I’ve read some exchanges from an American friend with their other American friends on social media years ago. I noticed that many of the people were very against the idea of people they don’t think are deserving from benefiting from them. Even in abstract ways. For example people getting welfare who are actually scamming the system. Or having an outside benefit, like poor people getting free healthcare even if they can’t pay taxes. Trails would have been a good example for this group, “why am I paying for trails I don’t use?”.
I have a hypothesis that Americans are so scared of others benefitting from themselves that they miss that many, many more people are deserving and it makes for a better society. But they don’t see that and would rather punish the deserving and themselves, if it means the undeserving will hurt more. I think this thinking also bleeds into your social justice movements.
You don’t have to be communist to believe in maintaining public access to publicly-owned lands. Turns out National Parks, national forests, state parks, campgrounds, etc attract millions of people annually, and most of us are very glad that access is for everyone. As taxpayers we in fact pay for that public infrastructure, just like we pay for roads.
It’s really a weird effect. Like, how enjoyable even is a world where you’re rich, but surrounded by poor, uneducated, sick people, and all you can do is stay inside because the outside is caustic and ravaged?
Is it too much mental gymnastics that it’s a lot more interesting to talk to happy, sophisticated, educated people? To enjoy maintained public parks? To learn from the past in museums that present all kinds of viewpoints? To have a strong workforce that is confidently going to the doctor?
I’ll never get what’s so hard about things affecting other things, even if it doesn’t immediately yield a profit.
These people understand this. However they are not willing to have waste in the system. They want to help exactly who needs help and not scammers. If this cannot be done, then help no one.
I’m all for having better checks and stopping fraud. But not at the expense of helping no one. I’d rather keep a system running even if there is waste as long as it mostly works.
The problem is that the people who aren't contributing forget who is actually contributing and start tearing down the system because they have no clue how the world works anymore.
Given how it’s mostly states that take more from the federal government than they give, that are trying to destroy the federal government, my view on keeping the federal government has begun to soften. If Mississippi actively wants to shoot themselves in the foot, at some point, you just have to give up trying to disrupt their plan. Of course not everyone in Mississippi wants that, and many people who don’t will be seriously negatively affected, and won’t have the means to move, so they are why my position hasn’t changed yet.
The difference of course is that almost everyone uses or benefits from the economy of roads. Relatively very few people use trails and they use them for personal enjoyment.
You really can’t think of any ancillary benefits to the presence of accessible nature?
I feel like this sort of comment (from someone with 14k+ “karma” points) is a kind of DoS attack on their self-perceived opponents.
But nonetheless, here’s three benefits for all, regardless of usage:
- reduction in healthcare costs, both physical and mental
- increased tourism
- increased appreciation for environment which in turn loops back into this list from the top
Just focusing on health alone has wide ranging benefits. And if all you care about are tax revenues and GDP, a healthy, happy workforce goes quite a way to improving both.
I’m not going to list anymore because I got other things to do and think about. And this isn’t going to change your mind anyways.
I wonder if the parent to this comment is another "I don't use trails, so no one does!".
If you actually walk along a few trails on a regular cadence, it's clear that there are many different people - it's not just the same people every weekend.
The real difference is that people in cities pay huge amounts of tax to support the roads out to a relatively few houses in the country. Roads are the biggest outlay in every county I’ve lived in.
if we’re going to suggest silly stuff like that, let’s also suggest that cities stop subsidizing suburbs and their expansive infrastructure. sound good?
let’s take it a step further, let’s cut spending to anything that brings people joy! let’s all be crabs in a bucket together. convert public beaches to private beaches, public parks to private parks, make every school in the country a private school.
this will surely increase the well being of our society (sarcasm).
where does this crazy fallacy end? Taxes (and life) is not about min-maxing what benefits YOU personally. It’s about min-maxing your community and society. Kind of like how there is no “I” in team…
