The lengths people will go through to stop something that hurts nobody, but helps many always astounds me.
The lengths people will go through to stop something that hurts nobody, but helps many always astounds me.
I have to credit some rando Redditor for the insight that helped me understand why these people do this. I’ll paraphrase because I can’t remember the exact prose.
Nearly all actions of Conservatives can be explained by their two implied core principles:
- All policies are zero sum. For you to gain something means I am losing something.
- There is a naturally occurring societal class-based hierarchy system, and you are required to stay at your level, never rising.
So the reason conservatives oppose student loan relief applies to both rules.
- If student loan borrowers are having debts forgiven (they are getting something) that MUST mean the conservative is losing something.
- If they had to take loans for school because they couldn’t afford to pay for it outright, then they should stay in their economic station. Forgiving these loans may allow them to advance beyond their current class, which cannot be allowed.
Which number 2 blows my mind as they constantly vote for things which benefit those well “above their station” because they think they’ll be there someday.
“I’ll be rich one day and then people like me will have to watch their step!”
You can’t change social class. Only I get to change social class. - Conservatives
I don’t believe conservatives are trying to argue they need to change their class. They just assume they are already the highest, and its some other group’s fault that the conservative is poor.
See rule 1: if you go up in class, then I must be going down in class.
My friend ran into a mutual acquaintance; dude’s now a majorly homophobic, anti trans, anti lgbtq, far right, freedumb convoy supporting redneck. You know the type. He’s ranting about how social programs need to be defunded and all the gays do is take and don’t contribute. My buddy then goes “so anyway, how’ve you been?” Dude says “oh I’m great! I got laid off so now I’m on employment insurance.”
Their hypocrisy and tone deafness know no bounds.
I hate those kinds of people so much…
I had a coworker like that too. Would argue any Democrat proposal was communism and absolutely terrible. Then he took paid family leave for 2 months when he had a kid, came back, and said “man that was great, I went snowboarding for 2 months while wifey stayed home with the baby. See? That’s why this is bad!”
It’s bad because you’re an asshole?
because they think they’ll be there someday.
Sadly, I think its even worse than you’re describing. They think they are at that higher station now and its rule #1 that is preventing them from actualizing it. As in “I’m not experiencing a luxurious lifestyle because Group X is taking my share”.
I don’t think it’s even that anymore. I think it’s just genuine fawning sycophancy towards their “betters.” They think privileged people deserve even more privilege by virtue of having “won,” even at their own expense. It’s sick and psychotic and completely foreign to my way of thinking, but I don’t think I’m wrong.
You are wrong though. The reason we can’t understand it is they are being manipulated. Christians in particular have made themselves vulnerable, purposefully. Just go back to your Sunday school days and if you didn’t have them listen to the TV preachers in earnest. They are the sheep, they are being led. I’m not trying to be offense it’s just the facts. Even the trumpers who are church adverse fall for similar structures. Usually satellites of the church at large. Biggest facet I can think of is the gun nuts. It’s basically religion. In the 2A they trust. The overlap of the church gives them the same structure. Making them vulnerable to manipulation.
You and me too though. We just kinda sweep it under the rug. We let our phones run our lives. We feed on dopamine hits all day everyday.
Or they think that the people above their station deserve those benefits–they genuinely think and support the rich getting richer is a good thing, regardless of whether they’ll see any benefit themselves. It’s the mirror image of the progressive mindset of voting to raise their own taxes to help the needy.
Not really as much as I feel we think. Having read more about Authoritarian mindsets, which includes the rank and file authoritarians, not just the leadership, they’re actually happy to be reinforcing the hierarchy regardless of their position in it. They’re happy to know their place and to ensure the ranks are kept in place. It brings comfort to many people to know that their position, regardless of how awful it is, is being maintained properly.
This means that they’re entirely okay with a dictator and/or an oligarchy as long as the people on the top are “supposed” to be there.
As Voltaire said: “The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.”
The idea broadly underpins modern capitalism, and it sums up why liberal politicians (whether left or right wing) do nearly everything they do. Democratic liberals want to keep the lower classes at least somewhat happy by throwing them scraps from time to time, while Republican liberals will only ever do just enough to keep the lower classes pacified.
Almost all the quality of life in the US is at the expense of the real global poor. Even our american minimum wage workers going into debt, living paycheck to paycheck actually live a life of privilege compared to billions despite the perceived suffering.
You’re not wrong at all. I also don’t think your analysis is incompatible with what I said above, either. Unless, that is, that you’re saying that no one should have a right to complain unless they have it worse than everyone else.
American hegemony as practiced by US liberal politicians, in service of capital, is one of the primary drivers of the issue you’re describing.
Don’t forget cruelty. If you aren’t in their circle or above it’s also about cruelty.
Thats built into #2. If your station is low enough, you should expect to endure cruelty. Its your station after all…is their implied position.
Fun fact, in the 1920s a high caste Indian man sued the US for the right to naturalize arguing that he was white. Arguing that he was verifiably genetically pure because of his caste and descendant from the Aryans.
The Supreme Court, 9 old white dudes, decided that he didn’t look white enough to be white. And so he wasn’t white, and denied him the right to naturalize.
'murica
I don’t know about the second one, that one sounds like left fan fiction, but #1 is absolutely true.
As #2 I’d put “If something bad happened to you, IE student debt, it’s your fault so you should be punished. If something bad happens to me, it’s bad luck or societies fault, therefore I need help.”
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they also want to dissuade (non-rich) people from getting educated and seeking jobs that they want to keep open for their own kids
It hurts everyone relying on debt and poverty to force people to accept inequitable exploitation of their labor.
Its beyond fucking evil. Nouveau scourgeoisie
Look up SLABS. If you think something that’s being stopped hurts nobody, it probably hurts somebody with financial interest.
But but, MY tax money!
Someone has to pay. Whether that is distributed to many or a few, a lot of people lose a little or a few people lose a lot. Someone has to lose something for someone else to gain it in this scenario.
Ok, how about people with more money they could possibly spend multiple lifetimes??? How about we tax billionaires so everyday citizens can have a decent education without being indebted for the rest of their god damn lives!?
Sure. The billionaires would be hurt, but the pain would be negligible.
Won’t someone think of the poor billionaires?
If that’s the case, why is college so much cheaper in other countries? Why is it just the U.S. where education cost has skyrocketed?
Because Reagan opened the flood gates on raising the cost of higher education. Then the boomer generation, well known for pulling the ladder up behind themselves, saw this and ran with it. Also they aren’t the ones going to school anymore. Combine that with the general hatred for education and science republicans have and we have super expensive schools.
My last two years of college had over 10% tuition increases to pay for a new stadium…
No one is suggesting the colleges lose the money. They already got it. So what does their gouging have to do with it? Even if they had to pay off the loans, it would hurt them. Maybe they deserve to be hurt, but giving back money you thought was yours still hurts anyway.
What a bunch of bizarre responses.
What does their gouging have to do with it?
Everything. The point you seem to be missing is that college doesn’t actually cost as much as U.S. institutions are charging. They’re robbing people blind, and that needs to stop.
Someone has to pay.
Actually, no: it’s an investment that pays off in term of expansion of the whole economy. Literally everyone is wealthier at the end than they would’ve been for not doing it, so in net terms nobody had to pay anything.
You need better sources before arriving at a conclusion on this one. This is a topic that has been discussed at great lengths by people from nonprofits and activist organizations on many podcasts. I’m sure their info exists in written form if you look for it.
The money came from banks and went to the colleges via the students. If you take the money from the colleges, they will be “hurt.” They will lose something they had before. If you take it from the banks, the same. If you pay it from government coffers, then the government has less to spend elsewhere. If you raise taxes, then the money is reaped from whomever has their taxes raised. If you print the money, then everyone pays a little through inflation.
Someone gets hurt. I already said the hurt could be distributed. It could also be levied on people with vast resources who would notice it the least.
Can you summarize the podcasts and writings that suggest no one loses money when a loan is forgiven?
Separately, why is a clear statement of fact controversial? You don’t have to believe that loan forgiveness hurts no one to think it’s a good policy to put in place. So why the weird reaction?
If you pay it from government coffers, then the government has less to spend elsewhere.
Not true in the US (and a few other countries). The US has economic sovereignty. This means that the federal government primarily owes it’s debt to itself, and only a very small percentage is owed to other countries. The fed also relies on a fiat currency, meaning that money has value because the federal government says it does. These 2 facts mean that the only limit to US spending is the amount of labor and resources available to the government at any given moment (please note that this is not true for state/local government). Haven’t you ever wondered why we have unlimited funds for the military but it’s austerity for everything else? It’s because conservatives in government want to hide these facts to continue pushing their agenda.
I understand your point but there are many other things that factors at play besides where the loans originated. For example interest rates are appalling on many of these loans. These are arbitrary factors that don’t hurt the lenders. They can still make a profit.
You don’t understand this at all.
Your contribution to my understanding so far has been zero. There are some podcasts on pedagogy. You should look into it.
It’s not my job to educate you when you’re wrong.
Based on your upvote/downvote ratio it looks like basic economics is not very popular.
It’s my mistake. I should have just realized that whoever is losing out on the money can just write it off. Bam! Nothing lost.
You must be new here
Remember, the president is absolutely above the law and can commit a coup or order political assassinations with impunity. But he can’t make decisions about how to implement policies, even when congress gives him that authority.
The seems like the perfect chance to use that immunity. He should use it to sign an executive order to cancel all student debt based on the supreme court decision. Let the republicans object and force the court to either allow it or rule that the president doesn’t actually have immunity.
They left the ruling open enough that SCOTUS can pick and choose what is and is not an official act.
Exactly, force them to decide on every order he makes. By November we will have a list of do’s and don’ts.
Doesn’t work that way, there has to be a case and depending on how they feel about they case they might choose to delay until after the election or make it a priority.
Hard to argue that an executive order isn’t an official act, but I dount they care about keeping the mask of legitimacy on anymore
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It’s more fun to imagine I spelled donut wrong hahaha
It’s kind of unfortunate that I’m so fatfingered on a phone keyboard and that I primarily use my phone for lemmy
I feel like keyboard software has gotten progressively worse and pine for the days of flagship smartphones that had physical keyboards.
The problem is that you have to find a way to cancel it before anyone can say no. But if it takes any time at all, they can tell those agencies to stop.
Exactly. Do it right now while they are on vacation.
Oops, sorry, you robe wearing psychopaths, guess you should not have gone gargling billionaire balls.
We are being governed by unelected judges. We need to reform the court system (starting at the top)
Neocons said that about the legalization of gay marriage. That’s why they cheated under Trump and went for the jugular when it came to supreme court judges. And the highmindedness (and cowardice) of the Democrats in not stuffing the courts in response will haunt America and the world for decades.
Incompetent Defenders on the Left, and on the Right, the stuff of nightmares
Stuffing the Supreme Court long predates gay marriage. It goes back at least to the '90s and perhaps to the '80s.
In the 1980s, the number of justices on the Supreme Court remained at nine, and the appointments made were part of the standard process of filling vacancies as they occurred.
In the 1990s, the number of justices on the Supreme Court also remained at nine. The appointments made during that decade were part of the standard process of filling vacancies as they occurred.
And unelected president… remember, we don’t actually vote the president into office. Instead, we vote, and if they feel like it, a bunch of random electors of the exclusive electoral college club actually elect our president.
That sounds fucking retarded to allow to do, yet, somehow, every time I bring it up, some idiot professor of history defends that. Like ohh, our grandfathers were so smart, they built that into the constitution… They also owned minorities and made them do the hard work around the house.
I mean it was very smart for the time when the average citizen couldn’t possibly know enough to make an informed decision and news that could change who someone would vote for could take weeks to arrive somewhere.
But let’s not kid ourselves. Both the Electoral College and the Senate were specifically created to thwart the will of The People if it was too inconvenient for the elites. What was that quote about the Senate being the “cooling saucer of democracy” or something like that?
The broken part of the legislative branch isn’t the Senate, it’s the House and the Reapportionment Act of 1929 that arbitrarily limited the number of Representatives to 438.
This means that the vote of a person in Wyoming is worth ~6x the vote of someone in California.
People in more populated areas essentially being disenfranchised for being in a more populated area. Something we should be encouraging.
Edit: I’ve been told it’s actually ~65x, not 6x. Don’t feel like doing the math right now but you can do it yourself its pretty easy. Either way its’ fucked, and if it’s actually 65x, that’s just INSANELY fucked.
Oh no that’s broken as well. But that same kind of disenfranchisement happens in the Senate. Wyoming per your example has ~600k people and California has ~39 million according to Wikipedia but both get 2 Senators. That’s what, 65x the population but the same voting power? Then there’s also the fact that unless you’ve got 60 votes in the Senate it doesn’t matter what anyone in the House wants it won’t even come up for a vote. Which means there’s a lot of comparatively empty land that can basically just hold the rest of the country hostage. Point is there’s a lot that’s broken in the legislative branch.
A couple things. First, you might need to freshen up on your Schoolhouse Rock, because this is not true:
Then there’s also the fact that unless you’ve got 60 votes in the Senate it doesn’t matter what anyone in the House wants it won’t even come up for a vote.
It’s been several decades since I’ve learned civics, but… no. Here’s what I recall:
Bills can originate from either the House or the Senate (except budget bills which always come from the House).
If the bill originates and passes in one House, it goes to the other for debate, etc. If the other house passes the bill as is, it goes to the President.
If the other house makes any amendments to the bill that the first house previously passed, it goes back to the first house again for more debate and vote. This happens again and again until we end up with a bill that both houses agree to (one reason for pork barrel spending).
This works this way regardless of which house the bill originates in. Both must agree (in some form) to the final, possibly amended, bill, before it heads to POTUS.
Second, I understand the purpose of the Senate. This is a federalized system (I imagine you understand this given we’re both on Lemmy), we are a nation made of smaller nations in many ways as each state can often be wildly different. Lately we’ve seen some of the pros and cons of such a system, but this is what we are right now at least.
So the idea is a bicameral house, with one that is meant to be a direct representative of the people, proportionate to the number of people in a district, and the other meant to represent each state (i.e. “mini nation”).
It’s just the way our entire system is structured, including state funding and such. This is federalization.
The House of Representative is meant to represent the will of their constituents (without the Reapportionment Act, could actually be representative), hence the nickname, “the people’s House.”
Conversely, The Senate exists to represent the will of their state.
These are often different, and occasionally even at odds. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
And frankly, the last decade or so has shown me that sometimes we are stupid and need saving from ourselves. If everything ran on only one House that was actually representative, it would be chaos.
How would federal funding be divvied up? Do Congressional Reps need to not only be on top of the needs and demands of their district, but they must also do the same for their state? Do you know how insane that would be? Would states even be able to continue to exist as they currently do without a Senate?
This comment is already too long so I will stop.
I get the idea people have about the Senate, but it is currently completely necessary in our government.
If I was that wrong about the voting power of a Californian, that just reinforces how disproportionate the House is (and therefore the entire federal government becomes dysfunctional).
I think a truly proportionate House to balance out the Senate could actually work pretty well (of course this is without getting into the topic of money in politics which is a whole other can of worms).
A couple things. First, you might need to freshen up on your Schoolhouse Rock, because this is not true:
The 60 vote thing is true. It’s referring to the filibuster and cloture procedures in the Senate.
When a bill comes up for consideration in the Senate, first it gets brought up for debate. A filibuster is when someone usually opposed to the bill makes this debate go on as long as possible to delay a vote on the bill. This process has been shorthanded a lot in recent years so senators merely need to indicate intent to filibuster so that the Senate can still attend to other business such as committee hearings and the whole chamber isn’t locked in by the filibuster.
Since the entire GOP is bent on obstructing the Democratic party agenda this means in practice that you need to use Cloture to end the filibuster and bring the bill up for a vote. This is why we see so many things crammed into the Budget Reconciliation bill. It’s one of the only bills that can’t be filibustered like that. For pretty much all other things if you don’t have 60 senators willing to vote for Cloture the bill is dead on arrival.
Be careful, that’s the pretext of faschist overtake.
Perhaps you should be more careful. They’re claiming, and I think accurately, that the judicial branch is making a power grab over both the legislative and executive branches. That has nothing to do with fascism.
(They may or may not be correct in the claim they’re making. We could debate that if you’re interested.)
“We could debate that if you’re interested” is why I love lemmy
It might be the case in the US, but usually this sentiment is being used by a fascist government to get support from the public to gut the judicial system of any power.
Which is better, though? The current fascist-laden one we currently have, or the theoretical one that that has lost its power?
There is a third option. Watering down the political hack judges control by adding enough justice that some form of representation is back on the menu.
Or adding some effective checks and balances to reign them in, much like the system was designed for, back when politics had the nievety to think the system could never be sabotaged by bad actors.
Biden should decree it as an official act, and order the branches to do it anyway.
Call their Bluff, and better yet do it with a “low stakes” issue so they have to put up or shut up.
Its open faced at this point, this kind of shit will continue until the rulings are ignored. The reason student loans got so much focus is because unlike other legislation proposals, student loans are entirely at the discretion of the department of education under the executive branch. Like how the DEA has authority over drug scheduling.
The executive branch has these authorities, the judiciary does not have the authority to rescind them, only congress can
this kind of shit will continue until the rulings are ignored.
Say it louder for the low-information voters in the back.
The judiciary can strike them down for Congress having delegated their power. Judicial review has long been appreciated to be the province of the judiciary. The blame for this lies squarely with the legislature, the most accountable form of government. Vote.
Judicial review is going to be something we should get used to seeing after getting rid of Chevron.
Thanks, I hate conservatives.
Good! If we allow Working Class Americans to have MORE MONEY we WON’T have enough to give to Jeff Bezos so he can buy another Yacht for his Yacht!
Somebody think about the yachts!
Wow. The popups on Forbes are bad. I had one covering the lower third until another ad popped up, covering the whole screen of my phone. I literally had one ad blocking another ad.
It makes you wonder if it even matters if you stay on the page for the ads to pay. If it’s just page load, then they don’t care if you read the article, in which case the system is incentivized to have them only focus on headlines that will drive click-through.
Because I’ve noticed similar things, where it’s functionally impossible to read the content on phones, which you’d think would be a primary demographic, if you cared about presenting reporting.
“wHy dO PeOpLe kEeP uSiNg aDbLoCkErs!?”
I wonder if marketers realize I’m so desensitized to ads that I have no idea what any given one is even for. I’m just looking for a way to close the damn thing. If I can’t, I leave the site entirely, still with no idea of what product or service they were trying to shove down my throat.
Shirley I’m not the only one like this.
You’re not. And don’t call me Shirley.
In case it helps, ad blockers work on Firefox mobile
I’m not a lawyer.
The article kinda sucks on educational value.
Summary:
To sort out a legal mess two circuit courts made with contradictory rulings about the nature of student loan repayments, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued an order to halt the SAVE program’s implementation entirely, temporarily, until they issue a final ruling.
The order is likely legally binding in all subordinate Federal Circuit Courts with jurisdiction over: Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
Editorial:
It’s fucked, like a judicial system filibuster.
Biden should pause repayments until the courts figure their shit out.
Maybe he should block the court’s salaries until they figure out what not having money is like.
If the youngsters don’t see that it is the Republicans and Republicans only who are hurting them any chance they get, I don’t see how that education helped them any.
If I was a millennial I’d be fucking livid and organizing voter registration drives all over the country.
They are literally stealing any hope of a future before your eyes and if you think not voting is going to send a message, it is. The message is: Keep fucking us, Republicans and don’t use any lube.
I think most millennials are pretty solidly left, while also having no illusions about the fact that the establishment democratic party are centrist on their best day and right wing on their worst (we can’t stop the fascists, that would make the people who don’t vote for us upset and they might continue to not vote for us).
Do you know how small a number 8 million is in comparison to the entire US population? And these assholes are still trying to block it. Fucking sick of this shit.
Ngl, the more this happens the more servicers are confused about what they should be collecting and from whom, and that’s actually a win for the borrowers (not as much of a win as this shit going through but still).
For example, due to the slew of challenges, I’m still on $0 repayment through October and don’t even have to certify income for that. And who knows if they will actually move forward with resuming charges for it; this is the second time it’s been delayed for me.
I hope the system does get thrown into complete chaos if it doesn’t all get forgiven or at least restructured. That would be better than people having to pay for worthless and/or overpriced degrees, and not being able to do shit with their lives.
who cares ignore the court and do it anyway
Called it.
