I work in medicine, and one of the hospitals in our system is the VA. I have literally no interest in serving veterans; people who fight in wars for America pretty much stand and act against everything I believe in. It’s not necessarily that I think these people don’t deserve great healthcare, it’s that I don’t want to be the one giving it to them. I would much rather spend my time serving people from my community who didn’t spend large parts of their lives wrecking other communities.
Sure, some of my patients anywhere are going to be complete assholes. Sure, there are a lot of veterans who weren’t involved in combat (but they did directly aid those in combat at least, right?). Idk, is there a perspective I’m not seeing here? Is it wrong for me to be morally opposed to working for the VA?
Nah, as a vet, I say fuck the vets
What percentage of vets would you estimate are persuadable?
That’s what I see as the central question here: if a group of people can be convinced to become leftists, we should be working with them regardless of whether it’s difficult. We’re not going anywhere unless we get literally tens of millions of more people on our side, and not all of those people are going to be perfect.
I don’t think we even have to go to moral “oughts” if you just genuinely don’t feel like working with veterans. I see it how some therapists don’t want to work with children or something; it’s just a segment of the population you personally don’t want to work with. If you can get around it and it makes your time at work better then why not.
As a patient they’d be deeply dependent towards you and because of that would probably be willing to listen. You’d be surprised how much regular people agree on certain issues. Unfortunately another awful element of imperialism/capitalism is that the individual has a decent possibility to remain blameless through delegation and lack of education/understanding as to how their actions lead to other worse actions.
It’s up to you, but I think empathy as a starting position would be wise. If you had to, maybe boycott outright Trumpers or Lobbyists lol
remain blameless through delegation
it’s so funny how socialists think the Banality of Evil is an argument in their favor and not one that condemns them for being worthless little drones
think empathy as a starting position would be wise
Radlibs will never use marxist historical materialism because its in their class interests to obscure materialism
I don’t disagree with your derision of the banality of evil defence, but the delegation and relative degrees of powerlessness allows us to judge on soldiers as a case by case basis.
As Michael Brooks would say, hate the policy not the person. Yes a good many of them were probably complicit in war crimes or committed them themselves but if you’re in healthcare then you’ve already made a choice to help people regardless of their politics or life choices. Would you not help someone who’s a trump supporter or Q Anon nut? Would you not help a cop? Of the groups mentioned, most rank and file soldiers are working class and used the military as one of few options to get a job with benefits so I don’t blame them for how our military industrial complex is wielded on the world.
I’m not judging your hatred because I agree on principle, but if that’s how you feel then you should try to transfer away from military locations or attempt a career change.
Would you not help a cop?
Hmmmmm
if that’s how you feel then you should try to transfer away from military locations
That’s what I’m debating here. It’s not that I don’t want the people to receive healthcare, it’s that I feel like my time would be better spent at other hospitals in my community. It’s a challenging decision I think.
