Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[GlyphGryph]

Criminalizing poverty is usually a fairly local thing in America, but it's also not all that uncommon, either. Of all the countries I've spent any time in, the US seems to have the widest variety of laws (no unexpectedly).

And scriver, it's not so much to promote criminal behaviour as it is to make the city unattractive as a homeless destination, and to convince the homeless people that ARE there to go elsewhere, like maybe out into the countryside where they will die and stop being an eyesore. :/ (This is the thrust of actual arguments I've heard from those supporting these sort of laws, though thankfully not from the policy-makers, who I'm pretty sure just want the homeless problem to go away and don't specifically want the homeless and poor to die)

Personally, though, I'm not a fan of the laws that make it illegal to live in a place unless that place is "legal to live in", while providing no alternatives. I mean, I guess I can understand the arguments, but by requiring every single place to spend the night to meet strict requirements that put them out of the price range of even the working homeless, that's a serious problem. When I spent some time being homeless, I paid a good deal of money (for me, at the time, far less than it would have cost to get an apartment and it left enough left over for me to eat) to rent a 24-hour parking space, thinking it would be great to have a place to actually park my car when I needed to sleep that was fairly secure and where I wouldn't have to live in constant terror of breaking the law simply by existing.

And then, of course, the police showed up, and forced me to leave, saying it was a "safety threat for me to sleep there, and I had to go somewhere else". Note there were no shelters within a dozen miles, none of those within twice that had any sort of parking, I couldn't exactly afford a ton of gas, and without my vehicle I had no way to get too and from the job I was working that was keeping me fed.

I seriously wanted to fucking spit in that police officers eye that night. It wasn't that the parking lot owners had a problem with me sleeping there (they might have, I have no clue), but that the police thought it was too much of a risk to ME, somehow, to have a place to spend the night.

And the thing is, I had it good compared to most homeless folk.

Unfortunately, this isn't all that much different in most other countries I've had experience with.

[DJ]

Here in Bosnia the homeless are free to loiter around public spaces all they want.

Anyway, I think it says a lot about supposed liberty of the West when they persecute the homeless so much and Diogenes could freely live at a marketplace over 2000 years ago.

[stickadtroja]

this thread is getting a bit retarded. put all that defensive, ignorant "USA is probably the best" talk in one of the two threads already devoted to that subject. And instead answer me this; Is there any argument against SWEDEN being the obvious "most citizen-friendly" country?
All of the scandinavian countries probably good, but Denmark has a lot of racism and rightwing politics, Finland also and in Norway everything is super expensive.

end of thread.


this post is really ignorant, but from reading through the whole thread i think it will fit right in...

[Haspen]

If you seek a citizen-friendly country in Europe, avoid Poland

[scriver]

From the top of my Swedish mind. Tortureriffic jails (no, not prisons, jails). Worsening social equality. Growing racism and liberalism. And that's just what I can come up with while racing to get this post out before anyone else.

Sweden would probably place in the top, but certainly not number one.

[SalmonGod]

It does seem like regression is happening almost everywhere.

[GlyphGryph]

this thread is getting a bit retarded. put all that defensive, ignorant "USA is probably the best" talk in one of the two threads already devoted to that subject. And instead answer me this; Is there any argument against SWEDEN being the obvious "most citizen-friendly" country?

Well, Sweden has a few well known corruption problems, although mostly on the high-level - powerful interests writing their own laws, carving out exceptions for themselves, etc. Legal corruption, if you will, the kind that is endemic to most democracies. They are generally really good at avoiding things like bribery (though there have been a couple issues recently that made the news) and other forms of low level corruption, which is impressive. So they are definitely at the top of the hill, but I think Finland and New Zealand still consistently outrank them on that front.

(And New Zealand, from experience, still has significant problems with that as well, though not from what I understand as bad as Sweden. It just seems to be a reality of democracies)

[penguinofhonor]

Haha, Sweden. You can't get more "I use the internet" than saying Sweden is the best country in the world.

[misko27]

It does seem like regression is happening almost everywhere.

Well, my not payign attention to anything but cetain cases, That is pretty much the opposite of what is occuring. The world is a bad place, but it's getting better, not worse. It's like reverse entropy really. As time goes on, more complex social arrangements are made, society advances, and as long as nothing collapses, the system increases in liberalness. And losses in liberalness are made up by gains elsewhere.
 
I n conclusion, Only atlantis is a uncorrupted society, as it's non-existance prevents lucrative oil deals.

And I've been homeless, and it least where I am, it isn't illegal to feed the poor (Or if it is, literally no one cares. It's like "don't cross at the red light". No one cares, not even the cops. Pedestrians have right-of-way in NYC.) and, in general, it's not too bad a place to be homeless.

[GlyphGryph]

Err... you mean the city where Bloomberg explicitly outlawed food donations to the homeless last year? As in, homeless shelters and the like will be shut down if they accept food donations from individuals, restaurants, caterers or aid groups?

Still, it's certainly not that bad compared to most cities. They've mostly stopped arresting people for sleeping outside, at least.

[misko27]

Err... you mean the city where Bloomberg explicitly outlawed food donations to the homeless last year?

Maybe not the best example...

You say that like someone cares... Nyers are a independant lot, generally fond of ignoring the government. In a city as large as this, the city has to pick it's battles.
 
Also, it should say something that you know that and I don't. To you it's an outrage, to me it's the suspicious packages law. In theory, I guess, I should be oppressed, but it doesn't work out like that.

[GlyphGryph]

I only knew about it because it got a lot of airplay. I edited the last post immediately after posting it though, because honestly NYC isn't that bad on this front. It's certainly no LA.

[Sonlirain]

England.

Seriously.

Aside of the occasional district populated by somewhat exotic and not so friendly immigrants the place seems to be so freaking free of any worry.
You're a OAP with less than 200 pounds per week?
Don't worry we'll give you some money to fill in so you get a 200 pound minimum.

Harsh winter (and harsh winter in england usually means it's less than 10 degree outside)?
Don't worry we'll send you 50 pounds to buy some coal or whatever you need in those dire times.

Homeless?
Not for long because the town council will find you a flat in less than a week.

The system is just so ridiculously overinflated some families i saw in Scotland actually seem live on welfare they get for having children.
And they procreate en masse with the largest family i personally saw in... some town near Ayr had like 9 kids (and noone working).

And last but not least the healthcare.
The ammounts of examinations and tests people get for free is just baffling.



How the country manages to run a system like this and not go bankrupt in less than a year is beyond my simple eastern european understanding.

[Owlbread]

By England I think you mean Britain there, or perhaps UK or United Kingdom or Perfidious Albion or... nearly any other sodding name that acknowledges that England does not equal Britain. You wouldn't call the EU Germany after all.

But yes, I would say Scotland (if I wasn't going to lump the rest of the UK in) is much more people friendly than the rest of the UK with our lack of tuition fees, no prescription charges etc. Indeed, if your country is in the EU you will be able to come and study here with no tuition fees too - something I would actually recommend. We've got pretty good universities, I'm proud to say. It's just the English, Welsh and Northern Irish that are buggered, although some Northern Irish students found a way of going via Irish citizenship to study here with no tuition fees.

As for people-friendly countries in general, I would say Sweden.

[10ebbor10]

How the country manages to run a system like this and not go bankrupt in less than a year is beyond my simple eastern european understanding.

Excessive taxation. Belgium has similair systems in place, though there's a significantly larger problem because of immigration.*

*The UK really controls their borders pretty well. The advantage of being an island, I guess.