Turkey is a pretty nice country (at least on its West coast). But the people are way more nationalistic than makes sense. They had no problem with a law being passed which outlawed any statement which implied that the country was anything other than perfect as it is.
In practical terms, it seems more like a cleaner, more middle-class Mexico. And that’s nice and all, but it’s not a descriptor for the Best Country on the Planet.
I guess we will have to politely agree to disagree with your characterizations.
You have you criteria for “a terrible place to live” and I have mine…
The USA has more immigrants than emigrants, which indicates that it is not a complete hellhole.
This page lists countries and their migration rates. if you click on the “migrants per 1,000 population” column, it sorts the list from “most immigrants” to “most emigrants” (or vice versa).
Qatar has the most immigration. Micronesia has the most emigration. Not sure what to make of that.
So does South Africa, doesn’t mean much IMO.
What criteria are you using that would place the U.S.A. above North Korea in a list of countries where the citizens are the most deluded?
Maybe I’m just not cut out for this IMHO stuff, but …
How the hell are we supposed to rank countries by how much they have going for them? GDP per capita? Olympic medals? Number of Nobel prizes? Having The Bomb? Being ‘democratic’ (whatever that means)?
If you were brought up in a country which is generally considered ‘liberal’ like I was, you are likely to be proud of the liberal values and achievements of that country (sexual equality, gay marriage, legalized marihuana, euthanasia). But I know for a fact that people in some other countries genuinely feel we have reached the depths of depravity. And guess what? We’re both very proud of how our countries are run, regardless.
While Russia has a lot going for it by some measures, its political system and leadership are awful.
Yet its citizens seem easy prey to appeals to nationalism, and excuses that Russia’s troubles are due to malevolent outside forces.
This is the country that just got tossed out of the freaking Paralympics for gross cheating. But clearly it’s Obama’s fault. :smack:
Poverty in South Africa is less likely to kill you than poverty in their Marxist-wannabe neighbors.
In the US, poor people die of obesity-related disorders more often than hunger-related disorders.
North Korea is an obvious possibility, but also perhaps a bit of a special case.
For frighteningly nationalistic, I nominate Turkey and Israel for consideration.
I considered this, but I think the question is whether that’s actually an average opinion. There is a lot of American jingoism, but there’s also a strong internal backlash among Yanks who know it’s completely ludicrous.
Is this an attempt to make this a Pit thread, but in Canadian style?
Qatar is really amazingly rich, and Micronesia is anticipating being flooded due to rising sea levels.
So shall I put you down as having nominated the Netherlands?
You ever been to Detroit ?
I can’t speak for the Turks, but while Israelis are indeed pretty nationalistic, we’re also intensely self-critical, which is why I don’t think you can really call us deluded. Most of us are fully aware of how messed-up our country is at times, it’s just that we love it anyway.
As does Pakistan incidentally.
My vote would be Iranian followed by Iranians.
US displays while at times quite weird (seriously what the hell is up with the soldier worship, its cringeworthy at times) are mostly harmless and makes one smile.
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Fine with me. But in that case, please add Sweden, Switzerland and Luxemburg. All pretty good places to live in when compared to Haiti or North Korea I guess, but with a post modern kind of nationalism that creeps me out:* we’re not nationalist, we just can’t help being the best country on earth.*
But this doesn’t mean the citizens are deluded.
Seeing Sweden in that list is kind of funny, since on one hand some people there are hellbent on keeping them foreigners out, and on the other those same people seem to have serious problems conceiving of reasons why anybody who’s not a refugee would want to be there. One of the guys I knew who was like that also had serious problems seeing any relationship between his desire to protect Sweden from “those people” and the problems his Mexican daughter-in-law was having getting her degree recognized (she was a dentist, she and the Swedish husband had met and lived for several years in Mexico).
The last seems to be a general trend with protectionists/xenophobes… you encounter people like that in many countries. They’re trying to protect “my people” and “my territory”; once you’re one of “their people” you evidently are not “one of them” any more! Evidently! But it’s the first time I met people like that who also could not see any reason why anybody would want to move to their country unless the dogs of Hell were on their heels.
Hey, at least it’s not Cleveland. Wait, maybe it was the other way around…
Not to hijack, but it’s a sort of reaction to the differing historical reactions to returning soldiers from Vietnam, who were often mistreated upon return by some people for supposedly being ‘babykillers’ and what-not, and for the general indifference of the population, even for the vets who weren’t overtly mistreated- they, and their problems like PTSD weren’t recognized or were belittled by the WWII and Korean War generation, who viewed such things as character flaws instead of normal and legitimate psychological problems.
So when it came time for those people to deal with returning troops of later generations, they went whole-hog the opposite direction. The right-wing types have taken that, and sort of sugar-coated it and made it more obnoxious and are portraying these guys as defenders of freedom, etc… when it’s not quite like that.
Russia was my first thought also.