141–150 of 304 posts
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They have managed to scare me off at least. So I will spend my money elsewhere.
Good thing international tourism counts for only about half of a percent of U.S. GDP: https://wttc.org/news/us-economy-set-to-lose-12-5bn-in-inter...
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No no, spend three months in an untraceable maze of ICE holding facilities, then to jail, then deported to a 'shithole' country that you didn't come from in the first place.
You only get deported to a third country if you refuse to be deported to your home country.
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>Besides, why would you want to come if you don’t like it here? There's a difference between saying that you disagree with the way that a country is being run, and wanting to be violent or pursue criminal activity against that country or its people. What you're missing is that the former should be legal in any democracy (and is in the UK), and the latter shouldn't be legal anywhere (and isn't in the UK). You're claim…
> You're claiming the UK lacks "freedom of speech" because it doesn't allow people to incite violence online, while saying the USA has free speech, despite it seemingly rejecting visitors for legal political speech. Free speech means the country must tolerate what citizens say; it does not mean the country can't exercise its discretion over its borders to bar entry to foreigners who say things citizens don't like.
It's the basis of democracy, and a healthy democracy does not reject a visitor just because they criticized its government.
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Good thing international tourism counts for only about half of a percent of U.S. GDP: https://wttc.org/news/us-economy-set-to-lose-12-5bn-in-inter...
Right on, who needs those puny half percents or the jobs related to them, when we have megacorps covering for the rest of the gdp (and exporting it to Cayman).
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Criticizing fascists isn’t “speaking badly” of the US or of american people. A vast majority of people aren’t happy about what’s going on.
> A vast majority of people aren’t happy about what’s going on. What makes you say that? Granted, I'm just an outside observer trying to see what's going on, but since the majority isn't protesting as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem like the majority doesn't care too much currently. Probably most people are in a dire enough situation that they cannot afford to protest, and are busy enough trying to figure out how…
What is your mental model of the median American citizen?
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Try travel to Europe on an African passport…
I have in-laws who do that regularly. I'm aware there are plenty of complications with that. I still stand by what I wrote.
What are some of the complications?
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Criticizing fascists isn’t “speaking badly” of the US or of american people. A vast majority of people aren’t happy about what’s going on.
> A vast majority of people aren’t happy about what’s going on. What makes you say that? Granted, I'm just an outside observer trying to see what's going on, but since the majority isn't protesting as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem like the majority doesn't care too much currently. Probably most people are in a dire enough situation that they cannot afford to protest, and are busy enough trying to figure out how…
A lot of it's that. Our GDP is inflated by bullshit like over-paying for healthcare to the tune of double-digit percentages of total GDP, among other things, so we're flat-out not as rich as we look on paper, as a country. Our social safety net is really bad, government retirement systems and disability are sub-par by OECD standards, and we may have as few as zero paid vacation days or ability to refuse a shift (without being fired for it).
Anyone under the top 20% or so in the US is struggling, or at least stressed out by knowing that one bad month can mess them up for years and years and ruin any long-term plans they had.
We're also a lot more spread out than most countries. It's a lot more expensive and time-consuming to go protest in DC when you live in, say, Colorado, than it is for someone in Marseilles to go attend a protest in Paris. So they go to some local protest with 50 people instead, or maybe to one in Denver with a couple thousand, and you never hear about it. And the protests don't get rowdy (they might get teargassed anyway, of course) because see above about the "one bad month" thing—an arrest without charges of a working adult can easily end up making their family homeless, because they lose their job and can't get another one fast enough (and it's much, much worse if even very low-level charges are filed, even if the charges don't stick or are dropped—our legal system is great at eating thousands of dollars for what ends up being nothing, besides further schedule disruption bringing further risk to employment)
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If I was speaking badly about you in social media, I would understand it if you don’t want me at your house.
Criticizing fascists isn’t “speaking badly” of the US or of american people. A vast majority of people aren’t happy about what’s going on.
A "vast majority"... where? On bluesky? In Europe? Cuz it sure as hell ain't here
The government will be able to bury the impact of its international tourism pariah status in some sort of claim about people not wanting to fill this in. But the reality is visitor numbers are going to tank no matter what.
People from the UK in particular visit the USA because it is the USA: brash, welcoming, colourful, vibrant, thriving, free, fun. It's a holiday from being reserved and quiet. Things are louder, bigger and brighter, less apologetic, more colourful.
I guess it is low on the administration's priority list, but Trump is building a USA that no one from the UK in particular will want to visit. You should see the comments on the increasingly desperate attempts to advertise discount flights on Facebook. We'll go elsewhere.