In western European, they have socialism. The people pool their tax dollars to take care of each other, particularly in time of need. In America, we would rather live in poverty than see a bunch of dirty, filthy ____s get a dime they did not earn. Why are western Europeans so much “nicer” than we are? Trick question. They aren’t. They simply belong to populations that are relatively homogeneous. Same language, same race, same religion. When your neighbor is “just like you”, you feel his pain, you want to see him get ahead.
This homogeneity did not come easy. The Germans and their allies attempted to wipe out all the Jewish people in Europe and those who were left over were politely invited to leave. Never ending religious wars resulted in borders being drawn to separate Catholic from Protestant from Muslim. People who spoke different languages also huddled together. Lowlanders fought highlanders and coastal groups battled inlanders, so that people with similar livelihoods and economies were able to form countries where everyone was (more or less) the same. Now that European countries are pooling their resources and importing more laborers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, politicians are able to use divide and conquer strategies to turn Europeans towards corporate fascism. But they have not gone as far we have in the U.S. Yet.
The United States was destined to be divided. Think of where the colonists came from. You have cavaliers on the plantations of the South, talking about the greatness of divine mandate. In the north, roundheads rebelled against monarchy and fought for a society in which profit became the great equalizer---before it became the great divider. The Civil War in the U.S. was as inevitable as the Civil War in England. And then, you have the different immigrant groups that came later, with their different religions, languages, customs. You have different geographies---coastal, farming, mountain---all within the same country, each group fighting for the largest share of the common resources.
The capitalists took advantage of these differences to divide and conquer the American worker. The South resisted unionization, because the bosses told the (white) workers they would have to labor alongside Blacks. Never mind that all workers would make more money and have better conditions with union representation. Whites were told that they would lose something if the other guys gained something. The American Dream was all about taking what your neighbor of a different race, religion, national origin possessed and using it to enrich yourself, your family, your People.
And so, you have middle class whites rebelling against the offer of health care, because middle class Blacks would get it too. You have Christians attempting to prohibit the free religious expression of Muslims, even though the same laws could be used against them. English speakers go ballistic when their schools attempt to teach children Spanish, even though being bilingual is a key to economic success in a country in which the fastest growing demographic group is Latino. Heterosexuals begrudge gays protection against hate crimes, and therefore, they leave themselves vulnerable to hate crimes (against women, against minorities).
There is a fiction in America. Any working class Joe can get ahead---as long as there are plenty of folks poorer, more oppressed, more down by law than he is. This is a lie. In fact, the more poor, desperate, hungry despised people there are in your country, the lower the wages, the poorer the work conditions, the worse the benefits.
No one would begrudge kids education, health care, food. At least, I hope no one would. So, why should we begrudge gays, women, immigrants, minorities those same things? We do not get ahead of the pack by making sure the work houses are full. Because, once built, the work houses have room for all of us.
