Canada
4
fitman thanks for the compliment.
Canada is a country I would move to if I wasn't already here, and here's why:
I know this will sound preachy, but you can't help but think you're an amazingly lucky member of a very exclusive club when you are a Canadian citizen with all the benefits that confers upon you. Membership benefits include access to myriad social programmes including universal health care, Old Age Security, Employment Insurance, Canada Pension Plan, Social Assistance, a public education system second to none, world-class universities, habeas corpus, rule-of-law, property rights, safe neighbourhoods, clean air and water, etc, etc… Whether by accident of birth or by immigration all this entitlement comes simply by virtue of citizenship, but is does not come free. We are highly taxed, but also it comes courtesy of our hard-working ancestors who built this country, and who made the necessary sacrifices so future generations could have these awesome advantages. Whatever vision made them give up so much to lay the foundation for us knowing full well much of the benefits would not accrue to them, but to their children and to the children of others, that vision is what built this country and is the main reason there is such a place today. We still rely heavily on the vast majority putting in more than they take out to make it viable. Yes there will be free-riders, but that is the price of a humane capitalist democracy. Humane is what it is all about. What good is a country or its system if it does not serve the human needs of its citizens?
At a glance the United States and Canada look almost the same. The differences are not obvious but they are there, and they are significant. One major difference I see is that while Americans are very generous people they prefer not to institutionalise the redistribution of wealth to the extent we in Canada do, instead they prefer to rely on private philanthropy to assist the needy and finance many types of public expenditures. Government intervention in the economy to help the poor is actually frowned upon. However the US government has shown no hesitation to transfer taxpayer wealth to the corporate sector - evidence for this is easy to find (tax breaks, bail-outs, etc). Moreover, the redistribution of billions towards weaponry, and ultimately into the pockets of the growing number who profit from the weapons industry, is not frowned upon either. Soon the economy will be so utterly tied to the military foreign wars will be necessary to keep the economy going - assuming that is not the case already. Meanwhile the gap between rich and poor in America continues to widen. The middle-class is disappearing, and a rapidly growing underclass is taking it's place. This is an ominous development for it's destabilising potential. Events now seem to be developing with a momentum of their own toward some kind of melt-down or catastrophe - a catastrophe that becomes increasingly more certain until its finally unavoidable because no one did anything while they still had the chance. Sort of like what happened in Germany in the 1930s. I sure hope I'm wrong, but all I can say is it's getting more frightening all the time in the US. I once dreamed of living there, NYC and other places, but not anymore, not right now anyway.
I think I'll stick with Canada. The opportunity to do some travelling, including to some third world countries, has really opened my eyes. For those of us born to it, even the lowest among us, it can be shocking and very humbling facing abject poverty close up and thinking that, but for an accident of birth rather than anything I can realistically take credit for, this could very well have been my destiny. Knowing what I know, and seeing what I’ve seen, even if you have to freeze in the winter I’d still move to Canada, Vancouver specifically, from anywhere else – and anyway, four distinct seasons per year is a good thing.