Quote:
Originally Posted by Dadhawk
(Post 3400152)
What I can't quite wrap my head around is why you think the monetary value put on saving a human life is somehow unique to the United States. It is not.
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I certainly don't think and didn't mean to imply that placing a monetary value on a life is unique to the U.S. Of course it isn't, and again of course, everything must ultimately be 'rationed' somehow. If every (or any) resource was absolutely unlimited, there would be no need for an economy. Everyone could always get anything and everything they needed or wanted, for free. As @
Ultramaroon said, it's just my (and for many people here, our) frame of reference.
That said, it's taken to an extreme in this country. For example (as has been extensively discussed), almost every other country has a national healthcare system, because it's considered a basic right and not a privilege only for those who can afford it. Likewise, when EU countries set prices for drugs, it's based on the therapeutic benefit those drugs offer. The greater the benefit, the higher the price the company receives - which is paid for by the national healthcare plan. Drug prices are regulated, to provide companies a fair and reasonable profit as reward for taking risk and compensation for making the investments needed to produce them - but also in recognition of the people's
right to healthcare. It's not left to the 'free market', with the result that the US has - by far - the very most expensive healthcare in the world, but far from the best.
It's most plainly evident in the responses of different peoples to the pandemic. While many countries are having a rough time of it, and of course there are people in many places complaining, whining, and fighting against necessary, life-saving restrictions, Americans have truly perfected the art of acting against our own best interests.
I can't offer specific hard 'data' at my fingertips, but I would bet lunacies such as refusing to wear masks, and engaging in risky, contagion-spreading activities (see: January 6, Washington DC) are higher in the US than in most other countries. The best evidence for that is the infection rate. The US, with 4% of the world's population, has 25% of the world's cases of COVID-19. We're number 1. That's not due to bad luck. It's because of selfishness, ignorance, impatience, intolerance, and stupidity, both by our government leaders, and by us, we the people.
I think that's in part because as a country, we've led a
relatively spoiled, coddled life. Of course there are people here who have and continue to suffer greatly. Financial hardships, discrimination, prejudice, and other major problems. There's a significant element of intolerance in our culture (again, see: January 6, Washington DC; the race riots of the 1960's; or just most of our history). But by and large,
relative to other countries, the recent history of this country (in the memory of those alive today) has been
relatively easy.
See my previous post on my family's personal experiences living in Europe in the 1930s and 1940's. Europe went through two world wars in the last century. In WW2, around 50 million Europeans were killed. That suffering and those deaths are in the living memories of many people alive today with a European heritage (albeit the neo-Nazi movement is distressingly active in Europe as well, seemingly forgetting those horrors).
When people go through that kind of protracted, unimaginable nightmare, many seem to learn to care about, support, and help each other. Not all of them of course, but many. Because they have to. I think an element of that gets instilled in the culture, which carries on today in a greater willingness to do what's right for the good of everyone and not just selfishly for yourself. No one in my family would have survived WW2 (and I wouldn't be here) if it wasn't for the selfless sacrifices of other people, and likewise what my family members did for others in the same situation at that time.
The US hasn't experienced that on the same scale. Of course this country has had it's share of problems and disasters. Widespread, institutional bigotry and prejudice, that is sadly still with us. 9/11. But that element of self-sacrifice, of doing what's right for everyone, of genuinely
caring for other people, doesn't seem as strong here as in many other countries. As evidenced by all the imbeciles refusing to wear masks or put up with any perceived inconveniences or intrusions on what they consider to be their 'constitutional rights'.
I regularly see stories of people on US plane flights refusing to wear masks, making a scene, forcing the flight to be cancelled and exposing many other people to infection. Somehow, you don't see as many stories like this in other countries.
https://viewfromthewing.com/passenge...acial-epithet/
https://www.kxan.com/news/video-woma...at-passengers/
https://www.travelpulse.com/news/air...-on-plane.html
We, individually and as a country, can do this. We can take this path, make these choices, take (or not take) certain actions. But there is a price to be paid. We are paying for it with a horrendous pandemic infection rate, illnesses, and deaths. The unfortunate reality is that as long as we keep acting this way, vaccines or not, this country will never be completely rid of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
