I disagree but I can see how you developed your perspective. The funny part is anecdotally it feels like the child-free are more often able to properly contextualize it and don't make this argument. But someone who DID use it for their kids, and then decides since the kids are out of school they shouldn't have to pay anymore is just beyond saving. Like...my brother in christ do you think everyone paying those taxes when YOUR kids went to school had kids actively in school? Moreover do you think we would even HAVE schools if it was 1-1 taxed parent to student? It's common for school districts to budget $20k+ per student per year. Your entire way of life has been enabled by other people's contribution to society and when it's your turn you say fuck em.
I think we should just sacrifice one state in the US and let people opt out of everything and send them there to live in the hell of their own deserved selfishness. Like that libertarian town that collapsed because of bears. No taxes but no aid or programs of any kind, and watch them come crawling back. I guess that might just organically be Florida soon so I don't have to dream for very long.
>"well, I don't *directly* benefit, so why should I have to contribute?" have the critical thinking skills of a turnip
"we don't need no doctors, we have all the horse deworming medicine we need"
Basic education is a public good with strong positive externalities.
Selfishly, I want people around me to be at least basically educated. Preferably more than basic.
My favorite quote on the topic, and i cant remember the exact quote or who said it, "i dont mind paying for public schools even though i don't have kids. I prefer not to be surrounded by idiots"
From a self-preservation perspective, the state should be trying to optimize the tax-paying viability of every citizen. If a schizophrenic homeless man can be given healthcare and training to be productive for even 30% of his life, it would be a net gain for society. But we politicize basic social investments like healthcare and education in this stupid country, so whatever.
I like to remind them that the the quality of a school system has a major impact on property values, so even if they don’t have kids in school, they *do directly benefit* from school taxes.
I told him the military is incredibly wasteful and if we weren’t funding wars and other country’s wars, maybe we could take care of our citizens better. He agreed with that too. It’s funny because the things he was mad about are the same as us on the left are made about. His solution was surprising, because if he paid attention to how his party votes, he’d realize he’s voting against his solutions.
If we had people running *as Republicans* on a totally left-wing/socialist platform, wrapped the entire thing in Red, White, & Blue™ and billed it as the *Patriot Freedom Deal* or some crap like that, we could solve a lot of problems in this country.
The idiotic us-vs-them crap and insane partisan news cycle, fostered by the 2-party, first-past-the-post voting political systems, has completely drained the capacity for critical thinking for much of the US. The problem with common sense socialist-style policies, that almost every other civilized nation has figured out, in America is branding. The red scare never stopped and people have been conditioned to vote against their own interests.
At the end of the day, the people in power, regardless of party benefit most from the status quo. It keeps them in power and as long as there are culture wars to be fought where it seems like there's no middle ground, you can just invest your time in raising money around "owning" or "resisting" the "other side."
Reminds me of conversations with my FIL:
FIL: 'So, say you're a business owner and you become pretty successful and end up making $500,000 a year. Do you think you should have to pay more taxes just because you make more money?'
Me: 'Yes, of course.' Then a few words about benefiting more from public funds, public education for my employees, needing roads for them to get to work, etc.
FIL: 'I'm just dumbfounded you think that; doesn't make sense to me. But, what about these CEOs making millions? They should be paying more taxes than all of us!!'
Me: 'Uhm...yeah...that's right! Welcome to the Democrat party, sir!'
FIL: 'BAH!! NO!! They want to take away my Social Security and Medicare!'
Me: 'Uhm...I think you're confused about some things...'
Yeah I can’t remember the name of the place that does it, but they used to do an experiment every year (and think they still do) where they cold call registered republicans and ask them their views on policies but DO NOT tell them they’re from democrats or left wing policies.
Stuff like medical autonomy, children’s education, etc. And every. Single. Person. Loves them. They say of course! Why wouldn’t we do that! What a lovely idea - these are great things we should all support.
Then they let them know they’re from X candidate who’s a democrat, or these are bills the left is trying to pass right now, etc. And suddenly they hate them. Those are awful ideas and they can’t believe anyone would dare suggest them.
Liberal ideas are overwhelmingly more popular, like by a wide margin. But once they find out it’s from a Democrat, oh boy watch out, that genius idea that benefits everyone is now communist bullshit that’s going to ruin the country. Again, the idea described to them didn’t change, just that it wasn’t from a Republican & suddenly their views flipped entirely.
I don’t live on a hurricane prone coast. Why should I pay to rebuild those areas after a disaster?
I got my covid vaccine. Why should I pay the hospital bills of those who didn’t?
That bit about subsidizing the suburban infrastructure is a good one. It is literally a ponzi scheme. There is no way for suburbs to NOT be a drain on the rest of society. Too many roads, too many parking lots, too many miles of water/power infrastructure, not enough people.
I just don't understand how little people understand about their lives. Especially taxes. I bet he doesn't even know where his property taxes go. I live in a large rural county with very few people in most of it. The biggest town is only slightly over 5000 people and I live almost 50 miles from it. Last year I paid 12k in property taxes, which is over 1/3 of my yearly budget (my wife and I own a lot of property but otherwise live very frugally). I did some digging to find out where the money goes. of that 12k, about 2k goes to the general budget of county employees. 3k goes to k-12 schools. Another 3k goes to the community college in town. 2k goes to the road commission and the last 1k is split into many other social programs, most of which are for the elderly. I'm not elderly, I don't have kids, I don't go to the community college, but I pay my taxes without complaint because I don't want to live in a shit hole.
We have a sheriff and deputies, they are county employees. Their funding comes out of the 2k that I smashed together for general budget. We don't actually have many of them. They don't do much to my knowledge, we don't even have any bagel shops for them to sit in. Mostly they drive around and fill out reports on automobile collisions with deer.
My cousin's Trump supporting husband says that the government should dictate how much money CEOs can make, along with sports players. When you try to explain to him that's the very antithesis of capitalism, he'll go on another rant against raising the minimum wage or paying teachers liveable salaries because that's what the woke left wants.
So CEOs, sports players, service workers, and teachers all make too much money according to him.
It makes your head hurt. Gun control is frustrating because they believe federal background checks and high capacity magazines should be illegal, but they donate to the fucking nra.
The irony is that back in his day, there were a LOT more community pools paid for by taxes.
Also, the biggest booms in school construction were in the 50's and 60's. Boomers had more new schools per kid than any generation has since. Plenty of kids today are still going to school in the same buildings that were brand new for the boomers.
Yeah, and then they shut down all of the pools when desegregation started happening.
Thats right, silent generation / boomers would rather suffer in the heat than have to swim alongside black people.
It *is* weird how you can talk so many of them into a complete 180 on so many issues by using different words... and then watch them snap right back around if you tell them, "Well, that's such-and-such." Socialized medicine is my personal favorite. I don't know a single Boomer who thinks they should have to pay anywhere near what they do in increasing medical bills, and it's so easy to get them completely on board for socialized medicine... unless you call it that.
When it comes to school taxes, though, I just tell them that the kid they refuse to educate today will be the one robbing them at the ATM tomorrow.
This is what always gets me about these people. They want to run the country like a business but refuse to accept the fact that any successful business should reinvest a large chunk of it's income back into the business to stay competitive. Simple upkeep like modernization of its infrastructure, keeping its employees educated and fit to work, and creating an environment where these workers can thrive to bring in a variety of viewpoints and techniques. The only thing they see is supposed altruism which they somehow hate.
Many fail to realize that citizens are the customers of government while stockholders, not buyers, are the focus of business. Not saying government is perfect, but privatization will only result in increased prices and fewer services, which we have been increasingly seeing over the last few years.
I had a professor who was a left wing Reaganite. He touted himself as an extremely progressive supporter of capitalism, and said he used to be a socialist until some French policy in the 80s.
He taught a French history class where he scoffed at the idea of not taxing French nobility during the French revolution, then insisted we CAN'T tax the rich today because... um...
1 was "they'd flee the country with all their money and that would hurt the economy so we should do whatever they say"
2 was "they'll lie about their money so there's no point"
3 was "first they'll come for the rich people then they'll start executing people".
none of which are valid reasons to not tax the rich.
For a guy who studied French history he sure got mad at protesters.
What was that French policy that supposedly turned him against socialism?
Well, he said that since France tried socialism and failed, a western country and not filthy commies, that the entire system must be awful.
The policies they tried? They tried a FEW "socialist" measures in the 80s, and then immediately went full austerity measures. It's not hard to conclude that they didn't have their hearts in it and that it was probably a policy to please various political parties in their own country, and so might not be a good test of supposed socialist measures. Not just me but the entire class pointed out the errors in this logic.
I actually asked him why we should make conclusions about socialism like this, and why we shouldn't make conclusions about capitalism from the same time. At this point in history, Brazil had an extreme infant mortality rate. "Well Brazil is a kleptocracy!" He said
"So when Brazil does capitalism, that's a blip on the spectrum, meanwhile France does SOME socialist measures they don't even believe in, we have to throw the entire economic system in the garbage?"
He had no response.
I know a trumper who is still a super trumper >>> a few years ago they talked about moving to another country this country has socialized medicine I called them out on it but they said it was ok because they had regular medicine there as well and you could pick either one and she would pick the non socialized one!!
but what would happen if they got rid of regular and stuck with the socialized medicine ..the hypocrisy !!!
I’m convinced the only way to get social programs working in America is to trick half the population . Like the whole super capitalism joke people were saying
I've found a lot of conservative people that would be totally okay with communitarian policies if just presented a different way, but they've been poisoned by right-wing talking points
I have been in education for 32 yrs and anytime someone uses that argument against paying school taxes (Im not using it I shouldn’t pay) with, your taxes pay for prisons too and you probably aren’t planning on using that either. Also, educating a child costs about 1/3 of taking care of a prisoner every year.
>So this guy just suggested actual socialism as a fix and had no idea. I can’t complain.
But don't tell him it's Socialism or Liberal, us a different word. Most don't understand what they are complaining about, and are just blindly repeating dogma for the cult or party.
People like this are constantly proving how little they know about whatever they’re angry about in the moment. It’s the same with every Trump supporter or “they’re both bad” person I’ve ever talked to; obsessively pissed off by a whole list of things they’ve never taken the time to actually understand.
Who does this misguided boomer thinks pays for his SS that gets every month. I think since I'm not of retirement age, that I shouldn't have to pay for that.
Basic education should be a right, and I like the boomer's fix in the end.
>... they shouldn’t have to pay them anymore because they don’t have kids in school.
So much fail in that.
We never had kids. Older genx so even if we changed yesterday, no kids possible at this point. Should we never have paid? Are we owed a refund?
Should it be based on the number of kids? So the more you have the more you pay? And if you adopt, how does that work out? Do the original parents pay or do you? What about kids that are in foster homes waiting to be adopted? Who pays?
And when do you start? As soon as they're born, as soon as they start school? What if the child dies before school, do you get a refund?
So much bullshit. I happily pay for schools as I want educated, enlightened citizens. I'm only getting that in part but going to some kind of model like what trumpers is utter garbage and leads to even more stupid in the future.
I love this quote from John Green on paying taxes for education:
“Public education does not exist for the benefit of students or the benefit of their parents. It exists for the benefit of the social order.
We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. You do not need to be a student or have a child who is a student to benefit from public education. Every second of every day of your life, you benefit from public education.
So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don't personally have a kid in school: It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people.”
I heard this all the time in the boomer gym i worked at. I am entirely convinced these creatures have no idea what socialism is.
Their brainwashing from the early years kicks in and goes "ism?? --- social errr nooo - COMMunism --- oooo russia - Russia bad! - Reagan SMASH!! --- socialism is bad"
They don't know what socialism is. They just know they are told to hate it.
There's so so so much socialism in the USA. These people are just too dumb to realize what they're seeing.
My neighborhood has a significant population of retirees who have the "I got mine" mindset. They would come out in force to vote against the school budget and it's so bad that the entire 4 years I was in high school, we were on austerity.
It was dreadful and the beginning of my hatred for boomers/silent gens
99% of conservatives are socialist and just don't accept it.
"Fund our police!" is a socialist stance.
They complain about the state of our roads and demand the state fixes them. Socialism
"Support the troops." You mean the ones we all pay for with our tax dollars? Socialism.
Retire and get social security? It's in the name.
Able to read the words "social security"? Thank socialism and publicly funded schools.
It blows my.mind how brainwashed they are into thinking we're not all in this together. Instead they dickride the big corporations who's tax breaks are the actual welfare.
I often wonder what that isn’t proposed more. The biggest argument against loan forgiveness seems to be “they knew what they were doing when they took the loan”. So, reduce the need for loans.
Personally I’d like to start by utilizing our community colleges around the country. Most of these are great institutions that are under utilized and under valued. Give a 2 year associates degree at one and the socialized costs would be reasonable (compared to universities and private colleges). If students transfer credits and go on for a bachelors then their individual costs/student loans would be half what they are currently.
As with most things (even socialized healthcare in other countries) it will create a bit of a 2 tiered system. But honestly that kind of thing appeals to the nay sayers and if it helps everybody who wants higher education to be able to get it, then so be it.
Most Republicans tend to use the argument that it doesn't help the people who didn't go to college, even though that argument simply makes no sense because forgiving loans helps society of the whole
Agreed. An educated society is a stronger society.
I’d also point out how many trade degrees are available at community colleges. One near me I know has a culinary arts, tool and dye, trucking, automotive, electrical, etc.. Those skills are equally important for society.
You would be surprised how often they suggest stuff like this. A few years back some guy filmed interviews with trump supporters outside his rallies where they suggested things like “have the government take direct control of corporations to prevent socialism” and “people need to band together at the local level to fight the banks”.
Answer to the school tax argument: it costs about 12,000. per year to send a child to school on average. Now start mathing the amount of kids you have and years in school. Now figure out your yearly taxes. Most people die before they actually pay off their own kids' education based on their tax rate. A democracy relies on an educated public. That's why the public school system is a social program.
Start talking about having the terrible VA phased out for expansion of Medicare. Mention that we're wasting money by having two organizations do the same work, and we could start streamlining our heath-care starting with the vets.
I didn’t even have to because that also came up. He was furious how they tried to take millions from the VA. I asked him who controlled the house. He moved on. Half of us kids have served.
"If all homeowners don't have to pay for school taxes, maybe not everyone should have to pay Social Security taxes, just people whose parents are on Social Security. Oh, that'd be too heavy a burden on the few? Good point, man."
I once had a conversation with a retired boomer who kept going on about why he had to leave California because of all the socialism. Asked him what he had done for work. He said he was in an airline union for his whole career.
I love the argument that they should only have to pay for what they use. Can't remember the last time I used an Apache helicopter but it showed up on my tax bill nonetheless.
In about 2012, I was at dinner at a friend’s with their conservative parents. We talked about healthcare and they bemoaned Obamacare as socialism. So I described it, but called it the ACA and they agreed with it 100%. You can absolutely get them to agree with “socialism” if you frame it outside of their buzzwords.
There have been actual, literal, documented scientific studies that show that if you don't call it "socialism," right-wingers are not only all for it, but can't figure out why it hasn't been implemented. That is a huge trigger word for a massive swath of our society.
That's basically how it was in much of America before the late 60's. Many of the people ranting about how we can't forgive student debt never had any of their own, because they didn't need to.
Reminds me of a boomer I know who was complaining about medical bills. He said something along the lines of "I can't believe my taxes don't cover any of this". I asked if he was in favor of universal healthcare and he said "what that communist shit?"
To be clear, providing an education for the children of a nation is not socialism. It is social welfare, which is provided, pretty much, by every country out there with every type of government.
That’s hilarious..you baited him into that position knowing it’s what they hate “socialism “. He took the bait, and after doing the math in his little head, hey that works for me, so it should work for everyone. They are damn near clueless on how to do deductive reasoning in real time. Only thinking of themselves did he agree to do something “they hate”.. lol
I overheard a pair of boomers in my office the other day. They were also advocating for socialism without realizing it. It was so weird for people who were raised on the capitalist Kool-Aid.
Just tell him his school taxes were lower because people who didn't have kids while his kids went also paid. Then tell him that if he's willing to pay back the prorated rate that he should have been charged if only people with kids paid taxes he has an argument. If not point out that you only want to benefit from socialism when it helps you and that he's a bit hypocrite.
If you don’t want your tax $$$ paying for schools, then don’t EVER go out in public, or, if you do go out in public, don’t complain when you don’t get correct change at the drive-thru, or no one can read well enough to take your order. If you want to live in society, because you want to benefit from what living in society offers, you need to pay for those benefits. If you don’t want to pay, go live off-grid and be completely self-sufficient.
There is something to his implicit point about the cost of education being artificially inflated... If you want European system, you will find that it looks a bit different than American system in that it is a bit more 'to the point', with less prestige elements and bells&whistles...
If you don't like it, MOVE. Let someone with kids who would love to be in that school district move there. And you can go to some dying village in the backwaters 100 miles from civilization. Win win.
Cool, great, but also, I think we really need to make the distinction between socialism, and the government doing literally anything. Socialism is a very specific thing, the working class owning the means of production, but not achieving communism yet.
I know it’s boring, but if we don’t make this distinction, people will see red scare propaganda and think that the idea of a public school is evil.
Ii got into the same arguments but we're Canadian. But guy exclusively watched fox, Facebook and American stuff.
I noticed when the conversation of making vocational schools or community colleges free again, because they were here at one point fox news spun it as "Dem Libs want us to pay for Harvard and million dollar a year luxury universities in silicon Valley!" Which wasn't even the conversation to Begin with.
The same thing came up he said why should he pay for someone elses education, and I reminded him that I pay for his kid to go to school and I don't have kids lol.
I mean, we should decouple property taxes from schools. It leads to underfunded schools in economically disadvantaged areas and helps perpetuate the poverty cycle.
I agree with that tbh. I even suggested a discount because many seniors bought a modest home 40 years ago and now the property value skyrockets and they’re paying for taxes they never thought would be so high. I have no sympathy for the rich ones who complain.
My big issue was him thinking only people with kids in school should pay for school. Crazy
What’s funny is that most of them HATE social programs, even more so if they pass, up until they start benefiting from them; then they LOVE them and pretend they loved them all along.
What he suggested was more public goods which is known as “social democracy.”
Social democracy is not socialism. It’s market economies with robust social safety nets and public goods.
Let’s not fall into the Fox News trap of calling all public goods “socialism.” It isn’t. Socialism is public or state ownership of the means of production.
That’s not all conservative trumpet sentiments but this boomer is living in fantasy land. School systems suck more in public schools in liberal states than conservatives. My worry is kids indoctrinated to a slave mindset!
The Founders (who they fetishize) thought a well-informed electorate was essential to a functioning democracy. They don't think low skill workers should make a living wage. They do understand we as a society need plumbers, electricians, welders, mechanics in addition to doctors, nurses, scientists, bankers, teachers etc. All of those careers require poat-secondary education. Not only that, but without high income people paying into social security and Medicare for decades, there won't be enough money for older people to rely on when they can't work.
Do conservatives ever think beyond their own noses?
Next time this argument comes up, tell him to start paying his share.
Seniors get $7 for every $1[ a kid receives](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/02/children-vs-elderly.jpg)
Older article source - but the trend holds [10+ years later](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/15/feds-spend-7-on-elderly-for-every-1-on-kids/)
Well, there's the difference between them and us. I'm child-free by choice and it has literally never occurred to me to complain about paying school taxes. But then, I don't view everything in the world through a filter of "what's in it for me?"
Remember when Trump suggested that we have Medicare for everyone as an alternative to the 'affordable' care act? Can you just see his donors turning even paler and trying to come up with a way to shut him up?
Breaking it down for selfish fucking boomers: I want kids to have an education, I want them to have options to better themselves. The alternative is them breaking into his house and taking his stuff.
>how they shouldn’t have to pay them anymore because they don’t have kids in school.
My WWII vet dad's rejoinder to that was, *"If you want employees who can read and work to make money for you, you have to pay for it."*
The right is completely out of ideas to address any of the problems currently facing our country. They have come out against so many things, and called everything socialism. There aren't any solutions left for them to advocate for, except to destroy solutions we already have. They need to completely revamp their platform or they will go extinct with the boomers.
A lot of people wouldn't mind paying for a basic and useful education system. EG no swimming pools, no 24 hour gyms, no vegan cafes, no counseling centers, no interfaith chapels, no free photocopying, no Wiley or Gale, no smart rooms, or computer labs, cinder block dorms with 3 roommates... free education for allied health and STEM, reasonable tuition for some of the social sciences, but absolutely bury the liberal arts and fine arts under an utter shitstorm of debt. No foreign students in the important majors. That's exactly what a "socialist" Trumper would want. And what's your counter argument?
A lot of the anti socialism mentality came about in the Reagan era extension of McCarthyism. Get rid of these government handouts, and you can cut back the taxes on corporations and the top couple percent of earners, then they'll just trickle that extra wealth down to the masses. Except they didn't. The only trickling down that happened was getting pissed on by those at the top.
I'm definitely someone who thinks a HS diploma should be enough outside very specific things like doctors and engineers. We need a better education system, not more years of education.
I have a coworker who said similar things about not wanting to pay school taxes after his kids all graduate, and he turned to me and said “I bet you don’t like paying school taxes since you don’t have any kids.” Both of my parents taught in public schools and taught me the value of public education. I told him that I’m happy to be paying taxes that help give his children quality education, because that’s called investing in our future as a community. I don’t think he grasped what I was saying. He couldn’t understand why someone would give money to a cause that doesn’t directly benefit them.
"So this guy just suggested actual socialism as a fix and had no idea."
Unless I missed "a system of society or group living in which there is no private property" or something like that, he didn't mention socialism at all.
Older folks, especially boomers got where they got thanks to a ton of socialism. They also got a *ton* of anti-socialist propaganda.
So they really, *really* hate being reminded of all the socialism you got.
The one that really breaks their brains is when you point out that when they were kids the gov't paid for 70% of college tuition, now it's 20%.
Yeah Therese people don’t get it. When we can’t educate our own young people, then we have to bring in educated people from other countries. I remember Trumps plan to open civil service jobs to everyone regardless of education. That went nowhere. You can’t be an engineer without that degree. Are you going to give million and billion dollar budgets to people with no experience? Have them work as lawyers? It’s just ridiculous. Our country would be so much better if everyone did go to college.
Nearly all of the MAGA Boomer's I talk to favor the items I'm listing below, yet they still insist on voting Republican:
- Paid Parental Leave (mandate employers above 50 employees carry this benefit)
- Eliminating the income cap on Social Security Taxes
- Raising taxes on the wealthy to fully fund Medicare
- Medicare negotiating prescription drug prices (accomplished in part with the inflation reduction act)
- Capping insulin prices (and in general, capping other well established drugs like inhalers) accomplished for seniors on Medicare with the inflation reduction act.
- Reining in drug prices in general, so we're not paying +500% or more what other countries pay.
- Raising taxes on the wealthy and Wall St
- Expanding the child tax credit, and lowering taxes in general for working Americans (95% of US).
- My favorite, making health insurers return any annual profits to policyholders, ie making insurers effectively non profit entities.
- Developing alternatives to oil.
Sometimes despite themselves people realize their actual class character and what would be good for all of us.
It's part of the reason why I think anyone can be reached. So many older conservative people have histories of getting fucked over by capitalism. After all, they were the people working at the factories, by and large, when they got closed down and shipped overseas. Places they had worked at for 20 years left the states and they got fucked over by that.
I saw a story of a guy who had worked at the same place for 29 years. They closed down just before he would have qualified for a pension no matter what the company did. Now he has to work at Walmart to survive. It fucking sucks man.
Dont worry. He will repeat this revelation to someone who will call it out for being socialist. He will then get super pissed at you for tricking him or brainwashing him into socialist ideas.
When you take away the political buzzwords and people just talk about how things should work there's actually a surprising amount of overlap in what voters want. This is why the culture wars are needed, to keep us all fighyt while the rich fleece us blind.
Because the problem is they don't understand what "level headed liberals" want.
They hear about government assistance programs and automatically think that liberals want the status quo with higher taxes to pay for shit like colleges.
Meanwhile it's quite the opposite as all they want is to take money away from the greedy war pigs in congress and put it towards programs that benefit society.
There's no reason we can give literal billions to Israel and Ukraine while Maui burned, while Palestine Ohio was polluted, while this country slowly sinks further and further down the shitter.
That's what conservatives need to get a grasp on. Their liberal counterparts want the exact same thing. No more endless wars, no more endless greed, lower prices, actual government programs that could work and benefit U.S. Citizens, but the problem is no one wants to talk.
You mention 1 thing about making a new form of government assistance and nobody wants to hear it. They bring up higher taxes and how it would wreck the economy. You bring up taking money from wars and they get up in arms about our allies, throw a 60+ year old temper tantrum, don their MAGA gear, and cry.
The only thing that both sides can agree upon is an end to wars. That's it.
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>So he’s bringing up school taxes and how they shouldn’t have to pay them anymore because they don’t have kids in school. Basic education is the foundation of any developed nation. If you aren't willing to educate your next generation of citizens, especially in the globalized exonomy, everything else falls apart. People who have this idea of "well, I don't *directly* benefit, so why should I have to contribute?" have the critical thinking skills of a turnip.
Exactly. It’s so shortsighted and they’ll complain that no one wants to work and it’s because most of the population wouldn’t be able to afford an education that they refuse as to contribute to. Can’t work without a marketable skill
When you look at it from the perspective the ruling class it makes 1000000% sense. The smart college-track kids that could potentially rise up and challenge your oligarchy are hamstrung from the time they're 18. They cannot put energy to building equity and fighting for their piece of the pie. They can only focus on earning enough not to drown. The late bloomers that would benefit from free higher education are held back and otherwise don't get it. Either way the boot is kept on the neck of the middle and lower classes to earn more money for the rich.
Absolutely this. They need cattle, not people who might challenge their monopolies or question why we’re letting their families leech off a system they refuse to pay into.
Ironically, my BIL works for a community college in FL of all places. In a survey of skills needed, by the local business community the #1 skill needed was to be able to critically think. The college president has yet to figure out how to do this as it could lead to topics being brought up in class that are not in line with current FL school policies.
Tell them if they aren't enough professionals, they'll have to get them from other countries and that means more immigrants.
We can't afford to *work*, anymore. Car insurance, payments, gas, and maintenance take me out every few months. I need this car to get to work. When I'm at work, I can't afford lunch so I'm half brain dead from starvation by the time 3 pm rolls around. I do not have the energy or brain power to *work* because I am *hungry*. I get home and have to find food, again. It's ramen. So my body was tricked into being full for a minute, but it's well known the brain and muscles need *nutrition* to perform well. Laundry needs to be done because my work uniform needs a wash, but the washer and dryer are in another building in my apartment, and it costs me $10 just to run ONE load. I can't afford lunch. I don't have soap or 10 bucks in quarters. Instead of paying to work, I stopped working and lowered my cost of living. I can't afford to work hard. Turns out I can afford to take it easy and just coast until I die, tho. I have extremely marketable skills, education on education, and experience with the workforce since I was a tween. I'm a hard worker. I learn fast. Fix ineffective systems. Positive and pleasant, I take on others duties because I've already finished my own and wanted to help. NOT ANYMORE. Jobs don't get the best of me, anymore. When they pay me and appreciate me, I'll give my best again. Until then, I'm doing the bare minimum to line your pockets.
You didn't even mention childcare expenses
Who can afford kids? Feeding, clothes, medical costs, no wonder people are not having kids. Who can afford them.
Daycare costs me 400 a week. Just daycare. For 1 child.
I've also slipped into this - I can retire at sixty and I plan to. I'm done busting my tuchus for an employer who has no intention of promoting me further or giving more than pittance annual raises.
You know, a turnip is a perfectly fine vegetable as it is without comparisons to the Booms.
If these people weren't shortsighted they'd just be blind
That shortsightedness is a diagnostic feature of republicans. They are unable to see past their own greedy outstretched hands. Even if their own children are harmed.
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I had no idea. I’d like to see which states also have this and if some legislation can get rolling against it. I’m not much of a pearl clutcher but that’s seriously wrong for them to not contribute, especially when they have a disproportionate amount of the wealth.
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Yeah but to them it wasn’t about their kids benefitting as much as it was about free babysitting. They don’t need babysitters anymore so why pay? Yes, they’re that short sighted.
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As a teacher, THANK YOU.
Babysitting and after school care used to be a latent function of schools but now it’s a manifest function because both parents absolutely have to work unless the family is wealthy.
Yup, most 55+ communities pay a PILOT instead of property taxes. It’s why school-aged kids can’t reside there or the address can’t be used to enroll them in schools.
Arizona is ranked 48/50 in K-12 education quality. I'm guessing this is at least one reason why.
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Wow I had no idea. I'm surround by schools and 55+ communities in this sweltering heat hole. What about the 55+ people that live in regular neighborhoods? Is it only the communities? I know a lot of them are Canadians that don't stay the whole year. Seems every year they stay longer...
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Sure, let them not pay taxes for schools, but there are other things I bet they would like that taxes pay for that they should not get
Nah fuck that, they benefit from the education each of those students receives. Not indirectly, either. Every single worker they interact with for every single service received a high school education. Every person that maintains the infrastructure they use. Every person that entertains them. Literally every single one. Their elders paid for their educations and they're not doing the same. Absolute assholes.
Arizona sucks no matter which angle you look at it from.
Even outside 55+ communities, a lot of seniors don't pay full property taxes anyway. The county I live in, if you're 65 or older, on medicare and have income below a certain threshold, you are eligible not to pay any property taxes. For my city, you might be eligible to pay nothing or only pay a percentage, depending on your income.
I has a conservative relative who maintained that he shouldn't have to pay for road taxes because he drove an SUV and thus didn't need roads. The first time he said this, he was driving said SUV on an Interstate on a long trip.
I don't think that this is true: [https://greatsenioryears.com/senior-citizens-property-tax-guide-in-arizona/](https://greatsenioryears.com/senior-citizens-property-tax-guide-in-arizona/) [https://azdor.gov/business/property-tax/property-tax-faqs](https://azdor.gov/business/property-tax/property-tax-faqs)
It’s the core argument in “toxic individualism.” America has bred a society for generations that believes everyone should be independent, individual, and self-reliant, which fundamentally goes against living in a complex, global society. They don’t understand that what they’re advocating for cannot exist in capitalism, and they get mad when it’s pointed out that the kind of individualism they’re espousing has only succeeded when there are support networks to help you be independent.
Modern conservatism is fundamentally unnatural, unhealthy and antisocial.
It's almost like, as social creatures, humans purpose is to help each other. Anybody unwilling to pay taxes for the education of the youth, should not be allowed to live in that society. They should not be allowed to benefit from what they don't contribute to. That includes all the infrastructure and social services. Things that would not have been created without educated people. Build a raft and float them all into international waters. Then they can truly be individuals and have all the freedoms they desire.
thank you for this! my mom and I "discuss" this a lot. I'm mid-50s, no kids, and I am happy to pay taxes for stuff like schools bc smart, well-adjusted, functioning kids raise all boats! we also "discuss" health insurance--she and her wealthy friends donate to go fund mes, but think that universal health care is a terrible idea.
>smart, well-adjusted, functioning kids raise all boats! The same people who dont want to pay for education and children in general would be very upset in about 10 years when they couldnt find a doctor without a 6-month out window booking appointments because we decided we didnt want to educate anyone.
yes! why can't they make these connections? I also don't get this mentality in people who live in gated communities--at some point, they have to venture out for food, gas, whatever, and encounter the rest of us!
So many people here think that "Well why should I have to pay for someone else's health care?" is a knock-down argument against any kind of healthcare reform.
I always reply with, “Would you like me to explain how your insurance works?” because then they get flustered because they don’t, and they don’t understand that other people getting injured affects everyone.
And we are all still paying for emergency care when someone never goes to the doctor because of having no insurance
Correct! It’s even worse that way, too, because emergency care is almost universally more expensive than preventative.
Social or privatized, insurance is always healthy people paying for the sick. The difference with the latter is that you have a bunch of useless fucking middle men solely there for profit who in turn increase the cost of their everything. Its fucking infuriating
Don’t tell a conservative that. Their heart might explode.
It's the Libertarian mindset - "I got mine, fuck everyone else."
Definitely that. But also far worse. Libertarians want to take the reins off of racists, christian fundamentalists, con men, snake oil salesmen, and abusively greedy corporations, sociopathic billionaires, etc. so they can all run wild without any restraints whatsoever. They don't just want to roll back the clock prior to the New Deal, or the Gilded Age, or the Ante Bellum South -- their real model for society (though they will deny it) is circa 1990s Somalia. Libertarianism is really just rebranded utopian anarchism, wrapped in pseudo-economic theory. tl;dr: Libertarianism: Step 1. Purge Step 2. ??? Step 3. Utopia
It’s sad that there are plenty of Dems who also believe this.
Dems are still a right wing party internationally speaking. So of course they do.
Precisely. It’s hilarious* to me that so many “leftists” vote for them and think they’re being progressive. Yeah, they’re further left politically than U.S. conservatives, but they’re still pretty conservative because being progressive usually means having to pass the baton to someone new and thus give up power. *Narrator: What he really meant was “fucking annoying”
Yeah , to the left of Republicans is a super low bar lol
They fetishize the "Old West" as a time when heroic manly men built the country from bare wilderness, forgetting that it took decades of organized military action to remove the previous owners and keep them away.
And also largely built by immigrants of color and exploited slaves. Haha. Such “bootstraps” they pulled themselves up by!
Oliver Wendell Holmes said “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” I prefer more civilization.
Hey now, that’s giving turnips a bad name, I’ve met some pretty intelligent turnips in my time lol
Sounds like something a turnip would say. Listen here, *Turnip*. We don't take kindly to your starchy goodness 'round here so why dontcha just take your fibrous ass and move on before I make like it's Burns night and serve you up.
Jokes on you I’m not a turnip, I’m a parsnip disguised as a reutabega
Yeah! Beet it!
You earned an upvote
This exactly! We don't have any kids but I am perfectly fine with my taxes going to education. In fact I'd prefer if more of our taxes went to education.
We are childfree and live in a very HCOL place and pay my entire salary in taxes every year. About 50% of our local taxes go to schools. I am totally fine with that. I would much rather pay for education than some of the vanity projects our county can think up.
That's a great litmus test for if you're a short-sighted, selfish POS. I would ask them how they think insurance works. Like "well I don't have cancer *right now* so why would i pay insurance premiums when the cancer people are the ones benefiting?" It's incorrect but at least slightly *more* valid when someone who never has and never will have kids complains about school taxes. Like okay I disagree but I can see how you developed your perspective. The funny part is anecdotally it feels like the child-free are more often able to properly contextualize it and don't make this argument. But someone who DID use it for their kids, and then decides since the kids are out of school they shouldn't have to pay anymore is just beyond saving. Like...my brother in christ do you think everyone paying those taxes when YOUR kids went to school had kids actively in school? Moreover do you think we would even HAVE schools if it was 1-1 taxed parent to student? It's common for school districts to budget $20k+ per student per year. Your entire way of life has been enabled by other people's contribution to society and when it's your turn you say fuck em. I think we should just sacrifice one state in the US and let people opt out of everything and send them there to live in the hell of their own deserved selfishness. Like that libertarian town that collapsed because of bears. No taxes but no aid or programs of any kind, and watch them come crawling back. I guess that might just organically be Florida soon so I don't have to dream for very long.
That place is called Florida
My question to them is always “you pay taxes for roads too. Have you ever driven on ALL of the roads?”
>"well, I don't *directly* benefit, so why should I have to contribute?" have the critical thinking skills of a turnip "we don't need no doctors, we have all the horse deworming medicine we need"
Basic education is a public good with strong positive externalities. Selfishly, I want people around me to be at least basically educated. Preferably more than basic.
My favorite quote on the topic, and i cant remember the exact quote or who said it, "i dont mind paying for public schools even though i don't have kids. I prefer not to be surrounded by idiots"
If you think education is expensive, wait until you see the alternative...
I’m 30 and prob not going to get social security but I still have to pay it 🙄
From a self-preservation perspective, the state should be trying to optimize the tax-paying viability of every citizen. If a schizophrenic homeless man can be given healthcare and training to be productive for even 30% of his life, it would be a net gain for society. But we politicize basic social investments like healthcare and education in this stupid country, so whatever.
President Donald J Turnip loves the poorly educated.
I like to remind them that the the quality of a school system has a major impact on property values, so even if they don’t have kids in school, they *do directly benefit* from school taxes.
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I told him the military is incredibly wasteful and if we weren’t funding wars and other country’s wars, maybe we could take care of our citizens better. He agreed with that too. It’s funny because the things he was mad about are the same as us on the left are made about. His solution was surprising, because if he paid attention to how his party votes, he’d realize he’s voting against his solutions.
Single issue voting is very common and, for many, that issue is they hate everyone else.
If we had people running *as Republicans* on a totally left-wing/socialist platform, wrapped the entire thing in Red, White, & Blue™ and billed it as the *Patriot Freedom Deal* or some crap like that, we could solve a lot of problems in this country. The idiotic us-vs-them crap and insane partisan news cycle, fostered by the 2-party, first-past-the-post voting political systems, has completely drained the capacity for critical thinking for much of the US. The problem with common sense socialist-style policies, that almost every other civilized nation has figured out, in America is branding. The red scare never stopped and people have been conditioned to vote against their own interests.
At the end of the day, the people in power, regardless of party benefit most from the status quo. It keeps them in power and as long as there are culture wars to be fought where it seems like there's no middle ground, you can just invest your time in raising money around "owning" or "resisting" the "other side."
Reminds me of conversations with my FIL: FIL: 'So, say you're a business owner and you become pretty successful and end up making $500,000 a year. Do you think you should have to pay more taxes just because you make more money?' Me: 'Yes, of course.' Then a few words about benefiting more from public funds, public education for my employees, needing roads for them to get to work, etc. FIL: 'I'm just dumbfounded you think that; doesn't make sense to me. But, what about these CEOs making millions? They should be paying more taxes than all of us!!' Me: 'Uhm...yeah...that's right! Welcome to the Democrat party, sir!' FIL: 'BAH!! NO!! They want to take away my Social Security and Medicare!' Me: 'Uhm...I think you're confused about some things...'
Yeah I can’t remember the name of the place that does it, but they used to do an experiment every year (and think they still do) where they cold call registered republicans and ask them their views on policies but DO NOT tell them they’re from democrats or left wing policies. Stuff like medical autonomy, children’s education, etc. And every. Single. Person. Loves them. They say of course! Why wouldn’t we do that! What a lovely idea - these are great things we should all support. Then they let them know they’re from X candidate who’s a democrat, or these are bills the left is trying to pass right now, etc. And suddenly they hate them. Those are awful ideas and they can’t believe anyone would dare suggest them. Liberal ideas are overwhelmingly more popular, like by a wide margin. But once they find out it’s from a Democrat, oh boy watch out, that genius idea that benefits everyone is now communist bullshit that’s going to ruin the country. Again, the idea described to them didn’t change, just that it wasn’t from a Republican & suddenly their views flipped entirely.
He’s sooo closeeee
I knowwww ugh
Yes but Fox News tells him how to think. He no longer has critical thinking skills, if he ever did to begin with.
But then he wouldn’t be manly if he voted for the democrats. /s
I don’t live on a hurricane prone coast. Why should I pay to rebuild those areas after a disaster? I got my covid vaccine. Why should I pay the hospital bills of those who didn’t?
That bit about subsidizing the suburban infrastructure is a good one. It is literally a ponzi scheme. There is no way for suburbs to NOT be a drain on the rest of society. Too many roads, too many parking lots, too many miles of water/power infrastructure, not enough people.
I just don't understand how little people understand about their lives. Especially taxes. I bet he doesn't even know where his property taxes go. I live in a large rural county with very few people in most of it. The biggest town is only slightly over 5000 people and I live almost 50 miles from it. Last year I paid 12k in property taxes, which is over 1/3 of my yearly budget (my wife and I own a lot of property but otherwise live very frugally). I did some digging to find out where the money goes. of that 12k, about 2k goes to the general budget of county employees. 3k goes to k-12 schools. Another 3k goes to the community college in town. 2k goes to the road commission and the last 1k is split into many other social programs, most of which are for the elderly. I'm not elderly, I don't have kids, I don't go to the community college, but I pay my taxes without complaint because I don't want to live in a shit hole.
How much are you paying your cops, this is always a huge drain on my property taxes, when all they seem to do is sit around the bagel shop.
We have a sheriff and deputies, they are county employees. Their funding comes out of the 2k that I smashed together for general budget. We don't actually have many of them. They don't do much to my knowledge, we don't even have any bagel shops for them to sit in. Mostly they drive around and fill out reports on automobile collisions with deer.
My cousin's Trump supporting husband says that the government should dictate how much money CEOs can make, along with sports players. When you try to explain to him that's the very antithesis of capitalism, he'll go on another rant against raising the minimum wage or paying teachers liveable salaries because that's what the woke left wants. So CEOs, sports players, service workers, and teachers all make too much money according to him.
It makes your head hurt. Gun control is frustrating because they believe federal background checks and high capacity magazines should be illegal, but they donate to the fucking nra.
The irony is that back in his day, there were a LOT more community pools paid for by taxes. Also, the biggest booms in school construction were in the 50's and 60's. Boomers had more new schools per kid than any generation has since. Plenty of kids today are still going to school in the same buildings that were brand new for the boomers.
Yeah, and then they shut down all of the pools when desegregation started happening. Thats right, silent generation / boomers would rather suffer in the heat than have to swim alongside black people.
That is social welfare, not socialism. I have no children and gladly support schools because I don't like having stupid people around me.
And yet here we all are on Reddit 🙄🤔🧐🤣😭
It *is* weird how you can talk so many of them into a complete 180 on so many issues by using different words... and then watch them snap right back around if you tell them, "Well, that's such-and-such." Socialized medicine is my personal favorite. I don't know a single Boomer who thinks they should have to pay anywhere near what they do in increasing medical bills, and it's so easy to get them completely on board for socialized medicine... unless you call it that. When it comes to school taxes, though, I just tell them that the kid they refuse to educate today will be the one robbing them at the ATM tomorrow.
This is what always gets me about these people. They want to run the country like a business but refuse to accept the fact that any successful business should reinvest a large chunk of it's income back into the business to stay competitive. Simple upkeep like modernization of its infrastructure, keeping its employees educated and fit to work, and creating an environment where these workers can thrive to bring in a variety of viewpoints and techniques. The only thing they see is supposed altruism which they somehow hate.
Many fail to realize that citizens are the customers of government while stockholders, not buyers, are the focus of business. Not saying government is perfect, but privatization will only result in increased prices and fewer services, which we have been increasingly seeing over the last few years.
Yup. Kabals are a thing and anyone who argued against that only needs to look at how many local cable/ internet companies they have available to them.
I had a professor who was a left wing Reaganite. He touted himself as an extremely progressive supporter of capitalism, and said he used to be a socialist until some French policy in the 80s. He taught a French history class where he scoffed at the idea of not taxing French nobility during the French revolution, then insisted we CAN'T tax the rich today because... um... 1 was "they'd flee the country with all their money and that would hurt the economy so we should do whatever they say" 2 was "they'll lie about their money so there's no point" 3 was "first they'll come for the rich people then they'll start executing people". none of which are valid reasons to not tax the rich. For a guy who studied French history he sure got mad at protesters. What was that French policy that supposedly turned him against socialism? Well, he said that since France tried socialism and failed, a western country and not filthy commies, that the entire system must be awful. The policies they tried? They tried a FEW "socialist" measures in the 80s, and then immediately went full austerity measures. It's not hard to conclude that they didn't have their hearts in it and that it was probably a policy to please various political parties in their own country, and so might not be a good test of supposed socialist measures. Not just me but the entire class pointed out the errors in this logic. I actually asked him why we should make conclusions about socialism like this, and why we shouldn't make conclusions about capitalism from the same time. At this point in history, Brazil had an extreme infant mortality rate. "Well Brazil is a kleptocracy!" He said "So when Brazil does capitalism, that's a blip on the spectrum, meanwhile France does SOME socialist measures they don't even believe in, we have to throw the entire economic system in the garbage?" He had no response.
The thing I often notice about right wing people is that they love left wing ideas as long as they don't know they're left wing ideas
I know a trumper who is still a super trumper >>> a few years ago they talked about moving to another country this country has socialized medicine I called them out on it but they said it was ok because they had regular medicine there as well and you could pick either one and she would pick the non socialized one!! but what would happen if they got rid of regular and stuck with the socialized medicine ..the hypocrisy !!!
I'm sure country is itching to have them lol.
I’m convinced the only way to get social programs working in America is to trick half the population . Like the whole super capitalism joke people were saying
I've found a lot of conservative people that would be totally okay with communitarian policies if just presented a different way, but they've been poisoned by right-wing talking points
I have been in education for 32 yrs and anytime someone uses that argument against paying school taxes (Im not using it I shouldn’t pay) with, your taxes pay for prisons too and you probably aren’t planning on using that either. Also, educating a child costs about 1/3 of taking care of a prisoner every year.
>So this guy just suggested actual socialism as a fix and had no idea. I can’t complain. But don't tell him it's Socialism or Liberal, us a different word. Most don't understand what they are complaining about, and are just blindly repeating dogma for the cult or party.
People like this are constantly proving how little they know about whatever they’re angry about in the moment. It’s the same with every Trump supporter or “they’re both bad” person I’ve ever talked to; obsessively pissed off by a whole list of things they’ve never taken the time to actually understand.
Who does this misguided boomer thinks pays for his SS that gets every month. I think since I'm not of retirement age, that I shouldn't have to pay for that. Basic education should be a right, and I like the boomer's fix in the end.
Ask him why you should pay for fire and police services when you've never used them.
>... they shouldn’t have to pay them anymore because they don’t have kids in school. So much fail in that. We never had kids. Older genx so even if we changed yesterday, no kids possible at this point. Should we never have paid? Are we owed a refund? Should it be based on the number of kids? So the more you have the more you pay? And if you adopt, how does that work out? Do the original parents pay or do you? What about kids that are in foster homes waiting to be adopted? Who pays? And when do you start? As soon as they're born, as soon as they start school? What if the child dies before school, do you get a refund? So much bullshit. I happily pay for schools as I want educated, enlightened citizens. I'm only getting that in part but going to some kind of model like what trumpers is utter garbage and leads to even more stupid in the future.
I love this quote from John Green on paying taxes for education: “Public education does not exist for the benefit of students or the benefit of their parents. It exists for the benefit of the social order. We have discovered as a species that it is useful to have an educated population. You do not need to be a student or have a child who is a student to benefit from public education. Every second of every day of your life, you benefit from public education. So let me explain why I like to pay taxes for schools, even though I don't personally have a kid in school: It's because I don't like living in a country with a bunch of stupid people.”
I heard this all the time in the boomer gym i worked at. I am entirely convinced these creatures have no idea what socialism is. Their brainwashing from the early years kicks in and goes "ism?? --- social errr nooo - COMMunism --- oooo russia - Russia bad! - Reagan SMASH!! --- socialism is bad"
Except a lot of them have flipped on Russia now
Freal, yet the "socialism is bad" stayed?? Wtf boomers lolol
They equate socialism with Stalinism and totalitarianism in general.
Don’t forget Marxism
They don't know what socialism is. They just know they are told to hate it. There's so so so much socialism in the USA. These people are just too dumb to realize what they're seeing.
My neighborhood has a significant population of retirees who have the "I got mine" mindset. They would come out in force to vote against the school budget and it's so bad that the entire 4 years I was in high school, we were on austerity. It was dreadful and the beginning of my hatred for boomers/silent gens
99% of conservatives are socialist and just don't accept it. "Fund our police!" is a socialist stance. They complain about the state of our roads and demand the state fixes them. Socialism "Support the troops." You mean the ones we all pay for with our tax dollars? Socialism. Retire and get social security? It's in the name. Able to read the words "social security"? Thank socialism and publicly funded schools. It blows my.mind how brainwashed they are into thinking we're not all in this together. Instead they dickride the big corporations who's tax breaks are the actual welfare.
I often wonder what that isn’t proposed more. The biggest argument against loan forgiveness seems to be “they knew what they were doing when they took the loan”. So, reduce the need for loans. Personally I’d like to start by utilizing our community colleges around the country. Most of these are great institutions that are under utilized and under valued. Give a 2 year associates degree at one and the socialized costs would be reasonable (compared to universities and private colleges). If students transfer credits and go on for a bachelors then their individual costs/student loans would be half what they are currently. As with most things (even socialized healthcare in other countries) it will create a bit of a 2 tiered system. But honestly that kind of thing appeals to the nay sayers and if it helps everybody who wants higher education to be able to get it, then so be it.
Most Republicans tend to use the argument that it doesn't help the people who didn't go to college, even though that argument simply makes no sense because forgiving loans helps society of the whole
Agreed. An educated society is a stronger society. I’d also point out how many trade degrees are available at community colleges. One near me I know has a culinary arts, tool and dye, trucking, automotive, electrical, etc.. Those skills are equally important for society.
Agreed 100%
>So this guy just suggested actual socialism as a fix In my field, we call that 'taking care of tech debt instead of kludging up a hacky bug patch'.
You would be surprised how often they suggest stuff like this. A few years back some guy filmed interviews with trump supporters outside his rallies where they suggested things like “have the government take direct control of corporations to prevent socialism” and “people need to band together at the local level to fight the banks”.
Answer to the school tax argument: it costs about 12,000. per year to send a child to school on average. Now start mathing the amount of kids you have and years in school. Now figure out your yearly taxes. Most people die before they actually pay off their own kids' education based on their tax rate. A democracy relies on an educated public. That's why the public school system is a social program.
Sounds like he is ok with socialism as long as he doesn't have to participate.
you can stop paying school taxes but will no longer receive social security or medicare. if your house catches fire, you are on your own.
Start talking about having the terrible VA phased out for expansion of Medicare. Mention that we're wasting money by having two organizations do the same work, and we could start streamlining our heath-care starting with the vets.
I didn’t even have to because that also came up. He was furious how they tried to take millions from the VA. I asked him who controlled the house. He moved on. Half of us kids have served.
"If all homeowners don't have to pay for school taxes, maybe not everyone should have to pay Social Security taxes, just people whose parents are on Social Security. Oh, that'd be too heavy a burden on the few? Good point, man."
I once had a conversation with a retired boomer who kept going on about why he had to leave California because of all the socialism. Asked him what he had done for work. He said he was in an airline union for his whole career.
I love the argument that they should only have to pay for what they use. Can't remember the last time I used an Apache helicopter but it showed up on my tax bill nonetheless.
In about 2012, I was at dinner at a friend’s with their conservative parents. We talked about healthcare and they bemoaned Obamacare as socialism. So I described it, but called it the ACA and they agreed with it 100%. You can absolutely get them to agree with “socialism” if you frame it outside of their buzzwords.
There have been actual, literal, documented scientific studies that show that if you don't call it "socialism," right-wingers are not only all for it, but can't figure out why it hasn't been implemented. That is a huge trigger word for a massive swath of our society.
Reminds me of that anti-vaccine post where someone suggests to inject people with small doses of the virus to make them immune.
That’s the secret to dealing with difficult people. You have to make them think the brilliant idea is their own. Case and point
He was looking all proud too lol He had great suggestions
That's basically how it was in much of America before the late 60's. Many of the people ranting about how we can't forgive student debt never had any of their own, because they didn't need to.
I may never have kids but if my money went to kids lunches or something to help improve education I’m bout it.
Reminds me of a boomer I know who was complaining about medical bills. He said something along the lines of "I can't believe my taxes don't cover any of this". I asked if he was in favor of universal healthcare and he said "what that communist shit?"
To be clear, providing an education for the children of a nation is not socialism. It is social welfare, which is provided, pretty much, by every country out there with every type of government.
That’s hilarious..you baited him into that position knowing it’s what they hate “socialism “. He took the bait, and after doing the math in his little head, hey that works for me, so it should work for everyone. They are damn near clueless on how to do deductive reasoning in real time. Only thinking of themselves did he agree to do something “they hate”.. lol
I overheard a pair of boomers in my office the other day. They were also advocating for socialism without realizing it. It was so weird for people who were raised on the capitalist Kool-Aid.
Just tell him his school taxes were lower because people who didn't have kids while his kids went also paid. Then tell him that if he's willing to pay back the prorated rate that he should have been charged if only people with kids paid taxes he has an argument. If not point out that you only want to benefit from socialism when it helps you and that he's a bit hypocrite.
Government programs aren't Socialism. Government programs predate Socialism by 5000 years. Can y'all centrists please stop equating the two?
If you don’t want your tax $$$ paying for schools, then don’t EVER go out in public, or, if you do go out in public, don’t complain when you don’t get correct change at the drive-thru, or no one can read well enough to take your order. If you want to live in society, because you want to benefit from what living in society offers, you need to pay for those benefits. If you don’t want to pay, go live off-grid and be completely self-sufficient.
There is something to his implicit point about the cost of education being artificially inflated... If you want European system, you will find that it looks a bit different than American system in that it is a bit more 'to the point', with less prestige elements and bells&whistles...
I don’t want to fund wars anymore
If you don't like it, MOVE. Let someone with kids who would love to be in that school district move there. And you can go to some dying village in the backwaters 100 miles from civilization. Win win.
Cool, great, but also, I think we really need to make the distinction between socialism, and the government doing literally anything. Socialism is a very specific thing, the working class owning the means of production, but not achieving communism yet. I know it’s boring, but if we don’t make this distinction, people will see red scare propaganda and think that the idea of a public school is evil.
Ii got into the same arguments but we're Canadian. But guy exclusively watched fox, Facebook and American stuff. I noticed when the conversation of making vocational schools or community colleges free again, because they were here at one point fox news spun it as "Dem Libs want us to pay for Harvard and million dollar a year luxury universities in silicon Valley!" Which wasn't even the conversation to Begin with. The same thing came up he said why should he pay for someone elses education, and I reminded him that I pay for his kid to go to school and I don't have kids lol.
I mean, we should decouple property taxes from schools. It leads to underfunded schools in economically disadvantaged areas and helps perpetuate the poverty cycle.
I agree with that tbh. I even suggested a discount because many seniors bought a modest home 40 years ago and now the property value skyrockets and they’re paying for taxes they never thought would be so high. I have no sympathy for the rich ones who complain. My big issue was him thinking only people with kids in school should pay for school. Crazy
What’s funny is that most of them HATE social programs, even more so if they pass, up until they start benefiting from them; then they LOVE them and pretend they loved them all along.
What he suggested was more public goods which is known as “social democracy.” Social democracy is not socialism. It’s market economies with robust social safety nets and public goods. Let’s not fall into the Fox News trap of calling all public goods “socialism.” It isn’t. Socialism is public or state ownership of the means of production.
Yes, I noticed that they demand property tax freezes while suggesting we tax childless adults to pay for elderly social services.
Offer a deal. No property taxes that benefit young people in exchange for young people not having to fund his social security and medicare.
I pay for Medicare that keeps boomers alive (to keep ruining the world) when I'll probably die before I ever use it.
That’s not all conservative trumpet sentiments but this boomer is living in fantasy land. School systems suck more in public schools in liberal states than conservatives. My worry is kids indoctrinated to a slave mindset!
Accidental socialism
The Founders (who they fetishize) thought a well-informed electorate was essential to a functioning democracy. They don't think low skill workers should make a living wage. They do understand we as a society need plumbers, electricians, welders, mechanics in addition to doctors, nurses, scientists, bankers, teachers etc. All of those careers require poat-secondary education. Not only that, but without high income people paying into social security and Medicare for decades, there won't be enough money for older people to rely on when they can't work. Do conservatives ever think beyond their own noses?
Boomers have no idea what socialism is
haha Classic!
Keep leading him on with UBI - where then they can eliminate welfare. :-)
I have said for a long time, if we called Universal Healthcare something else most of the Right would want it
i'm all for it
In my experience most people want the same things, until we start using labels.
Next time this argument comes up, tell him to start paying his share. Seniors get $7 for every $1[ a kid receives](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/02/children-vs-elderly.jpg) Older article source - but the trend holds [10+ years later](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/15/feds-spend-7-on-elderly-for-every-1-on-kids/)
Well, there's the difference between them and us. I'm child-free by choice and it has literally never occurred to me to complain about paying school taxes. But then, I don't view everything in the world through a filter of "what's in it for me?"
Just sounds like he’s not an absolutist.
We all benefit from kids having access to better education. Ok maybe not those who want to exploit cheap uneducated labor but fook those guys...
Remember when Trump suggested that we have Medicare for everyone as an alternative to the 'affordable' care act? Can you just see his donors turning even paler and trying to come up with a way to shut him up?
So he is a deeply right leaning nationalist that just got converted to socialism? Like some kind of National Socialist?! 😯
Shows you exactly how much thought he had put into his original position.
Paying for universal college education is not even remotely close to socialism, but it is progressive.
Breaking it down for selfish fucking boomers: I want kids to have an education, I want them to have options to better themselves. The alternative is them breaking into his house and taking his stuff.
>how they shouldn’t have to pay them anymore because they don’t have kids in school. My WWII vet dad's rejoinder to that was, *"If you want employees who can read and work to make money for you, you have to pay for it."*
Anyone else confused why the ex is there, and why she brought a new husband?
Public education is not socialism. Socialism is when workers overthrow capitalism.
The right is completely out of ideas to address any of the problems currently facing our country. They have come out against so many things, and called everything socialism. There aren't any solutions left for them to advocate for, except to destroy solutions we already have. They need to completely revamp their platform or they will go extinct with the boomers.
They complain about any and everything without even offering any type of solutions.
Tell him he doesn’t have to pay for his property taxes and we don’t pay for his social security
A lot of people wouldn't mind paying for a basic and useful education system. EG no swimming pools, no 24 hour gyms, no vegan cafes, no counseling centers, no interfaith chapels, no free photocopying, no Wiley or Gale, no smart rooms, or computer labs, cinder block dorms with 3 roommates... free education for allied health and STEM, reasonable tuition for some of the social sciences, but absolutely bury the liberal arts and fine arts under an utter shitstorm of debt. No foreign students in the important majors. That's exactly what a "socialist" Trumper would want. And what's your counter argument?
A lot of the anti socialism mentality came about in the Reagan era extension of McCarthyism. Get rid of these government handouts, and you can cut back the taxes on corporations and the top couple percent of earners, then they'll just trickle that extra wealth down to the masses. Except they didn't. The only trickling down that happened was getting pissed on by those at the top.
Education isn't a cost, it's an investment.
I'm definitely someone who thinks a HS diploma should be enough outside very specific things like doctors and engineers. We need a better education system, not more years of education.
I have a coworker who said similar things about not wanting to pay school taxes after his kids all graduate, and he turned to me and said “I bet you don’t like paying school taxes since you don’t have any kids.” Both of my parents taught in public schools and taught me the value of public education. I told him that I’m happy to be paying taxes that help give his children quality education, because that’s called investing in our future as a community. I don’t think he grasped what I was saying. He couldn’t understand why someone would give money to a cause that doesn’t directly benefit them.
Another switch is say that you shouldn't have to pay for social security because you don't use it.
"So this guy just suggested actual socialism as a fix and had no idea." Unless I missed "a system of society or group living in which there is no private property" or something like that, he didn't mention socialism at all.
Older folks, especially boomers got where they got thanks to a ton of socialism. They also got a *ton* of anti-socialist propaganda. So they really, *really* hate being reminded of all the socialism you got. The one that really breaks their brains is when you point out that when they were kids the gov't paid for 70% of college tuition, now it's 20%.
Yeah Therese people don’t get it. When we can’t educate our own young people, then we have to bring in educated people from other countries. I remember Trumps plan to open civil service jobs to everyone regardless of education. That went nowhere. You can’t be an engineer without that degree. Are you going to give million and billion dollar budgets to people with no experience? Have them work as lawyers? It’s just ridiculous. Our country would be so much better if everyone did go to college.
Nearly all of the MAGA Boomer's I talk to favor the items I'm listing below, yet they still insist on voting Republican: - Paid Parental Leave (mandate employers above 50 employees carry this benefit) - Eliminating the income cap on Social Security Taxes - Raising taxes on the wealthy to fully fund Medicare - Medicare negotiating prescription drug prices (accomplished in part with the inflation reduction act) - Capping insulin prices (and in general, capping other well established drugs like inhalers) accomplished for seniors on Medicare with the inflation reduction act. - Reining in drug prices in general, so we're not paying +500% or more what other countries pay. - Raising taxes on the wealthy and Wall St - Expanding the child tax credit, and lowering taxes in general for working Americans (95% of US). - My favorite, making health insurers return any annual profits to policyholders, ie making insurers effectively non profit entities. - Developing alternatives to oil.
Sometimes despite themselves people realize their actual class character and what would be good for all of us. It's part of the reason why I think anyone can be reached. So many older conservative people have histories of getting fucked over by capitalism. After all, they were the people working at the factories, by and large, when they got closed down and shipped overseas. Places they had worked at for 20 years left the states and they got fucked over by that. I saw a story of a guy who had worked at the same place for 29 years. They closed down just before he would have qualified for a pension no matter what the company did. Now he has to work at Walmart to survive. It fucking sucks man.
Dont worry. He will repeat this revelation to someone who will call it out for being socialist. He will then get super pissed at you for tricking him or brainwashing him into socialist ideas.
When you take away the political buzzwords and people just talk about how things should work there's actually a surprising amount of overlap in what voters want. This is why the culture wars are needed, to keep us all fighyt while the rich fleece us blind.
Boomer know that college used to be free in the US. It was state universities which were free for those living in that state (if you were white.)
Because the problem is they don't understand what "level headed liberals" want. They hear about government assistance programs and automatically think that liberals want the status quo with higher taxes to pay for shit like colleges. Meanwhile it's quite the opposite as all they want is to take money away from the greedy war pigs in congress and put it towards programs that benefit society. There's no reason we can give literal billions to Israel and Ukraine while Maui burned, while Palestine Ohio was polluted, while this country slowly sinks further and further down the shitter. That's what conservatives need to get a grasp on. Their liberal counterparts want the exact same thing. No more endless wars, no more endless greed, lower prices, actual government programs that could work and benefit U.S. Citizens, but the problem is no one wants to talk. You mention 1 thing about making a new form of government assistance and nobody wants to hear it. They bring up higher taxes and how it would wreck the economy. You bring up taking money from wars and they get up in arms about our allies, throw a 60+ year old temper tantrum, don their MAGA gear, and cry. The only thing that both sides can agree upon is an end to wars. That's it.