Libya has been a shithole for millennia - ever since the Carthaginians lost the Punic Wars. The Romans quickly turned the place into a permanent shithole, and there is little chance it will ever be anything else... however, Libya DOES seem to have stricken upon a novel idea to solve the illegal immigration problem and turn it to profit (which, I think, many nations might benefit from taking a look at - maybe they could thus stem the tide of illegal aliens or those euphemistically referred to as "undocumented workers"... a bill of sale is a document, and so might solve that problem), so there may be hope! The invasion of the Muslim hordes as they swept across North Africa did nothing at all to improve the shithole-ness of Libya. If anything, the Muslims drove Libya even further into shithole-ery, which is a thing I'm sure the Romans never even dreamed to be possible.
What amazes me is the number of people running from one shithole to another shithole in search of relief - how bad must the initial shithole be for THAT to happen?
South Africa used to be a lovely place, and then Nelson Mandela turned it into a shithole in just a few years. Who in the devil votes a convict into Presidential office, anyhow? They got what they had coming to them. Gross stupidity has it's own rewards, apparently.
My first wife went to South Africa on a church mission to aid orphans. She called and asked advice on traveling to South Africa of me, and my first advice was "don't", which just didn't fly well. I then told her to get a WHO Health Card, and make sure all her vaccinations and shots were up to date, especially for the obscure crap that will kill you dead before you even know it exists. Second bit of advice was "pack duct tape". When she asked "what for?" I told her to tape her passport to her body, directly to skin, as soon as she hit the ground and got through customs... and NOT to tape it to her inner thigh, which is the first place the average South African male of those times (mid-1990's) was going to check out after he knocked her to the ground, on his way to ""his own little patch of the Promised Land". I don't know how much of my advice she took, or how she fared beyond the fact that she somehow survived it. I've not spoken to her since that conversation, but I know she made it back.
Rhodesia was a fine place too, once upon a time. Then Robert Mugabe turned IT into a shithole, going so far as to rename it with a moniker no self-respecting school kid can even pronounce. It got BAD. I have a Zimbabwean 50 cent piece, one of the first minted in that nation after Mugabe took over (minted in 1980), which has a face value of ONE FIFTY-BILLIONTH the value of the metals it contains, at 50 c. Fifty Zimbabwean cents got to be worth such a tiny amount that it's nominal value could be measured in molecules of bi-metal.
Rhodesia had been a net producer and exporter of food, and when Mugabe took over, the government confiscated farms from the white settlers as "reparations" and gave them to natives, who promptly sat on their asses with rifles and simply guarded their newfound "wealth"... and never worked the farms at all. Needless to say, what could have continued as a thriving economy went to hell in a hand-basket in no time flat.
My point here is that not all shitholes have ALWAYS been shitholes, but they can go south in a hell of a hurry under piss poor management.
.
What amazes me is the number of people running from one shithole to another shithole in search of relief - how bad must the initial shithole be for THAT to happen?
South Africa used to be a lovely place, and then Nelson Mandela turned it into a shithole in just a few years. Who in the devil votes a convict into Presidential office, anyhow? They got what they had coming to them. Gross stupidity has it's own rewards, apparently.
My first wife went to South Africa on a church mission to aid orphans. She called and asked advice on traveling to South Africa of me, and my first advice was "don't", which just didn't fly well. I then told her to get a WHO Health Card, and make sure all her vaccinations and shots were up to date, especially for the obscure crap that will kill you dead before you even know it exists. Second bit of advice was "pack duct tape". When she asked "what for?" I told her to tape her passport to her body, directly to skin, as soon as she hit the ground and got through customs... and NOT to tape it to her inner thigh, which is the first place the average South African male of those times (mid-1990's) was going to check out after he knocked her to the ground, on his way to ""his own little patch of the Promised Land". I don't know how much of my advice she took, or how she fared beyond the fact that she somehow survived it. I've not spoken to her since that conversation, but I know she made it back.
Rhodesia was a fine place too, once upon a time. Then Robert Mugabe turned IT into a shithole, going so far as to rename it with a moniker no self-respecting school kid can even pronounce. It got BAD. I have a Zimbabwean 50 cent piece, one of the first minted in that nation after Mugabe took over (minted in 1980), which has a face value of ONE FIFTY-BILLIONTH the value of the metals it contains, at 50 c. Fifty Zimbabwean cents got to be worth such a tiny amount that it's nominal value could be measured in molecules of bi-metal.
Rhodesia had been a net producer and exporter of food, and when Mugabe took over, the government confiscated farms from the white settlers as "reparations" and gave them to natives, who promptly sat on their asses with rifles and simply guarded their newfound "wealth"... and never worked the farms at all. Needless to say, what could have continued as a thriving economy went to hell in a hand-basket in no time flat.
My point here is that not all shitholes have ALWAYS been shitholes, but they can go south in a hell of a hurry under piss poor management.
.
Diogenes was eating bread and lentils for supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’
Said Aristippus, ‘If you would learn to be subservient to the king you would not have to live on lentils.’ Said Diogenes, ‘Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to be subservient to the king.’