They hate our freedoms, so we have to hate them back.
As others have said, it depends highly on your criteria. Cuba and Iran basically draw a zero for press freedom, religious freedom, and freedom of speech, as would Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries. On the other hand, those countries have less mass starvation and epidemics then some of the poorest places, such as Eritrea and Zimbabwe.
The hate for Castro is that he nationalized US property in Cuba (ignoring the cozy relationship with the USSR as it is no longer an issue). The hate for Chavez is that he likes Castro.
But really, “hate” is the result of a very vocal ex-Cuban lobbying group that influences American thought and policy wrt Cuba. Most educated, thoughtful people don’t “hate” Cuba any more than they “hate” other one-party, totalitarian states. At least Cuba does’t starve its people to death routinely. One could do much worse than live in Cuba, even though one could do much better, too.
No Sudan or South Sudan? There are ongoing conflicts there.
No Mali? The Tuareg insurgency doesn’t make it a bad place to be?
No Libya? They’re still dealing with the aftermath of a civil war.
No Zimbabwe? Recent 10[sup]108[/sup]% inflation (really) doesn’t qualify?
No Burma/Myanmar?
This is a pretty good list, although I’m curious that North Korea is all the way down at 22. Looking at the chart, it looks like their ranking is helped by low numbers for “Refugees/IDPs” and “Human Flight.” Which is of course only because their borders are so tightly closed.
I’m a huge believer in the important of speech/political freedoms, but even I would be hard-pressed to say that low scores in those categories earn you a place on the “worst places to live” list. I mean, so long as you’re apolitical, there are many, many places in China that Westerners work very hard to live in. Say what you will about Shanghai, the idea that it belongs in the same categoy as Port-Au-Prince is kind of laughable. It’s far, far more comparable to NYC.
Without quotes:
I’ve been to Cuba twice (legally) on humanitarian missions. It is one screwed up country. The people are desparate, repressed and are victims of a total dicatatorship. They have lost a generation of potentially good, hard working people that were given no chance of obtaining a good life unless they were sycophants for the dictator. There is medical care but there are not enough supplies for anyone other that the party members. If you are not productive to the state you are on your own. Anyone with a terminal illness is allowed to die ASAP. Hadicapped children are just a burden to the state.
Havana, once a beautiful city, is a wreck… If you go into the villages the people are in misery and will communicate their sense of loss and desperation.
There is a huge prison population because the government is so oppressive. Everybody lives scared. There are government spies everywhere.
The ecomomy is a shambles. You cannot survive unless you deal on the black market.
I can go on and on. Not everything is bad about Cuba but it is inherently a mess. Don’t begin to tell me how Cuba is a good place.
As for Mexico, being on the list was all about the drug war. I realize that the US is fueling it by trading guns for drugs. Still, the war rages and is working itself deeper into the rural area. Now, it is spreading to other countries in Central America.
Don’t tell me how Haiti is better than Africa. It might be better than some countries in Africa but, on par, it is worse off. As one person versed on both areas told me, “At least in Africa they have radios, in Haiti they have nothing.” The earthquake ravished whatever there was there. I’ve been there since. I’ts a mess. The corruption, tthe abject poverty, the voodoo, the ruined infrastructure, the inability of the government to function on the most basic levels is really disheartening.
I admit that my list is open to argument. That’s why I invited debate. There is a lot that is subjective. I understand that.
I suspect one of the unspoken criteria is how much trouble they cause their neighbors. South Korea isn’t too wild about the north, but China isn’t threatened. Plus, North Korea starves its people quietly, without a lot of muss and fuss. They get some bonus points for that!
I think you’re placing too much weight on your personal experiences. As bad as Cuba was, it’s a lot better than what other people have. Compare Cuba to the USA or any other modern nation and yeah, it sucks. Compare it to other nations and you’ll find people who’d kill to live there. Nobody’s telling you it’s a “good place,” but on a world-wide scale it’s a far cry from the bottom of the pile.
Haiti is fucking terrible, of course that’s not up for debate. And obviously there are nations in Africa who are much, much better off than they are. It’s an entire continent. But you can do a lot worse than live in Haiti. Almost four times as many people died in the Rwandan Genocide as in the Haiti earthquake. There are 55 nations with a lower average life expectancy. And depending on where in the world you’re from it could even be considered wealthy. Going by GDP, there are either 56 poorer nations (World Bank listing) or 53 poorer nations (CIA factbook)
It’s very hard for those of us from modern, wealthy nations to grasp just how much better off we are compared to others.
A key point is that it’s a failed state index, which is a little different than a quality of living index. As they note further along in their explanation, “One of the most common [attributes of a failed state] is the loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force.” North Korea’s doing pretty well on that front.
Anything in Africa apart from RSA.
And NZ have a shit cricket team so obviously it is horrible.
My own top ten wurst countries;
- Scotland - Home of the full Scottish breakfast (including black pudding) and the best back on Earth
-2. America - Smoked heaven
-2. UK - Home of pork scratchings and crackling to die for
-2. Italy - The King of pancetta (seasoned belly)
-2. Spain - Bacon tapas, with wine
-2. Hungary - SZALONNA on an open pit
-2. Korea - Samgyeopsal (grilled at the table with lettuce, sliced raw garlic, perilla leaves, sliced green chili peppers, shredded green onions, sliced raw onions, aged kimchi, mushrooms) - Bahrain - flakes of bacon toppings available in some restaurants
- Kuwait - bacon only available on the black market, and for 100KD per kilo
- Saudi - the home of bacon-possession-capital-punishment
How many on these ‘top 10’ lists engage in state-sanctioned torture?
How many engage in kidnapp and indefinite detention without recourse to a civilian legal systyem?
How many have invaded other countries in the past decade?
How many have killed hundrerds of thousands of children and women in countries they have invaded?
Why would a single country want to spend almost 50% of the worlds entire military budget, or 20% of it’s own GDP - in what world does that possibly make sense?
Why would a country imprison or have on parole more than 3% of its population?
Given the near absense now of election paper trails and what people have to do to get on a nomination ticket, the USA isn’t even a functioning democracy.
Add in political fundamentalism and the influence of Israel, and the USA is really fucking scary to most of the world.
I don’t think there is any way to do this, because it’s going to really depend on who you are. I adored ZImbabwe- travel was easy and safe, Harare is beautiful…leafy and full of gorgeous houses, and infrastructure was good, with decent roads, supermarkets and ATMs everywhere. From my perspective, it was a nice laid back place with friendly people.
But if I were a political activist? Yeah, not a great place.
Ok I removed Syria, Iran, Iraq, Cuba, and Mexico. I could give reasons but others have eloquently said it better. For example Iran is Persia - intellectuals with a strong civilisation and deep sense of history. These are not “ragheads” in the common idiom.
Thoughts:
[ol]
[li]What is the purpose of such a list?[/li][li]What can we learn from such a list?[/li][li]Why is the originating list Ameroc-centric ie. nations which appear in American news?[/li][/ol]
As Cicero so incisively said above, most of Africa would fill the top 10 with countries to spare.
And New Zealand does indeed have a loathsome insectile cricket team (apart from Daniel Vitorri) so it should be on the list too. Happily we have the All Blacks.
The All Blacks are another good reason for any other rugby playing nation to not like NZ.
Apart from that, I think it would be a great place to live.
I thought you were kidding with your first post. To compare the U.S. to places like Haiti, North Korea and any of the African and Middle Eastern nations mentioned is laughable.
I mostly agree with what you’re saying here, but I’d point out that GDP per capita is a terrible, terrible way to assess quality-of-life in a given country. It’s very easy to have a lot of wealth concentrated in small elites, and thus drive up per-capita GDP, while most folks still live in really appalling conditions. Equatorial Guinea, for example has a per-capita GDP of $19,300, per the CIA world factbook - that would place it in 65th place globally, between Hungary and Lithuania. Also above Croatia and Argentina.
I promise you, no sane Lithuianian, Croatian or Argentinian would ever be willing to move to EG. It’s a brutal, kleptocratic petrostate - lots of money, but the people never see it.
A much better tool than GDP per capita is the UNDP’s human development index, which measures things like access to sanitation, roads, health care, education - the things that actually make life less than awful. Data Center | Human Development Reports
Actually that’s the one I prefer to use too. I linked to a list of countries ranked by it in post 5. 
Using that listing Haiti still doesn’t make the bottom 25 countries.
You’re using the present tense there where I don’t think it’s still applicable.
Lots of countries do this - extra-legally, of course, or within some provisional clause in their law or other. But people have been rendered from lots of First World countries to the US.
Og “top 10” countries, at least all of: United Kingdom , Australia, , Denmark, South Korea, Japan
All those ones I listed had a hand in this, especially the UK.
I’m not saying it makes sense, but the world where the benefits of that military might outweigh the costs - the world of empire, obviously. But then, would you have considerd Rome to be one of the “worst nations in the world” in 100 A.D.?
Racism and the stupid War on Drugs, combined.
That’s just wrong.
Not to me. Especially since I think the “influence of Israel” argument is bullshit. So you really don’t speak for “the rest of the world”, only those who believe in ZOG.