Criticism of the USA isn’t a sign for any enthusiasm/raging jingoist boner for my own country. I do think we do a few things right … it just matters to/with what you compare it though.
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I see the Mexican Repatriation as the more worrying precedent though as the arguments then are similar to Trumps arguments now. To make it worse it was repeated once already:
Third time’s the charm eh?
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Good points. The US could be wealthy too if we weren’t trying to keep certain segments poor.
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This is true, but also a long way from integration or acceptance of black people as a whole.
And they’ve talked about Colin Powell and Condaleezza Rice in the past too.
It would be nice to see more evidence of a liberal, multicultural society, or a democratic society that has become more cohesive with sustained migration from very different cultural and religious backgrounds. You can blame the right wing, but the fact is that people are people and anti-immigration sentiment is something that needs to be factored into our idea of a successful multicultural society. Another thing is how well this will continue with decreasing public spending, a diminishing middle class or increased terrorist attacks, i.e. in the real world with all its ugliness. It’s like the question of whether we can sustain human civilisation long term. In principle, yes, but right now reality and human nature don’t seem to have a liberal bias.
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What we need is the political equivalent of lactaid?
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I’d be okay with heavier taxes for better services. Being a larger country means we have a larger tax base.
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To be fair, there is pretty rampant racism in both the North America and many European countries.
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That’s an interesting point. So, two questions on that. Do women drop out of the work force by choice (in order to take primary care of children, but willingly so) or are they forced out by cultural/social forces? And is staying home with children or elder care considered normal/respectable and are women who do stay home given some sort of support for doing so?
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Wow, that is low bar to clear, I think you might expect just a tiny bit more.
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Indeed, those are a low bar to clear, thus proving the silliness of the portion I quoted. US headlines are certainly not providing proof of how low humanity can go.
America, whatta country - if it can happen here it can happen anywhere!
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One thing that may influence this is that while the Netherlands’ maternity policies are quite generous (certainly when compared to the US), they are specifically maternity pay and maternity leave. Shared leave and shared care are not actively promoted, which may well lead families to make certain choices when deciding how to balance care and work. To be fair, the idea of shared care isn’t done really well in any country, with most countries still falling for the soft sexism that paints women as “natural” carers.
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Is there any country on earth that isn’t? Maybe Fodor’s and Lonely Planet ought to add sections with details about their destinations’ racisms. (I’m not being sarcastic, that would be useful information for travellers.)
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I heard alot of very loud insistence that it was always a choice and everything is always totally equal between the sexes.
“The lady doth protest too much” style of insistence. I do think as hard as it can be to convince someone that they might not quite be living up to their stated values. It is easier than dealing with people who have bad stated values in the first place.
The one guy in our group who was really putting in equal time and work with his new baby was really respected and appreciated for it. I do think there is less of a tendency to believe that an involved dad must be married to a neglectful mom.
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I was taught that the nature of French colonialism was uniquely such that anyone, even the blackest Hottentot, could aspire to someday become a Frenchman if he assimilated hard enough. The French imposed their culture on their colonies more thoroughly than other European invaders, who thought the natives had no hope of becoming anything “better,” and thus tended to install local puppets to oversee existing social structures.
I don’t have references for this at hand and don’t know if it’s actually true, but it’s what I remember my avowedly Marxist Liberian professor of African history telling us.
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The uneasy alliance is not between liberalism and democracy, it is between liberalism and capitalism - or at least the present pervasive version if capitalism. For the same reason that capitalism is also at odds with democracy. You can’t have a system which posits equal worth and participation, with the condition that it does not interfere with a class of people accumulating capital and controlling the economy. There is a lot of abstract waffling about the fundamental problem and possible workarounds, but I think it is pretty much that simple and distinct.
In practice, it downgrades liberalism from “enlightened self-interest” to “screw everybody” as the people feel the closing winner’s circle. If classism is to be the law, then xenophobia is a natural (but not inevitable) consequence as popular unrest decides that some group loses at “musical chairs”. When a system requires somebody has to lose, people need to either fight over who loses - or fight those who impose that system.
http://p.fod4.com/p/media/aae64d6dd4/zFukUolmTquuR6yLbaa8_football-muscial-chairs.gif
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To be fair, you should have mentioned what it costs to do all that. Their tax rate for anyone making over €33,000 is between 40% to 52%.
This is a comedy series from the Netherlands, think “the office in space”:
A translation:
2063
The water came faster then we thought.
But one country determined by its centuries long fight against the water manages to resist the rising water,
but for how much longer.
The hope is focussed on the crew of the Tasman.
Their mission, find a new home planet for humanity.
This is Mission Earth!
It’s obviously a comedy but I think most people assume (on some level) that we have enough money and knowledge to keep the rising water at bay.
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