Google asked to delist criticism of cartoonist Donna Barstow

I interpret it as: He loves me or he loves himself. Since clearly those two things must be mutually exclusive in this case.

Aside from the U.S and Canada, according to NumberUSA.Com, the following countries also offer ā€˜birth right citizenshipā€™ :

Antigua and Barbuda
Argentina
Azerbaijan
Barbados
Belize
Bolivia
Brazil
Costa Rica
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
El Salvador
Fiji
Grenada
Guatemala
Guyana
Honduras
Jamaica
Lesotho
Mexico
Nicaragua
Pakistan
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
St. Kitts and Nevis
St. Lucia
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Trinidad and Tobago
Uruguay
Venezuela

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Just when I was about to defend American exceptionalismā€¦

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None of those countries, other than Canada, are developed countries.

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Wellā€¦If you accept somebody elseā€™s definition of what is developed and what isnā€™t, then two is still more than just the USA. However, I take exception to Panama, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil and a handful more as being arbitrarily categorized as ā€œnon-developed nationsā€. In fact, Iā€™m considering moving to Ecuador or Panama for a bettter quality life than I have here in the US. Panama for example has a highly developed infrastructure, great Internet and excellent medical careā€¦All three of those beat the pants off the US. So how are they undeveloped?

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Lots of countries are better to live in if you have money. This doesnā€™t mean they are, on the whole, ā€œdeveloped.ā€ I mean, by moving to Panama you probably put yourself in the top 10% of society there. Life in the US is pretty darn good for those in the top 10%, too.

What is the PPP GDP in these countries? For 2012, the World Bank numbers are as follows: United States, $49,965; Canada, $42,533; Mexico, $16,731; Panama, $16,615; Venzuela, $13,485; Brazil, $11,909; Ecuador, $9,796. Now lets take a look at how that money is actually divided, by looking at the ratio of the average income of the richest 10% to the poorest 10%: Canada, 9.4; United States, 15.9; Venezuela, 18.8; Mexico, 21.6; Ecuador, 35.2; Brazil, 40.6; Panama, 49.9. So congratulations on moving to Panama, where the theoretical ā€œaverageā€ person has about 1/3 of the purchasing power of someone in the US, although in reality the society is so unequal that almost all of that purchasing power is concentrated in the very rich.

Of course money isnā€™t everything, and we might want to look at things like education opportunities, health care access, life expectancy, literacy rates, etc. The Human Development Index attempts to capture these factors, and lets take a look at the data after adjusting for inequality (though the results are similar even if we donā€™t): Canada, 0.832; United States, 0.821; Mexico, 0.593; Panama, 0.588; Venezuela, 0.549; Ecuador, 0.537; Brazil, 0.531.

developed nation : A developed country or ā€œmore developed countryā€, is a sovereign state that has a highly developed economy and advanced technological infrastructure relative to other less developed nations.

Depending on whoā€™s map you use, Peru, French Guiana and Uruguay all qualify as developed. Most consider Slovakia and Malta as developed. Having been to Malta and Slovakia, Iā€™d take Panama or Uruguay over either. Iā€™m not sure who comes up with these listsā€¦ But of those, Peru also allows birthright citizenship. Now we have 3. My original point being that there are more countries than only the US that allows itā€¦whatever your definition of developed is.

The cartoon was specifically talking about developed countries. Yes, it was incorrect because Canada also gives citizenship by birth. But if your point was that there are more countries than the US and Canada that allow citizenship by birth, then you are making a point that the cartoon did not contest.

And while you might take Panama or Uruguay over Slovakia or Malta, the reason you would probably chose those is because Malta and Slovakia are relatively equal countries where the average person you are likely to encounter lives a reasonably representative lifestyle, while Panama and Uruguay are highly unequal countries where you are unlikely to have seen much of the way ā€œaverageā€ people live, although you probably saw considerably more of how the prosperous live. At any rate, your subjective opinion of where you, as a relatively wealthy Westerner, would like to live does not add a lot to the considerable empirical data that already exists, nor its analysis by experts. Speaking of experts, I would be interested in knowing what list of developed countries includes Peru, French Guiana, and Uruguay. Hereā€™s what Wikipedia has to say:

Only three institutions have produced lists of ā€œdeveloped countriesā€. The three institutions and their lists are the UN list (shown above), the CIA[21] list and the FTSE Groupā€™s list, whose list is not included because its association of developed countries with countries with both high incomes and developed markets is not deemed as directly relevant here.[22] However many institutions have created lists which are sometimes referred to when people are discussing developed countries. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) identifies 35 ā€œadvanced economiesā€,[23][24] The OECD, also widely known as the ā€œdeveloped countries clubā€[25][26][27] has 34 members. The World Bank identifies 66 ā€œhigh income countriesā€. The EIUā€™s Quality-of-life survey and a list of countries with welfare states are also included here. The criteria for using all these lists and for countriesā€™ inclusion on these lists are often not properly spelt out, and several of these lists are based on old data.

Of all the above measurement systems, Uruguay appears only on the World Bankā€™s High-income economies list, for which a per-capita GDP of only $12,616 is needed to qualify. Peru appears in none of the lists, nor does Panama.

I tell you whatā€¦ Iā€™m not really interested in debating what a developed nation is, clearly youā€™re accepting of whatever some ā€˜groupā€™ decides and I have a different slantā€¦ In the same vein, you probably accept that there really are 7 continents - that Asia and Europe are separated somehow, and not one large land mass - and Pluto is a planet one day, but not the nextā€¦ So, Iā€™ll just back up toā€™ there are 2 developed nationsā€™, Canada and the USā€¦ Which we can both agree on. :wink:

Hey, itā€™s not just one ā€œgroupā€ who has decided what developed nations are; pretty much every group to have seriously thought about the issue has come to the same conclusions based on actual data and meaningful analysis. You might have a ā€œdifferent slantā€ on what makes a nation developed, but youā€™ve not really articulated your perspective nor supported it in any way other than essentially saying that you, as an American ex-pat, could live well there. Congratulations on your principled independence from the dreaded group-think!

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