The only appropriate learning tool is a one way ticket for these morons.

> The only appropriate learning tool
> is a one way ticket

Yeah, but a few vacations would get the job done too.

I think the entire problem with the contemporary mood —authoritarian, censorious, environmentally twitchy and antipathetic to competitive wealth— is that people aren't well-traveled… Even within their own nations, and even within their own communities.

Comfortable, educated people have no idea how much effort and interconnectedness happens to make their lives fat & happy.

These kinds of fools never understand how things fall apart. They take a look at the beginning of the socialist revolution and think that's how it will always be. That the "paradise" the socialists are building will never fall apart.

Happiness for all, right? Sure, when there was enough food, medicine, and supplies left over from the overthrown capitalists. But when the socialists are forced to survive on their own economic machinery, things fall apart.

Isn't these the same idiots who were harassing the Cuban expats who on social media were celebrating Castro's death?

IIRC, the Cubans were posting old B/W pictures of relatives who suffered under Castro's regime and these morons where spouting If you don't have a video of it, you're lying bullshit.

Countries never actually learn from mistakes other countries make... they just see something being done somewhere else that sounds like it might be OK and decide to replicate it, without bothering to see how it worked out over there.

These kinds of fools never understand how things fall apart.

Gradually, then suddenly.

Also, most people already done ate the dog. That's why the broke into the zoos and at the animals. I wonder what zebra tastes like.

“Yeah, but a few vacations would get the job done too.”

Doubt it. There are a few things you need to do to truly understand a foreign country. None of them can be done on an excursion on a cruise ship or within a three mile radius of the local Hilton.

I. Pay taxes for a year, even if it is only sales taxes.
2. Sign up for local phone service or internet service.
3. Be able to read the local newspapers with fluency in the language.
4. Get treated for a serious injury or illness by their medical system.
5. Buy and license a motor vehicle.
6. Get a drivers license.
7. Work a job there.

Do this, and come back and tell me you love the place, and it is better than the U.S, I might half believe you.

One of the things I am getting totally sick of, is people who have visited Japan telling me how much *safer* they feel there. That safety came at a very high price in blood and treasure purchased 75 years ago.

Kind of telling that no one says that about Mexico because bad stuff that happens to Americans in Mexico tends to be reported on in US papers.

Bernie enjoyed a number of vacations in the USSR. He still thinks communism is a great idea. Or at least for everyone else. Which is typical of communists.

Too many people live in a world protected from cause and effect. They can be anti-vax because they have not seen a person blinded by measles. They can promote big noble causes without any direct impact on their life. "Save the polar bears!" they don't have to suffer for it. They haven't had to care for sick livestock, work in the cold and rain, fix machinery--they live in a world of pure concepts even at work. Without the habit of checking against reality, it is too easy to believe things are just what you think they are. That people could believe: there is no border crisis, Trump colluded with Russia, and Venezuela is a nice place to live simply proves that belief in aliens and a flat earth should not be laughed at quite so hard. ie people are delusional esp in groups.

This is what you get when people have been conditioned to believe mob rule (democracy) is something to aspire to. It's just "Might (through superior numbers) makes Right". An abomination.

Bernie enjoyed a number of vacations in the USSR.

He was yucking it up in 1989. Just a couple of years before it all fell apart. But he is the dude that is finally going to get it right. Yeah right. He is the definition of useful idiot.

You don’t have to go to Venezuela find out how not to do it. Honduras has zero legal firearms ownership by private citizens, and there is a guard with an automatic rifle at every gas station and convenience store.
The guard goes home at closing time, and you’d better be home too.

We're about to vote on gun control here in Switzerland. I am not going to vote for it, we don't have a big gun violence problem... why fix what ain't broke?

It also bugs me that this law is coming from EU/Schengen. They want our laws to be the same as theirs. But call me crazy... the EU is run by Germany. You know, the country that seriously considered invading us but didn't, partly because our entire citizenry was armed? I dunno, I get a really bad taste in my mouth having historically hostile countries telling us to disarm.

That is very wise of you NicoleK.

Don't worry, Nicole. When this new policy takes effect, they won't be able to fight at night or on calm days.

I guess I'll be grateful they abandoned nuclear!

Seriously, though, if this was coming up because we had rash of shootings or for some other internal reason it would be one thing...but the EU is dictating this to us?Fuck that.

Not that it's a novel observation, but OF COURSE Venezuela is more "democratic" than the US.

THE U.S. has a republican form of government with several STRONGLY anti-democratic features. That's the whole point.

Nobody but a tyrant or a useful idiot thinks that either Dan Cohen or this @LavenderNRed human has a clever point.