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Comment by jorblumesea | Hacker News Reader

Ignoring the obvious humanitarian aspect of it (veteran suicide rate, societal promises of healthcare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honoring_our_PACT_Act_of_2022), politically you have to wonder why do this. Vets usually vote conservative, are often employed by the VA. It's an economically unstable time with other administration policies like tariffs. It won't reduce the deficit by any significant %. VA hospitals are often a source of general healthcare to fill gaps in the system.

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"Government doesn't work. Here, we'll prove it."

Ever since Reagan said "I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." there's been a cadre of monied business interests who want to replace all government with "private" services, basically making themselves the new royal families of the US.

> the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help

That pretty much sums up the difference between USA vs the rest of Western countries.

In the US, People are protecting themselves from their own Government.

Other Western Countries, The Government is there to protect the people (and the people understand this).

... until they outlaw silent prayer?

Seems hard to enforce, no?

I imagine grandparent is referring to an incident in the UK where a man was arrested for “silently praying.” The additional context is that he was in a legally mandated exclusion zone around an abortion clinic.

It’s become a meme (sans context of course) in conservative circles since Vance recently reiterated it. Never mind that the US uses such free speech exclusion zones frequently.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/christian-bourne...

Man you need to share the whole story not just cuts here and there for narratives.

Do better.

In this case it's directly firing your voter base. It's the same with medicaid, social security and other cut proposals. Tariffs also.

People care the most about their own wallet and income. The policies have no indirection or subtlety.

I sort of have to hand it to republicans, I am impressed by their commitment to slash spending even in the face of hurting their own constituents, like at least they're consistent.

On the other hand, it's amazing that people seem to hear "Republicans will make the Government better" Rather than "Republicans will slash and burn the Government regardless of who it hurts" even when they're not particularly quiet about it.

Vets aren’t as conservative as you might think and they’re a vulnerable population without a strong collective voice. The vets that actually have a voice were usually officers who showed little empathy for the rank and file to begin with, so why would they now?

65% of veterans voted for trump.

They voted for this. Sounds like they chose their destiny, to die in a gutter homeless and no medical care. And with other public benefit cuts, low/no food stamps, delayed or stopped social security.

Its hard for me to actually care. They knew the debacle and hate, and they voted for it.

The plan is to have no government agencies at all, but to have private companies run everything,

like jokingly in this Fry and Laurie sketch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLfghLQE3F4

It really seems like that a large number of politicians no longer seem to think that their actions will impact future voting. And I mean this on both sides, there's a lot of inaction on the D side. I wonder if popularism has just broken our electorate where they're convinced everyone is going to vote the way they are going to vote regardless of who they're voting for and thus there's no need to actually represent their constituents anymore.

> there's a lot of inaction on the D side

Not true - I've gotten five fundraising texts today.

Now effective action? Not wrong.

What future?

If you are in a safe Republican district and you probably are because of gerrymandering, your concern is not losing to a Democrat, it’s being primaried by a Trump endorsed Republican funded by Musk where he also uses X as a bully pulpit.

The main things that many Trump supporters care about is fighting for “American culture”, trying to stymie it from becoming a minority majority company, those evil trans people using the wrong bathroom, immigrants bringing diseases and crime and woke something or other.

Veteran suicide can be massively helped with psilosibin and ketamine therapy, things that I hope RFK Jr will implement quickly.

yea, if you watched / listened / observed / ... RFK Jr you can definitely conclude that he is ALL ABOUT drugs and more drugs... :)

I presume you guys mean the man, when he was still a boy, frequently tortured his pets to death? Even his own family was openly disgusted by him. That's really a leader into healthy lifestyle, not sure for whom though

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