Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Australia Australia: An Americans View

Each country has it's own set of issues.

While Americas issues may be different from Australia's and Australia's different from Canada's etc, etc all have issues.

It is what it is and for the most part we're all brothers when it comes to .gov intrusions.

Many of those supporting mechanisms are needed in America because favouring shareholder dividends over investing in the company (product development and employees) makes for exploitative industrial relations. It's not slavery, but appears pretty third world when you look with a dispassionate eye.

Military spending in the US is big business, as it is in European countries too. Administration of this is as efficient as it can be, but often does not appear efficient when looking from the outside without understanding the constraints officials work within. Advanced systems like F22, JSF, B21, Seawolves and Columbias don't come cheap but their value plays out when you need to use them.

More freedoms is contentious and depends how you measure freedom. To be honest living in the US does not feel as free as Australia or NZ, and if you are not white it probably feels even worse.
Australia has it's own problems, similar but different. Personal security in Australia and New Zealand is far better than that in the US so the 'need' for guns to protect yourself does not exist.

Australia's government at the moment is a conservative (Republican aligned) party (as it was when the semi-auto rifles were banned). Like most democracies other than America, their version of liberal democracy looks a little more leftist and some call them "socialist" which says more about the lack of worldly experience and basic ignorance of those making the claims.

Australia, England, New Zealand and much of Europe have stronger separation of powers than America. Probably the largest difference is the executive role in government - aka President, Chancellor, Monarch, Governor General.

FWIW I have worked in both Australia and the US, although I prefer NZ as a place to live!

Nowhere is problem free, but some problems can be deal breakers.

That is because the people are stupid. Listen to Dave Ramsey on bankruptcy. I disregard most of his advice on things. But his advice on debt settlement is xcellent. There are ways of protecting assets from these things.

Sounds like he's still in the honeymoon phase with his wife's country. Give him a few years.
Plus, he's a writer so he needs something to write about and nothing sells like flattery from a foreigner.

I class large parts of the US as more free than Australia. Personally I dont care about personal security. I have no problem with a society where you arrange it yourself. I worked for a while in the US, New England area and even those states felt more free to me. Folks werent wearing wearing bike helmets where I was(almost a jailable offence in Australia these days not to), I saw jacked up cars, fat tires, guns in pickups, all big no-nos here. I did an EMT course when I was there, took the NREMT(national) exam , got state registration even as a non citizen- no one minded at all. The local ambulance were delighted to have me ride along. I remember asking if it was legal and they sort of looked at me strange and laughed. I started my EMT-P course( full paramedic course) by distance through a group in Texas, they bent over backwards to let me enrol, do clinicals etc even being an Australian. I remember visiting my first walmart, bought a half dozen things, I recall a few shirts, shoes, shaving gear etc, had $50 ready to handoever at the checkout and nearly fell over when the chick said something like " $18". Hit me how high the price of living back home is. I only visited Boston and flew into Atlanta as far as larger cities go.Im sure there are a lot of areas in a country that size I would NOT like but there does appear to be some bastions of freedoms I still would

Cost of living.

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Australia/United-States/Cost-of-living

He's also a professor, so you have all of the programming that comes with being a high level academic in the USA.

Comparing tax burdens:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/29/aus...han-americans-but-they-get-more-too.html

In the USA, we have a lot of fantastic non-urban living options. That's something that matters to many of us here on the fire. Australia is at the other end of that spectrum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_Australia

What I took from it.
Most likely an America hater, ANTIFA lover

If Australia's so great, why aren't all those illiterate wetbacks from places like Honduras and Jamaica going there instead of crossing the Rio Grande?

A bit far to swim?

Yep.

Gee, a writer in Denver who doesn't like guns. Now I've seen everything.

BTW, Canadian healthcare sucks.

The studies I've seen assumed that if someone went bankrupt and had > $1000 in healthcare debt, then the healthcare debt caused the bankruptcy. I'd call that very questionable logic. I'd say the studies were designed to reach that conclusion and are not accurate.

What about the thousands of US citizens going across the border for Canadian health care? Oh that’s right it’s the other way around. Our system here. Might suck but it sucks less than other countries. Edk

I don't know about Australian health care, but find ours , where I am just excellent.
I have also used private, for profit Healthcare in the US and Canada. All are equivalent, imo.
Canada's system is costly to operate but some where I had read there is more money put into the US system per capita and many fall through the cracks.
The only way " Healthcare " will improve is if the user takes personal responsibility for there own.
Increasingly, we are more fat, less fit and more miserable.... and less faithful to Our Maker.
There must be a connection. God Bless you all.

The fact that Australia is highly urbanised doesn't mean there aren't a lot of fantastic non-urban living options. Quite the reverse in fact, as there's lots of smaller cities and towns, and vast areas where you can be a long way from your neighbours. Lately, especially with people more and more often working from home, there are more and more looking to move out of the big centres.

A lot of Australians also have holiday homes, to get away to when on leave - and we usually have more paid leave than you get in the US too, what with a minimum 4 weeks annual holiday, various public holiday long weekends, long service leave and, for many, rostered days off.

Apart from the obvious geographic reason, our borders aren't porous, and our government doesn't have a policy of letting them in.

And yet, I can't get more than about 115miles from a McDonalds in the lower 48.

In Australia the same distance is about 480 miles. More than 300mi covers a big hunk of the country.