The world's most stable and prosperous countries, of which we are not one

I got the joke. Just hadn't weighed in on the thread until then.

Was as much a response to your earlier sarcastic (think you were trying to be sarcastic) comment asking how many people from those industrialized nations on that list are trying to get into the U.S...

They're not. But people from downtrodden countries are. The U.S. has always been open to immigrants. Luxembourg doesn't have that sort of reputation and it isn't a place you can go to to find a better life.

 

Stoney, Every one of those countries you mentioned holds its nose and lets in Turks or Eastern Europeans, and then treats them like eighth class citizens. The xenophobia is unreal. They begrudgingly accept that they need foreigners to do the crummy jobs they don't want to do and those millions of foreigners, which they try to keep segregated to a degree, are vital to their economies. But are you really going to tell me with a straight face that England (more so than the others, but still), France, Germany or Holland are melting pots and that they offer the opportunities to immigrants--and their offspring--that places like New York, Chicago, LA, etc. do?

 

No need to apologize. People have fled the former Eastern European countries for Western Europe because things were so bad in Eastern Europe following communism. And their lives have been slightly better in places like Germany, France, the Netherlands, etc. Those foreigners are not accepted, though, and are not treated particularly well. They certainly don't have delusions that they have come to a melting pot, where their offspring have the opportunity to have a better life. Attitudes are changing a bit and those countries are becoming more accepting. And I know I am speaking in generalities. But the day anyone who actually lives there or has emigrated there calls France a melting pot will be the day the beret is a normal-looking hat.