US Politics

Why would you compare the US to those countries?

Because the complexities of managing a large heterogenous democracy with the number one economy and GDP don't really exist among small, homogenous states where people generally all think in similar terms, so its easier to compare the US with other high population countries instead of the likes of Lichtenstein, Dubai, Iceland etc.
 
Because the complexities of managing a large heterogenous democracy with the number one economy and GDP don't really exist among small, homogenous states where people generally all think in similar terms, so its easier to compare the US with other high population countries instead of the likes of Lichtenstein, Dubai, Iceland etc.
Sounds like a convenient cop out to be honest. Your economy is precisely the reason why it doesn't make sense to compare yourself to the above countries. You should be able to afford doing better.
 
Sounds like a convenient cop out to be honest. Your economy is precisely the reason why it doesn't make sense to compare yourself to the above countries. You should be able to afford doing better.

I specifically said that in my post. We could be doing much better, but at the same time, let's not pretend its as simple to get it done in a 330 million country as it is in some tiny city state.
 
Its great to see them imploding. La Pierre apparently spent about 200k on clothing, which could jeopardize their tax exempt status.
Yeah it does look like they are worried about losing it's nonprofit status. Their Lawyer also suspended.
 
But could America do it on a rainy Tuesday night in Stoke on Trent? I fecking doubt it.

Imagine thinking they're a beacon of hope though. As if anything human made and owned is a beacon of hope. What are you, 3? :lol:
 
I specifically said that in my post. We could be doing much better, but at the same time, let's not pretend its as simple to get it done in a 330 million country as it is in some tiny city state.

You're the only one who has said anything about tiny city states, though. If the only two options are Liechtenstein or China, that's not a very nuanced discussion. In any case, what exactly is so much harder to do in a big country, compared to a smaller one (not counting city states, which are obviously special)? I'd live in pretty much any country in Western Europe over the US, and their populations and sizes aren't terribly far off from each other. But while the US is a single country with a (mostly) common language, Western Europe is made up of many languages, many different systems. And yet the EU has already managed to unify laws in many ways, and impose things like consumer protection to a much greater degree than the US.
 
You're the only one who has said anything about tiny city states, though. If the only two options are Liechtenstein or China, that's not a very nuanced discussion. In any case, what exactly is so much harder to do in a big country, compared to a smaller one (not counting city states, which are obviously special)? I'd live in pretty much any country in Western Europe over the US, and their populations and sizes aren't terribly far off from each other. But while the US is a single country with a (mostly) common language, Western Europe is made up of many languages, many different systems. And yet the EU has already managed to unify laws in many ways, and impose things like consumer protection to a much greater degree than the US.

I'd take the US over the EU any day of the week. For all the criticism the US receives for the electoral college, the EU isn't exactly much better in terms of its own democracy deficit. Individual EU states on the other hand are great.
 
China is a great city to live. Many expats love it. And i feel more freedom in china. One misteps in the usa can get me into prison, that or being sued to bankruptcy

That would explain the droves of Chinese fleeing to the US - only behind Mexicans and Indians.
 
:lol: Yeah, compare it to those names. How about - Iceland, Singapore, Australia, NZ, Austria, Canada, Dubai off the top of my head. The narcissism of Americans is truly breathtaking. And this coming from someone who has always viewed it as a place I'd love to love in.

Singapore and Dubai don't even have functioning democracies. I doubt that many forumers who read this thread would want the US to emulate their political systems!

Iceland and Canada are great, but too cold for me. Remember that the population of Canada is only 37M while US is 330M. California alone has more people than the whole of Canada. Iceland is just 357,000 people, a suburb of a big city. You can find many suburbs in the US that are so much better than Iceland! And yes, you can be poor and alone in Iceland, too. Plus the cold.

Australia, NZ, Austria are also great. Australia has population of only 25M, New Zealand 5M, Austria 9M.

Remember, Trump is the worst president ever. And yet, there is no great immigration surge from USA to Canada. Remember the news headlines before the 2016 elections? Everyone and his dog would immigrate to Canada if Trump was elected.

So, my conclusion is that USA is still #1 in the world. If it isn't, then please tell me which country you think is #1 in the world today.

(Well, California would be the #1 if it was a country, but currently it's a part of the USA. California exceptionalism rules! :lol: And no, I wouldn't want to live in Alabama... )
 
Singapore and Dubai don't even have functioning democracies. I doubt that many forumers who read this thread would want the US to emulate their political systems!

Iceland and Canada are great, but too cold for me. Remember that the population of Canada is only 37M while US is 330M. California alone has more people than the whole of Canada. Iceland is just 357,000 people, a suburb of a big city. You can find many suburbs in the US that are so much better than Iceland! And yes, you can be poor and alone in Iceland, too. Plus the cold.

Australia, NZ, Austria are also great. Australia has population of only 25M, New Zealand 5M, Austria 9M.

Remember, Trump is the worst president ever. And yet, there is no great immigration surge from USA to Canada. Remember the news headlines before the 2016 elections? Everyone and his dog would immigrate to Canada if Trump was elected.

So, my conclusion is that USA is still #1 in the world. If it isn't, then please tell me which country you think is #1 in the world today.

(Well, California would be the #1 if it was a country, but currently it's a part of the USA. California exceptionalism rules! :lol: And no, I wouldn't want to live in Alabama... )

I lived in Bama for a few years. It was better than expected. The beach was only about 90 minutes away.
 
Exactly!

This is what really fecking pisses me off and truly saddens me about Trumps divisive bullshit and the moronic Brexit vote. We should be looking at the world as a whole and moving forward to global unity on almost every level, yet so many are so scared of change, diversity or afraid of someone getting something or themselves losing out in some way. It's holding us back as a species and helping cause untold pain and destruction around the world.

I despair, I really do. The USA and all first world countries could do so much more to help everyone else but corruption, greed, fear and racism stops any progress.

If I say anything like that in my pub I'd be classed a loopy lefty socialist/communist who doesn't understand how the world works. That's probably why I use this forum to vent at times.

I'm crying inside.
Well put. You're not alone!
 
I lived in Bama for a few years. It was better than expected. The beach was only about 90 minutes away.

I'll take your word for it... actually I have never been to Alabama...

Every place has nice spots. I have never been to Mongolia either, but I'm sure I'd find something to like there, too.

However, what I really don't like is the way some people talk about the US, like there are so many places in the earth that are somehow above the US in everything and the US is a hellhole that is good for nothing.

Below, I have just a small example of what I am talking about. WISE is pure science, no money making machine... and by no means something unusual, there are thousands and thousands of similar examples that the average person doesn't know anything about. And this is a professor in the "lowly" Pennsylvania State University, not Harvard or Stanford. And yet, so many Americans in these forums somehow believe that their country is no longer good in anything... that's really weird. Sometimes I wonder if these are real people or not... perhaps they are actually some agents in an underground facility in Moscow? :lol:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WISE_0855−0714

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-field_Infrared_Survey_Explorer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Luhman

"Kevin Luhman is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics from Pennsylvania State University who is notable for having discovered both the third closest stellar system Luhman 16[1] and the fourth closest stellar system WISE 0855−0714[2] to the Sun. Both systems are actually made up of substellar objects (objects less massive than stars), falling into the category of brown dwarfs (Luhman 16) or even less massive objects (WISE 0855−0714) which are officially termed sub-brown dwarfs but also referred to as "free floating planets" or "planetary mass objects". WISE 0855−0714 (discovery published in 2014) is also the coldest massive object outside the solar system that has been directly imaged.

Luhman 16 now bears the discoverer's name following common practice for very nearby stars that have been discovered in modern times.

These discoveries were made through painstaking analysis of mid-infrared data from the WISE satellite, a NASA mission that mapped the entire sky and detected several hundred million stars. The satellite mapped the entire sky twice between January 2010 and January 2011, thereby providing 2 sets of images and coordinates for every star. The motions of the nearest stars over the 6 month interval between the two sets of observations were measurable, thereby enabling him to discover these new objects.

Luhman graduated from the University of Texas with a B.A. in astronomy and a B.S. in physics in 1993.[3] He earned his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1998."
 
And who is the "beacon of hope for the world"? China? Russia? Iran?
Nobody is if you ask me. I find this notion of “best country in the world” to be a stupid one. It serves no positive purpose for the world. If anything, I’d say America these days are more like the rock star of the world. Hated, adored, provided a lot of good things to the world, but also pretty fecked up at the same time.
 
If you had to choose, where would you live? China? Russia? Iran? California?

Ok...This is like asking, which car do you want to drive? This shit bucket? That shit bucket? Or my shit bucket? Meanwhile, a brand new shiny BMW is sitting just over there which you didn't offer.

How about you ask, would you choose a western democracy and if so, which one, or Russia, China or Iran? I mean, I don't even get how you came up with those countries to begin with. You seem to be suggesting "Big" is a criteria, but Iran isn't a "big" country. It's a tiny country. So I can only assume your criteria is, "countries I think are demonstrably worse than the USA".

What a silly question.
 
However, what I really don't like is the way some people talk about the US, like there are so many places in the earth that are somehow above the US in everything and the US is a hellhole that is good for nothing.

What I don't like is how so many US citizens constantly make out their country is infinitely superior to everywhere else and talk like it's the most important or only country on Earth.

The USA isn't good for nothing at all, there is a lot to be admired and respected and a lot to love but there is also an awful lot to hate and despise too, the same as many other countries. However, there are dozens more places in the world I would want to live than the USA. There are also so many more countries to be admired and respected over the USA too, but why should it always be a competition? No other county continually professes about being the best in the world and no other country's population get so butthurt when someone doesn't praise their land. It seems being humble is a trait that is sadly lacking in vast parts of the USA.
 
Ok...This is like asking, which car do you want to drive? This shit bucket? That shit bucket? Or my shit bucket? Meanwhile, a brand new shiny BMW is sitting just over there which you didn't offer.

How about you ask, would you choose a western democracy and if so, which one, or Russia, China or Iran? I mean, I don't even get how you came up with those countries to begin with. You seem to be suggesting "Big" is a criteria, but Iran isn't a "big" country. It's a tiny country. So I can only assume your criteria is, "countries I think are demonstrably worse than the USA".

What a silly question.

Iran has 81 million people, it's not tiny. It has a very long history. It is representative of the muslim world that accounts for about 1.8 billion people. You can pick any other muslim country you might prefer. Russia is the largest christian (non-western) country. China is buddhist-communist-atheist up-and-coming superpower. You can add India for the full spectrum of the most common religions, haha.
 
I'll take your word for it... actually I have never been to Alabama...

Every place has nice spots. I have never been to Mongolia either, but I'm sure I'd find something to like there, too.

However, what I really don't like is the way some people talk about the US, like there are so many places in the earth that are somehow above the US in everything and the US is a hellhole that is good for nothing.
Since it was my post that kicked this off I'll respond one last time. I quoted a post with a speech by Mike Pence in front of the N.R.A and asked how America can consider itself the beacon of hope for the world when Americans are facing so many outrageous problems (and everyone agrees those things are problems, they fill the news everyday both on CNN and FOX, it's not a partisan thing, they are partisan about the cause and the solution, but they do both acknowledge the problems to a large extent).

I didn't compare the US to any other country when making that comment. I don't think there's a productive discussion to be had on here comparing 2 countries and will not go down that road.

However I absolutely feel that those US politicians who constantly bang on about America being the greatest country, the most prosperous one, the wealthiest one, the mightiest one, the fairest one, the most democratic one etc. in front of voters who are taking pay cuts to keep healthcare for their family or who've seen friends and family go bankrupt or to jail because of illness paved the way for a president with such a disregard for the truth.

This isn't exclusive to US politicians either, there's elements of it in nearly every democracy that I have come into contact with, however this is a thread about US politics.

(Actually my original post was in the Trump thread I think).


Below, I have just a small example of what I am talking about. WISE is pure science, no money making machine... and by no means something unusual, there are thousands and thousands of similar examples that the average person doesn't know anything about. And this is a professor in the "lowly" Pennsylvania State University, not Harvard or Stanford. And yet, so many Americans in these forums somehow believe that their country is no longer good in anything... that's really weird. Sometimes I wonder if these are real people or not... perhaps they are actually some agents in an underground facility in Moscow? :lol:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WISE_0855−0714

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-field_Infrared_Survey_Explorer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Luhman

"Kevin Luhman is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics from Pennsylvania State University who is notable for having discovered both the third closest stellar system Luhman 16[1] and the fourth closest stellar system WISE 0855−0714[2] to the Sun. Both systems are actually made up of substellar objects (objects less massive than stars), falling into the category of brown dwarfs (Luhman 16) or even less massive objects (WISE 0855−0714) which are officially termed sub-brown dwarfs but also referred to as "free floating planets" or "planetary mass objects". WISE 0855−0714 (discovery published in 2014) is also the coldest massive object outside the solar system that has been directly imaged.

Luhman 16 now bears the discoverer's name following common practice for very nearby stars that have been discovered in modern times.

These discoveries were made through painstaking analysis of mid-infrared data from the WISE satellite, a NASA mission that mapped the entire sky and detected several hundred million stars. The satellite mapped the entire sky twice between January 2010 and January 2011, thereby providing 2 sets of images and coordinates for every star. The motions of the nearest stars over the 6 month interval between the two sets of observations were measurable, thereby enabling him to discover these new objects.

Luhman graduated from the University of Texas with a B.A. in astronomy and a B.S. in physics in 1993.[3] He earned his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1998."

I don't know what this has to do with anything. There's bright people in the US doing awesome stuff. I don't think anyone doubts that.
 
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I didn't compare the US to any other country when making that comment. I don't think there's a productive discussion to be had on here comparing 2 countries and will not go down that road.

When someone says "America is still #1 in the world" and you answer "No it isn't.", then you imply that some other country is now #1. So, it is natural to ask "if America is not #1 any more, which country is #1 in the world now?"

On the other hand, some people confuse the #1 with "paradise on earth". Only idiots believe that "the best" (in whatever) means "no problems at all". Paradise on earth exists only in communist utopias, not in the real world. Of course the US has many problems. Of course it can improve in many areas. Of course we should demand improvement. But this is a different question than asking "which country is #1 in the world today?"

I don't know what this has to do with anything. There's bright people in the US doing awesome stuff. I don't think anyone doubts that.

You can find a lot of other posts that imply that US is no longer the best in anything. I am saying that obviously US is the best in science and technology. Even pure science that has nothing to do with money. And the US university system is the best in the world by a very large margin. It is just one example that US is much better than anyone else. It is not isolated "people that are doing awasome stuff", it is a whole system of higher educationn research that is the best in the world today.

... it was Americans that saved humans from Thanos. Again!
 
... it was Americans that saved humans from Thanos. Again!

Here's a tip: just putting something under a generic "spoiler" tag in the US Politics thread in the Current Events forum isn't enough when you're spoiling a big movie.

I guess it's a fitting metaphor for America's foreign policy, though.
 
When someone says "America is still #1 in the world" and you answer "No it isn't.", then you imply that some other country is now #1. So, it is natural to ask "if America is not #1 any more, which country is #1 in the world now?"
It's simply a nonsensically framed question, regardless of what's been answered before.
 
Those of you who are certain that US is no longer #1 in the world, but cannot tell us which country is currently #1 in the world, can you at least tell us when do you think USA was #1 in the world? Which decade?

1900?
1910?
1920?
1930?
1940?
1950? (with severe racial issues)
1960? (with Vietnam)
1970? (with Nixon)
1980? (with Reagan)
1990? (with neo-liberals)
2000? (with Bush)
never?
 
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