everyone deserves to be cared for.
everyone. all of us. no ifs ands or buts.
Before anyone rolls their eyes fully out of the back of their skull… just take a deep breath and hear me out.
It simply means that if you live in the United States of America, you deserve to have somewhere to sleep, food to eat, and access to healthcare and education. period.
Most people consider those things to be some form of basic human rights, civil liberties, unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, etc.. but these do not really exist in America today and illustrating them as people being cared for adds humanity, emotion, and gravity to the words and phrases we’ve heard over and over again our whole lives. And, because it might be hard, definitely not impossible, but hard to find people that do not believe poverty, hunger, and homelessness are real problems that need to be and can be solved.
That’s why ‘everyone deserves to be cared for’, is not only an ambitious statement but an incredibly useful one too. It is effective on a personal level as well as a community or even a national scale.
Individually, it can almost be used as a tool. First as a thought exercise to help us better understand our own internal biases, and then as a way to help calm our mind especially when there are new horror stories to learn about or headlines to doom scroll through everyday.
In a community, the idea that ‘everyone deserves to be cared for’ acts as a unifier, a bridge to build solidarity, and inspire future leaders. It can help navigate difficult conversations and articulate a very clear message to people that may be coming from different life experiences and backgrounds.
And if we believe our government is supposed to work for the people by the people, that we all contribute to it, in order to receive services, safety, and stability in return. That our government is how we take care of ourselves, take care of each other, and take care of the future. Then the idea that ‘everyone deserves to be cared for’ fits right in there, and even has the potential to be a northstar. Guiding the decisions that need to be made to build a world that actually helps people.
It is both communal and self-serving. Meaning it is actually in our own self-interest to make sure everyone is cared for, because when everyone is guaranteed food to eat, a bed to sleep in, medical care, and education… that means you, individually, are also guaranteed food to eat, a bed to sleep in, medical care, and education. When everyone’s families are cared for, that means your family is cared for too. It is in our own self-interest and our own self-preservation to ensure everyone has a safety net, to make sure everyone is cared for.
And this is not just a hippy dippy day dream either, this is actually where we start to find real freedom. The individual freedoms and liberties people always talk about.
Freedom to make our own decisions on who we want to be and how we want to live. If we provide all people with a safety net and stability, it takes the power and control away from the CEO that’s signing the paycheck that carries grave consequences if it’s missed or late.
If we make it so that no one needs to live in fear of being hungry and homeless, it takes all of the power away from the billionaires, the corporations, and the media that fuel division by telling us these other people, these minority groups, are the reason we’re struggling to buy groceries, these other people are the reason we can’t afford rent.
If we make sure our basic needs are met through services that we build, that we fund, and that are not required to make a profit, then we are no longer under the thumb of corporations and billionaires whose singular goal is to make the most profit at any cost. Death included. Billionaire’s and corporations need us, they need our labor, in order to create that profit. We do not need them.
If we make sure everyone is cared for we will have the power to push back against terrible work conditions. We will have the power to push back and demand better without the fear of a single missed shift being the reason someone has to sleep on the street or not eat for a few days.
If we make sure everyone is cared for, we will find freedom.
The key is that it has to be everyone. No, ifs, ands, or buts. Again, deep breath, and try to keep your eyes in your head.
This is not saying there should be no consequences when someone breaks a law. Even if procedures need to be reformed, we have systems and processes in place for those occurrences. Taking care of people actually puts us in a good place to start reforming these too.
Another big hang up can be when we hear about anything being ‘socialized’, our minds pretty immediately go to a greyscale world where everyone is poor, and we have to do what we’re told or else face corporal punishment. No colors, no happiness, no one can afford anything, we all have the same neutral sweat suits on, everyone lives in broken down houses, infrastructure is crumbling, there is no art, there is no happiness, the restaurants and stores and movies and people all look the same, and all we do is work for no money.
First, it might be hard to argue that world isn’t actually the one we live in today, but hearing about social programs and picturing the grey world or something similar is a really good example of how powerful and effective the American propaganda machine is, and how badly the billionaires, corporations, and politicians want us to believe that the poor grey world is what a social safety net creates.
But if we think about what it would actually mean if people didn’t have to constantly live in a state of fear, fight or flight, worrying about what happens if we have a few bad months or miss a few paychecks, we can see the stress that would be relieved, we can feel the weight that would be lifted, the freedoms that would start to emerge, and what those freedoms bring with them. Truly, just take a minute and think about what that would mean and what that world would look like.
There would still be poor people and rich people, people could still wake up and grind everyday all day to make more money if they wanted to, but the deep internalized fear of losing everything at any moment would be gone. Our nervous systems and anxieties would begin to calm. There would be comfort and stability. People would have the freedom to explore different career paths that actually interest them in more ways than paying the bills, the freedom to start their own businesses without the control of private equity, study literature and humanities without being crushed by loan interest for their entire life. People would have the disposable income and free time to pursue hobbies that don’t need to be justified as a side hustle, people can take vacations without going into credit card debt, and start families knowing there is medical attention, community, and education waiting for them. People can create art, and retire.
You can see the ripple effect that would take place. If people have access to doctors, they can seek preventative care. If people have access to housing and food, crime committed out of desperation and survival would be erased. If people have access to education, they will use that knowledge to improve their lives. Even business owners would benefit from a healthier more educated workforce.
Not everyone would have to be learning how to code and trying to become a senior vp, or selling their soul to be a social media puppet. This world where basic needs are met is not grey and miserable, it feels colorful and happy and diverse where people are allowed to live, relax, and flourish.
If that all that sounds great, but now we’re thinking about all the other ‘isms’ and phobias that seem to cause problems and division in our society.. that's fair! Something for us to consider then, is if people have a place to sleep, food to eat, access to education and doctors then billionaires and corporations no longer have the power to exploit those ‘-isms’ and phobias through the resentment of not being able to afford to live.
If all people are cared for it is much harder to turn us against each other. The price of food, healthcare, or housing can’t be blamed on minority groups, because we’ve made sure everyone has access to what they need to survive regardless of how much money they make or where they live or who they vote for. Over time these internal ‘isms’ and phobias will become smaller and less hostile issues. They might actually get even easier to work through when people are fed, housed, and educated.
Billionaires, corporations, and politicians need us to stay hungry, dumb, and resentful towards each other to maintain control and grow their profits.
This is really where the phrase ‘everyone deserves to be cared for’ becomes a useful tool for the individual. When people hear the ‘no ifs, ands, or buts’ part added, we might have an immediate gut reaction and start adding some conditions or caveats that need to be met before receiving that care.
But if a world free of corporate and billionaire control sounds appealing, it’s probably worth it to sit with and examine those gut reactions for a few minutes. It’s possible some implicit biases have been uncovered.
We all have these types of biases. They are sometimes thought of as a primal survival instinct or defense mechanism. Your brain is making quick judgments based on what it knows in order to keep you safe. Making our implicit biases become unconscious attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions, even though we might not be aware of it.
Unlike explicit biases, which are consciously held attitudes, implicit biases operate outside of our awareness which makes them hard to identify. These unconscious associations can lead to discriminatory judgments and behaviors, even when we intend to be fair and objective. They can be based on various factors, including race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, or appearance, and can have a real impact on various aspects of life, including hiring, promotions, education, healthcare, and just day to day interactions with others.
For example when interviewing someone for a job, we may unconsciously take what we see or know of someone’s name, home address, their clothes, their accent, their hairstyle, and make assumptions about their wealth, privilege, background and social class – and therefore employability.
People may fully support equality, but these biases could be unknowingly persuading them to react differently. It’s important to recognize these and not to be discouraged by them, because then we can start to see how those biases were strengthened and exploited by the billionaire owned news outlets, social media platforms, and podcast echo chambers without us even realizing it. By presenting obscure correlations as factual causations even though no real details or backup is shared.
A common instance of this is when a small subset of people is blamed for the cost of healthcare being high or healthcare failing in general. Social media accounts or podcast hosts may be able to say that services are being taken advantage of or that providing certain procedures drives up the cost for everyone, and then just move on to another topic. If a person reading or listening to that comment already has a negative implicit bias about that group of the population being blamed then that listener has just received a reason to reinforce their negative bias. Building resentment and eventually hate towards that group, because the message being promoted is that this small group is the reason why healthcare sucks and is unaffordable. When actually the health insurance companies, pharmaceutical corporations, and the politicians are the real villains in this example.
Support and audiences are then built around these false statements, because the implicit biases we hold feel validated. And that feels good. It feels natural, like dots have been connected, even if they are just flat out wrong. Since we tend to consume media in siloed environments now, surrounded by people that may share the same biases, these false narratives just get repeated over and over again to us, creating and then fortifying those once implicit biases into explicit biases. That people speak out loud, rally around, and then act on. Fueling the resentment and hate that keeps us divided.
This is how corporations and billionaires exploit biases, they use subsets of our population as scapegoats. They are cowards that use our most vulnerable populations as shields to hide behind, while they, the billionaires, collect government handouts and hoard obscene amounts of untaxed profit. Today this results in people believing small minority groups are responsible for the high cost of living and the issues it brings, not the corporations or billionaires that pay our wages and set the prices.
‘Everyone should be cared for’ is a powerful thought exercise, because implicit biases are very hard to recognize purely on our own volition but we all have them. It can be very hard to just sit down and think ‘hmm, wonder what my internal biases are’, because they are typically hidden from us and most people really do support equality for all.
So, if we can identify those implicit biases within ourselves, identify those gut reactions for caveats and conditions, then we can begin the work to overcome them. Which sounds harder than it is, because recognizing and accepting that those biases even exist is half the battle.
And if you’ve acknowledged internal biases, but you’re still having trouble extending this idea of taking care of everyone to people because of how they voted in 2024, also fair! To move past that frustration it’s worth remembering that making sure everyone’s needs are met doesn’t mean we have to be friends with everyone.
It could also be helpful to frame it like “Yeah, I think that person is a dick, but I don’t want their kids to starve, I don’t want their grandparents to live in poverty, I don’t want my kids to starve, or my grandparents to live in poverty, so I guess we’re on the same team.” We don’t have to be friends with everyone, we don’t have to like anyone, or even agree with people, but if everyone is cared for then the individual is cared for too. It’s literally in our own self-interest and self-preservation to make sure everyone is cared for.
Once we understand our own internal biases exist, how they’ve been exploited, by who, and why, we can start to see the plan, and see that billionaires and corporations are motivated purely by greed and cruelty is the point. That’s where this idea can be used to help bring order to the chaos and the overwhelming feeling of helplessness as we are hit with huge amounts of news, layoffs, budget cuts, tariffs etc day after day.
They need us to be mad and mean to one another, blaming each other for the problems they caused, so they can run away with our money while we’re still busy yelling at each other on the internet. The motivation with all the headline-making chaos is to stoke anger and division through our reinforced resentments, so they can enforce control and continue to get richer and more powerful. That’s it, and understanding this helps us to see the forest through the trees.
If we’re able to see that people in charge have built a world that holds hostage our basic human needs in order to create profit and breed resentment, and now they are trying to destroy what little social safety net we have left to squeeze whatever they can from us. If we can see this plan, it brings a sense of clarity to the chaos of their destruction. You can see their singular goal behind every action. Instead of being shocked and confused by each new headline or tweet.
‘Everyone deserves to be cared for’ then gives us a liferaft to hold on to and a direction to move towards, instead of being sucked into each and every little news story that is purposely intended to spread us thin and take our energy out in a bunch of different directions.
If you can find a way to support this idea, it also becomes a compelling tool in conversations with people that may not be convinced yet, people that are caught in the storm of chaos, or who are still actively cheering for corporations and billionaires.
And it’s effective mostly because it’s just flat out hard to meaningfully argue against ‘everyone deserves to be cared for’, because most people do support equality for all. So it either draws immediate agreement, forces someone to rationalize and say out loud why children don’t deserve to eat or be housed, or elicits those nonsensical arguments from social media that try to pull us back into the weeds. But being steadfast in the idea that ‘everyone deserves to be cared for’ keeps us above the weeds, deflates strawman arguments, and makes the personal or culture-based attacks people resort to look foolish.
When people do sink to personal attacks, they are typically just trying to provoke others; they're looking for the big, explosive, red in the face reactions. We’ve been conditioned, through social media and internet arguing, to get mad and be angry at each other, people are addicted to the anger. By holding on to and sharing the idea that everyone deserves to be cared for we might not change their mind right there, but maybe we’ve given them something to think about by not reacting and responding with the same hate and vitriol.
That’s a small act of resistance as well. Not responding with hate. Part of the bigger picture we start to recognize is that the people in charge not only want us to be mad and mean to each other, but they want us to normalize it. They want us to normalize being angry and hateful towards our neighbors, normalize being cruel to people that live and think differently than we do, and make it radical to care about other people and other people’s freedom. Because this keeps us divided and weak. Again, caring about other people does not mean you need to be friends with them, you don’t even have to like them or agree with them, but the oppression of others directly means the oppression of you too.
It may not seem that way on the surface, because you don’t directly identify with those oppressed groups. But if certain groups of people are stripped of rights and freedoms that just means that now you will have to prove you do not belong to those groups. Either by carrying paperwork or licenses that explicitly states that you are not part of that group or by making sure the clothes you wear, the way you speak, the way you style your hair, the way you live and the way you love fits into the neat and narrow box being forced on us. Outwardly displaying and living in a way that shows we are not part of those oppressed groups.
That is not freedom, that is control.
We are told if we just stay in line, comply, follow the rules, work hard, and do what the shareholders say, we'll be rich too someday. However, this world of constantly maximizing profit does not want to lift people up. It actually needs to keep people down in order to keep growing. Lifting people up would mean sharing the profits labor creates either through raising wages, sharing the marketplace with competitors, or paying taxes. And that goes against everything billionaires and corporations stand for, and our politicians protect them. This is the system we live in, and no one is coming to save us from its inevitable collapse.
In order to save ourselves we must save each other.
And this is where communities can use this idea to find and build solidarity, because ‘everyone deserves to be cared for’ is inclusive of all people. No ifs ands or buts. We know who the adversaries are, we’ve identified their objective and their strategy, and with this common ground now we have a direction to move in too.
People are already losing rights and getting hurt, and there are others out there protesting, organizing and pushing back. If we continue pushing back, and push back in the same direction, with a clear message and demand that people deserve to be housed, to be fed, and have access to healthcare and education no matter how much money they make. There will be a wave too big to stop.
If it seems daunting or scary to push back against these powers, it’s supposed to. Our current leaders rule through fear, because they want us to be scared to push back, they want us to stay quiet or lose our paycheck. They use fear as a strategy because they are afraid. They are cowards and live in fear of losing control over us, their profit making machines.
Our elected officials have no motivation to cater to anyone other than the billionaires that fund their campaigns and promise them cushy jobs in the future. If we can grow this message that everyone deserves to be cared for in our communities, then we will not only build solidarity with our neighbors, but we will inspire future leaders to stand up and replace those that protect profits over people.
A lot of times in life it only takes one person showing us something different is possible or telling us ‘to keep going’ to feel supported enough to believe we can achieve whatever is we’re trying to achieve. It really may not take more than a simple ‘you got this’ to push through, but without any support overcoming even the smallest hurdles can feel paralyzing.
Right now, we need people to believe a world where we are all allowed to live the way we want to live is possible. We have to allow ourselves the ability to question the power around us, and give ourselves permission to dream big about the kind of world we want to live in. Why shouldn’t we strive for a world where ‘grinding’ isn’t the default to just barely survive. If enough people can actively share that a better world is possible, other people will start to believe it, the message will spread, and people will feel supported and encouraged enough to not just push back against power but find ways to become the leaders we need to build that better world.
It will create a groundswell that lifts us all up, and leaders that believe everyone deserves to be cared for will feel inspired and they will emerge. We have to spread this message within our communities first. People need to see and feel this idea in person, irl..
Those new leaders can then carry the values and the change that comes with ‘everyone deserves to be cared for’ to the governmental level. Creating the policies and social services that bring power back to the people and restore our individual freedoms and liberties. Freedoms and liberties given to us all when this country originally declared its independence from tyranny.
On July 4, 1776 congress adopted the Declaration of Independence which says, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
It is not only our right, but it is our duty to ourselves, to our families, to our friends, and our fellow Americans to protect this country from Kings and tyranny. Those unalienable rights; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are being held hostage by the billionaires, corporations, and ruling class. We must give them more and more labor, so they can make more and more profit, while our wages fall, the cost of living increases, and individual freedoms enshrined in our constitution are stripped away.
What is happening in our country today does not feel normal, but it is not new. Pushing back against corrupt power is what this country was built from, and has continued to do throughout history. We declared freedom in 1776. Created the Bill of Rights in 1791 guaranteeing some of our most fundamental civil liberties. In 1865 passed the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery and granted liberty to more than 4 million black men, women and children formerly held in bondage. In 1920, the 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. Ended segregation and outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin with the Civil Rights Act in 1964. And in 2015 guaranteed same-sex couples the freedom to marry. The battle for freedoms did not stop with the declaration of independence or the creation of the constitution. That was just the beginning. Americans have been fighting for freedom and liberty ever since.
Our history is far from perfect. It’s actually pretty dark, and there have many times in the country’s past where people, land, and natural resources were enslaved, eradicated, and exploited. Those dark times are usually what led to the great moments we learn about and highlight in school. It’s important we remember and acknowledge the dark times, so that we don’t return to them. We must learn from them, right the wrongs of the past, and continue to move forward towards a more free and fair future.
When we stop learning about the real history of America, it becomes easy to take our freedoms for granted. It is the fighting spirit of the oppressed that created this country, and it’s that fighting spirit that gave us the individual freedoms and liberties we have today.
This is why the ruling class, the billionaires, corporations, and politicians want us to stay divided, to stay dumb, to remove real American history from our classrooms, so we stay afraid of people that live and look differently than us. They want us to forget that fighting spirit, to forget the strength in solidarity that has brought power to the people over and over again. To be afraid to question the status quo.
They rule through fear, because they are afraid. They are weak and greedy cowards. Ruling through fear, creating fear in others, and spreading fear is not strength. It is cowardice. It creates isolation, stagnation, homogeneity, and resentment. Fear of anything different than you, is fear of the future, and fear of change. They want us to be afraid to push back. But the veil is being lifted.
People are beginning to realize that the control we’ve been sold as freedom is not meant to serve the people, but meant to control us. The destruction we’re seeing today will get worse, because the backbones of both political parties have been eroded and they will not stand in the way. We, the people, need to pushback not just against what’s happening, but we need to push towards a better future. With real actionable and easy to understand goals.
Goals that are not built on top of capitalism but in place of it. If all the ruling class cares about is profit, our entire world, every decision we’re allowed to make, is shaped around providing and maximizing their profit. And that is not freedom.
People deserve to be housed, people deserve to have food to eat, and access to medical care and education. No matter how much money they make. If we take care of people, take care of basic human needs, other issues become easier to solve or start to be eliminated completely.
Kindness is where the real strength lies. Moving with kindness is brave, because it opens you to the unknown. Exploring the unknown is where growth and change and innovation happens. We can only reach that place of transformation, of revolution, together. It will not be easy, but it is pretty simple. Everyone deserves to be cared for. everyone. all of us. no ifs ands or buts.