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Passport Index 2016

passportindex.org

131–140 of 247 posts

Re: Passport Index 2016

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Used to be.

I would think a quarter century qualifies as "long ago" in the timescale of a single human life.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite depressing to see how the concepts of country, nationality, borders are still widely accepted without questioning.

Especially when human rights are only bestowed on citizens by a government and denied for others just for not being born in their country. Seems hypocritical to me.

Yes, and you could make an argument that using blood or place of birth - as opposed to ideology - actually hinders people who have similar values from living together in the same parts of the world.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#133
Incidentally the Germanic nations (German, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland etc) always ranks in top 5 in almost every ranking of this kind.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#134

I had citizenship of one most repressive and poor countries in the world - Uzbekistan. Later I obtained Russian citizenship. Now, I'm living in the Netherlands and plan to obtain citizenship of some first world country (NL, SG etc). So I have first hand experience to live with Uzbek passport and being practically completely isolated from the first world (nobody give you EU tourist visa if you have Uzbek passport and…

I can relate. I was a citizen of Turkmenistan, which is even more opressive than Uzbekistan. It's one of the most closed countries in the world on par with North Korea (or worse). If you're interested, you can read a good travel report from a Russian blogger (translated into English) [0]. So yeah, I totally agree that citizenship/passport of a free (or relatively free) country can be one of the greatest assets that y…

Yes, I'm aware of situation in Turkmenistan. I left Uzbekistan when I was 22 years old (i.e. I lived there pretty long time) and heard about Turkmenistan government.

Turkmenistan for me is kinda mystery because they have a lot of natural gas and they could become pretty rich and developed country (kinda UAE). But they didn't. They got very weird dictator instead.

Yes, I read this blog already.

Is it difficult to leave Turkmenistan? Do you have some variant of exit visas?

There are very few information about this country on the internet.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#135
post #110

Earlier 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.

The US is a mix of different European cultures and touches of other cultures in some regions. Hamburgers, pizza, enchilada's for simple minded examples?

I'm not talking (just) about who came on the mayflower, there has been influxes of immigrants since the founding of the nation. I currently reside in a part of town referred to as "German Village", which was settled primarily by German immigrants in the mid to late 1800's and continues to have places that serve "German" cuisine.

America from its founding was a place for people of all stripes to gather. It of course not only is a amalgamation of cultures but it has birthed its own cultures, some of which are associated with certain groups or regions: southern culture, new england culture, african american culture to name a few subcultures/groups--even the cultures we've birthed show diversity!

Re: Passport Index 2016

#136
post #128

You forgot pizza

As someone who grew up 100km from Italy. US pizza sucks. Easily one of the things I miss most about home. Also good sausages.

America is a huge place. There's a pizzeria in San Francisco, California, run by a man who has won the Naples pizza contest 12 times.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#138

Is there a guide to multiple citizenship power leveling anywhere? Edit: A bit of munging from the web page later... For Americans and British/Western Europe, the passports you want are Burkina Faso, Benin and Senegal. They will bring your passport power level up by 13 points to 168 (American) and 170 (UK) and give you visa free access to Cote Divoire (Ivory Coast), Mali, Iran, Congo, Niger, Benin, Nigeria, Liberia, C…

yeah, they are called 'second passport' guides. assuming marriage is unfavorable and you don't want to pretend to be jewish, there are a couple of treaties you can take advantage of, typically old imperialist countries have guilt trips with their former south american or african colonies and have an easy citizenship path for citizens in those former colonies. But then those former colonies have really malleable gover…

> old imperialist countries have guilt trips with their former south american or african colonies and have an easy citizenship path for citizens in those former colonies

haha, no - nothing about guilt. They only offer citizenship paths only to 3rd-/4th-generation descendants of emigrees. Allowing the natives of former colonies to easily gain citizenship in the old country is simply not tenable, old chap, they need to have the right pedigree. tut-tut.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#139
post #127
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

if you asked those same old white and rural people a century ago.. well wait - they would have largely been freshly immigrated from Scandenavia or Germany. This divide has existed as long as the united states has existed - and it will exist as long as there is immigration - this pressure exists to ensure that too much immigration doesnt happen, and that the melting pot can keep up. That said, we're the only country i…

>somewhat nebulous american ideals

The constitution and the philosophy espoused in the declaration of independence are perhaps open to interpretation but it's not that nebulous. I do agree you saying "somewhat" could either be sarcasm or you could literally mean that the "American ideals" are just somewhat nebulous other than totally arbitrary.

Re: Passport Index 2016

#140
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 appal…

We are all human, we deserve the same opportunities. But when mass migrations happen, they threaten the host country and also don't solve the problem back in the source country. The solution would be to make it better to live everywhere, so that people would not be so tempted to migrate. It will probably happen for Africa and Middle East in this century, as technology advances quickly.
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