World News
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
view the rest of the comments
Well, we do already fund a ton of foreign aid all over the world, so quite a lot of that is already happening. But to address those particular things: homelessness is not a problem where simply throwing money at it magically solves it; it's incredibly complex. New York City alone spends 3.5 billion dollars a year just on homelessness. The only financial solution to gun violence is to bribe the SCOTUS to repeal DC v. Heller. Drug policy is largely in the hands of the states, but even then, there's no simple solution to it, particularly when you have to deal with local politics for things like treatment facilities. Prisons are largely state operated. Personal debt is largely outside the scope of the federal government, but even then, student loan forgiveness was attempted. But to throw a number at it, redirecting all Ukraine aid towards individual credit card debt would pay for only 10% of it.
Are there particular federal programs of comparable financial impact with sufficient political support that you think would pay significant returns if boosted by foreign aid money (ignoring the general decline in global stability that would ensue).
I mean, the economic dividends there are obvious. If it really was as simple as throwing some money at Central and South America in order to make the cartels vanish forever and turn those countries into stable countries that we could do significant trade with, we'd earn far more than we paid. But that price tag doesn't actually exist, because these problems are more complicated than simply throwing money at them.
I didn't make my point clear in the previous post so I'll state my stance. I don't really care to send money to Ukraine so they can fight their war. I think maybe a good percentage of Americans would feel the same (mostly republicans). I don't have the same reasons as they have however. When I indicated the money is better spent here I was referring to lowering my taxes. I know that the money to Ukraine won't even lower my taxes by 0.01% and the real money sink is military and social security but the optics don't look good in my eyes.
Take the perspective of the other side. "I'm paying all this money in taxes, my roads are bad, crime from the drugs are around my corner, my job ain't covering all my expenses like it used to. And those people in Washington are giving money to the Europeans so they can fight a war!"
They could stop funding Ukraine and have Ukraine somehow pay back everything today and none of those issues would be fixed. Road maintenance and local crime are state/county responsibilities so they're not impacted by the Ukraine war or funding at all. Your job wages, unless tied to the defense industry, aren't going to be tied to this war at all and if they were, you most likely wouldn't be complaining about your expenses. Another side of the expenses argument would be inflation, but that's not impacted by the Ukraine war either.
You didn't get my point in that post. I have issues in my life and around my city that I'm concerned with. I listed some of those issues in the previous post. Nowhere in there is Ukraine. Yet instead of addressing the issues I face or, more importantly, the average American faces the government is sending money to Ukraine. Taxpayer's money, our money. If I could choose where my tax dollars went (federal, state, and local) none of it would go to Ukraine. A good portion of Americans would do the same.
The user who replied to one of my comments said that throwing money at some of these issues won't solve it. Throwing billions at some of those issues and funding well run projects will absolutely make a difference. They said that most of the problems I talk about are local and state as if federal spending cannot be diverted to the local and state. Haven't we been complaining for years about how underpaid our educators are? Aren't they important. The billions given to Ukraine could have been given to them and I would 100% support that.
You also said that some of my examples, road maintenance and local crime, are state/county responsibilities. You don't think that those topics are subject to federal funding? The feds aid in fighting crime at all levels, not just federal level. The feds give money to states and cities all the time to fund infrastructure. One of the policies that Biden ran on was IMPROVING INFRASTRUCTURE. Did you think he meant only federal roads and bridges?
So yeah the money we give away in federal aid (not just Ukraine) can be used here for the benefit of the people who are taxed to generate that revenue.
They get your point. The problem is you're using a false choice fallacy.
We don't have to choose between funding Ukraine's defense or improving infrastructure in the USA. We can do both. If you look a the US federal budget, you'll find that the money we send to Ukraine pales in comparison to our other spending. There are lots of places we could re-allocate funds to increase infrastructure spending without letting our allies (Ukraine) be invaded and murdered by our cold war enemy (Russia). The real question is why you'd rather see these people die than look at the federal budget.
First off we do not have an alliance with Ukraine. We do not have any official defense treaty with them so they are not allies, just quasi-allies since we supply them with weapons. There is a difference because if they were allies then we'd be directly fighting Russia now. And yes we can do both, fund Ukraine and infrastructure, or we can focus on just one. How is that a false choice fallacy? A false choice fallacy is based on a premise that erroneously limits what options are available. I didn't limit any options, I merely stated that I don't like the option chosen and think another option is the better choice.
Sorry I misunderstood. I now see that you would prefer that the people of Ukraine get invaded and murdered by our cold war enemy and that we should just let it happen. You'd rather save that drop in the bucket rather than look at the entire federal budget and see how insignificant the Ukraine funding really is in the grande scheme of things. Got it.
Well now speaking of fallacies you reply with an Ad Hominem one. I never said anything about wanting the people of Ukraine murdered. My original post was criticizing why the US govt spends so much energy prioritizing Ukraine's defense when we have Americans struggling here in the US.