warspite1ORIGINAL: Chickenboy
ORIGINAL: warspite1
Why would anyone not choose New Zealand?
Why indeed? Why doncha ask some of the myriad EnZed diaspora out there? New Zealand is insular, isolated and has its own very significant problems-political, social, monetary and otherwise. By no means are they (or any other country on that or any other list) a paradise, devoid of suffering, want or justice. Their tax base can be usury (much akin to several Western European countries), their property rights impenetrable.
It says a lot for a poll if people select a place to emigrate that they've never visited before. Maybe it says that people who so respond in polls are escapists, incapable of cogent thought.
Of course, all countries have problems - its a package, a series of compromises like most things in life. You take - to the extent you have the choice - the compromise package you want (although for most of us we don't have the choice (or the choice we want)).
Re the highlighted text, I can't agree with you on that one. Wouldn't have been much emmigration in the history of the world if a prior visit was a pre-requisite? The might and strength of the US was built on the back of immigrants who had never seen North America - hell, in most cases had probably never set foot outside their own country. I suspect a lot of these were dreamers and escapists who heard of a chance of a better life and took it. I don't see that a cogent thought process is necessarily lacking there.