The Myth of the USA as 'The Land of Opportunity'

The post that was quoted here has been removed

I would actually imagine that Spain, Italy, or France may have worst collective prospects for the lowest quintile.

There's one simple reason:

any able-bodied person in the US, minority or not, can jump into the US military, get a massive scholarship good enough to cover four years of education, or go into an MOS with an equivalent civilian job / security clearance, and just start pulling down as much as three Gs after being discharged.

I am under the impression from some folks that the situations in Italy & France are not that great. Not terrible, of course, but not that great.

I think what is outstanding about the US is that the lows are really low, but the highs can be pretty high.

Mississippi does not belong in the same category as anywhere in Western Europe, right; Tulsa and Kansas City probably have numbers and living standards that better compare with Novosibirsk and Tula than Marseilles and Trondheim.

But so is life.

Do yuo want to talk about how crap the USA is?

My friend's family is from the Chicago area; his brother and father have been carjacked at gunpoint over the years; had boat motors stolen out in the burbs; house broken into...

I know someone who had his house broken into in Madison; another had his motorcycle stolen in Houston; another who was pistol whipped and mugged in LA, and another had his house broken into in North Hollywood. A distant relative of mine became a homeless meth addict in San Diego. He would return home to burglarize his own mother's home. He developed massive mental health issues. Nobody knows what happened to him since some point in the 1990s -- it is assumed that he died somewhere, was never identified, and buried in an anonymous grave, or that he is still out there somewhere, wandering from place to place.

I am familiar with the USA, Duchess, and sure, it's not as pleasant as Denmark.

It's also not as pleasant as Korea or Japan.

Should I enumerate more countries -- or will you stop your accusations?

[I edited some of the references for privacy]

The post that was quoted here has been removed

... because I just said the USA is not as pleasant as South Korea.

Period.

Of course, you can make a third more money or maybe even double in the USA, and you have much more living space, but the USA is much more expensive and unpleasant.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

- Money
- Less economic competition
- More relaxed work environment
- Exiting a stuffy culture that can have a lot of issues with 'condensed modernity'
- Educational prestige transitioning into just liking where they end up (a lot of people leave Korea solely to improve their English or expand some other educational aspect, and they become surprised that they like living abroad)
- Also, a significant minority previously migrated due to being in interracial relations, having handicapped children, being sexual minorities, or experiencing religious or political persecution (though these last two categories have greatly dropped in the last ten years but I believe that certain Christian groups still have issues with being forced conscription*)

And then all of the usual reasons -- some people always just have to leave because they need to experience life differently or they're weirdos or both.

*Forced conscription is garbage for those who are conscripted if we are talking about learning skillsets or money. Only professional militaries offer this, and only in the professional wings of conscripted militaries is actual money earned & actual trade skills developed. ROK Army gets like $100-200 a month, and that immediately goes to miscellaneous items needed to maintain their uniforms or buy snacks & smokes to get through the absolutely miserable mess hall food.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

That's right. The suicide rate is quite high.

However, the rate of drug overdose is exceedingly small -- while the US rate of drug overdose is something like 22 per 100,000. Some of these can really be viewed as their own passive form of suicide. Add this with the US suicide rate, which is something like 14-15, and you would actually have a higher rate of death by overdose & suicide in the US than by suicide in South Korea (whose drug overdose rate is so small as to be negligible).

So, ultimately, there is more self-destruction in the US and perahps a bunch of other Western nations than there is in S. Korea.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

YABUT...in chiner the gubment shoot you.

@mott-the-hoople said
YABUT...in chiner the gubment shoot you.

They only shoot you if you outrun the tank that's trying to run you over.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

blow smoke up someone elses azz...

I. TRANSFORMATION AND THE NATIONALIST STRUGGLE, 1900 TO SEPTEMBER 1949

2. 105,000 Victims: Dynastic and Republican China
3. 632,000 Victims: Warlord China
4. 2,724,000 Victims: The Nationalist Period
5. 10,216,000 Victims: The Sino-Japanese War
6. 3,949,000 Victims: Japanese Mass Murder in China
7. 4,968,000 Victims: The Civil War

II. THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

8. The People's Republic of China: Overview
9. 8,427,000 Victims: The Totalization Period
10.7,474,000 Victims: Collectivization and "The Great Leap Forward"
11. 10,729,000 Victims: The Great Famine and Retrenchment Period
12. 7,731,000 Victims: The "Cultural Revolution"
13. 874,000 Victims: Liberalization





https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE2.HTM