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i love my country deeply but it doesnt love me in terms of my beliefs. i often consider leaving the NATO aligned world

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[-] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Note: when I say "neighbor", I don't mean it in the literal sense, but moreso in the Mr. Rogers sense, meaning "your fellow human" regardless of location or whether or not you have a personal connection with them.

I also find it interesting that you used the phrase "morally good form of serving a country", focusing on the country, rather than focusing on the people, but still mentioning the larger scale of caring for people who aren't in your immediate community. Medical doctors, generally speaking, care for people locally, with the exception of situations where remote care is feasible, for example with mental health. I think it would be of greater benefit to society if the licensing restrictions for something like mental health did not restrict the practice of that profession to a single country, but was expanded globally, but only if we also removed the profit motive from healthcare to avoid people everywhere only wanting to serve wealthy clients.

For cases where it is not feasible to care for people remotely, for example, if you are an anesthesiologist or if you work for any kind of in-patient medical care facility such as an old age home or a drug rehabilitation center (ignoring the fact that many drug rehab centers are corrupt, especially in the US given the profit motive), I don't know how it would be possible to serve a community outside of your immediate location, which makes what you said about "serving a country" confusing to me.

It is also possible to help people globally in large numbers with research and development of new medicines and medical techniques without ever meeting them or talking to them. In fact, Cuban doctors and researchers (along with researchers in other countries) already do this and export that knowledge to the rest of the world, which benefits all of humanity.

This idea isn't exclusive to medical care, either. For example, Canadian firefighters have fought fires across the border in the US in the past, since the area was close enough for them to be able to do so feasibly.

Another example of an idea that is nowhere near perfect in its implementation in its modern form, but has potential would be the ICC. If, for example, there were no borders, then it would be no problem for the ICC to arrest and try Netanyahu and Trump in an international court for war crimes, but since we have borders along with militaries and vast amounts of economic power inside those borders that protect their respective war criminal leaders, that has not been able to happen.

[-] Feed_el_Castro@hexbear.net 1 points 10 hours ago

I also find it interesting that you used the phrase "morally good form of serving a country", focusing on the country, rather than focusing on the people

Every doctor treats people. Cuban doctors in particular treat people in Cuba, so they're serving an entire country's worth of people. I don't see the issue with this description.

Medical doctors, generally speaking, care for people locally

If I commute 45 minutes to work I'm no longer caring for people locally, most patients seen by doctors are people they don't know or have heard about, all that many Cuban doctors know about most patients is that they're in Cuba and they're sick, so they get treatment.

I already explained the moral difference to me between a Cuban doctor choosing to move to Germany and make 5000€/month treating Germans, vs a Cuban doctor staying and Cuba and earning 500€/month treating Cubans (I'm making up the figures). I don't need hypotheticals about outpatient clinics, or rehab centres, or Netanyahu, I'm describing a specific existing situation and judging its morality, I don't see the need for imaginary alternative universes where the ICC works to explain how "doctor chooses to get a huge pay cut and treat people from their country" is, I believe, almost universally morally positive.

[-] defaultusername@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

You're asking an inherently philisophical question and refusing to consider hypotheticals? That makes for shitty philosophy.

Also, my argument is about countries having borders, not very specifically about doctors in Cuba. You just gave me a very specific example and I responded with other examples.

[-] Feed_el_Castro@hexbear.net 1 points 53 minutes ago

Morality isn't intrinsically hypothetical, real people with real struggles exist now.

Obviously you're in a socialist community here, and everyone agrees that the endgoal is worker internationalism and the abolition of states and borders.

However, living in 2026, there are currently people subjected to the atrocities of the capitalist empires, who have fortunately managed to generate worker states which work for them and vice versa. You cannot possibly argue that in the current geopolitics, Cubans are better without a state than with it, and it's also hard to argue that Cuban patriotism is a force for good.

this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2026
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