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Fellow Freedom Fighters, My avatar (not meant as support for the state Colombia, just the land and especially people) gives it away already, but I happily live in the 5th biggest (wow, I am surprised myself, I thought 11th...definitely below Lima, which is true as well...) city of the Americas. City 7.8, Met Area 13.8, I say 9 million just like they do here. Some Impressions Topographical Map of Colombia, Bogota is right in the centre in the Eastern Cordillera, East towards Venezuela is the vast Llanos plains (no roads), Southeast towards Brazil is the Amazone basin with some 70 indigenous tribes happily living there.. The Caribbean islands of Colombia: Rosario, Bernardo; San Andrés & Providencia Hypsiboas rufitelus Cabo San Juan, Tayrona Park, N Colombia, North of the triangular mountain range where the highest mountains of Colombia are, so not in the Andes chain... Typical nice paisa girl-next-door (that's not me on this photo) Interesting Features - Bogotá is situated in between 2 of the three mountain chains of the Andes at 2600 m in a valley. The Cordillera Oriental borders the city on the East after which the vast plains of the Llanos Orientales start. The economic source of Colombia in terms of hydrocarbons. Above that all the Cordilleras hold enormous amounts of ores and minerals - Colombia is number 1 in emeralds - the 10th biggest coal mine is located in the NE of the country, in the Northern South American desert stretching over northern Venezuela and the Dutch Antilles - Colombia is safe. When you're used to traveling outside of the "safety" of the West, there's no problem in Colombia. The shame and fame of before is waning while still in the heads of people not wanting to experience the world first hand but thinking they know it all from TV. Or internet, or horror stories or whatever. - Yet, 6 Colombian cities were in the top 50 of most dangerous cities in terms of murder rate. But, looking at the US (kills with guns only...), it's pretty scary in places over there as well. - I guess what most North Americans do and Dutch, Belgian and German don't understand (the French with their banlieues hopefully do) is that crime is concentrated in areas where you don't need to go. The south of this city is indeed dangerous, but with so many people and a huge area geographically defined in a triangle by the amazing Cordillera Oriental, there's not a single need to go there. - I can confidently say that the area I live and move around is safe and great. For just anyone who loves to see beautiful women all around, Bogota, lunch time in a good business district beats every city except Medellín, Saturday night. Moscow and Kiev come at a respectable distance from this smile-producing experience... - Colombia is the country for nature lovers. After Brazil there's no country with more biodiversity in the world. The variability in climate, vegetation, scenery, topography and nature is unique in the world. The only country in South America bordering both the Caribbean and the Pacific, El Niño is knocking on the door while El Dorado is located just in a lake north of the city (I flew over it today...) - The food is ok, but nothing compared to Peru (best in the world) or Mexico. It's a bit simple everything. There's good stuff to get, but really haute cuisine is more in the superb service than in the plastic chairs and campesino food. Funnily enough Bogota and especially Cartagena are full of very good to top class restaurants, A big spread, again. Politics & Libertarianism The ruling party at the moment in the Congress, parliament and president is unfortunately the left-wing Polo "Democratico". Still, the country has never suffered from socialism, something all other important countries in South America cannot say. It's left, but far off from Argentinian arrogant archaism, Ecuadorian ego 'egalitarianism', Bolivian Boer bitterness and a canyon away from neighbour Venezuelan venomous vampirism... Cañon de Chicamocha, Cordillera Oriental Yesterday here in the country (~30 million voters) was election day. All municipalities (some 1100) in Colombia chose mayors, council members and governors (departments, 32). For Bogotá it means we're freed of the socialist terror of loser Petro and get Enrique Peñalosa (the favourite of my girlfriend (9) (no, that's not her age...)) back. He's quite a smart guy of what I understood and at least modernised this cranky city a bit with bringing the vastly overcrowded and pickpocket-swarmed Transmilenio (the city would need a metro but the geology is not helping in this intermontane valley with soft sediments and lots of rain ...)... His party is called "Cambio Radical", so I thought Stefan was running, but unfortunately still a statist.... I was surprised however to see in a flash the participation of Partido Libertario.... whut? But only 20.537 voters thought of that. Good enough to fill a nice village, but vain in a megacity filled with easily-deceivable people... But it may be that Daniel Raisbeck (very Colombian name ) was not sexy enough... The Manifest (El Manifiesto): I'll translate 1, 2 and the last one, 19: 1: El individuo El individuo es libre por naturaleza. Por ende puede escoger cómo vive su vida, desde las sustancias que consume hasta con quién establece asociaciones. Esa libertad no puede ser limitada por ente alguno ni coartada por decisiones de una mayoría. The Individual is free by nature. Por ende? Por eso, creo debe ser... That's why he can choose how to live his live, from the substances he takes to with whom he establishes relationships. That liberty cannot be limited por ente? por ninguno - by nobody nor coerced by decisions of a majority. Yeah, right, all agreed. 2: Estado limitado El Estado existe porque un conjunto de individuos lo crea voluntariamente y le otorga un poder limitado para que este proteja- a través del cumplimiento de la ley- los derechos naturales a la libertad, a la vida y a la propiedad privada. El Estado es responsable ante los individuos que le ceden un poder restringido y lo financian. No es legítimo que sus funcionarios extralimiten sus responsabilidades ni que se inventen nuevas competencias. Limited State The State exists because of a group of individuals creates it voluntarily and awards it a limited power to protect -by compliance of the law- the natural rights of liberty, life and private property. The State is responsible towards the individuals that grant it a restricted power and finance it. It is not legitimate that their employees exceed their responsibilities nor that they create new competencies for themselves. 19: Libertario Se tiene en cuenta que la libertad es un objetivo por el que se trabaja cada día, no una situación estática. En ese trabajo diario se pueden cometer errores que habrá que enmendar, o hacer desvíos que habrá corregir. Las políticas públicas se deben juzgar por sus resultados y no por sus intenciones. El pragmatismo debe primar sobre el dogmatismo. It's noticed that liberty is an objective [a choice of life I would call it] for which people work every day [stefan, you're not mentioned, what is this?], it is not a static situation. In this daily job people may commit mistakes that they will have to put right or drifts, detours (?) that one has to correct. The public policies should be judged by their results and not by their intentions. Pragmatism should have priority over dogmatism. Hmm, I don't know about Daniels message. Empty, hollow and strange sentences. Peaceful Parenting Colombia is very divided, unlike Western countries. So a lot of spanking among the lower classes, playground to win in the middle class and convincing of social responsibilities among the higher classes. Single Moms If 84 % single moms *The Truth about Single Moms - Stefan Molyneux really would be true for Colombia (sharply divided between classes) and all of these mothers were terrible terrible terrible (armed robberies are the main problem for other citizens, drug addictions, spanking, murders, lowest classes are crap. Low class is pleasant living), the state of the country would be on the floor and the opposite is true. The culture is very family-oriented and warm and I've seen enough first hand experiences with the lower, middle and a bit upper classes to tell those children are raised better than in Europe. Vandalism, useless violent drunken crimes like in the UK is not what you see here. Free Market What statist-corrupt countries bind is that it can be hard to do business. I don't think it scores high at the business scale. Yet if you have local contacts and speak at least reasonable Spanish there's a lot of market to gain. The work ethic in all year April-fresh-to-May-warm-to-October-rainy (not seldom in 1 day) Bogota is good, people work harder and longer than in Europe. US would be more, I guess. There's a lot of black market, great to see: There's potential here, with peaceful parenting. Children are raised well what I see around. PS: Mike, the topic is a bit more spread out than initially planned , feel free to move it to where you see fit please. Err, none of my images work. It says "You're not allowed to use this image extension [jpg??] on this forum", Mike do you know what's that about? I had quite some images in my OP...