The incident that supposedly taught Spider-Man that with great power comes great responsibility was him refusing to stop a criminal and the criminal killing Uncle Ben. But in that story, he could have stopped the criminal easily, with negligible loss to himself.
In the original Amazing Fantasy #15, Spider-man declines to stop a burglar in a building earlier that day. A police officer is like “hey mister, all you had to do was trip them for me” and Spider-man is like “no, all of that is your problem, I’m through doing things for other it’s all about me.” He wanted to be a TV star.
Then later (days later), Peter arrives home one evening to find a police car stopped in front of his house. Uncle Ben was shot in a burglary and it was the same guy as he learns in the warehouse. (Interestingly enough, Ben at the time did not say his famous line, the text is there as commentary but Ben himself did not say it).
Uncle Ben would have lived if only he had stopped some particular criminal 20 miles away at 1 AM during the fourth month
So it’s actually a lot closer to this. His failure to stop the random burglar at the store led to Uncle Ben dying.
The lesson that Spider-Man took out of it—that he has to help people at great expense to himself—doesn’t match the actual event—where he should have helped someone at no expense to himself.
It’s not like the criminal was aiming at Uncle Ben and Spider-man just refused to save him, it was an incident multiple days (maybe even weeks) before where he refused to intervene! And Peter doesn’t want the pain he experienced to happen to others.
It’s very similar reasoning to Batman, he has no reason to take up the mantle and fight crime past his parents murderers but he does so anyway. They are empathetic and caring people. They are aspirational stories about the moral responsibility to do good for others, they’re pretty blatant about it and even Stan Lee literally says that is what makes a hero.
Are you a religious person? Do you believe we should run society according to the Bible? I am not, and I do not.
No I am not religious, but in a general point about American society America’s main religion is extremely relevant. The guiding moral philosophy of most Americans says helping out others is what God wants of them.
And the main problem with USAID, as others have pointed out, is that helping people was entangled up with promotion of left-wing politics. Saying that we are forced to keep promoting the left-wing politics because otherwise we wouldn’t be saving people is a hostage puppy.
That’s a perfectly fair argument if you think it’s not being done properly. Why exactly getting rid of the left wing parts requires the killing off programs like PEPFAR and other very useful and helpful programs that even major charities (like the Vatican which isn’t some incredible left wing propaganda group) say are helpful is beyond me, but if your argument is that it is necessary then fine.
I never said USAID is perfect, and there are potential reasons it needs to be dismantled even at the possible costs of millions of lives. Just that “We shouldn’t help others out” is a very niche view in the US to the point of basically being a weakman argument, even Republicans still seem to poll 5% of government funding going to foreign aid.
In the original Amazing Fantasy #15, Spider-man declines to stop a burglar in a building earlier that day. A police officer is like “hey mister, all you had to do was trip them for me” and Spider-man is like “no, all of that is your problem, I’m through doing things for other it’s all about me.” He wanted to be a TV star.
Then later (days later), Peter arrives home one evening to find a police car stopped in front of his house. Uncle Ben was shot in a burglary and it was the same guy as he learns in the warehouse. (Interestingly enough, Ben at the time did not say his famous line, the text is there as commentary but Ben himself did not say it).
So it’s actually a lot closer to this. His failure to stop the random burglar at the store led to Uncle Ben dying.
It’s not like the criminal was aiming at Uncle Ben and Spider-man just refused to save him, it was an incident multiple days (maybe even weeks) before where he refused to intervene! And Peter doesn’t want the pain he experienced to happen to others.
It’s very similar reasoning to Batman, he has no reason to take up the mantle and fight crime past his parents murderers but he does so anyway. They are empathetic and caring people. They are aspirational stories about the moral responsibility to do good for others, they’re pretty blatant about it and even Stan Lee literally says that is what makes a hero.
No I am not religious, but in a general point about American society America’s main religion is extremely relevant. The guiding moral philosophy of most Americans says helping out others is what God wants of them.
That’s a perfectly fair argument if you think it’s not being done properly. Why exactly getting rid of the left wing parts requires the killing off programs like PEPFAR and other very useful and helpful programs that even major charities (like the Vatican which isn’t some incredible left wing propaganda group) say are helpful is beyond me, but if your argument is that it is necessary then fine.
I never said USAID is perfect, and there are potential reasons it needs to be dismantled even at the possible costs of millions of lives. Just that “We shouldn’t help others out” is a very niche view in the US to the point of basically being a weakman argument, even Republicans still seem to poll 5% of government funding going to foreign aid.
Yes, but as you yourself note:
Spider-Man could have stopped him with negligible cost to himself.
But it’s not “we shouldn’t help others out”. It’s “we are not obligated to help others out”. That’s very different.