• @[email protected]
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    211 month ago

    The main reason why it exists is to provide jobs. The number of people who work at the TSA at every airport in every state…no representative wants to cut those jobs.

    • @[email protected]
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      511 month ago

      I fucking hate that this is a thing. “We can’t stop doing this useless and/or detrimental thing, look at all the work it makes for other people to do!!!” Absolutely bonkers that it’s just a standard political argument.

      • @nehal3m
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        181 month ago

        Agreed. I’d rather they be paid that wage NOT to bother me.

      • @[email protected]
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        91 month ago

        Same thing with medical insurance. It shouldn’t exist but it pays a lot of people’s salaries.

        • @[email protected]
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          91 month ago

          The worst part is if people only worked two or three days a week corporations would still be profitable and everyone would have a job.

          • @[email protected]
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            31 month ago

            i once heared something like this:

            “the idea of having more than those who have nothing is the very only reason shareholders can ever imagine someone would work for at all, thus they also falsely believe they would do something good when enforcing this by removing everything from those who already are vulnerable and thus create a living example of how you would end when you don’t help them rob even more.”

        • @[email protected]
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          71 month ago

          What’s wild is that if you replaced them with a single payer system or whatever else, you would still have a lot of bureaucratic work that needs to get done by the new system, so most if not all of those jobs would still exist - they would just shift from trying to deny people care to trying to connect people to care.

          • @[email protected]
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            01 month ago

            lol you don’t think a government’s single-payer office is going to be tasked with trying to deny people care?

            If so, why not? Why wouldn’t those government people’s orders be “Make sure people don’t use too much medical resources”

            • @[email protected]
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              11 month ago

              Well, if the government is accountable to the people, then pressures from below should shape its policies. But in America as-is I suppose you’re right that there would be no reason to think that that would happen, only a proletarian democracy can truly ensure that a government is responsive to the needs and desires of the people.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 month ago

          It shouldn’t exist? I’d like to see you pay for your medical expenses out of pocket.

          P. S. No, I am not American.

          • Gormadt
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            81 month ago

            Here in the states when we say “medical insurance shouldn’t exist” what we mean is “the medical insurance industry shouldn’t exist”

            Basically the cluster fuck of insurance companies we have now shouldn’t exist, we should just have a single payer type system where medical expenses are paid for through our tax dollars. In its current state it’s a nightmare to deal with.

          • @[email protected]
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            41 month ago

            A lot of private insurance in the US amounts to paying a couple hundred monthly to have the insurance and then they deny payment for basically anything and everything. So you pay them to pay out of pocket anyway.

            Just got state insurance which covers everything, but very few offices accept it.

            So yeah. Insurance in the US is super fucked up and people go without healthcare, even if they have insurance because they simply can’t afford it.

          • @[email protected]
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            31 month ago

            I do pay for my medical expenses out of pocket, because I can’t keep insurance long enough to ensure consistent cate.

            I’ll give an example. Back in 21 I signed up for medicaid because I was poor enough to qualify. I get an email from my psychiatrist’s office “We can no longer treat you at this office because of your new medicaid status. We are not allowed to treat people on medicaid.” I asked, and they’re not even allowed to treat me if I pay out of pocket.

            This is a new medicaid rule. Now if you’re on medicaid you can only see medicaid-approved providers.

            So I canceled my medicaid. And I continue to pay out of pocket.

            I’ve tried using other government-assisted programs before, with disastrous results. I’ve been kicked off the rolls before, at random, and I’ve had to go through the crash involved in stopping my medication, because while these government programs are helpful, they’re also buggy as fuck and can’t be relied upon.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 month ago

              That’s why you want a national health care program funded by taxes (they call it health insurance, but it’s mandatory and based on income, so it’s a tax, really). Private insurance is still allowed, but everyone gets a baseline.

              Sure, this system has got its share of problems, and they’re massive, but if you need care, you generally receive it regardless of your financial situation. Again, bureaucracy happens and there are waiting times etc. etc., but the idea that you may lose everything because you got sick is so alien to me I have no words.

          • @[email protected]
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            124 days ago

            Yeah I guess the kind of Single Payer model I prefer can be conceptualised as “insurance.” But it feels more like health care is taxpayer funded. The similarity to insurance is just details for the detail nerds.

    • @[email protected]
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      241 month ago

      I mean if a state removed the TSA and spent the money on something else, surely they could use the money to create as many jobs as they removed but in an actual useful field.

          • @[email protected]
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            21 month ago

            I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I wouldn’t vote for a republican who got me a job, and I probably wouldn’t vote for anyone who got rid of my job (unless they were otherwise really great). So at least for me, getting rid of the job means you lose my vote and replacing it doesn’t necessarily gain my vote.

          • @[email protected]
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            01 month ago

            And people watching this exchange from the outside might vote against because they don’t like the idea of “minus a job for Bob, plus a job for Carl” as even-steven.

      • @nehal3m
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        131 month ago

        No, it’d be more useful just on account of the harm they are not doing. I don’t give a rat’s ass what they do instead, hell, do a huge UBI experiment and just let them chill. Might as well.

    • @ayyy
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      1 month ago

      If it’s just for the jobs we can put them to work doing something useful like carrying bags for old people in the airport. Literally anything would be more useful.

    • @[email protected]
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      11 month ago

      We could pay them to do nothing* that would be just as effective.

      *not nothing but do whatever they want