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Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

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Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#241

Post by tuesdaynight »

mhurron wrote: post #122
mvkel wrote: post #48

As an immigrant to the US, I've often viewed the fervent wish to depart (among natural born citizens) to be the ultimate form of self-entitlement. That you'd give up so easily when your voice, presence, and vote, matters most. It's being tested right now, and leaving is the only way to fail. Also, why do you think any other country would -love- to have you?

So how can an immigrant to the US not understand that someone might want to leave the country they're currently in because of the situation in that country?

I was going to ask about the same thing. Did they give up their voice by leaving to the US? It's a weird thing to say as an immigrant yourself.

Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#242

Post by lunias »

alamortsubite wrote: post #95
lunias wrote: post #53

Ah, yes. Of course, in the wake of the fall of the United States, everywhere else on earth will immediately flourish. Just my 2 cents, but before you leave, you might want to talk to some immigrants about what brought them to the United States in the first place.

I assume you mean people who have immigrated from the Netherlands to the U.S. in the past year? It'd be interesting to hear their thoughts, for sure. I don't think the data is available yet, but I expect those numbers are sharply down, so it might not be easy to find anyone to talk to.

100%. I mean people that immigrated to the US from anywhere though. I was joking with a store clerk and mentioned Germany as a potential escape vector. The lady in line behind me says in a German accent, "You don't want to live in Germany."

Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#243

Post by the_gastropod »

xp84 wrote: post #207
the_gastropod wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever it's worth, Mike Godwin, of Godwin's Law, has called the comparison of Trump to Hitler "apt". https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/12/19/godwins-la... Editing to add: > On the other hand, a liberal did kill Charlie Kirk in cold blood because the killer had a trans girlfriend and was mad about Kirk‘a opinions. So, maybe some people should be afraid of violence. My friend, this is a clownshoes-ass t…

The difference honestly is that mainstream liberals — otherwise normal people from all walks of life were, publicly and unabashedly giddy with delight about the Kirk shooting, whereas I haven’t seen any normal people glorify the right-wing psychopaths who committed the heinous acts you spoke of, besides probably some cowardly anon 4chan trolls. https://youtu.be/sf_2Eh8Io-0 What worries me is how much the political “t…

Ohhhh please. Donald Trump, the most influential and significant member of the Republican Party (and tons of other v important folks downstream from him) were giddy with joy when Nancy Pelosi’s husband was nearly killed by a lunatic with a hammer. They joked about this repeatedly. Charlie Kirk, himself, also joked about this incident, and even suggested “some amazing patriot” bail the attacker out of prison. This is categorically different from random YouTube dipshits saying unkind things about a reprehensible bigot being killed.

You could also trivially compare the responses from Democratic politicians to, e.g., Trump’s assassination attempt, the Charlie Cook killing to Republican politicians’ responses to the Minnesota political assassin, the shooting of Gabby Gifford, and the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband. There is a shocking contrast that is well evident to anyone not stewing their brains in RW propaganda.

Trump literally pardoned every Jan 6th participant, including those who assaulted police officers. I struggle to think of a more obvious example of demonstrating support for political violence.

You also apparently missed the countless conservative influencers calling for outright civil war after Kirk’s killing. I cannot fathom how you’ve drawn this conclusion. Certainly not from observing reality.

Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#244

Post by mindcrash »

simonsarris wrote: post #168
mindcrash wrote: post #155

Please, please, please go to anywhere EXCEPT the Netherlands. We beg you. We have a gigantic and near unsolvable housing problem. We have thousands of refugees/immigrants with residence permits waiting for housing already (currently stuck in hotels and bungalow parks just to give them a roof over their heads), and we don't even have enough affordable houses for our own. On behalf of everyone in the Netherlands waitin…

Can you talk a bit more about why its viewed as unsolvable?

The Netherlands pretty much has the most strict carbon regulations in Europe. So while houses could be build, they can't be build because of those.

And while those are in place our small country is literally flooded with asylum seekers and our government doesn't seem to care about that (~1000 each week for several years now and those are just the official numbers, https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/publicaties/2025/01/...).

If they get a permit to stay (and most of them do) they get priority access to the already small housing market. So a lot of people who want to start a family in their own house are stuck at the basement or the attic at the house of their parents (either figurative or literally).

If someone thinks I am making things up or exaggerating: I was lucky enough to buy the house of my parents before this nightmare started. I bought it for approximately $150k, which is near the actual market price at the time. Somewhere in the next 1-2 years it will probably be valued at least 4 times more (if it isn't already).

Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#245

Post by jbstack »

ethbr1 wrote: post #236
jbstack wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my complaint was more about the type of taxes rather than the concept of taxes in general. Income tax I can accept: it's the price of entry to live in the place and enjoy its benefits. Even then there's plenty of room for debate between the extremes of "ultra-low / no tax" and "very high", but let's set that aside for now. But having a wealth tax with a very low threshold is something else entirely. It means…

> There are also practical problems with taxing wealth. [...] With a wealth tax, you might not have the money. For example, if you own an investment apartment or some other illiquid asset you can't just sell a piece of it every year to pay the tax. This is a strawman trotted out against wealth taxes. Stated another way: no, people shouldn't be able to put their wealth into an arbitrary form to make it untaxable. Afte…

"Take a loan with it" - that's not a practical solution if the asset is property. Getting a mortgage approved is far from straightforward, can take months, is by no means guaranteed to be accepted, and can be extremely expensive if done frequently (e.g. yearly) due to one-off costs and lock-in periods.

Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#246

Post by jermaustin1 »

jbstack wrote: post #150
lm28469 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lists all of the reasons why countries with taxes are nice to live in > concludes by: "it would be perfect if not for taxes" People wouldn't be as friendly and well educated if they went bankrupt when losing their jobs, getting a cancer, had to take $100k loans for uni, &c. the towns wouldn't be nice and clean if people didn't pay taxes for regular cleaning, ... There are very very few countries with low taxes and…

I guess my complaint was more about the type of taxes rather than the concept of taxes in general. Income tax I can accept: it's the price of entry to live in the place and enjoy its benefits. Even then there's plenty of room for debate between the extremes of "ultra-low / no tax" and "very high", but let's set that aside for now. But having a wealth tax with a very low threshold is something else entirely. It means…

If my math is correct, and it almost certainly isn't, if you had 100kEUR in savings, you would be taxed on "fictitious" returns on 42k. The fictitious rate of return they use is 1.44%, which brings your fictitious returns to 600EUR. You then owe income taxes on that return, which is 200EUR.

So your wealth tax on 100k is 0.2% or so...

Again, my math might have missed a zero somewhere.

Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#247

Post by bulbar »

mothballed wrote: post #233
bulbar wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Germany they are legal in general, only highly regulated. Most guns are owned by relatively few people. Nobody from the common crowd here thinks about owning fire arms, virtually nobody does. Maybe that's a cultural gap hard to imagine from an US perspective. The question remains, against what and who are you even defending? Maybe it's different in Europe because it's densely populated, but people general…

It's still within living memory of some Germans of their own government systematically mass murdering them after blocking their escape.

I have never heard anybody claim that a higher availability of fire arms for civilians would have helped.

Fire arms is the very last measure you want to rely on when a highly militarized police force is prepared to deport you and your family.

Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#248

Post by mothballed »

bulbar wrote: post #247
mothballed wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still within living memory of some Germans of their own government systematically mass murdering them after blocking their escape.

I have never heard anybody claim that a higher availability of fire arms for civilians would have helped. Fire arms is the very last measure you want to rely on when a highly militarized police force is prepared to deport you and your family.

I've repeated it several times in this thread, but it absolutely helped those in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising gain hours to days, and a couple women who had their lives spared because the Nazi or Nazi-allied officers decided at least a couple of jews (see woman on right here for example[]) were humans with bravery rather than just more carbon for the incinerator.

Although I'll grant you, that took place in Poland, but it happened largely due to the German government.

[] https://1943.pl/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/Kobiet...

Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#249

Post by archagon »

aa-jv wrote: post #234
archagon wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the reason you rank Australia below the US? As a San Franciscan, I recently visited Sydney and Melbourne for the first time and thought they were incredible. Food-wise, I don't think I had a single bad meal in Melbourne, and I wasn't even trying particularly hard to find the good stuff. I think I'd love the opportunity to live there someday. Europe is wonderful, but to quote Joni Mitchell, "it's too old and co…

From my personal point of view, and based on my personal history as a victim of Australia's heinously racist White Stolen Generation (and who was eventually returned to my birth mother because of her strong will), Australia is a totalitarian-authoritarian fascist hell hole that got away with genocide, and will bend over backwards to function as a lackey for the US' military-industrial complex. There's not a single ra…

That’s really insightful, thank you for writing that up. You’re right, this was not something I encountered at all while visiting Australia. And I recognize many of these same detestable elements in US culture: something I want to get as far away from as possible.

At the same time, I have to note that Sydney and Melbourne, at least, are some of the most international cities in the world, with around 40% of the population born abroad. In Europe, very few cities are as diverse as this (though I recall Vienna may be an exception). Even if Australia is overall a hell hole built on genocide, that aspect feels remarkable to me. Maybe a positive sign for future generations?

And it’s not like Europe is a stranger to white supremacy, right? There may be no genocide against Aboriginals in the history books, but ask your average European what they think about African immigrants or the Romani…

Re: Leaving the U.S. for the Netherlands

#250

Post by bulbar »

mothballed wrote: post #248
bulbar wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never heard anybody claim that a higher availability of fire arms for civilians would have helped. Fire arms is the very last measure you want to rely on when a highly militarized police force is prepared to deport you and your family.

I've repeated it several times in this thread, but it absolutely helped those in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising gain hours to days, and a couple women who had their lives spared because the Nazi or Nazi-allied officers decided at least a couple of jews (see woman on right here for example[]) were humans with bravery rather than just more carbon for the incinerator. Although I'll grant you, that took place in Poland, but…

Sounds like a desperate suicidal operation and fits perfectly to what I wrote: that fire arms are the last measure you want to rely on.
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