No mention yet of the very best passport to have - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_laissez-passer
(It's baby blue of course) It's kind of neat to see them in the wild.
Passport Index 2016
111–120 of 247 posts
Re: Passport Index 2016
#112No mention yet of the very best passport to have - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_laissez-passer (It's baby blue of course) It's kind of neat to see them in the wild.
Curious, why is it the best passport to have?
Re: Passport Index 2016
#113No mention yet of the very best passport to have - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_laissez-passer (It's baby blue of course) It's kind of neat to see them in the wild.
> It remains unclear what the remaining added value of an UNLP is, in view of the restrictions imposed by different countries.
What is the value?
Re: Passport Index 2016
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd expand that to cultural preservation in general. The French like being French and living in a French country, with all that entails concerning values, music, food, and way of life. The Japanese like being Japanese and living in a Japanese country. Mass migration can change the character of a country. It's totally logical to want to preserve your culture and way of life. If 100 million people from the Middle East…
Travel restrictions sound okay until you're in a situation where they actually affect you. I went on my share of hostel trips after university. I have yet to meet a traveler from any country, who thought it was fair that they couldn't work or live wherever they wanted. If you wanted to live in Japan, for example, and some Japanese guy told you he was worried you'd personally be damaging the country with your foreign…
Immigration policy isn't for your convenience as a foreigner. It's made solely for the benefit of the people who already live there, as it should be.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Economies are not zero-sum. The flow of capital and education to poor countries would increase their productivity (and thus wages and standard of living) while the increased supply of labor decreases prices in rich countries, and the new equilibrium would be strictly better for both sides. Find a good economics textbook. (This is an issue where economists are in almost universal agreement, and almost universally oppo…
I'm sorry but that's transparently bullshit, an example of good on paper but bad I reality. It does very little but line the pockets of a select few in the rich nations. There is no reason for me to give a shit about someone in Africa if it means my own family, my own people struggle.
"My own people".
Clearly you use that phrase to mean people who share a nationality with you. Historically, this phrase has been used more often to refer to people with the same skin color, or religion, as you.
You could use the exact words you used to justify systematic exclusion of people of another race or religion from jobs and markets controlled by "your people". I like to think that we’d all consider that appalling.
Like race or religion, nationality is largely determined by an accident of birth. It is inconsistent to hold that racial or religious discrimination is unethical, but discriminating on the basis of nationality is somehow okay.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
This clearly doesn't apply the United States then, who's culture is swallowing up immigrants and adding their influences to our melting pot.
Depends which Americans you ask. Try asking old, white and rural people about this and you might get a surprising answer. There is a disagreement about what America is and what's un-American and foreign.
I'm the son of Cuban immigrants and I think that immigration levels are much too high right now, of populations that are a mismatch for our economic needs (lots of low-skill workers, but we have a tragic surplus of low-skill labor), into a system that doesn't encourage integration (welfare state and identity politics), and sometimes from cultures that don't share our values.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Just 90 miles from Key West there is a country" - Why not just explicitly state the country....? We know it's Cuba and these restrictions existed for obvious reasons.
It emphasizes Cuba's geographical proximity to the Western World.
Just 0 kilometers from West Germany, there used to be a country with "strict exit visas", too. You can't get closer than that.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Travel restrictions sound okay until you're in a situation where they actually affect you. I went on my share of hostel trips after university. I have yet to meet a traveler from any country, who thought it was fair that they couldn't work or live wherever they wanted. If you wanted to live in Japan, for example, and some Japanese guy told you he was worried you'd personally be damaging the country with your foreign…
Immigration policy isn't for your convenience as a foreigner. It's made solely for the benefit of the people who already live there, as it should be.
"As it should be" kind of rubs me the wrong way. The world is the way it is, not because it's the best of all possible worlds, but through a bunch of historical accidents.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd expand that to cultural preservation in general. The French like being French and living in a French country, with all that entails concerning values, music, food, and way of life. The Japanese like being Japanese and living in a Japanese country. Mass migration can change the character of a country. It's totally logical to want to preserve your culture and way of life. If 100 million people from the Middle East…
This will be controversial, but France doesn't have any right to be a "French" country. Individuals have rights, but cultures and nations don't have a right to exist. If they did we would be obliged to preserve them, but peoples, countries and cultures always vanish over time, and there's no general obligation to stop this happening. Saying otherwise is simply a conservative demand, with no ethical basis. "The French…
which is both racist
and probably impossible.
it would certainly greatly improve their
lives, and living conditions in Africa
The fear of the anti-immigration crowd (whether right or wrong) is that mass migration will bring the target country down, rather than lift the immigrants up.
Re: Passport Index 2016
#120Honduras and Guatemala have the worst passport covers in the world. They're both the same political map of central america with with their respective countries shaded in. It looks like they they both farmed this out to some 10 year old that had never seen a passport before. Both countries have perfectly good coat of arms. Why not use that? Instead it's like a geography lesson. ("I've been working in passport control for years, and I don't know where your country is." "Well, sir, it's this one right here." "Oh nice. Thanks. Learn something everyday!")