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US residents: What big domestic policy improvements have the american people won from congress in the last 30 years? (kbin.social)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

58 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Interpret improvements as you like. For me it's any large scale reforms or legislative packages designed to improve the country for all or see to the material interests of the majority without overly benefiting the elite.

Any big consumer protection, environmental, infrastructure, or other legislation from Clinton onwards that materially improved the lives of all?

Obamacare and the medicaid expansion comes to my mind. It has obviously improved people's lives but considering how broken the healthcare system remains, and that it was written by the insurance industry to undermine single-payer, it seems to me a mitigated win at best.

Gay marriage and marijuana legalisation but that was the courts and the states although i'm sure the federal government could've stood in the way had they chosen to.

I've only live here since the 2010s so that's all I can think of.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

SOPA/PIPA

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

That bill would have completely destroyed the internet. Democrats and republicans alongside Hollywood faught the American people and lost. It's the only time I've seen the people actually win, and pretty much every individual regardless of their other politics was united against it. It's debatable if we could have done it without Google and the rest of big tech helping though. But still, it sent a clear message across the entire political spectrum that there was a line they couldn't cross.

We also briefly won Net Neutrality ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality ), and although it's no longer in effect, the ISPs would have probably done a lot worse if they didn't know we cared and are watching.

Honestly though, I don't know if stopping things from getting a lot worse should even count as an "improvement".

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

Honestly though, I don't know if stopping things from getting a lot worse should even count as an "improvement".

It shouldn't. It's a very low bar for a modern country.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

And by now we have so many worse threats to free communication on the Internet than the copyright industry, yet the Internet is nowhere near as united against any of them as in 2012. On the contrary, everyone now calls for censorship of the other side's "misinformation", "hate speech", content "harmful to minors", etc etc.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

the other side's "misinformation", "hate speech", content "harmful to minors"

I hate to be "that guy," but c'mon! Only ONE side is responsible for 99.999% of that.