zlacker

>>Geeket+(OP)
All I ever hear is horror stories about this place: environmental destruction, structural racism, serious abuse of human rights, culturally hyper conservative, corrupt legal system, plus it's absurdly hot. I can't believe anyone would voluntarily go there, seems like hell on earth.

>>retube+ue
I say this as somebody who lived in one of those Middle Eastern countries for a good period of my life. I'm not a white person and at that time I didn't have a US/European passport, so I didn't lead an extra privalaged life there.

Here's what you can hear about the USA.

1)Endless suburban sprawl, resulting in massive environmental destruction. Illegal immigrants heavily involved in the construction industry, leading to mass exploitation

2)Structural racism

3)Human rights on a sliding scale, with rich white rapists getting no jail sentences, and poor black people and immigrants going to jail for minor offenses.

4)Rich consumers pushing environmental and human rights issues to poor countries where people are exploited to build your $1000 phone and $250 shoe.

5)Lots of places where if you go and say "I'm an Atheist, Jesus is not God" will likely result in violence against you

6)Corrupt legal system, heavily favoring corporations and rich people

7)Absurdly hot in parts of it, Absurdly cold in other parts of it.

>I can't believe anyone would voluntarily go there, seems like hell on earth.

Lots of people probably feel that way about the USA based on the news.

UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi), and other countries in that region, have a lot of issues. I'll be the first to admit it having had second class status there. But I can't help but feel that a lot of Western news outlets love to bash that part of the world because it plays into how a lot of people like to feel like the rest of the world is a shithole.

>>apohn+Zr
Also, 8: almost any idiot can own a gun & ammunition, and far too many idiots do.

>>dspill+GN
Fortunately, we live in a country where idiots have the same rights as those who think are smarter than them.

I, for one, am glad we aren't going back to racist gating of citizenship privileges...behind literacy tests, or economic means

>>IG_Sem+rD2
I wasn't suggesting idiots have different rights to anyone else, or in fact that I myself am not an idiot.

I, for one, am glad I live on a continent where mass shootings are a rare occurrence. One-off shootings too, and people accidentally hurting themselves with the things, for that matter.