181–190 of 286 posts
so, is anyone taking a long hard look and asking themselves, first individually and then collectively - "this situation , this and all the stuff going on in our world today, is this or is this not totally out of control?"
would be great to be able to do this without looking to some other country and saying "but that happens over there and that is way worse than this"
some of this stuff should be absolute (see intent of constitutions and similar )
A huge problem here is that the government has zero skin in the game. Random people working for some three letter agency are able to plunge you into a bureaucratic labyrinth at the flick of a wrist, and even violate their own guidelines with an extremely low probability of accountability or repercussion. For example: > Under federal forfeiture law, the government was required to initiate a forfeiture case within 90 d…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not how things should be, but it's what decades of incredibly poor middle Eastern foreign policy gets you. Being prepared for these things is not the same as saying these things are unavoidable certainties. There is quite a big distinction, along the lines of having a gun for self defense Vs having a gun to shoot someone. He is basically saying support the police in their counter terrorism work, and report anyth…
So much here. >but it's [terrorist attacks] what decades of incredibly poor middle Eastern foreign policy gets you. You believe terrorist attacks are deserved as a result of what your government has done in the past? >I'm quite happy my government takes measures to assure a certain level of personal safety, both physical and psychological. Which is it? Your government is taking measures to assure your protection, or…
Nobody deserves to get hit by a car, but if you're running across a highway then what do you expect.
> Which is it? Your government is taking measures to assure your protection, or is actively provoking foreigners to kill you on your own soil?
Why are those mutually exclusive?
I would also tack on that it's mostly the USA's foreign policy that got us here (which our government decided to jump in bed with to be fair, but yours nonetheless). It's just you have a nice Atlantic ocean to buffer you from many of the concequences.
Why would you risk carrying around that kind of money? What’s wrong with doing a wire transfer? Or just writing yourself a cheque? Failing to see an honest use case for moving that much cash by hand.
Good luck cashing in a cheque underwritten by a US Bank in Albania.
I do have to say, it's a well known fact trying to make it across any border with a sum of cash is a risky business. I would hope America would be an exception to that fact due to "Due Process", but even I wouldn't place a bet on that. It says very clearly on the us travel website carrying more than $10k of cash is going to get you in trouble though.
Transferring money internationally is a huge pita. I just came back from China. Good luck every trying to fund a wechat or alipay account as a Westerner.
Has civil asset forfiture been to the Supreme Court? It's blatantly unconstitutional, and given the current panel I'd say it has a great chance of being killed. I do have to say, it's a well known fact trying to make it across any border with a sum of cash is a risky business. I would hope America would be an exception to that fact due to "Due Process", but even I wouldn't place a bet on that. It says very clearly on…
You can use wechat to pay for things as a foreigner if you have a resident permit, or so I here.
Carrying more than $10k of cash is actually ok as long as you report it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, I get it, the US being a superpower is under a microscope and every imperfection is called out so other countries can look down their nose at it. That's fine. But what are you talking about? What could the US learn from Canada on asset forfeiture? Canada does it too! How to do it better? And as a Canadian, saying the gov't run their is better is purely laughable.
> What could the US learn from Canada on asset forfeiture? Canada does it too! How to do it better? So does the UK, Australia, NZ, and many other countries. But somehow only the US has wannabe-military police rambo types doing it, to stock up their SWAT vans, machine guns and other gizmos. That does not exactly inspire confidence.
Hey look, Aussie SWAT.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
OK, I get it, the US being a superpower is under a microscope and every imperfection is called out so other countries can look down their nose at it. That's fine. But what are you talking about? What could the US learn from Canada on asset forfeiture? Canada does it too! How to do it better? And as a Canadian, saying the gov't run their is better is purely laughable.
> What could the US learn from Canada on asset forfeiture? Canada does it too! How to do it better? So does the UK, Australia, NZ, and many other countries. But somehow only the US has wannabe-military police rambo types doing it, to stock up their SWAT vans, machine guns and other gizmos. That does not exactly inspire confidence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Canadians as a whole apparently disagree. There are about ~700,000 Americans living in Canada, and also about ~700,000 Canadians living in the U.S. (see links below) However, the U.S. population is more than 8x that of Canada. That means that on a proportional basis, Canadians are about 8x more likely to move to the U.S. than Americans are to move to Canada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emigration_from_the_United_St…
Those links offer some other interesting comparisons. There are about 700,000 U.K. citizens living in the U.S., and only about 160,000 U.S. citizens living in the U.K. The populations are about 63 million and 320 million, respectively. On a proportional basis, one would expect to see 5x more Americans living in the U.K., but in fact, there are 4x more U.K. citizens living in the U.S. Similar ratios apply for other co…
Granted, that doesn't say anything positive about the immigration policy of Germany when 30 year old children can get in and I don't stand a chance. Oh well.
