Serious Political problems in your country?

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
Re Asek,
actually, for people moving into Britain, they have to pass a basic English test. I don't think it sounds racist at all.

Re Sandshrewz,
They did try running a desalination plant, but at that time, China simply lowered their water price to lower than what the desalination costed. Then they wrote reports on how it wasn't cost effective or efficient, etc.
after the desalination plant closed, they see that there are no competitors and kept raising the price in monstrous amounts. Really the thing that makes it so hard for competitors is that one side is backed up with politics. China wants us to rely on them, so when we become too rebellious, they can stop giving us water.

Re Shiruba,
Whilst I don't understand why it is rude to speak a different language, the majority of British people somehow do. They say it feels like deliberately excluding someone from the conversation. This is something I probably will not really understand because in Hong Kong, one can hear different languages everywhere. One simply does not expect people to speak one's language. There's English,
Mandarin, the Filipino ones, Muslim countries ones, Japanese, and so on. They are just being blown at you and you simply get used to it.
Heck, I get upset if people tell me not to speak my own language sometimes. It's like, why don't I have the rights to speak mine but you can speak yours?
If someonr tells me to not speak Cantonese inside Hong Kong, I'm going to ignore him/ her. It's not his/ her territory, goodness sake.
(a lot of Mandarin speakers ask why we have to speak Cantonese, in a rude/ diminishing way. )
 
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verbatim

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I might sound racist and ignorant for saying this, but i wish it was compulsory for a permanent migrant to have at least a moderate understanding of the native language of the country they are moving into. I personally find it very rude when I go to social events on my dads side of the family and they all start speaking Serbian simply because they can't be bothered with english and the large majority of the older people there never bothered learning it in the first place. Heck, my dad was born in australia but could never speak english until he got to school because the only language spoken at home was serbian. The largest group that seems to have the problem of knowing none to very little English is oddly european migrants though and there really isnt that many of them anymore so its not too big of a deal
Out of curiosity, in what country do you live? I can't speak for most of Europe, but I know that in the United States there is no official language.

Also, in a reverse manner, have you taken any initiative towards understanding Serbian?
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
Out of curiosity, in what country do you live? I can't speak for most of Europe, but I know that in the United States there is no official language.

Also, in a reverse manner, have you taken any initiative towards understanding Serbian?
Most countries do have official languages, actually USA is a special case here.
But it can be many, for example South Africa has more than 40 official languages.
 

Asek

Banned deucer.
Out of curiosity, in what country do you live? I can't speak for most of Europe, but I know that in the United States there is no official language.

Also, in a reverse manner, have you taken any initiative towards understanding Serbian?
I live in australia and the official language is english

I understand macedonian to a degree where i can hold a conversation and serbian is similar but not the same, so can't say i dont try in that area
 
Australia has no official language.
While technically correct, this is quite an arbitrary distinction for two reasons.

1) Government business in Australia is conducted in English -- translated if necessary. So while not set in stone, it's the standard.
2) Basic English language skills (successful passage of IELTS and OET) is a requirement for permanent residency in Australia. Some permanent residents have been "grandfathered" in without these tests.
 
While technically correct, this is quite an arbitrary distinction for two reasons.

1) Government business in Australia is conducted in English -- translated if necessary. So while not set in stone, it's the standard.
2) Basic English language skills (successful passage of IELTS and OET) is a requirement for permanent residency in Australia. Some permanent residents have been "grandfathered" in without these tests.
Arbitrary nothing. While Australia has always had English as it's primary or majority language for pretty much everything (much like the US), along with forcing recent migrants to learn it, the whole point of an official language is that it is enshrined in law that it's the language of the country/government/whatever. National language is for the language/s commonly used by citizens/government that may not necessarily have legal backing, so to speak. Basically, Australia's national language is English, we don't have an official language. The former doesn't really need to be stated though, every idiot knows that English is the primary language here.
 

BenTheDemon

Banned deucer.
The biggest Political problem where I live is that we're represented by Mitch McConnel and Rand Paul.
I had a Biology teacher that caught Rand Paul straight up lying about teacher salaries (he said they make $80,000/yr), and she STILL voted for him.

EDIT: On a less politically biased note, here in the United States, we have a Democratic President and a Republican Congress that have two completely different agendas and are more interested in working against each other than together. The shutdown was a prime example of this.
 
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cookie

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Look up Bosnia and Herzegovina if you want some political entertainment. My shithole home country has less than 5 million residents, and has THREE, let me repeat that, THREE presidents. One for each of the group of people that were trying to kill each other less than 20 years ago. There's a president for the Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and one for the Croats. Jee thanks Dayton Agreement. Way to lodge the dildo right back up.

The place is only getting worse and stabilization is going the other way. The Serb president wants to secede. Wonder what the next 20 years holds for us. More civil war and genocide perhaps.

Also we have Russian levels of corruption, mafias, drug cartels, civil unrest, and absolutely no money.

Bosnia is an absolutely BEAUTIFUL place. Old time Europe. The girls are gorgeous. No fat chicks to speak of lol. It saddens me to say but I'm glad my family left in '99. The only use for it now is to go vacation and see family.
lol, when i went there last october they must've had elections coming up, but there must have been 10-15 different candidates with posters all over sarajevo
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
Arbitrary nothing. While Australia has always had English as it's primary or majority language for pretty much everything (much like the US), along with forcing recent migrants to learn it, the whole point of an official language is that it is enshrined in law that it's the language of the country/government/whatever. National language is for the language/s commonly used by citizens/government that may not necessarily have legal backing, so to speak. Basically, Australia's national language is English, we don't have an official language. The former doesn't really need to be stated though, every idiot knows that English is the primary language here.
I wish there's a test for Cantonese or English proficiency for new immigrants living in Hong Kong.
Seriously, these people come without any knowledge in the Cantonese language and expect you to speak Mandarin to them AND blames you for not speaking fluent Mandarin in a diminishing way PLUS asks why does Cantonese exist, blah blah blah. *rolls eyes

I know that HK has 3 official languages (Cantonese, English, Mandarin) but still, some people just think that a language can completely disappear. (so rude)

(And they are the same people who asks how come some Indians/ Pakistani people are Hong Kong citizens, implying that they think that non-ethnically Chinese people shouldn't be Hongkongers.)
 
I might sound racist and ignorant for saying this, but i wish it was compulsory for a permanent migrant to have at least a moderate understanding of the native language of the country they are moving into. I personally find it very rude when I go to social events on my dads side of the family and they all start speaking Serbian simply because they can't be bothered with english and the large majority of the older people there never bothered learning it in the first place. Heck, my dad was born in australia but could never speak english until he got to school because the only language spoken at home was serbian. The largest group that seems to have the problem of knowing none to very little English is oddly european migrants though and there really isnt that many of them anymore so its not too big of a deal
There are countless native Australian languages and British imperialism largely killed off most of them. I really wonder what the Cadigal and Eora peoples thought when a whole bunch of boat people rocked up in the 1700s.

eta: Not to mention they brought smallpox with them, which was devastating upon first contact. Pretty sure that's worse than anything your average modern-day immigrant brings here.
 
There are countless native Australian languages and British imperialism largely killed off most of them.
None of which are written, which is the actual reason they disappeared, but anyway.


National language is for the language/s commonly used by citizens/government that may not necessarily have legal backing, so to speak. Basically, Australia's national language is English, we don't have an official language. The former doesn't really need to be stated though, every idiot knows that English is the primary language here.
This is a fairly arbitrary distinction in my view; legally speaking Australia will operate in English regardless of enshrining this in law or not, so in terms of practical difference. While there is a difference, it's entirely non-functional, and therefore doesn't matter.
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
None of which are written, which is the actual reason they disappeared, but anyway.


.
Please don't say that. It's meant to be very offensive. No one has the right to deny somebody's language.
------------------------------

Anyway, this post deserves a bump.

There's an anti-Chinese tourist protest in Hong Kong these few days, and they wrote a letter to non-Chinese tourists during the protest.
 
I'm technically an American, but my wife lives here in Philippines so I'm here for more than 10 years now.

People are the nicest I've met.. I'm a 6'8" guy so I enjoyed dunking on their heads back when I was college and basketball is really big here so I love this place. People call me negro with no hesitation, but I call them small dicks, so it's nothing basically.

The thing I hate here is corruption and red tape everywhere. I mean, they are obvious but it would take a miracle for them to get caught. If you want to start a business, you're required to talk to a govt employee offline, have to pay him (illegally) or else it will take years before you can start the business. Politicians fight everyday because most of them are embezzling 10 billions worth of people's money, and it was years since and nobody gets caught. You just can trust these government guys.

Aside from the government, everything's been amazing here...
 
US here, and not the least bit proud of it.

Where to begin? Put simply, we are a rogue state; an empire in decline. Our military is out of control all over the globe, the ashes of the fourth amendment are routinely pissed on, real journalism that challenges power is one of many things that is commonly equated to terrorism, nearly a quarter of the country can light their own tap water on fire, over half the people outright deny reality, our politicians have effectively merged with giant corporations to become one entity, the president has declared himself the right to unilaterally execute anyone abroad without indictment, oversight, or judicial review, and the feckless lapdogs in our media celebrate these opulent sociopaths and war criminals with sickening reverence while parroting the lies passed down from on high.

If you look at any geopolitical problem today, there's a good chance that my country had a hand in its cause or its perpetuation. I'd love for us to stop, because we seem to create new enemies with our actions every single day. I could go on forever, but instead I will close this heavily-truncated list of grievances with an unfortunate and horrifically inconvenient quote from the late and great JFK. "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
 
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Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
I say, I'm proud of Hong Kong for not arresting Snowden for USA during his stay in Hong Kong.
I think our government did the right thing with the right reason-- USA had not show enough prove at the time being.

I'm technically an American, but my wife lives here in Philippines so I'm here for more than 10 years now.

People are the nicest I've met.. I'm a 6'8" guy so I enjoyed dunking on their heads back when I was college and basketball is really big here so I love this place. People call me negro with no hesitation, but I call them small dicks, so it's nothing basically.

The thing I hate here is corruption and red tape everywhere. I mean, they are obvious but it would take a miracle for them to get caught. If you want to start a business, you're required to talk to a govt employee offline, have to pay him (illegally) or else it will take years before you can start the business. Politicians fight everyday because most of them are embezzling 10 billions worth of people's money, and it was years since and nobody gets caught. You just can trust these government guys.

Aside from the government, everything's been amazing here...
It kind of looks like nearly every Asian country have this corruption problem.
I think maybe Singapore is the only one that's clean from that.
Actually, people find it hard to believe that even Taiwan does have a corruption problem, though people are simply unaware about it.
 
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In my country, the great country of America, you have a split viewed nation. Half of the country despises and do not respect President Obama while the other half despises those who despise the president. Tho I do believe alot of Obama's hate is race related, (Ted Nugent and many others calling him a "Thug" when he hasnt done any "thug" related activities unlike Bieber who isnt called a "thug". Why is that? RACE.) I understand where alot of frustration of Obama comes from. He has some promises that he hasnt delivered or atleast delivered in the time that he proposed he would. I feel like the next president in this country will be very loved or very hated being the rebound president.
 
In my country, the great country of America, you have a split viewed nation. Half of the country despises and do not respect President Obama while the other half despises those who despise the president. Tho I do believe alot of Obama's hate is race related, (Ted Nugent and many others calling him a "Thug" when he hasnt done any "thug" related activities unlike Bieber who isnt called a "thug". Why is that? RACE.) I understand where alot of frustration of Obama comes from. He has some promises that he hasnt delivered or atleast delivered in the time that he proposed he would. I feel like the next president in this country will be very loved or very hated being the rebound president.
Obama's hate is not race related. I can say that for sure, having been to several Tea Parties. The people there dislike him only for his liberal economic policies and also lax social views. You like many others, only refer to the most extreme of opposing views (Ted Nugent), rather than the majority who do not believe Obama is a thug. Justin Beiber is a thug.

I'll edit in more tomorrow
 
I might sound racist and ignorant for saying this, but i wish it was compulsory for a permanent migrant to have at least a moderate understanding of the native language of the country they are moving into. I personally find it very rude when I go to social events on my dads side of the family and they all start speaking Serbian simply because they can't be bothered with english and the large majority of the older people there never bothered learning it in the first place. Heck, my dad was born in australia but could never speak english until he got to school because the only language spoken at home was serbian. The largest group that seems to have the problem of knowing none to very little English is oddly european migrants though and there really isnt that many of them anymore so its not too big of a deal
I don't think it's racist to expect the official language to be known by a citizen or anyone working in the country. I live in South Arizona and it's common to hear people speaking Spanish between one another but it's almost never a problem where someone doesn't know enough English to communicate. If you're going to be in a country for extended time you should atleast know enough to carry a conversation or ask the meaning of a few complex words.
 
Obama's hate is not race related. I can say that for sure, having been to several Tea Parties. The people there dislike him only for his liberal economic policies and also lax social views. You like many others, only refer to the most extreme of opposing views (Ted Nugent), rather than the majority who do not believe Obama is a thug. Justin Beiber is a thug.

I'll edit in more tomorrow
Which "liberal" economic policies would those be, exactly? I can scarcely think of one that isn't ineffectual, piecemeal, two-faced token gestures in a condescending attempt to appease his base. The same base, by the way, that he betrayed in his first term by appointing holdovers from the Bush administration to his cabinet (and by extension continued the very same policies that allowed the crash of 2008 to happen in the first place). His tenure is marred by extensive pro-business and pro-banker policies that continue to run the middle class under the tank treads of the so-called "free market." Anyone who can't acknowledge this is simply not paying attention.
 
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breh

強いだね
I don't think it's racist to expect the official language to be known by a citizen or anyone working in the country. I live in South Arizona and it's common to hear people speaking Spanish between one another but it's almost never a problem where someone doesn't know enough English to communicate. If you're going to be in a country for extended time you should atleast know enough to carry a conversation or ask the meaning of a few complex words.
People cannot magically learn whatever language they need on entering a country.

My parents, my grandmother, and I were all born in Russia. I was brought here at a young age so my grasp of the English language is pretty tight - I'd say that this probably holds pretty strong for anybody brought here below, say, 10. My parents learned English in their high school (I think?) but their grasp of it can fluctuate at times and they speak with pretty heavy Russian accents. They like to tell me a lot of anecdotes about when they first came here and asked where to find a "flat" as they searched for a house. My grandmother, however... Well, she's old and just wants to live out the rest of her life in peace at this point. She's tried to learn some English, but for the most part it's kinda broken and talking to her in English instead of Russian gets really, really irritating.

As great as it would be for her to magically pick up a perfect grasp of English, that just doesn't happen. She's been living here for what I think is over 10 years, but she hasn't been visited by the mythical English fairy yet. I really don't think it's right to hold immigrants to learn the language of their host country; they're not always able to do so, especially if they don't get out much. Hell, I'd argue that having kids is enough to connect them to that language. I connect my parents, in part, to America and they, in turn, help to connect my grandmother.

Lemee put it this way: I don't care what language immigrants speak. Their kids, adopted or given birth to or whatever, will speak the native language - they were born into it and had a proper shot at learning it. Frankly, that's enough for me.
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
People cannot magically learn whatever language they need on entering a country.

My parents, my grandmother, and I were all born in Russia. I was brought here at a young age so my grasp of the English language is pretty tight - I'd say that this probably holds pretty strong for anybody brought here below, say, 10. My parents learned English in their high school (I think?) but their grasp of it can fluctuate at times and they speak with pretty heavy Russian accents. They like to tell me a lot of anecdotes about when they first came here and asked where to find a "flat" as they searched for a house. My grandmother, however... Well, she's old and just wants to live out the rest of her life in peace at this point. She's tried to learn some English, but for the most part it's kinda broken and talking to her in English instead of Russian gets really, really irritating.

As great as it would be for her to magically pick up a perfect grasp of English, that just doesn't happen. She's been living here for what I think is over 10 years, but she hasn't been visited by the mythical English fairy yet. I really don't think it's right to hold immigrants to learn the language of their host country; they're not always able to do so, especially if they don't get out much. Hell, I'd argue that having kids is enough to connect them to that language. I connect my parents, in part, to America and they, in turn, help to connect my grandmother.

Lemee put it this way: I don't care what language immigrants speak. Their kids, adopted or given birth to or whatever, will speak the native language - they were born into it and had a proper shot at learning it. Frankly, that's enough for me.
Well... if your destination of immigration was the UK, you would have to pass an English test prior to your immigration, really.

I believe that people should have their right to speak their own language, but to not know the language of the host country is completely different level.

I mean, why did you choose that particular country anyway, without learning a significant amount of knowledge about it?
If you can't, why not simply choose another country, or simply not immigrate at all?
What did you choose that country for? How are you going to contribute in that country?

I mean, once you are a citizen of a country, you are under protection of that country when it comes to law and order, and much more benefits than that.
Are all these things supposed to be taken for granted?

I'd like to hear some explanations because clearly I don't understand.
 

Stratos

Banned deucer.
Which "liberal" economic policies would those be, exactly? I can scarcely think of one that isn't ineffectual, piecemeal, two-faced token gestures in a condescending attempt to appease his base. The same base, by the way, that he betrayed in his first term by appointing holdovers from the Bush administration to his cabinet (and by extension continued the very same policies that allowed the crash of 2008 to happen in the first place). His tenure is marred by extensive pro-business and pro-banker policies that continue to run the middle class under the tank treads of the so-called "free market." Anyone who can't acknowledge this is simply not paying attention.
Dat pro-business PPACA?

Obama is too conservative for socialists and too liberal for capitalists so im really not quite sure how he got a second term lel
 

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