What the LET'S BE NICE TO NIQUE is Wrong With Your Stupid Country?
 

Americans complain everybody knows that. Either the countries too backward and conservative or your name is Bob*. Our Health Care System is broken, maybe beyond repair, our children aren’t learning at nearly the rate of the rest of the world. We are aggressive, imperialistic, and wasteful of our great wealth. We too give the perception of a drunk unruly teen who makes mistake after catastrophic mistake only getting it together long enough to get a C average on his Junior Finals.

But, for once, a Young American is going to pan the international camera somewhere other than his face and ask the nations of the world, what the fuck is wrong with you?

I recognize that NPFers come from all over the world and I want to take advantage of that to ask what is wrong with your nation. Too often when an American topic comes up the international community of the interwebs let’s us know how wrong we have it. This, however, fails to pan the camera away from America. All it serves to do is let the little brat notice that Germany has new basketball shoes and a nice BMW and why can’t he have one.

So in an effort to see what the other side is really like, to get a more accurate, or perhaps only a more bleak picture of the rest of the world.

Go ahead and tell me then, what’s wrong with Germany lately? What’s wrong with Brazil? Where does Canada mess up?

We Americans bitch too much.

Your turn.


*I'm kidding Bob.

Well currentely I'm in Scotland and the problem here is that all the parties are bullshit rightwing including a "socialist" party who want to sell off all the countries assets and everyone is still bitching about the economic "crisis" despite it being a totally normal part and healthy part of the current system.
You thought Fox News was bad, try reading a newspaper in Britain. Out of the 20 at the store I would only call 2 actual newspapers and they not the common sellers. And football takes up about 50% of every paper.
The general sense of the populace, based on random conversations on the bus and at work, is terribly xenophobic, misguidingly conservative, and concerns with such things as "the guberment stealing all our money" and "all the foreigners taking our jobs".
There is a ridiculous sense of nationalism around. It distresses me and when I try to explain how nations are a particular quirk of history and a completely unjust evil they nearly call the police on me.
As for the police, they carry machineguns while walking on the street.
Also it's fucking cold and everybody plays pussy sports like basketball and football.

As for my homeland, New Zealand, despite having 8 parties in government with all of them actually having power and some big swings in representation, all the parties are the bloody same and there is still "the big two" parties who usually take about 60% of parliament between them.
We're rabidly against nuclear power to the point of kicking US ships out of our ports but we desperately need it as most of our power plants are hydro but the lakes have been drying up so we've had to burn more coal. Hardly fits with our environmentally friendly nature.
Our tertiary education is ridiculously expensive such that I had to work 30 hours a week at a reasonably high paying job while studying my degrees and my friends who weren't paid as much had to work far mroe.
There are no jobs, such that everybody has to go overseas to work mostly because our market it chaotic.
The government sold off most of its assets in the 80s and has slowly been getting it back till the new government decided to sell it off again so we don't have "zomg! taxes". This has left a crippled infrastructure most notably in telecommunications- our internet is ridiculously expensive.

The worst thing of all, however, was the last election. Our labour government (pretty bad) got defeated by the National government (very very bad). The bad part was that the National partys campaign strategy was "Change! Labour has been in government for a long time, now it's our turn". And people seriously voted for them because they hadn't had a turn in a long time.

Also for every 1 person there are 4 sheep. There is something seriously wrong with this number.

Also both of my countries still has "democratic" elections and people still think they actually have a say in how things are run. Sigh.

Gah!
Oh my that was quite a long rant. Sorry :(

Canada messes up cause our political parties like to hold elections EVERY GODDAMN YEAR! Trade problems? Election! Economic Crisis? Election! EI problems? ELECTION!!! US-Canada Relations? ELECTION!!!!! I'm pretty sure if world war 2 started someone would go "The Prime Minister is not doing enough during these trying, If I was Prime Minister I would be better suited for this" ELECTION!!!!!!!!!

Seriously at 300 Mil per election and 4 election in 5 years because the minority governments don't seem to understand they need to work together with the opposition = 1.2 Billion in wasted money!

Oh, and we like to go on strikes apparently. It's not a year until some decently sized union goes on strike somewhere in Canada!!

None of these sound like problems to me...

I find the wasting money on elections to be a problem. Granted I do find that the country seems to run smoother when they are running around trying to get votes. But I could spend 1.2 Billion on better things then that.

If thats not a problem then its our very weak justice system. Killers and rapists getting a few years in prison. I mean seriously, You see sentences for gang slayings at 2-3 years and then the guy who mercy killed his daughter gets 15 years. Is there not something wrong with that? Why did one killing get a harsher sentence then another?

Also our "Do your Best" Attitude towards sports pisses me off. Go for the goddamn win, not the participation medal!

And our current education system passing kids who are really struggling in grades 1 to 6 because they don't want to hurt their feelings or make them seem stupid by holding them back.

Forgive my ignorance but where is that exactly, I expect it isn't K-Space.

The worst thing going on here in the Netherlands in my opinion is Geert Wilders, he's busy with his personal crusade agains the Islam for a while now, and for some reason I don't WANT to understand, his party is currently second in the latest polls (28 out of 150 seats, with the largest party being 29 in the same poll). I dread the coalition that will come out of the next elections...

ps. The best part about the UK this year, was them refusing Wilders entry, it must be the only time I actually approve of them not fully being in Schengen (free movement of persons within the countries that ratified it)

Over here in Sweden we have a government that looks up to America like a 10 years older brother and wants to be just like him. Top that. :)

Historical tidbit: During the first 3/4 of World War 2, around 300 spies were caught in (supposedly neutral) Sweden, none of them German. Whereas in the last quarter we caught about 100 German spies and none of the other by then looking like they were winning guys.

I'll put mine on Bullet point if you don't mind...

What's wrong with Brazil, by Bells:

1- I hate local TV here. It's stupid, formulaic, without any sense of passion for the work being done or any effort for it to be actually good... it's just enough to sell and rely entirely or repetitive bad jokes, tired formulas and silly drama. So, the main cultural vehicle of the country is clogged with stupid shit that people bath themselves into and absorb it's outdated cultural values.

What pisses me off the most is that i KNOW it dosen't have to be this way. We actually have the talent and the money to produce high quality material... there is just no need for it because the shit we have now sells just fine and nobody question that.


2- The people themselves seem to take pride on ignorance. The sheer amount of people who like to complaint about things they don't know... about things the CHOOSE not to learn about, about things they REFUSE to learn about and specially the way people ALWAYS complaint about tons of stuff but won't ever take any action to make something different or promote change.

As in, in politics and about the police, everybody assumes that all politicians are corrupt and every cop is as bad as any drug dealer... and therefor they take this as absolute truth and shout that out like they were some high level intellectuals... but ask them what they would do to change any of that... most don't know, many don't care.

For fuck sakes, this is a country where people (a lot of people) still firmly believe that Freemasonry is a satanical organization that does pacts with the devil and that they Inject themselves with Goat blood on their dark rituals... i've tried several times to explain to these people that this is the only country i know that thinks so massively and so firmly about that, and in most other countries if people have ANY worries regarding Freemasonry is actually regarding their political influence, just like tons of other "secret societies" that exist... and most of the time this very notion just fly right over their heads.

And now the short Bullet point barrage:

3- Extremely low scientific culture
4- Awful school system (i learned that you can't see the moon during the day when i was 17... let that one sink in)
5- Too much pride for stupid sports (people actually get killed over soccer matches between rival teams... )
6- Extremely low Technology culture
7- A LOT of homophobic people
8- A lot of Gay people acting like being "Gay" is anything more than just being a regular person...

I love my Country, but DAMN some things about it pisses me off to no end.

New Zealand. We got bacon and egg pies and sheep.

Fair enough I guess. But better too many elections than too few!

Me, living in the south of Brazil, naturally, have a slighty different vision: There's a lot of corrupt politicians. There ARE good politicians. People don't see that. People don't also see that there are problems that can't be fixed in four years, and hey, an example: in my town we've noticed that the last mayor didn't do anything but the new mayor is doing a lot.. Care to guess how? The other mayor was saving up money for the exact purpose of something getting done, because nothing got done in 4 years in the previous terms and each new mayor just screwed everything the last one did. So he'd either get re-elected and do the stuff he wanted or another mayor would get elected and ask him what he wanted to do.

I'd like to mention: USA got Scientology, we have Universal Churches. Those bastards are rich. Rich. They make churches, convince people that their lives can be changed if they give them money and pretty much brainwash people into never leaving them. The ones that DO, end up not being able to talk about the whole thing for some reason or another and there's been quite a few who've entered the darn thing without believing anything and then got "exorcised" in the middle of a church with hundreds of people. And by "exorcised" I mean "beaten by five people until he/she stopped saying bad things about the church".

And, this will be incredibly redundant, but, hey guys, there's a lot of piracy here! They only exist because taxes are so incredibly high for no reason! A Wii costs US$700 or more!

Also, yes, our local TV is terrible. It's past terrible sometimes.

That is a matter for debate.

Arguably we don't bitch nearly enough.

...BUT we can start our own threads for that I don't wanna hijack the thread for non-United Statesians to bitch about their own countries or anything.

To clarify on the bitching front, I was refering the this community here. Americans on NPF spend a lot of time talking about how much we suck, but seeing as we have a lot to deal with right now (Health Care, Economy, Foregin Policy) and how if we fail, we are powerful enough to screw the rest of you guys, you can't really blame us.

krogoth, our government spends about $70 000 000 dollars an hour. An election isn't that pricey on the grand scheme of things.

What sucks about Canada? How about our political climate isn't mature enough to make a minority government viable? How about that white-collar crime is incredibly difficult to prosecute due to the Crown not getting involved with that kind of case until very late in the game (US, you definitely one-up us here)? How about how 75% of the time it's fucking freezing?

Elections still cost money that could be spent elsewhere.

And whats wrong with the cold? I love the winter! Yeah, our Political Parties all want the power and to be in charge, Instead of working together, which is what Canada wants they spend the time trying to stop each other from doing anything. Its' pathetic, although on the bright side the political scandals seem pretty tame to the rest of the world. But we also haven't really had any over charismatic leaders in a long time.

Had to be said.
 

Can I take it that you're overall opinion of Canada is "Eh."

Is there any real reason for this?
As a former British colony who broke away at about the same time as Canada, it's the norm in NZ to have minority govs- in fact since we switched to MMP in the early 90s that is all we have had.

It's mainly because the 2 big political parties wish to further their own agendas and don't want to promote the other parties. The NDP is to small to really have much of say at times, and one political party does whatever it feels like because it's main goal is to help Quebec separate from Canada. although that is what they claim but the rest of Canada feels its just the parties way of getting enough votes in Quebec to remain a viable party in the federal government. But Canada is divided almost evenly between Conservative supports and Liberal supports that we really do want them to get along and run the country smoothly but they both just want a majority government so they could just do what they want instead of having to compromise. The only reason we aren't going to another election right now is because the NDP and Bloc helped the conservatives stay in power.

Just to put the rest of your countries stupid problems in their place. :)

Two words: Western Alienation.

I am dead serious here. Provinces like Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC continually get the shaft by the east. Our votes do not count in the grand scheme of things because by the time all the votes are tallied from the East, the winners of the election have been decided.

There is no cultural unity. The east and west despise one another while the government caters to the East, leaving the west begging for scraps.

It's really because of a representation by population system. The Economic power of Canada has slowly started to shift to the West, while the population remainds in the East, as the pop grows in western canada, the political power will shift and stabilize eventually. Atlantic alienation is also in existance too. and add Manitoba to the mix. Most Federal money sent to the provinces goes to Ontario and Quebex due to them being the higher populations and therefore the higher number of MP's. It's not that they are truly striving for Alienation of other provinces, its just that they feel that the greater portion of the population deserves the most aid so in the end 2 provinces get 60% of the cash and the remaining 8 and the 3 territories get the scraps.

Most of you propably know that I live in Finland. So what's wrong with this country?

Our democracy is a fake one, some could call it an "eastern democracy". Personally I haven't made up my mind on that. Anyway, people have very few actual ways of affecting decision making. Referendums are held maybe once every 10 years when the goverment feels like it, there are no "citizens initiatives" or whatever those are called in english.

Good luck getting who you voted for a seat in the parliament, local council, EU-parliament or the presidency. Unless of course you voted for the "bigger guys" from one of the three "bigger parties". Supposedly representing the right, the centre and the left, in truth the Social Democrats are just as right as The National Coalition, not to mention the Centre Party. Each want to be in the goverment every term but only two usually are. This means that of these three, one is always in the opposition. But that one party has a pretty good chance of being in the goverment next term, so they don't want to piss off the other one of the three major parties they think will be in the goverment with them. Same goes for a lot the smaller parties. This leads to consensus; politics change very little depending on who is supposedly in power.

The ones in power, the actual people, are the same as 10-30 years ago. Not to mention that it's practically considered "immoral" or whatever to talk about the connections of these people to the eastern block during the 70's and 80's. Not to mention the fact that a lot of them were part of one of the most undemocratic decisions ever made in this country.
There's no need to censor the media: they do it themselves. Especially the major papers, who criticize the goverment just enough to seem like they're unbiased but also without really doing anything.
The "Basic Finns" -party has been winning victory after victory. In other words, their popularity is on the rise. They claim to be "immigration critiques" but really most of them are just racists.
Skinheads. Who doesn't know what a skinhead is?

Apparently you aren't supposed to talk about anything while it's still in the planning phase. Well when the hell are you supposed to talk about it then? When it's so far you can't really do anything to change it!?
The trend of privatization. Really, the goverment is following this trend like people who care way too much about fashion buy new shoes everytime their old ones drop out of fashion.

Conscription. Plus everything is expensive.

I'm sure I could come up with a lot more, but I'll save some for later.

You cannot tell me, as a fellow Albertan that you feel alienated. Yes I know the majority of the country is based in the east, but that doesn't stop it that if you are west of Ontario:

a) Our vote does not count.
b) We are painted as backward redneck inbred hicks.

I would rather see a voting system in Canada similar to that of the US. I understand that the Electoral college is confusing, but it is still better then what we have right now.

No wonder I do a write in vote every election.

The heat. The goddamn heat.

I swear to God, if I have to suffer through another day of 50°C temperatures, they're going to find me dead from sucking a rather large kitchen knife.

I would rant about stuff, but SMB already pretty much covered at least the tip of the iceberg. Well, except for the bit about the machineguns (I barely ever see police doing anything other than fining innocent people for going 4 miles over the speed limit because they happen to be bit late for work, they don't usually carry machineguns for that), and the bit about basketball. Nobody plays basketball here, they have far shittier sports to waste their time on.

If I was to go into a full on rant about how shit things are here, I'd have to make a double post and it would take a very long time to list all of the shitty things I would want to mention and I wouldn't even know where to start.

Yeah, it's really that bad.

It's the first past the post system that screws over everyone and gives the Bloc with mores seats then the NDP even though they get less of the popular vote. I'm not sure what system we could use to fix the mess. Then there is the problem of the Senate which is filled with people who really don't do anything and get paid shitload to do nothing.

But I don't generally feel western alienation, its more of Ontario and Quebec and then fuck everything else. Yet the Quebec hicks feel they aren't treated fairly by the rest of canada. Seriously? You aren't treated fairly? You get more money then everyone else, even The Center of the Universe. The parties constantly try to buy your votes and you feel you aren't treated fairly?

My favourite joke about Quebec is this

Twoo guys, one from Ontaro and one from Quebec were walking along a beach and found a lamp. The picked up the lamp and rubbed it and out came a genie. The genie thanks them for releasing him and says he will give them each one wish. The Quebec guy thinks for a minute and goes "I would Like to have a 50 foot wall surrounding Quebec to prevent anyone from getting in". The Genie nods his head and goes "It is done". The Ontario guy goes "I would like Quebec filled with water"

And then we have Ontario which is a joke on itself. We get snow all the time and never freak out. Toronto gets some snow and what do they do? Mobilize the army to plow the snow.

Why do all the consumer products I want come from overseas? And why is Metal Wolf Chaos not reality?

Gotcha beat there, try being an Arkansan...Arkansawyer...whatever people from Arkansas are being called until the state legislature votes on it again.

Lulz, genocide.

Maybe it's a specific thing at my uni but bloody everyone plays/talks about basketball.


Also: Racial rationing in parliament. Bascially if you are a Maori (the indigeneous people of NZ) you can either be on the general electoral roll or the Maori roll. Basically there are a certain number of seats in parliament reserved for Maori and only Maori can vote for these seats. While its an ok idea in theory it is unneccesary because A) Maori are overrepresented in parliament already and B) It causes havoc with our MMP system and means that strategic voting is far more important than voting for the party you actually like.


Also In reference to Canada: NZ had a FPTP system as well for many years. We dumped it in the 90s for MMP and haven't looked backed. FPTP is a ridiculous system.

It's such an idiotic system but the 2 major parties love it and the bloc love it cause it gives them 35 seats even though they only get like 2% of the popular vote that none of them want to give it up. IT FREAKING SUCKS! FPTP makes you question the "every vote counts" they try to teach you as you grow up. It's like excuse me? If I vote for Liberal while in Alberta my vote wont count because goddamnit 75% of the province votes conservative so the place is pretty much always blue. Even though if they did it the other way it wouldn't be. But thats why they don't want to switch, it would fuck up their power base.

It's goddamn Germany.

Oh, gods. Another sane person! I thought I was the only one still left!
Yeah, seriously. Geert Wilders.
EVERY point he brings up, he spins towards his... hatred of the Islam.
His latest joke? A tax on Hijabs. (or whatever the plural for it is)
Pay €1000 per year, and you're allowed to wear one. Why does he want this tax? Because it's a pollution of the street image.


Geert Wilders is what's wrong with the Netherlands.

Everywhere I go I see Tim Hortons cups littered along the sidewalk. They are literally trails that will lead you to said restaurant. It is impossible to go on a 20+ min. drive without coming across one.

Their coffee is watery and their doughnuts stale. Yet, a disturbingly large number of Ontarions chant "I need my timmies!" on a daily basis.

Oh, did I mention I work at Tim Hortons? e_e I hope it goes out of business sometime soon, although I doubt that'll happen...

It's not enough for Tim Hortons to invade every corner of Ontario, though. They started opening up a bunch of stores in the US. THERE IS NO ESCAPE. ;_;

Edit: Oh, and the TTC and garbage workers strike. Torontonians have thorns up their butts. (No offense to any Torontonians here.)

Holy shit, it's just like the United States!
That's awful.

Whaaaaaat... th' hell?

EDIT: Oh! Oh I get it. Wow, very obscure.

Don't worry, Torontonian's are already offensive :p

God bless Finland!
 

Some people say that Finland is little America, and I guess that's totally relevant.

There was one little piece of news in yesterday's newspaper where one of Finland's most richest men said that rich people could be left from our healthcare system and some suspect that this would lead same kind of system that US is trying to get rid off.
Basically they're flirting with the idea of health insurance, because they don't give shit about poor people.

And because nobody doesn't give shit about them they wont vote in elections and surprisingly there's ain't party who would take care of them! Whoops!
And now, Finland's biggest political news are about how untrustworthy polticians are, because the got money back up from bank, labor union, rich men, companies and so on. One minister get his money by "selling" his paintings. The problem isn't the back up as much as that they kept it secret!
Such a jolly men those polticians.

It's not itself that inmoral. But those, who would vote left parties probably wont because those polticians just are so darn untrustworthy. Just caring about money and not them. Grr, now I won't vote any of them, they're all just the same!

And then that jolly good man, who could turn Finland to paraside is wondering that why people didn't vote him and why those youngsters stole his bike.


You know, our economy is pretty fucked up too. In my hometown, and in others too, teachers are laid off because towns don't have money at all.
Finns are richer than ever (probably only the rich though), but our nation ain't because rightwing politicians are no no about using taxes to get some money, 'cause it would hurt their wallets.
And without those taxes our social welfare is getting worser and worser.

The saddest thing about them is (if newspapers are to trust) that some of them think that their leader is little bit too soft about the immigrant policy.
But ha ha, without their leader, they wouldn't have got any votes, I guess.

But hah, that party did win my hometowns elections you know. The funny, which means sad, thing is that one of their methods to get votes was to afford beer anybody who voted them, they would even drive them to the voting place! You gotta be proud of those boys.

And we have quite much firearms too. I'm very thankful they are getting laws stricter about getting gun. That's probably one of the few good things politicians managed to do properly.

Rant, now with text that nobody will understand!

Well there is the For the Poor (Köyhien asialla) -party. They actually had one of the most coherent political programs. They barely get any votes though, of course.

There's always, always, people who care, but they don't have strong enough voice so they could be heard properly over the yelling in media.

And that's true in all countries, I suppose.

Aside from the cost of so many goddamn elections (in Canada), it's weakening our political system as a whole. Fewer and fewer people see a reason to vote each time. The non-stop mudslinging as everyone just keeps preparing for the next non-confidence vote is also hurting support for all the parties and generally just making everyone tired. The government is pretty much paralyzing itself with in-fighting, which I don't necessarily see as a bad thing anyway, but it is a problem if you like having a government.

I think it's starting to reach a point where the question becomes how well Confederation is actually working.

Will curiousity kill the thread?
 

Our Green party was in the last government and current holds about 10% of seats in parliament. But they are crazy!

Our Green Party started in the late 1980's. In addition to being all for "Greener lifestyle" it was also pretty liberal (in terms of civil liberties) and somewhat lefthist.

20 years later? They're sitting in the goverment together with two of the worst parties of the country: The Centre Party and The National Coalition. Today they are slowly becoming just another modern rightwing party. On the other hand though, for now it's the party with the most different opinions about everything else besides 'green politics'.