onenerdykidI provide the sources in a later post. It's the Legatum Institute in the UK. And as mentioned in that post, if there is another source that provides better metrics I am very open to check it and re-evaluate. I'm curious to hear your opinion though on the Institute's methods and findings.
The biggest problem with Europe at the moment is Germany, and it's not because of its socialism. In my opinion, they are dealing with a bit of karmic debt from the previous century... and failing at properly repaying it.
Never forget that there are very conservative parties in Europe and they will gain strength because of this. Their government and society won't fail, but their leadership will most likely change.
I don't think that these types of ranking systems have much relevance. Oftentimes they are misleading, like the US News College Rankings, which in many ways has severely damaged higher education. They are oversimplifying complex differences, from the limited time I've spent looking, I could not find any solid metrics that describe how they arrive at the exact numbers they ascribe to each category (however they list some buried appendix somewhere when really that information should be front and center). It seems to be mostly based on opinion, which is fine, but again, brings into question it's relevancy. It's just one point of data among many, but it seems to want to convey that it is a conclusive source.
The whole site just seems like a bunch of over simplified infographics. It's not to say that it's all wrong, they may have some good reasoning based on sound data, but when I see nuggets like this, it kind of throws the whole thing off:
"This year the United States ranks 33rd on the Safety & Security sub-index, down from 31st last year. Safety & Security is the only sub-index in which the US ranks outside the top 30. It is also the only Western country to register high levels of state-sponsored political violence. According to Amnesty International the country has the same level of political violence as Saudi Arabia."
The same level of political violence as Saudi Arabia? State-sponsored political violence?
This doesn't even pass the laugh test.
It also seems that this ranking is meant for domestic safety and security, and not national security, which means the spending on the armed forces wouldn't be relevant.
Also, you cannot dismiss the migrant chaos as being simply a German problem. It's a huge problem for (in order of severity) Germany, Sweden, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Italy, Greece, and Norway. Germany is the most to blame for the current fiasco, but this is a problem decades in the making.
In a few of those countries listed, there are major demographic and cultural shifts underway that will not simply be solved by a simple change in leadership.
Europe is funding its own colonization through its misguided socialism and sense of "human rights".
