Welcome to America...

...the best third world country on Earth! This country is officially a train wreck. We're still a good deal better than the worst of the worst countries, but honestly there are places in Africa and South America that are developing and growing at an incredible rate, and some of them even surpass us in some aspects. Our country is definitely not the best place to live anymore, and I'm strongly considering leaving the country after college. We'll have to see how bad Trump/Hillary screw things up in the years to come. Here are the reasons that I see as making this country and pretty poor place to live nowadays:

• Massive wealth gap, with a report from last year stating that the United States had the most wealth inequality in the world. On a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being perfect wealth equality and 100 being one person owning the entire nation's wealth, the United States scored 80.56.
• Widespread violence and civil unrest, with a new report of a mass shooting or major/high profile shooting showing up on the news on an almost weekly basis now. Protests are an extremely common sight.
• Unlike most oppressive countries, where the government is oppressive, in the United States, corporations are oppressive. Many companies hold back the effectiveness of their products or services in order to earn more money. This is especially true of internet service providers, which purposely limit your internet speed so that you have to pay them more money. The United States has less efficient internet speeds than China. And the government is progressively getting more oppressive as well. Just a few years ago, everyone was FORCED to pay insurance companies exorbitant amounts of money for health insurance. My parents can't afford to use their health insurance, because despite paying a rather high premium, their deductible is so high that we couldn't afford to pay for a hospital visit or doctor's appointment.
• Laws are often unfair, unequal, and ineffective. Unfair: Despite my father earning significantly less than my half-sister's mother, and despite the fact that my half-sister's mother broke the visitation agreement that she got when my father started paying child support to her, my father still pays her $800 A MONTH and my half-sister is nearly 25 now. We have nearly foreclosed the house twice, but my half-sister goes on expensive vacations every two or three months and buys designer handbags and clothes. Unequal: Race and gender are still major factors that dictate current politics, but unfortunately, minorities, people of color, and women are still disadvantaged in some areas of politics and economics (wage inequality, workplace bias, etc) while white people and white men are disadvantaged in other areas (affirmative action). And don't even get me started on the actual amounts of racism and sexism that are prevalent in this country, and the mistreatment of the LGBT community. Ineffective: Despite monitoring everything we do, the United States government is still unable to stop major crimes like the shooting in Orlando from happening. Obamacare has also failed to increase the overall effectiveness of health care in the United States.
• Our economy is pretty crappy. In 2015, nearly 2.5 million jobs were outsourced to other countries. 38% of CFOs say that they outsource jobs, and 53% of the manufacturing industry is outsourced. Although our unemployment rate is at an average rate of 5%, it should be infinitely better. We're not even close to being in the top ten countries for employment globally. The top 1% of Americans make more money than the entire other 99%.
• Our educational standards are poor. We're 34th in the world for education. Additionally, education is extremely expensive. Many people pay off student loans for a very long time, and college (which is basically necessary in today's day and age) is overpriced.

Now I wrote this post based on my own personal experiences, the experiences of my parents, and some quick and not very thorough research that I did, so I'm sure that other people have had a different experience living in the United States (for the people who live in the US at all). But this is my general outlook on our country. And as you can see, it's not very positive.

However, I'm very curious to know what other people (especially people who don't live in the US) think of our fair nation. What is all of your opinions on the state of the United States?

 

 

Yeah the MAGA hype lost meaning several months ago, it's a bit late for his campaign to try and pull a Ron Paul rock-the-system move now that even his own party is trying to abandon ship

 

If Trump is elected I'm sure the American dollar is going to be worth less than Australia's dollars very soon.

On second thought do vote for him, there'll be just enough time to get a sweet conversion rate for the end of year Steam sale

 

America has the most expensive and stupidly inefficient system for choosing government. Rather than electing members of parliament who chose their own leaders of which you become accustomed to in both government and opposition over a full term you are asked to possibly maybe vote amongst a bunch of people you never even heard from before and also choose the leader for the party. Not to mention that the system is set to automatically eject a president permanently after just two terms because someone thought that the voting public weren't smart enough to do it themselves. In terms of time most countries consider 4 months for the campaign/election process to be stupidly long, the US takes an entire year. Now because of there being multiple competing presidential candidates campaigning everywhere, as opposed to multiple party members each campaigning in their own local area, and because you have to spend stupid amounts of money just to get people to vote, as opposed to making it compulsory, this increase in expenditure increases the amount of political donations and increases the odds of corruption where corporations expect quid pro quo.

Next there are guns. Lets protect ourselves by giving everyone the right to have guns, especially those people who have no idea how to use them. Lets ignore the fact that said ammendment was written in a time of single fire weapons and give everyone access to military-grade semiautomatic weapons. Last of all lets ignore whatever gun legislation is in place when buying from a gun show.

There are picky things like holding on to imperial measurements and then getting them wrong anyway, America's butchery of the English language, your lack of real cheese, and the fact that you guys apparently need full body armour to play football, but those two are the main sticking points. If you swapped the presidential system with the westminister system and had actual gun laws then America wouldn't have half of the problems it does now.

Our country is definitely not the best place to live anymore, and I'm strongly considering leaving the country after college.

May I recommend Australia as an option?

If Trump is elected I'm sure the American dollar is going to be worth less than Australia's dollars very soon.

I'm pretty sure that already happened during the GFC.

 

who cares about america, daddy canada has been around since the dawn of time

 

I doubt I'll be moving anywhere else anytime soon, honestly. Sorry, Australia shills.

I do have to admit that I'm concerned about the current election, though; it's either voting for Donald "BUILD WALL" Trump, voting for Hillary, or just throwing your vote away on someone else.

 

The problem with restricting gun usage is that the people who commit crimes with guns are going to obtain them illegally one way or the other. However, regardless, a bullet will kill someone whether one bullet comes out or a hundred, so I believe automatic weapons and military-grade weapons should be removed from public use, but shotguns, hunting rifles, and handguns modified specifically for civilian use should be allowed, and for gun collectors, they should be able to obtain models of guns that date before a certain period of time as long as they are disabled or incapable of firing (like with owning tanks; a gun-collector should not be forced to give up his MP40 from WWII just because it's an automatic rifle). But gun laws are the least of our worries right now.

Our major problems right now are:

• Racial and gender equality is a mixed bag. Minorities and women have significant and damaging advantages over white males in some cases but in others there is still a degree of inequality. The idea of balancing out inequality in one aspect of life by providing advantages in others is unacceptable.
  
• The wealth gap is massive and it is widening. Corporations are capable of basically bending the government to its will.
  
• Religion takes too much of a prominent role in government, often causing infringements on rights, especially in the cases of abortion and homosexuality.
• Racism, sexism, and homophobia are rampant and media supporting these ideas is not suppressed as it is in other countries.
• The education system is flawed and expensive. The "No Child Left Behind" policy and the policy of separating "gifted" and "normal" students and basically not attempting to teach "normal" students past high school perpetuates the cycle of poorness and poverty. The standard high school student will not qualify for an education beyond community college, making it harder to obtain a decent paying job.
  
• The court system is flawed and many innocent people go to jail while a great number of people get away based on technicalities. We prosecute people for smoking one type of drug (marijuana) but the media encourages the use of other types of drugs that can be just as bad if not worse (e.g. tobacco). Even if you are proven innocent of a major crime, you can have your life and reputation permanently destroyed by public media and national entertainment. Violent crimes, especially gang violence, often goes unpunished because of the inadmissibility of circumstantial evidence. Because a mob or gang boss is not directly involved in a murder, and because of their far-reaching control, they often cannot be convicted.
• We have poor home defense and security, and our government has unbalanced priorities. One example is cyber-security. Look at the case of putlocker.is being down currently. This website, which didn't spread viruses or malicious files directly, was taken down because of its nature as a pirating website. However, there a millions of putlocker.is copycats that will just hand you a virus on a silver platter and could potentially destroy your life. Do those blatantly obvious sites get taken down? No. And you know why? Because there isn't a corporation paying anybody to do it.

 

i just came to this site to talk about video games holy shit

 

i just came to this site to talk about video games holy shit

To be fair I posted this original thread like six months ago so...

 

As I said, the government will lean towards corporate interests because that got them in power. America uses an antiquated system that never scaled well and it shows.

As far as gun laws are concerned, having a "restricted to military" category of arms and mandatory licensing and gun registration would make it far easier to determine that a stash of guns are illegal and seize them, and will prevent some stupid kid from shooting up a school. Of course collecters can keep any guns from this restricted category provided they render it inoperable.

 

As I said, the government will lean towards corporate interests because that got them in power. America uses an antiquated system that never scaled well and it shows.

As far as gun laws are concerned, having a "restricted to military" category of arms and mandatory licensing and gun registration would make it far easier to determine that a stash of guns are illegal and seize them, and will prevent some stupid kid from shooting up a school. Of course collecters can keep any guns from this restricted category provided they render it inoperable.

Unfortunately, that excellent and logical suggestion falls on deaf ears, because when people in America hear the word "restriction" they immediately throw logic out the window and throw a tantrum.

 

Unfortunately, that excellent and logical suggestion falls on deaf ears, because when people in America hear the word "restriction" they immediately throw logic out the window and throw a tantrum.

I even hear that police over there place their fingers on every car they pull over to leave prints behind in case it is their last. I mean seriously, the US has more gun deaths per capita than South Africa, and that is saying something.

Anyhow, fix the system of government (westminister is the pinacle in my opinion, but I may be biased) and almost everything else will follow through. Of course this would require someone to relinquish power to a new system and force a new election.

 

I even hear that police over there place their fingers on every car they pull over to leave prints behind in case it is their last. I mean seriously, the US has more gun deaths per capita than South Africa, and that is saying something.

Anyhow, fix the system of government (westminister is the pinacle in my opinion, but I may be biased) and almost everything else will follow through. Of course this would require someone to relinquish power to a new system and force a new election.

Unfortunately, Congress has grown complacent with their lack of term limits in the Senate, which is ironic, considering the fact that the election process was meant to prevent just that. The Founding Fathers weren't as forward looking as we make them out to be.

 

I just wanna quickly throw my view on it;

I'm sure it's because I'm 16 and I know NOTHING of politics, if I ever will, but currently this election really has been done my spine. I'm not sure if it's because I'm finally old enough to understand what's going on or what, but in my school, youtube, home, anywhere, there's always a sign or a person shoving their stupid opinion down my throat. I get the whole idea of favoring someone to your side so their candidate can win and stuff, I get that, and it's nonetheless the only true way to garner support. But I can't even vote, and people in my classes shove the whole thing down my body and out of my rear. The way I see it, we're kinda screwed in some aspect no matter who wins, it's really a bad cake vs. a extremely bad cake, you're better off leaving the worse cake to your interpretation. And everyday whenever I go on youtube; Trump this, Hillary that. TV is an obvious one because it results in 12 trillion political ads being engraved into our skulls, I've just stopped watching TV all together until this crap passes over. And by the looks of it, it'll just escalate until November 8th rolls around when, and once we get our president (by this point I think Hillary is going to win but hey what do I know, I'm trying to be an independent here), it'll just be a few months of waiting and boom, world's on fire! If there's one thing I'm going to learn from this election is this; Once I can vote, I'm going to try and be an independent, I don't see the point personally in picking and side, I'd rather listen to both view points and decide from there. My dad says to be a republican, saying that they are people who "try and work hard to be successful" and "don't rely on the ****-ing government", then there's some of my friends and teachers who are like "you must be a democrat", "democrats rely on the government for protection of our rights, not for a closer violation of our rights!". Both sides just seem like dead ends, I'd rather be at a permanent crossroad than just be stuck on a dead end in the side of politics. The worst part is it'll just keep going until America dies, or we die first, and I hope it's the latter.

 

 

A few seconds on not-google found me this
I can find more if I have to

My country hasn't remotely devolved into chaos from having a lack of glorified murder weapons around. The fact that so little has changed and their removal seems to have little effect on violent crime in general only serves to highlight how fucking useless they are for self-protection in the modern age. They're a caveman tool that are about as relevant as pitchforks in an era where corrupt powers in developed countries care more about lining their pockets and abusing legal systems than ruling by classical force. Even in your rapidly-devolving polarised paranoid mess of a country that's totally for real this time on the brink of civil war, guns only factor into the equation as just that; another business feeding off weak laws and widespread manufactured fear and insecurity, with the occasional horrifying string of deaths as a bonus.

And bro if you're really going to shill that hard I suggest not doing it on a niche gaming site where the majority of active users can't even vote yet. Trump's day is over, let it slide and wait for the next populist conservative movement about saving freedom to pop up. That will be coming, I assure you.

 

American gun propaganda about Australia I take it? Say what you like, but the last major shooting in Australia was the Port Arthur massacre in 1996, which was the event that drove Australia to have a national set of gun laws rather than different laws for each state. Hell, we've had firearm control in one form or another since 1796, whereas America has the complete opposite scenario where it has promoted free use of firearms since 1789. 10 times as many people die per capita (per head of population) in the US versus Australia.

@ColdCallerLoopy: Don't let other people tell you what your views are, and never let anyone tell you that your vote isn't worth it.