We can't have a functioning society if people who opt out of paying for it demand to benefit from it anyway. If people could get away with that, nobody would pay for the fire department and it wouldn't exist. By caving in this situation, the fire department would have signaled to everyone else that it's ok to not pay.
Maybe the tax that supports the fire department ought to be mandatory? Sure, that is how it works almost everywhere in the US. People who live in places where that is not the case are doing so on purpose, and they would vote against changing it.
Want to live in the middle of nowhere and depend on the government for little or nothing? Go for it, but don't complain when you want the government's help. Want to live in a city with a lot of government services? You can do that too. At least people have a choice.
We clearly can. Why can't you?
Over here, we help first, figure out who owes who later. In America, first you gotta figure out who's paying, then you get help.
In the last decade you failed to offer help to hundreds of thousands of refugees because nobody could figure out who owed who. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_European_migrant_crisis
In the last year you failed to aid Ukraine in their war against Russia, failing to even provide weapons that you’d agreed to provide (but only agreeing after terms had been reached to make sure you got paid something). https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/16/ukraine-slams-germany-for-fa...
In the last month you failed to provide public transportation because you couldn’t agree on wages. https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/italy-national-general-str...
And that’s just on the continent in the last 20 years. If we were to go back to say around 1945 I’m sure we could find a couple more instances of Europeans being not so helpful.
The public transit point is fair, but my understanding is that that is due to the right wing government, which is also the root problem in America.
Not helping someone until you figure out who’s paying is a way of life for Europeans.
Parent summarized well why people like me would never want to spend their lives or raise kids in places like US although we like visiting there, not when I can see in (some parts) of Europe how modern society should work as 1 unit, taking care and helping the weak because its simply the right fucking moral thing to do. It is in some aspects Star Trekkish utopia that actually works long term and improves lives of everybody involved.
Yes it costs money, almost nobody here has comparable US wages, but what are those numbers for when 1 serious visit to emergency can financially wipe out poorer families and good luck sending few kids to university, which are both basically no-topics here. Suddenly that million or two in the bank account seem more like necessary minimal backup rather than actually free usable money. And how many US families actually have those numbers sitting around, its rather mortgages left and right.
The amount of constant backstage stress for endless stream of regular blue and also white collar joes this removes is significant but hard to measure in easy-to-present numbers. I tend to call it one very important part of quality of life.