God, that person is such a fucking shithead.

[conuly]

Why would people want to immigrate en mass from Norway to the USA? Putting aside the enormous fucking racist implications of that statement, people immigrate to improve their situation. The USA isn't that great compared to other developed nations, and also we have a demagogue in the White House who is bound and determined to make things worse. So, uh, no?

Comments

[acelightning]

Well, once upon a time, a fair number of Norwegians did come to the US from Norway, and settled in places like what is now Minnesota (where, presumably, the climate reminded them of Norway). That was back when people all over the world would risk everything for a chance to come to America, "Land of Opportunity", to make a better life for themselves and their families. Nowadays, of course, people in Norway have it better than most Americans...

But that same era of immigration, epitomized by Emma Lazarus' stirring poem on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty (do read the beginning of the poem, before the famous line "Give me your tired, your poor..."!), saw an awful lot of people coming here from, yes, "shithole countries". Most countries were shitholes at some time in their own history, or they contained regions that were pretty shitty, and the "wretched refuse" could see the Lady's torch inviting them from everywhere on the planet.

I daresay almost everyone reading this had ancestors who came here from one shithole or another...

[moem]

Some of us aren't 'here', we're 'there'. Except to us, it's 'here' and you are 'there'.
And I wouldn't go to the US right now for any reason (barring life or death). You couldn't possibly pay me enough. Not even Don the Con could.

[acelightning]

Oh, I'm sorry! I was more or less addressing conuly, who appears to be in the US. Right now I'm not terribly fond of my own country, but that can, and will, change. (I'd like to see a lot of the sociopolitical things that make Scandinavia and the Netherlands so much more humane put into effect here, but I'm not sure that's ever going to happen.)

[moem]

Okay, that makes sense!
On this side of the ocean, many of us are anxiously peering over to the other shore, and worry about all y'all. We know full well that most of you did not vote for #45, and we feel for you.

[acelightning]

I have a number of friends in other countries (mostly Australia, the UK, and Canada) who frequently express dismay at the current political situation in the US. I do what I can - I vote in every election, I sign online petitions, I phone and/or email my elected officials - but I often feel as if what I'm doing isn't enough to make the changes we need to make. But I keep trying, because I know that there are millions of other Americans doing the best they can, too, and eventually it will add up.

[conuly]

Technically, I'm in NYC, which many people insist isn't "really" like the rest of America. Which is why they're trying to punish us with the new tax law, fucking assholes.

[acelightning]

I have lived and worked in the NY metropolitan area all my life, either with the city "just over the horizon", or in the city itself. Currently I live in New Jersey, near Sandy Hook, and when the weather is clear I can see the skyline of lower Manhattan from the end of my street.

NYC is the capital of Planet Earth - you can find things from just about every place in the world in NY (e.g., a Tibetan restaurant, a Uyghur newspaper, Kenyan kitenge fabric, the Peruvian corn beverage chicha, etc.). When the Galactic Confederation finally contacts Earth, NYC is where they'll establish their embassy.

[moem]

*coughs*
You'll have to excuse my uncharacteristic bout of national pride (which is something we are generally not big on) but for some reason it feels wrong to me to have the capital of Planet Earth in such a young country... and my first though was, of course it should really be Amsterdam.
I'd certainly raise at least one eyebrow, signifying outmost surprise, if you could not find those things there, as well.

It's funny because NY is, of course, New Amsterdam. And be assured that none of this is meant seriously. I can add a smiley if that helps... nah. You'll get it.

[conuly]

NYers have never forgotten our Dutch heritage... although technically the Walloons were here before the Dutch and of course, Peter Minuit was Walloon.

[acelightning]

I've never been to Amsterdam (yet), but I've been to a few fairly major cities (e.g., Toronto and Melbourne), and so far, nothing compares to New York for sheer diversity. That's why I call it the capital of the planet - it represents everything our world has to offer. And that is partly because it's so young by global standards... and partly because this country was, for so much of its brief history, the place people wanted to come to when they couldn't live in their original homelands. (And New York's splendid natural harbor was the place where many of them entered - see userpic.)

(I self-identify as "a New Yorker at heart", but I don't really self-identify as an American. I thought of myself as a "citizen of the world" for a while, but eventually I realized that even that was too parochial...)