Whew, long post :)

I agree though, there needs to be major changes but as you said to run you must use 10 million+ dollars on a campaign and no normal person has that laying around.

The electoral votes are in place because the elections were made up ~100 years ago and the technology change from horse and buggy and pieces of paper to the internet and computers hasn't been incorporated into them yet to actually allow every vote to count, nope it is still state by state and that is a huge flaw but what are we to do about it.

Ron Paul is about the least controversial candidate at least from what I have seen but he doesn't have the backing Romney and the others do and is also kept out of the news probably by the same people running Romney and Obama, not that there are hard facts to prove this is the way things are run but the whole system is 99% corrupt and the few men in power behind closed doors run the corporations and the media and it will stay that way until something large happens.

My opinion

And nice video Sbanks :P

I think the whole political system should be reformed, cause it's definitely broken imo.
Midterm elections is a bad idea, cause it means (like now) that the president can kinda lose his power. Obama has a hard time getting things done, because the republicans block him. Why do they block him? To me it seems they want to make him inefficient, doesn't matter if they agree on his policy, they just block it either way. Seems pretty kindergarten-ish to me. Try electing some adults xD

Then I also find it hard to understand the system on some points. I obviously don't know that much about it, but the whole delegate thing... It seems stupid that George Bush won in 2000, although Al Gore had the majority of the votes. (And it was definitely stupid to elect Bush in the first place lol, but to re-elect him in 2004, do ppl ever learn? xD) As I don't know that much about it, I don't know how you'd go about to change it, but imo it should be fixed.

And then an important point. Election campaigns should be much, much shorter and not that much money should be used, it's crazy. It also limits normal ppl from running. How many normal ppl runs for President vs. the rich ppl? If campaigning was cheaper, then maybe the system would be less corrupt also. It is commonly said that Republicans are in the pocket of Big Oil and Democrats in the pocket of Wall Street. Well, if they didn't need all that money, then maybe it would be easier to resist being pushed by these money men.

I'm sure there are many other points that could be adressed, no system is ever perfect.

On the current election:
Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are both nutjobs in my book, and wouldn't stand a chance in the presidential election I think. Rick Santorum also pulled out, but I think Gingrich is still competing?

Mitt Romney seems very upperclass, I think he would have a hard time relating to the regular American. He's a successful business man and that should indicate that he has leadership experience, which is crucial imo, so that's good. He seems to have turned more to the right in order to win over the rightwing of the republicans, but I believe he'll turn more left, when he goes up against Obama (and I do believe he will be the one that goes agains Obama).

Ron Paul I haven't heard that much about really. I think he seems like a pretty good candidate, but somehow he's not very popular. I don't know why, but maybe someone can enlighten me as to whether he has some controversial statements etc.?

Current President Obama. Well well. I liked it when he won in 2008. Gave much hope after the disaster years of Bush. With all that hope he could almost only fail, and I think he has. What I heard about the healthcare reform I was happy for the USA, but when I heard about the details in it, not very happy. It seems to be made in a stupid way, although the idea was good. Then I think he should hit harder against Wall Street. Make that 1930's regulations, that Reagon removed, come back. Wall Street has proved that they can't control their greed and thus they should be controlled considering they have the sole power to basically create chaos in the whole world. I heard a little bit recently that it might get reintroduced little by little, but I'm not sure. I hope he gets re-elected though, cause I think overall he's doing a better job than I imagine Mitt Romney would.

What I really would like though would have been an independent candidate. I think that's needed atm, and maybe it could result in some peace and cooperation between Democrats and Republicans. Politics are about compromises and as long as they can't compromise on anything, then nothing will be done. Take a look at the increasing debt issue of the USA also. It can break the whole country eventually, and nothing is agreed upon to fix it -.-'

Obama for president ^^

@hahaha

Thank you for your demographic description. It is exactly why I would go check out the state of things myself. The media portrays the South as racist, religious, homophobic, gun-loving rednecks, but like you say it is likely more nuanced than that.

On the election thing I'll write a post after dinner :)

I don't like any of the candidates a whole lot to be honest, If I vote it would probably be Ron Paul, he is lenient on medicinal marijuana and wants to boost military pay while pulling troops back so I'm good with him lol

What are your thoughts on the candidates for the President of the US? (anyone)

hahahaha

god bless america ey :p

Good for you, better yet good for us.

Too bad you consider skimming reading and didn't actually grasp anything said, which your quoted out of context paragraph that you mis read mis interpreted and tried to flame represented very well.

Have a nice day.

Don't worry, I've read all posts. I simply left this page open for an hour before I got around to reading it, therefore missing out on what Novu had to say. After reading the start of your post and noticing it's huge I am smart enough to save myself some braincells and not read the rest of the waste that you have to say.

Hahaha Glad you answered him, I was trying to ignore him due to the fact that he read 1 post and felt like flaming. Tired of arguing with people that miss half of the words and misinterpret the other half zzzz Re read that post and try again Deston... Actually save us the brain cells and don't.

Novu,

The south and north are mostly alike now, the only difference being culture (slavery states have more black people - and before I get fussed at for this, they aren't the same as the blacks you know, come to Atlanta Ga. or Charlotte NC as a white man in a black area for a little while and you will get the point - hence usually more crime and racism, albeit the cities such as NYC Detroit Michigan also have a huge number that went there for factory work during/after the war, then you have the states on the border of Mexico having a high Mexican population southern Cali Texas etc) and weather for the most part, also terrain, I LOVE the mountains but a lot of people love the beach. Where I live currently is 2.5 hours from mountains 2.5 hours from the ocean and right on a large fresh water lake, very comfortable :)

The north or southern regions both have cities, both have crime, both have "rednecks and hillbillys" which is mostly based on the country lifestyle or the city lifestyle... I prefer the country but I am very far from "redneck" for the most part the only difference is the accents and whether it is the country or the city or a small town or suburb etc :P

I was buying a car the other day in a suburban area of NC outside of Charlotte that every house was owned by Russians. Where I live 30 minutes up the street is a black neighborhood that I wouldn't want to be in at night, 30 minutes the other way are the most redneck people living in trailers you would ever find with salvage car yards every mile (convenient for cheap car parts of course) and another 30 minutes to complete the triangle is a mixed society of upper middle class working people in a little town that I live in now since I moved out of my family home in the country which is about 30 minutes the other direction LOL City is about 10 minutes out now.

Also the whole religion thing is overplayed especially in movies, it is stronger in the south east but also not mandatory or heavily pushed by most people, every now and then you get a nut, but you get those everywhere... I am not a christian, although I was raised christian I have esoteric beliefs and I do get a little feedback but it is very easy to avoid religion as with anything else, just a preference and belief system some people live by, either way not much evangelism around here so I'm good with it and I'm in SC which is a heavy bible state for sure, churches of every kind on every corner so you should be OK as long as you don't go around screaming "I'm an atheist religion is for sheep" at church gatherings :P

Anyway it was nice talking to you Novu, I've got to sleep so I can go work tomorrow for a few hours but I'll be around o/

Ah, I had opened OB while ranking and didn't notice that post.

@Deston, I was the one who involved Denmark in the "USA - Norway - who is the better" discussion. Since I'm Danish and Denmark and Norway is much alike, I felt I would contribute to that discussion better by talking about something I knew firsthand, instead of talking about USA and Norway where I actually haven't been to either place yet.

I'm thinking for Europeans it will be easiest to fit in on the East coast or in California, so that's where I'll visit for sure. The view I have of the South is, excuse me, mostly of hillbillys and very religious ppl, which I don't do good with as long as they want to condemn you for not being very religious and believing the same as them. I will go investigate myself though, cause again what you see on TV and hear from ppl can be very different from your own experiences. I would like to kinda zigzag up and down the country. As for the time used around the country it's hard to decide. There's really a lot to see and if I could afford it, I'd stay as long as I felt I would need and just sorta take 1 day at a time, but that's pretty much unrealistic :P Should I ever go live there, I would love to sail to New York and see the Statue of Liberty as the first thing etc. Not that it means anything liberty/freedom related to me, I'm not oppressed, it's just more of a nostalgic thing :P

You've got to be pretty fucking retarded to think Norway is poor, but then again claiming you're family is '4 times as big' is a good indication of what is your family. You even mentioned your country is overpopulated, well thank the heavens, cause it's mostly idiots like you that contribute to that.

ps. What has Denmark got to do with it?

Haha yes exactly, now days you can "visit" anywhere online, I would only want to go experience more culture and people not so much the places. If I had the $$ I'd love to visit every country in the world and live there for a few weeks or months just to have the full experience :)

And when you are reasonably intelligent and motivated you can make a living for yourself anywhere, it is really where you want to be in what circumstances. I LOVE the weather here, I couldn't stand living in the northern region even in the USA but coming from Denmark you may be more comfortable in a northern states whereas I like the south.

To find the group of people and climates that suit you best you should travel around like you said, I would give myself 2 months if I were you though. My family did a "cross country road trip" and saw probably 80% of the states/country for a few days (up to about 5 in Vegas I think) and it took I think a month and a half almost so if you want more than a "drive through" experience you should give a little more time. Based on what you can afford of course :)

And anything you see about America on tv you can probably find in one state and city or another just because of the sheer size population and mix of culture that is America lol

Well the gap between rich and poor is small in Denmark whereas it is large in the USA. Here it doesn't matter too much about the area of the country, but we are also tiny, and yet you can still see a difference between our less populated areas and our bigger cities in the sense of job opportunities definitely.

I'll definitely agree there is no perfect country. I have searched. I'm thinking Switzerland could be a good choice actually, but it's not hot enough for me there, and official language isn't English, although I do speak German also.

I'm not sure if I have any specific goals or let's say one primary goal with going to the US. I think a lot of it is this whole American Dream thing, although most likely I won't be better off there than here. Business-wise I feel the taxes block me in Denmark. It's actually easy to start a business here, we have little bureaucracy compared to other countries etc, but the taxes aargh. I just don't want to invest 60-80 hours a week on starting whatever business, when the state take as large a bite of the money as they do. The extra pay-off simply isn't that big when you compare a high paid normal job vs. starting a business and think of the extra hours you have to put into it. It's also harder to find funding for business start-ups here compared to USA, there's a lot more venture capital over there for example, if you need that. Competition in the USA is pbb harder, but that only makes it that much more exciting. I imagine I'll start with a month long vacation to check out places and see if I like the atmosphere so to speak, if I can picture myself living there. What you see on TV and what you experience in reality is often very different :P If I like it, I imagine settling for a couple years at first, and if it's great I might end up staying. The weather is a big part of it for me, cause I dislike the rainy, sad, grey weather we have here a lot of the year and alternatively I could move to France or Spain, but I don't speak neither language atm :) I think it's all about just wanting to try something different from living my whole life here like everyone else :P It's about making your own future I think, and it seems in many ways to be more exciting over there.

I like history, so I guess it's weird I would move to America, but in reality then most history is approached through books and TV and little is visited. I imagine I can visit just as many historic sites still on summer vacations etc. :)

Anyone ever read a book by Ramana Maharshi?

I applaud the nice un biased write up and I agree, But it depends where in society you live and in what area of any country, if you look at a country as a whole (GDP welfare weather healthcare schools taxes or etc) you can only apply that to 10-20% the rest is richer/poorer overcrowded/less crowded hotter/colder richer/poorer that figure is only a median.

There are loads of shortcomings with any country, no 1 country is perfect, but depending where you live and the means you have to live on you can have your own utopia :)

What are your goals for coming to the US? You are right about making it big in business but you have to have a good plan, good strategy, product Also the backing for it and a market. Or were you just going to come tour :) Lots of land, little to actually see :P

Compared to everywhere else there is not as much history as it is a relatively new country in comparison so less to actually "tour" in my opinion

This is a rather long post, and please don't comment unless you read the whole thing, thank you.
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If you really want to talk about which is the greatest country in the world, you'll have to define first. I won't do that, I'll just comment from my perspective.

USA is on so many levels a third world country. Yes I said it. There are so many things wrong with that country and it amazes me that they would support any official third world countries with development money - they should start by supporting themselves. 1 in 6 (16% or 49.1 million) in the USA is poor. [I had a link to an article with those numbers here, but was told it was too long, sorry] Greatest country in the world? Sure as hell ain't. What good is it to measure the GDP per capita in USA, if all that GDP is in the hands of those infamous 1%?

In my book there needs to be a state that collects taxes to make sure everyone has free health care and free education (maybe not necessarily for university levels) and both to an acceptable standard. I hear many public schools in USA are rubbish.

In the USA you're living on the edge, there's never long to the bottom. In the European welfare states there's a security net under the population. That is in many ways good I guess, but the European countries ain't all that good either. I'm Danish. We have the highest taxes in the world. When we buy a new car, the state puts a 180% tax on it. We're a safe country. We got free education and free health care. Low crime rates ("Poverty is the mother of crime" + We don't have a ridiculous gun law like in the USA). So what is in my eyes wrong with my own country? Well, I don't really like that security net. I don't feel like I have a huge incentive to work. The state will pick me up if I don't work, make sure I'm good. When I work the state will take about 50% of what I earn. It seems empty and stupid to become a worker bee for the state. Compared to many countries us Danes really are born with a silverspoon up our asses imo, but we still complain until we get out into the outside world and see how priviledged we are at home.

So with the obvious shortcomings of the USA and the alledged paradise I live in, why would I ever want to even consider moving to the USA? (Which I would like to at least try one day).

Well I think the USA is still unquestionable the country where you got the best opportunities to make it big in business for example. They have a homemarket of 300+ million, in Denmark we have 5+ million. A marginal market share wouldn't make you rich here, but it pbb would in the USA. You have lower taxes, so you actually get paid for your work. And then I like the idea of the more or less lacking security net. You have to take responsibility for your own life, sometimes I feel like that's unthinkable in Denmark. Many people don't even save up enough money to get by if they get fired, cause they just get money from the state instead. And then important for me: for example California is sunny and warm, Denmark got "London weather" :/

In my opinion neither USA or European welfare states are the best. For me it would be something in the middle of those.

And I don't consider myself a capitalist nor a socialist.

(PS. Glad to see the nutcase Rick Santorum dropped out of the election. Never mix politics and religion that's a no-go!)

Oh and I think this whole discussion started by talking about military power? There's no doubt USA is the #1 military power by far. However considering the money they spent, they have got to be #1 also. Just don't forget this money is spent at the expense of other important things like better public schools, healthcare etc.