> inhuman US judicial system
Exactly this. The US is a remarkable country, but how can they suffer such unjust and downright pernicious justice and health systems? That puzzles me.
Exactly this. The US is a remarkable country, but how can they suffer such unjust and downright pernicious justice and health systems? That puzzles me.
As some have pointed out, the American dream is a type of 'just world hypothesis': that people get what they deserve.[1]
This belief sometimes cuts both ways. If people are poor, it's their fault, if people are sick, it's their fault.
I think it is not despite being a remarkable country, but precisely because of America's exceptional growth and prosperity that this belief persists.
Even though the nearly unlimited land, cheap (or even free) labour and geographical isolation that fueled this mythical prosperity are not the case today, I think many Americans still hold on to this belief, and that it colour's their attitudes to people who face structural disadvantages.
The balance of the federal government and the states, and the three branches of our government operate and interact in complex ways. Though we are definitely one country, and you can generally rely on things to be consistent from one state to the next, they are their own legal entities and things that you can do in one state can land you in prison in another.
Factor on the modern age of media and the gravity of the interests that want to keep things certain ways and it gets easier to see why it is so hard to shift our society as a whole -- it truly is quite diverse, even if predominantly white.
But you seem such an innovative and industrious people! Therefore seeing how your justice, health and even education systems are deeply dysfunctional -- to say the least -- and possibly impossible to fix, is mind boggling.
I think we're lucky to have gotten so far, so quickly (of course, with the caveat that this thought shouldn't make us complacent).