I just don’t see the point in calling ourselves a united nation if we aren’t going to produce a minimum standard of educated workers across the board. Why not just Balkanize at that point?

I’m not saying some states are “too dumb”. I’m saying some states are too poor, and the poor shouldn’t be left to suffer compounding negative results because their citizens can’t shoulder the burden of higher state taxes. Because I promise you that federal taxes will not go down. Once the government has gotten used to milking you for X amount, they aren’t going to give up that cash flow. All that will happen is that poor states will just get worse and worse as education falls and they fail to produce a workforce qualified for anything other than menial labor.

We are too dumb to set our own standards!

It’s not about being “too dumb”. It’s about having skills that transfer across state lines. There’s a reason we don’t let doctors and lawyers from other countries just set up a shop and start practicing in the US without meeting American standards first. Now imagine that happening from one state to the next. In your naive attempt to reduce the size of government, you’ve actually increased government bureaucracy and red tape by orders of magnitude.

And again, where are states going to make up that 15% of funding provided by the federal government?

The problem with this is that there ends up being no national education standard. You take a state like Alabama, which ranks dead last in so many education metrics, and remove those federal standards. Now Alabama can just change their state standards, and suddenly they have a 100% graduation rate with all straight A students. Guess what happens when Cletus the Alabama valedictorian tries to get a job in the medical field or the tech sector.

And that’s before we ever even talk about funding. States get about 15% of their K-12 funding from the federal government. Where are the states going to make up that difference? Higher state taxes? Higher property taxes? Or are they just going to let already struggling schools go to shit? Guess who that affects the most?

You really haven’t put a lot of thought into this beyond “federal gubmint bad”.

I’m 50 and miserable. Everyone who isn’t well off is miserable, and that’s like 75% of the country.

If I never had to work again and I was single, I would gladly live out in the middle of nowhere like a hermit. I hate almost everything about city life.

Does this unelected twat even have security clearance?

Yeah I figured things would be changing soon.

As others in this thread have said, buying a property in Japan doesn’t extend your Visa or grant you residence in the country. This would be a waste of time if you didn’t already have that lined up. However, there are countries that do. Some have what’s called the Golden Visa program, or Investor/Real Estate Visa program (there are other names, but if you’re doing a search, this should turn up decent results). Here’s a list of some countries that do this, and the minimum amount you need to spend.

Portugal - Golden Visa Investment - €500,000 ($540k USD) or €350,000 ($380k USD) for lower population areas, or properties that need to be renovated Residency benefits - Residency permit for 5 years, with the opportunity to apply for permanent residency after that

Spain - Golden Visa Investment - €500,000 ($540k USD) Residency benefits - Residency permit for 1 year, renewable as long as you own the property, and you can apply for permanent residency after 5 years

Greece - Golden Visa Investment - €250,000 ($270k USD) Residency benefits - Residency permit for 5 years, renewable as long as you own the property, and you can apply for permanent residency after 7 years

Thailand - Thailand Elite Visa Investment - THB 1,000,000 (about $30k USD) for a 5 year Visa Residency benefits - Renewable every 5 years with no residency requirement

Ecuador - Investor Visa Investment - $42,500 in real estate Residency benefits - Grants you permanent residency

Malaysia - Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) Investment - RM 1 million (about $240k USD) in real estate Residency benefits - Grants you a 10 year renewable Visa

Philippines - Special Resident Retiree Visa Investment - $50k in real estate Residency benefits - Grants you permanent residency

When I was looking into bailing on the US, I made a Libre Office spreadsheet with like 70 countries and all this info plus a bunch of other personal requirements for what I was looking for, so some of it may be outdated. Hell, some of it may be straight up incorrect, so feel free to double check it.

Tons of places like that in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsyltucky, and all over the Midwest US. My girlfriend was scrolling through them talking about selling her house and buying one of those places on a big plot of land and thank fucking Jeebus I talked her out of it. I was like “babe, have you never seen the cinematic masterpiece ‘The Money Pit’ with Tom Hanks?”

Not sure if they’re still doing it, but a few years back (holy shit maybe a decade), Italy was even offering to pay people to move there. But there were massive conditions. Like, you had to buy a historical property, maintain it to their standards, and open a business to boost tourism, or something along those lines. I looked into it and was kind of intrigued, but it seemed pretty obvious it was designed to draw rich expats, not average losers like me.

I watched a video from an American guy who did this. But he already had residence, and made it very clear that if you don’t have residence, doing something like this would be a waste of time and money. He bought a massive junker of a house and it took him like 2 years and a bunch of help to make it livable. Still a good video, and still a cool idea, assuming you have certain ducks already lined up. Definitely not something to do on a whim.

I looked at doing something like this in quite a few countries, and skipped on Japan pretty quickly. Happy with my decision though.

“Browncoats doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing; will be given a slap on the wrist if they are sloppy enough to get caught.”

Fixed that headline for ya.

Yeah I’ve been hoping for it for a while now, but it’s crazy how much power people like Pelosi have over the party as a whole. Maybe with the absolute madness of the second Trump administration, that’ll weaken as people realize how useless the Democratic Old Guard is.

It really is. Her and a few others need to form a coalition and take over the party. Give Pelosi and Schumer the boot and pivot hard to the Left for the working class.

Or Kid Rock. Or Ted Nugent.

Because snakes are a metaphor for pagans in that story (animism and all that). Ireland has never had actual snakes.

Is it though?

ZACHARY, La. (BRPROUD) – The Zachary Police Department says they arrested a former student after Zachary High School was tagged with graffiti.

Police say that Shyron White was arrested at his home in Livingston Parish for drawing a triangle with a symbol in it on the exterior doors. Graffiti was found in several locations around the building, and police were alerted on Tuesday.

“It’s always important to not damage someone else’s property. It costs money and time to, you know, to actually fix,” Zachary Police Department Chief Daryl Lawrence said. “And then you’ll have people like us out looking for you.”

Lawrence said an incident like this is not common for the Zachary community. White is booked in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison, charged with terrorism, criminal damage to property, aggravated assault and criminal trespassing.

This is the Orwellian shit you’re advocating when you start classifying vandalism as terrorism.

Spineless cowards. There are amateur stand up comedians living in their cars and working for beer money who handle hecklers better than these professional public speakers with lifetime Healthcare.

Meanwhile we have people like AOC volunteering to do town halls in Republican districts, just so Republican voters can actually talk to a member of congress.

What a pathetic state of affairs.

It’s property damage that was done specifically to avoid hurting people. By that interpretation, Banksy could also be classified as a terrorist.