Is America the most free country in the world? What's so great about America? Which countries have the most freedom? Which countries have the best human rights? And why are Singaporeans so unhappy?
WORK IN PROGRESS.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_United_States.svg)
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Chapter 1: What I think Europe does better than America.
Page 1: How Europe treats teens and children compared to America.
Pages 4-8: proportional representation, regulatory capture, cronyism, cars and more
Chapter 3: Responding to common complaints about America.
The conflicting definitions of freedom
Healthcare and college/university
Welfare state, low taxes, and inequality, and how to fix welfare
Unitary state/centralism vs federalism and localism
Weapon exports and war and peace
Climate change/global warming and COVID-19
How to fight the rise of fascism and Neo-Nazism
Freedom of speech, political correctness, racism
Is America the most free country in the world? Plus what's great about America.
and comment on a linked article depending on the topic (miscellaneous issues should go into Chapter 4. Closing talk.).
This article doesn’t represent my writing style, specifically collecting & presenting information. The book is a far better representation of my writing style as being information-packed & contains almost no swearing (except in embedded or linked videos).
Responders from Quora, Reddit, & other forums are not required to read the whole book before answering questions. If you do read the book, I recommend that you skip over war & Israel because people just can’t handle talking about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
A note to leftists.
Leftists, people who disagree with you are not lacking in compassion. People might not disagree with you only because the Koch Brothers, Ayn Rand, FOX, corporations, or whatever. Maybe, just maybe, other people have different ways of solving the same problems that you are trying to solve.
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Quickie: The Heartless Tin Man
“This is a very common form of ad-hominum in political discussions. Your opposition doesn’t agree with you because he just doesn’t care.
‘Why do you hate the poor? Won’t you think of the children?‘
You’re heard them all. So just when someone misrepresents a claim, we say, ‘you’re arguing against a straw-man’, when this happens, we should say, ‘you’re arguing against a tin-man’, because you’re arguing against a completely fictional opponent that doesn’t have a heart.
Like the straw-man fallacy, if you have to argue against the caricature of your opponent, you really have no argument to make at all.“
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I also ask that you watch the following two videos:
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I'm worried about humanity's future. by Mrwhosetheboss (25 minutes)
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Why the Right and the Left Hate Each Other by Whatifalthist. (18 minutes)
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Social psychologist Johnathan Haidt has studied how well conservatives, moderates, & leftists (liberal has been used as a synonym for leftist) can predict each other’s values.
Political Polarization & Media Habits - Pew Research Center
Introductory Chapter | The Righteous Mind
Reviews | The Righteous Mind (Believe it or not, good reviews have been left being by scientists, libertarians, & even leftists!)
What was found from a study was that conservatives & moderates did a good job at predicting the values of leftists, while leftists did a bad job at predicting the values of conservatives & moderates.
Born this Way? - Johnathan Haidt
Why you vote the way you do - The Week
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Addressing leftists, I don’t think myself as a callous man.
I support charity, am anti-war, accepting queers (such as homosexuals, bisexuals, & asexuals) as equals, support animal welfare (though I’m currently inactive on animal welfare), oppose circumcising children, support youth rights, & even oppose spanking.
Do those positions seem like positions held by a callous person to you?
If I have a different idea from you, does it mean that I don’t care if children are starving, or does it mean that I simply have different ideas on how to solve the same problems?
How would you feel if I accused you of loving Joseph Stalin because you agree with him that government should build roads, or that you love Mao Zedong or Pol Pot because you want to fix inequality?
Seriously, ask yourself that before accusing other people of being heartless tin man.
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So put down your echo-chamber made strawman & prepare to have your worldview challenged.
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"One of the things that drives me absolutely insane in debates is when I put a major point across & then the other person just nitpicks a bunch of minor details without touching the core point of the argument. It's depressing to see great men often get torn down from minor things they would have scarcely thought about & not considered for their greatest achievements. Sigmund Freud is mocked for penis envy in the Edifice complex rather than figuring out the underlying basis of modern psychology & the unconscious. An alternate figure, whether you love him or hate him, is Jordan Peterson, who is criticized for his comments on transgender people while the entire pseudo-religion he is construct based of Jungian psychology is completely ignored.
This is since our minds are inherently irrational & if we dislike someone since it's against our self-interest somehow, we look for reasons, no matter how petty, to do so, & since we don't want to come to terms with their core beliefs, we purposely misunderstand by nitpicking & trying to cut things in a lot of little ways. This may sound like a minor thing but it's actually a massive factor in tearing down successful interactions in people. The way you prevent big things from happening is by heckling them."
"If you're a teacher, the best way to discourage a student from being brilliant is by cutting them down by grading them too harshly for spelling mistakes. Society is built on cooperation. We can either structure it to be a negative force for criticism & belittlement or a positive one for encouragement & positive growth. Negative examples of this include stranger danger systems in which children were encouraged to view all strangers as dangerous, which resulted in a generation of isolated, unsocial & lonely people. Alternatively, academia's immense insistence upon exactness which cuts down genius & works of broad scope. We need to structure society with hope rather than fear, growth rather than littleness in mind."
Reason for the Myth:
. We look for reasons to dislike someone or something to dislike rather than engaging them full on and instead try to nitpick them to destruction.
Some Informative Books:
. The Righteous Mind by Johnathan Haidt.
. Envy by Helmut Schoeck.
. Tragedy and Hope by Carroll Quigley (the last 100 pages is very enlightening).
- Another 12 Lies About Reality.
Part 1. Let’s define freedom.
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Before we talk about how free America is compared to the world, we must define what freedom is. Here are the 4 common definitions of freedom in the world, from 1. The conflicting definitions of freedom:
Definition 1. Self-actualization. This is the Ancient, Aristocratic, & often right-wing/social conservative definition of freedom. You are freest when you are "your best self". For example, "if you studied hard, worked out at the gym, watched your diet, cultivated good & virtuous habits. This is you achieving self-actualization." This definition of freedom can be traced back to Aristotle & Fredrich Nietzsche. Many social conservatives argue that vices, such as pornography, prostitution, gambling, & drugs, prevent self-actualization.
Definition 2. Freedom from coercion. This is the classical liberal definition of freedom. You are free to walk down the street, but not to make anyone else carry you down the street. Your freedom to throw punches ends where someone else's face begins. This definition of freedom can be traced back to John Locke, Herbert Spencer, & F.A. Hayek. This definition seems to be more popular among parts of the United States of America & maybe even the Czech Republic & Estonia.
Definition 3. Convenience, lack of personal responsibility, and/or lack of boundaries. I am free to do whatever I want without boundaries. I am free to make you carry me down the street. In the words of YouTube user MAD Robot, "freedom is being unconstrained by responsibility... not having to worry about food, housing, education, transportation, healthcare, etc. not having to suffer the consequences of their own actions, playing the victim & blaming society or others for their own inadequacies." This definition of freedom is promoted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, & Jaques Derrida. This is the leftist definition of freedom.
Definition 4. Group self-determination. My tribe or my nation is free to govern itself. This is probably the definition of freedom outside the western world, though is a definition of freedom in the west.
To end this part about John Locke's Negative Rights definition of freedom versus the welfare state Positive Rights definition of freedom, I have what I call The Prisoner & The Bird Analogy. Most people don't think that The Prisoner is free because he is given a bed, toilet, food, water, & shelter. Most people don't think that the Bird is unfree because the bird needs to build his or her own nest & find his or her own mate, food & water. But if we purely use the Positive Rights definition of freedom, The Prisoner is freer than The Bird, & if we purely use the Negative Rights definition of freedom, The Bird is freer than The Prisoner.
Also according to the positive rights definition of freedom, in its pure form, a prisoner in solitary confinement has more freedom than his hunter-gatherer ancestors or primitive people like the Trobriand Islanders, as that the prisoner does not need to work to have a roof over his head & water & food on his table unlike his hunter-gatherer ancestors or primitive peoples.
I think that it would be accurate to say that Americans view themselves as a bunch of people living under a flag, while Europeans, by comparison, see themselves a part of one big happy family, of which the nation is an extension of, & view government almost like parents.
I will be using Definition 2: Freedom from coercion.
I make a far better case for freedom in my article
The conflicting definitions of freedom.
Tom Woods has also addressed the issue of liberty versus security in his article
An Open Letter to the Person Who Gave Me the Virus - Tom Woods
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A related issue is gratis versus libre. “The English adjective free is commonly used in one of two meanings: "at no monetary cost" (gratis) and "with little or no restriction" (libre). This ambiguity of free can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it often is in dealing with laws concerning the use of information, such as copyright and patents.
The terms gratis and libre may be used to categorise intellectual property, particularly computer programs, according to the licenses and legal restrictions that cover them, in the free software and open source communities, as well as the broader free culture movement. For example, they are used to distinguish freeware (software gratis) from free software (software libre).
Richard Stallman summarised the difference in a slogan: "Think free as in free speech, not free beer."“
(Free Beer sale on the Isummit 2008 illustrates "Free as in freedom, not free as in free beer": recipe and label shared openly under CC-BY-SA ("Free as in freedom") but not gratis ("free as in free beer") as the beer is sold for 500 Yen.
Isummit 2008, Japan, free beer crop)
So when I say “free“, think it as “free as in free speech, not free college“.
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As for how dangerous America is, here’s an excerpt from
Homicide Rates in US States and Canadian Provinces (FBI - Violent Crime, Homicide offences, number and rate, by province and territory - Statistics Canada):
Map:
Chart:
There are clear regional differences in many cases. States in the far north & far northeast of the United States report very low homicide rates while certain homicide "hotspots" apparently in Missouri, Maryland, Illinois, & the deep South are driving up US rates." - There's No Such Thing as an "American" Homicide Rate
In the US, 54% of counties have no murders in a year, while 2% of counties have 51% of the murders. So if you're outside of big metropolitan areas, statistically speaking, you are pretty safe from being a homicide victim.
When it comes to the Wuhan Bat Lab Flu, see this book/blog’s article
I don’t want charts to become approximately half of the article by length.
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Now that we finally got that out of the way, let’s continue…
Part 2.
Part 2.1 Comparing freedom in American states.
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What is great about America is that if you do not like the policies of one place, you do not need to move to another country. You can simply move to another state, another city within a state, & in most states, to another county.
Don’t like county governments? Alaska, Connecticut & Rhode Island.
Want to drive before you're 17? South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, & Idaho. Many other states allow 16-year olds to drive.
Want to use cannabis? Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, & Washington.
Don’t want to pay sales taxes? Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, & Oregon.
Don’t want to pay income taxes? Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, & Wyoming. New Hampshire only has income taxes on dividends & interest.
(Are There Any States with No Property Tax in 2021?)
Want legal prostitution & brothels? Nevada.
Conficted felon & want to vote? There are dozens of states where you can do that.
Want to own & carry knives? Alaska, Arizona, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Tennessee, & Wisconsin.
Want a license to carry a gun? Idaho.
Want to own guns? Alaska.
Want to have sex with a 16 year old? The South, & New England .
Want to be perfectly alone, smoke weed, have guns & pay few taxes with your 16 year old girlfriend (but don't mind the frigid arctic tundra?) Alaska. (I got that from a Quora user.)
Part 2.2. Freedom in Europe, & what’s great about Europe.
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(Most information comes from Wikipedia):
Want to drink at or even before you're 18? No problem in most of Europe.
Want to buy/sell sex? Plenty of countries where it's legal.
Want no corporate income tax? Latvia, & the United Kingdom Channel Islands of Isle of Man, Gurnsey, Jersey & Sark.
Dislike government school uniforms, speed limits on highways, or restrictions on advertising, eating, drinking, vaping or smoking? Germany.
Want to drive a moped before you're 18? You can be 14 & drive a moped in Estonia, Switzerland, Poland & Latvia, 15 in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Austria, Finland, Denmark, Spain & Germany, & 16 in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Belgium, Norway, & Sweden.
Want to drive before you're 18? Kosovo, Isle of Man, Gurnsey, Jersey, Iceland & the United Kingdom, with runner-ups being France, Estonia, Slovenia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Gibraltar, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany & Slovakia.
Want to be an adult at 16? Scotland (though you still need to wait 2 more years to get a gun license).
Prefer a flat tax? Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Estonia, Georgia, Gurnsey, Hungary, Jersey, Moldova, & Romania.
Want to use medical marijuana? Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, San Marino, & Switzerland.
Want to use cannabis without being prosecuted like a criminal? Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, & Switzerland.
Want recreational cannabis? Georgia & the Netherlands.
Want to home-educate? Ireland.
Want firecrackers? The Czech Republic is the best country for that.
Want to own & use suppressors? Norway, France & Finland.
Want unlimited capacity firearms magazines? Poland & Serbia.
Want black powder guns with no license? France, Poland, & Croatia are the best countries to be in, allowing both newly-manufactured blackpowder guns & revolvers.
Want airguns with no license? Bulgaria, the United Kingdom & the Netherlands are the best countries to be in.
Want modern long guns with no permit? Andorra, Austria, Greenland, Monaco, & Switzerland.
Want a shall-issue firearms license? 20 countries have you covered. 15 of them have shall-issue licenses for semi-automatic center-fire rifles, 16 of them have shall-issue licenses for handguns, & 14 of them have shall-issue licenses for both.
Want to conceal carry? Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, & Poland are all shall-issue jurisdictions for concealed carry licenses.
(Overview of gun laws by nation - Wikipedia)
(If you're curious about carrying weapons on board of ships & boats, read COMPARISON OF FLAG STATE LAWS ON ARMED GUARDS AND ARMS ON BOARD.)
Want the most personal freedom, most business freedom, & low taxes all combined? Try Estonia, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Poland, Monaco, & Andorra, almost exactly in that order.
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People of Scotland & Ireland: objectively speaking, your nation is far from the freest in Europe or the West. Putting it in polite terms, you have a long way to you.
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Other things I like about many European countries better than America is the culture regarding child-rearing.
Children & teens have more freedom in Europe than in America, & Europeans, for the most part, significantly less ageist against young people than Americans.
Even the right-wing commentator Freedom Alternative agrees:
10 things that suck about the USA, 19:04-28:32.
Why Dutch teenagers are among the happiest in the world
Chris Romer's answer to What are some interesting facts about Switzerland
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When it comes to why teenagers (I refuse to use the word "adolescent") should be treated more like adults, I'll refer to the article The Myth of the Teen Brain by Doctor Robert Epstein.
However, the writing that I recommend the very most is Doctor Robert Epstein's Teen 2.0: Saving Our Children and Families from the Torment of Adolescence.
Other pages from Dr. Robert Epstein are:
Teen 2.0.com
Adolescence & Adultness - Dr. Robert Epstein.
Trashing Teens | Psychology Today
Other authors that I support are Suparna Choudhury, Dr. Adriana Galvan, John Bruer, Dan Romer, Valerie F. Reyna, and Theodore D. Satterthwaite. Joseph Bronski is also an honorable mention.
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Teen & child abuse is a hell of a lot more pervasive in America than Europe;
6 Shocking Realities of the Secret 'Troubled Teen Industry'
Five Facts About the Troubled Teen Industry
The Trouble with Troubled Teen Programs – Reason.com
The “Troubled Teen” Industry - NYRA
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VIOLATED SCHOOLCHILDREN: Corporal punishment-induced trauma
ARE PADDLING SCHOOLS SANCTUARIES FOR SEXUAL PREDATORS?
How school paddling can derail sexual development in children
Violence toward children in the classroom
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Articles | Why Not Train A Child?
To Train Up A Child, or: Spare the Rod? What Rod?
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When it comes to addressing the issue of circumcision, Eric Clopper's presentation video Sex & Circumcision: An American Love Story by Eric Clopper is almost good enough.
Also, many European countries don’t require schoolchildren to wear uniforms, & some don’t have dress codes, & they’re doing just as well if not better than Americans.
How do you guys feel about dress codes in schools? r/AskAnAmerican
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"If the fires that burn inside youths are not intentionally and lovingly added to the hearth of community, they will burn down the structures of culture, just to feel the warmth." -Michael Meade.
(Image made with PictureQuotes.com and Michael Meade brings timeless tales to his hometown.)
People really need to take those words to heart.
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Though to be specific, youth rights is worth its own article;
How Europe treats teens and children compared to America.
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Conservative American society treat their children like dogs (or at least property), & wonder why their children go to the left reminds me of the German National Socialists treating Eastern Europeans as inferior peoples & wondering why they can’t get more allies against Stalin’s Soviet Union. As much as I disagree with the left, I do agree that right-wingers, while not necessarily evil, very often lack empathy (emotional empathy, to be specific. I’ve criticized leftists & their lack of values empathy).
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If it wasn’t for the weapon laws & political correctness, I’d raise children in Amsterdam (or alternatively Prague, Czech Republic, which I’ll get to in a minute), simply because it’s the place in the world where young people are treated best & where children & teens can be the most independent (look into Dutch parenting techniques).
My very close second choice would be Prague, Czech Republic. This is because young people already are relatively free in the Czech Republic, there are few taboos in Czech culture. But, the difference is, that there are shall-issue licenses to own & even carry firearms in the Czech Republic, in contrast to snowflake western Europeans who just about soil their pants at the thought of someone shooting someone for breaking into their home, & are terrified of death & pain in general.
Either way, contrast that to rural & Bible Belt Americans (& Utahns) who see that children are property that are obligated to obey them by some accident of birth, beat their children for petty or even harmless behaviors, or kick their teenage children from their homes because said teenage children reject their cult-church or otherwise dare to be people who won’t put up with their parent’s bullshit anymore & don’t want to be their parent’s bootlickers.
Brittney Jones's answer to How did an attempt to punish a child backfire? - Quora
The Best Exmormon Forum on the Internet! - Reddit
I know that I’m talking about the worst aspects of Bible Belt & rural Amerian culture & I apologize to those who treat their children well, but you get the idea.
I know that some right-wingers would scoff &/or rolls their eyes at me writing that I like Amsterdam. My answer to that is that maybe you shouldn’t spend every waking hour of your life in politics or the culture war, & take time out of politics & the culture war & decompress some. The libertarian commentator Styxhexenhammer666, who has a strong right-wing following, spends time living in Amsterdam. Tom Woods, a boomerconservative turned libertarian, who is Catholic, by the way, likes New York City.
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Politically, some additional advantages Europe has over America are:
. Proportional representation. Proportional representation lessens the need for the support of special interest groups , & incompetence, & corruption are more likely to be called out by lawmakers. This is a big reason as who why America has more problems with regulatory capture than Europe.
. Smaller populations spread out over a smaller area.
. More homogeneous populations. Some European countries, Denmark, & to a lesser degree, Norway, has became somewhat less accepting of immigration. In Denmark's case, they literally have less room to expand than even the mainland United Kingdom. Scandinavia's permafrost, & extremely cold winters make developing land difficult , & makes people reluctant to move far from the southern coasts.
. Most European countries are not landlocked, & all of the Scandinavian countries have long coast lines, giving them the ability to easily trade with the outside world. 1/3 of America's entire population lives over 100 miles from the coast or international borders, 27 U.S. states are landlocked (that is over half of the states), 16 of them are double landlocked (you need to pass through 2 states to get to the sea), & Nebraska is triple landlocked (no country in the world is triple landlocked). Most of the wealth in the world is concentrated on or near the coastlines, & America is no exception.
. By & large less car dependency. However, “Then there’s the issue of the privileged ivory-tower view. The dark secret is that most places in Europe don’t have any kind of public transportation. We’re talking about rural & remote areas outside of the big cities that they generally portray in movies. The European city that has excellent transit coverage & around-the-clock service is the exception, rather than the norm.“ - ✔July 2022 AMA - Answers by Shane Killian.
Part 2.3. Things that are great about America.
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Is America the freest country in the world?
Yes & no. The long answer is that, while America is not the best at any single aspect of freedom, it is good as an aggregate, & thanks to its decentralization, gives the individual more choices than any country in the world.
In short, America gives the individual more choices than any other single country can.
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America may not have the most:
. Personal freedoms. Even if drugs are legalized or decriminalized in your state, the federal government may still come after you. Prostitution is only legal in several counties in Nevada. Gambling is banned in some states, & restricted in others.
. Economic freedom. There are countries/territories with less regulatory capture or have simpler regulations, such as Singapore, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong in the past, etc. Business & occupational licensing vary from state to state.
. Lowest taxes. Anguila, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Pitcairn Islands, & Saint Kitts & Nevis all lack either corporate or income taxes. The U.S. used to have some of the highest corporate taxes in the world & the highest in the first world before 2017, & the complicated federal tax code alone creates a situation where mom-and-pop stores are paying more than 1/3 of their income to the federal government, while multi-billion dollar corporations pay virtually nothing because the latter can afford lawyers & accountants to find tax exemptions.
. Educational freedom (private schools & home education is legal in every state. However, this varies wildly depends on the state).
. Freedom to keep & bear arms (Yemen, & to a lesser degree, Pakistan are better on this).
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What America does have is that it is pretty good with freedom as an aggregate.
From the Bill of rights alone, you have a right to/freedom of:
. Religion.
. Speech/Press.
. Peaceful assembly.
. Due process.
. Speedy, public trial by an impartial jury.
. Confront and/or compel witnesses.
. Assistance of counsel (right to an attorney).
. No excessive fines or cruel or unusal punishments.
. Self-defense & to Keep & bear arms. Even in the most restrictive jurisdictions, such as New York City, firearms licenses are still shall-issue, & after NYSRPA v. Bruen, licenses to carry firearms are shall-issue. In Europe, while many countries have shall-issue licenses to own firearms, only 5 countries have shall-issue licenses to carry firearms, being the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, & Poland (Lithuania does not allow for rounds to be chambered except for revolvers, & in Poland, the police can restrict you from carrying).
. More freedom of speech & less censorship than much of Europe, Canada or Australia (the last of which is infamous for its internet censorship), specifically with hate speech laws.
. No warrantless or unreasonable searches & seizures (officially).
You can also own a television without a license.
America is the country in which if you don’t like living in Utqiagvik/Barrow, Alaska,
(https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/barrow-alaska)
you have the option of moving to Key West, Florida,
& you’re still in the political mainland. You can also drive or ride from Key West, Florida to Western Washington before needing a plane or boat to reach Alaska & drive to Prudhoe Bay.
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Go onto the interactive map
& you’ll see just how much choice you have.
Even in expensive cities, you still have the option to live in a van or recreational vehicle.
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Even when it comes to dealing with the legal system, Clive Stafford Smith, an activist who himself is British, between 18:42 & 20:10 in the video Is the Death Penalty Immoral?, Clive Stafford Smith said that he would rather deal with Arizona’s or even Missippi’s legal system than the British legal system. He says that Britian’s system is worse than Arizona’s system is several ways, being:
. (Presumeably) “More judges went to ‘posh private schools’” (which I guess he believes increases the disconnect between the rich & poor).
. Defense attorneys/solicitors don’t get police files.
. Defense is not allowed to talk to witnesses or at least certain witnesses.
. Jurors go to prison if they say anything about their experience.
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One advantage that America has over Europe is having far less language barriers. Let’s just say that you are interested in Estonia, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Poland, Monaco, & Andorra.
For those 8 countries, you’ll need to to know German (Switzerland, Liechtenstein), French (Switzerland, Monaco), Catalan (Andorra), Polish, Czech, Estonian, & Georgian for a total of 7 languages. That will take you across 5 language families, being the Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Uralic, & Kartvelian. Estonian & Georgian will be especially hard languages to learn, & I think that Georgian has almost nothing in common with the Germanic or Romance languages, & definitely doesn’t use Latin script.
In many countries, in order to enjoy certain freedoms, you must speak their language. For example, in the Czech Republic, after 2011, you have to take your test & practical exam for a gun license in Czech, & you can not use an interpreter/translator, & even at that, licenses are not shall-issue for all foreigners. This is very likely the case for other countries. It may also be a similar case to, say, start a business, though depending on the country, you may hire an accountant or lawyer to do it for you (which may be the case in Switzerland, being a good place to do business & how lots of rich people have bank accounts in Switzerland, though I’m not exactly sure).
Compare that to the U.S.. In the U.S., the only language that you really need to know is English. It makes things easier rather you’re dealing with an emergency, going about your daily life, paying taxes, starting a business, or getting a gun license.
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Racism:
Just watch:
Americans Whine Too BLOODY MUCH!
Larry Elder Interview | Book - 10 Things You Can't Say In America
The Moment LARRY ELDER changed DAVE RUBINS Mind Forever (Systemic Racism)
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More Than 750 Million Worldwide Would Migrate If They Could - Gallup
2015-2017, 158 million, or 21%. The runners-up are Canada & Germany, at 45 million, or 6%.
Top Desired Destinations for Potential Migrants
“U.S. Still Top Desired Destination for Potential Migrants
The countries where potential migrants say they would like to move -- if they could -- have generally been the same for the past 10 years. In fact, roughly 18 countries attract two-thirds of all potential migrants worldwide.
Although the image of U.S. leadership took a beating between 2016 & 2017, the U.S. continues to be the most desired destination country for potential migrants, as it has since Gallup started tracking these patterns a decade ago.
One in five potential migrants (21%) -- or about 158 million adults worldwide -- name the U.S. as their desired future residence. Canada, Germany, France, Australia & the United Kingdom each appeal to more than 30 million adults.”
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The belief that small-town & rural Americans are racist is a misconception. But what is true that they do have a stronger in-group preference than urban Americans. They prefer their tight-knit community, & when you enter their domain, you must pass a test or at least spend time with them before you are welcomed into the tribe, unlike big city people who are quicker to accept outsides. This applies to rural people pretty much worldwide.
What do Non-Whites Like About the Left?
Turn off CNN or whatever is on television, close out any mainstream media or social media pages, close your MacBook, put your iPad away, put your iPhone in your pocket, get out of your coffee shop or university/college campus, maybe get into your Toyota Prius, Subaru or Volvo, & experience the real world, not the media world.
Or as the meme says, go touch some grass.
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A piece of advice I have if you’re immigrating to America is to get a job in the trades. Examples of trades jobs would be plumber, electrician, mechanic, welder, construction worker, & industrial plant worker.
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Cheapest new cars to lease and cheap reliable new cars
Reliable cars for under $1,000
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I’d like to compare America’s Empty Quarter to Southeast Asia, based on Explaining America's Nine Nations part 2 & Explaining South-East Asian Civilizations. I know that it’s superficial, but I’ll do it anyway.
In many ways, the EQ & SEA are polar opposites, with the EQ being sparsely populated, mostly temperate or desert, mostly landlocked & is culturally one of the most individualistic societies in the world, while SEA is densely populated, tropical, & has some of the most collectivist societies in the world.
But, what I see that’s similar between the EQ & SEA is that they, by & large, avoid some of the very worst aspects of their parent societies.
In SEA, they never had a Caste System as strong as India, never had Islamic fanaticism as bad as the middle east (extending into Afghanistan & Pakistan), & Vietnam never had a tyrant as bad as China.
In the EQ, despite being extremely rural, is less socially conservative than the American South, never doing stuff like lynching blacks or paddling children as badly as the south. Colorado leftism is more about smoking marijuana & protecting the environment than fundamentally changing western civilization, & from what I’ve read, Colorado is politically a pretty moderate place. Though I’d compare Utah to Aceh Province, Indonesia, with Utah being extremely religious & conservative with the Morman Chruch being extremely influential in the state, while Aceh has straight-up Shariah law. Though to be fair, Utah has banned corporal punishment in its government schools since 1992, & quickly got rid of racial segregation.
I’d also like to compare the American South to the West Coast & Northeast Megaopolis as if they were India, Islam & China. I’d compare the West Coast & Northeast Megaopolis to China, being obsessed in education, urbanized, & is ruled by a big government, while the American South would be Islam & India, being insanely socially conservative (the American South is probably the most socially conservative place in western civilization) & backwards, & by & large, people don’t trust the government, preferring to work with their families or local communities.
Like I said, these comparisons are superficial.
Part 3. The Conflict Of Values.
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Many Europeans think of themselves are being more civilized than Americans. I do not entirely disagree with them, considering how European children & teens tend to be treated better than their American counterparts, but this is, nonetheless, very one sided.
Whenever Europeans, North Europeans, Canadians, Australians & so on say that they’re more civilized than Americans, what they really mean is that they value harm more than Americans. Western Europeans (including Scandinavians), on average, overall value harm significantly more than Americans. Progressives also heavily value harm, which is why so many leftists like Europe. This is in contrast to libertarians who value liberty, & Turning Point USA & Hank Hill moderate conservatives who are balanced.
That is based on the book The Righteous Mind by Johnathan Haidt.
(The Virtual Philosophy Club: Moral Foundations - "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt)
Harm - Hurting others is wrong.
Liberty - People should not be oppressed by their social superiors.
Fairness - People should reap what they sow (I think merit is a better word).
Loyalty - One should be loyal to the group.
Authority - Respect for status.
Purity - Integrity of form such as culture, ideology, or genetics must be maintained.
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The video The 6 Most Extreme Societies Ever(We’re One). from 13:00 to 16:23 talks about how the modern west values harm, or the belief that harming others is the worst thing possible over any other value.
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I’ve seen several commentators claim that Americans value Harm more than Europeans, which I disagree with. To prove this, let me ask Scandinavians & Western Europeans if they would support all of the following:
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. Adopting weapon laws similar to the Czech Republic. Shall-issue licenses to posses assault weapons & to conceal carry pistols. Possessing police batons, pepper spray & knifes are completely unregulated for adults.
. Abolishing hate speech laws.
. Abolishing Holocaust Denial laws.
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If they say “No“ to any of the above, I think that’s evidence that Western Europeans (& Scandinavians, by extension) value Harm more than Americans.
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For more evidence, go to
Put in a url from the following videos, & search “Europe“;
Gun Gripes #103: "The Sheep Mentality"
UK to ban KITCHEN knives? - Sacrificing freedom for security?
Elderly NYC store clerk ARRESTED for defending himself against abusive criminal - fk NYC
Self-defense laws - Minimal force to protect criminals?
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Also, in Germany in 2012, there were attempts to ban circumcision which were unsuccessful (this doesn’t give me confidence that the Europeans have the willpower to stand up for values & principles).
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Look at those comments. Think about them for a minute.
And that’s my point.
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Contrary to what the media tells you, Stand Your Ground laws does are not a license to kill. All they mean is that you can defend yourself without being sent to prison.
Stand Your Ground Laws: An Angry Rant
Stand Your Ground Laws Increase Violent Homicide Rates!
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Anyways, I don’t think that Europeans, Canadians & Australians value harm more than Americans because they’re smarter or more civilized, but because of a combination of the World Wars, the Holocaust, urbanization, & the rise of the technocratic state.
For Europe, a combination of the World Wars & the Holocaust caused a PTSD & a knee-jerk reaction in which people went out of their way be the opposite of the Nazis, which led to the belief that all harm is bad. "Nazism was so evil & horrifying that much of Europe afterwards basically decided to go for the exact opposite. While the Nazis were nationalistic, hyper, masculine, racist, & militaristic, modern Europe is transnational, generally dislikes aggression, is multicultural & pacifist" (The Future of Ideology., 19:16-19:32). This is further talked about in A Final 8 Taboo Questions about History and Society. from 18:14-24:07.
Urbanization led to a rise of Progressive values. It is simply a matter of fact that, in the west, left-wing ideas are strongest in cities. Academia & the media are also concentrated in cities, which is why they’re so left-wing & is why they want to reform society so much. America’s population is more rural/small town than Europe, which I think is the reason why America is somewhat more conservative than Europe. Likewise, in Canada & Australia, most of the population is concentrated in just several big cities. The rise of the technocratic state also goes with this.
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Daniel Hannan
Daniel Hannan - A Warning To America
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I’ll also deconstruct the social conservatism of Southern Americans.
Before the American Civil War, the American South was wealthy, cosmopolitan, & actually more college educated than the American North. The state of Mississippi was one of the wealthiest states in the union, & after the Civil War, became one of the very poorest. Up until the 1950’s, the South became so poor that many people could not even afford shoes, which lead to a lot of people having hookworm, a parasite that makes one lethargic, which created the stereotype of the lazy, lethargic southerner.
Civil War on vid.ancreport.com
Reconstruction on vid.ancreport.com
The American Civil War & the Reconstruction era accentuated Southern religiosity, strong social conservatism, & created lynching & Jim Crow laws (segregation) as a backlash. The American South is prone to natural disasters (Texas is the most disaster prone state in the Union), & inland states are poorer, have harsher climates, more isolated, & more rural than coastal states, which makes them more religious & socially conservative. There’s also studies that show correlations between societies experiencing disease & supporting authoritarianism, which was touched on after 12:48 in How Disgust Drives Society, History and the Right.
Trends in Teen Pregnancy and Childbearing
Legality of corporal punishment in government schools
PADDLING & LYNCHING In The United States
In my personal opinion, whenever the American South take up its positions on issues such as segregation, gun control, sex education, abortion, school corporal punishment, gay marriage or COVID, it’s upholding said positions & general crassness mainly out of tribalism (& I say that as someone who does support State’s Rights & oppose gun control & COVID restrictions).
I’d say that both Western Europeans & rural & Bible Belt Americans both value authority, but it’s simply they they follow different authorities. Urban Americans, Canadians, Australians, Scandinavians & Western Europeans all follow the mainstream media, academia, & government as their authority figures. Utahans, rural & Bible Belt Americans follow their church & religious leaders as their authority figures.
While conservative America was far less conservative than the Asian civilizations (Islam, India, & Confucian East Asia, all of which faced centuries of humiliation &/or conquest at the hands of the West), it nonetheless clearly has its flaws, with teen birth rates & STD infections being examples.
But it could be worse. Take the Opium Wars, in which the Qing Dynasty’s fleet faced steamships of Britian’s Royal Navy, East India Company, & the French Navy. Guess who won?
"Any person not stuck in an intellectual lockbox can see that western cannons were better, & drill was objectively better, but these were societies that had made reform evil. These Asian civilizations had become so conservative as to make them stupid."
- How to Kill a Civilization….
(Destroying Chinese war junks, by E. Duncan)
While the American South is a part of western civilization, it definitely does diverge from Western Europe.
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While I wish the right would value empathy more, I also wish that the left would be more empathetic. But it’s not emotional empathy that people usually mean when they use the word ‘empathy’, but rather, values empathy. Instead of arguing, or worse, screaming at someone who doesn’t agree with you on an issue, try appealing to what your opponent cares about.
For example, if I was talking to a socially Christian paleoconservative, I’d point out to them secular states & irreligious nations that fit their values of nationalism, self-preservation, or keeping & bearing arms. Examples of nations would be Estonia & the Czech Republic, which are some of the least religious nations in the world, but have very little immigration, shall-issue licenses to posses assault weapons & conceal carry firearms, & still manage to ave low crime rates & very much be first world countries & nice places to live. New Hampshire is a similar case. Examples of secular states would be Japan & Singapore. Japan is by & large irreligious, but are famous for having low immigration. Singapore is a secular state that is extremely socially conservative.
Maybe if I was talking to a Muslim, I’d cite Syria. Syria is a secular state, but is one of the best countries at standing up to Israel, which is helped in part by civic nationalism, in which everyone regardless of their faith or tribe can be united as a nation-state. Syria also had one of the lowest divorce rates in the world before the Syrian war & COVID.
Part 4. Convenience & Safety Versus Freedom.
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Three things you need to know about are institutionalization/institutional syndrome, learned helplessness, & Stockholm syndrome.
Your ancestors ran around, dealing with blazing heat, pouring rain, blizzards, regularly getting bug bites, dealing with disease, & fighting off all types of predators, such as wolves, lions, tigers, & bears, to name a few.
What went wrong?
So here’s how you became weak, rather you’re an Asian who fears chaos or a Western European, Canadian or Australian who fears death & pain.
You were probably born in a regulated hospital. You probably went to a controlled daycare with controlled activities. You are sent to school.
In school, just like prison, there is an authoritarian structure, dress code, emphasis on silence & order, negative reinforcement, made to walk in lines, lose individual autonomy, abridged freedoms, no input in decision making, & have set times enforced for walking, eating, & so on.
After graduating grade school, you get slotted into college based on a test score where you are fed a created ideology, & then you work a job, doing only what your boss tells you to do, & working at appointed hours.
It’s completely in the interest of a government to pacify its population.
To better explain this, I recommend watching the video
(I do NOT agree with everything that Larken Rose says & I consider him to be utopian. But he’s made a few good arguments.)
Freedom is a little bit inconvenient, uncomfortable, even dangerous. But I think is is worth forgoing a little convenience, comfort, & safety for happiness.
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Read the essay Industrial Society and Its Future, which was written by a child prodigy & Harvard Professor. One of the points made in the essay is how difficult it is to have agency over your life & how it makes you miserable.
Part of my reasoning for being a libertarian is to give about as much agency as possible to the individual, as that I believe that it’s up to the individual to find meaning & happiness, & nobody else.
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"Are we in a zoo?
So far the things I've talked about are the things that most of you could probably figure out on your own on an intuitive basis. Sure, technology in our society's culture creates problems with dating. However, the thing I'm going to propose next is something a lot of you probably can't even imagine, and will unsettle a lot of your world Views. This is that Urban humans today have lots of behaviors reminiscent of zoo animals. Zoo animals experience tremendous anxiety, pace around, have weird ticks like licking off their fur, overeating have to use drugs, masturbate obsessively, be unable to have children, grinding their teeth, over grooming, and depression, all of which are normal in modern industrial societies.
The biggest primatologist of the last century, Desmond Morris, has written several fascinating books to talk about this. I mean, in all reality, how different is modern industrial civilization in all actuality from a zoo? Many of us live in highly controlled boxes that we barely leave, especially with the internet, our society protects us from any real threats, we do monotonous tasks to get our daily supply of food, we're surrounded by strangers at all times, and we really don't have control of our lives, rather, large transnational forces do, and the like.
I like the quote, 'What you do to others will happen to you', and humanity, after centuries or millennia of caging its animals, has put itself into a cage. The thing to consider is that we aren't that different at all from those animals. We evolved to live in the wild in religious tribes in the wilderness, struggling together against the wild. Once you remove those conditions, we've stopped doing the things we evolved to do in the first place. In the same way that those lions and elephants should not be stuck in cages and should be out in their packs in the wild living their lives even if they're much safer in the zoos."
"An important comparison that ought to be made between zoo animals and modern industrial societies of the lack of agency. Although I don't condone terrorism, I think Ted Kaczynski makes an interesting point on how difficult it is to have power over your life in modern society, how we feel like useless cogs in the machine. We're surrounded by uncaring strangers and the machine of industrial bureaucratic civilization. We work in large corporations for a boss that doesn't give a fuck about us, who tells us when and how to work, where the only thing expected of us is obedience and our time. We often live in big cities that make us feel like ants, and when we get old, we get shoved into retirement homes while we were raised by strangers and daycares and taught at schools to make us useful little cogs.
You need to compare this to the pre-modern world where almost everyone you dealt with was someone you knew from childhood, and your only Authority and government was the local Lord and priest. The greatest scholar of depression today, Johann Hari, has from studies found the conditions of powerlessness kind of cause our spirits to die, for us to lose creativity, initiative, and the like, and I'm guessing, sexual virility."
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Why won’t people desire freedom?
“Something that always confused me in my personal life was why people were so scared of social pressure. I’m a person who is naturally wired to not care a lot about what others think about me, & I always found it confusing why in high school, for instance, trying hard at things & being earnest was looked down upon while it actually produced amazing results. Similarly, why people are so scared to try things that might fail, even if it costs them nothing but wasted effort & emotion, like starting a business or side hustle, romantically reaching out to a potential partner or starting a new hobby.
This is because our minds were designed for hunter-gatherer communities of a couple dozen or so rather than millions of people. The people that survived were those that got along with the small group of people that they’s have to share their lives with. Someone like me would probably have been murdered by the rest of the tribe for showing why some tribal superstition was, from my perspective, clearly false.
Most humans are naturally conditioned to get along & undershoot their potential, since without the size of social hierarchies as they are now, there is simply less to gain from extreme risk taking. From a genetic basis, the people who make up our current political, CEO [chief executive officer] & leadership classes, in general, are insane genetic outliers that are wired to expend massive amounts of effort & succeed by gambling being disliked with massive success. In a hunter-gather community, the most success you can have is making a big bison kill.
At the same time, not getting along with the group of people who you’d live with for your entire life would be very dangerous.
Take the East Asian saying that ‘the tallest blade of grass gets cut down first‘, which basically tells people to not show too much initiative & differentiation from the group. The variable superstitious cult of the evil eye that has traditionally existed across Asia & the Mediterranean is a great example of envy“. “People desperately tried to avoid getting the evil eye, or the envious curse of their neighbors that will bring ills upon them.
This is because these are societies that haven’t really had the rule of law develop, with arbitrary, often cruel authorities. This means that pleasing & not offending people, rather your compatriots in the same social caste you’d have to live with or your social superiors that you were dependent upon was really important, since there is no system of fair courts & government if things go wrong. The best way to not get killed as a witch was not to offend people in your local community enough that they’d make up evidence against you that you are a witch.” - How Envy Drives Society, History and the Left.
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Singapore ranked lower than impoverished and/or war-torn countries such as Liberia, Haiti, Syria, Central African Republic, Iraq, Afghanistan, & even war-torn & starving Yemen (though I would rather live in Singapore than any of the aforementioned countries).
Latin Americans Most Positive in the World/Singaporeans are the least positive worldwide - Gallup
I don’t know about you, but Singapore’s lack of freedom, not to mention the astronomical cost of living & being a crowded place to be. I would also want my children to have actual childhoods that are happy, instead of being miserable automatons.
Is Singapore a Libertarian Paradise? - Foundation for Economic Education
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(This reminds me of part of the reason why people don’t use Linux as their desktop operating system, in which people have been institutionalized by using proprietary operating systems, such as Windows, MacOS, and ChromeOS their whole lives.
Linux is Too Hard - A Solution!
Why Linux is the worst Desktop Operating System (for certain people)
(For a tutorial to install and use Linux, see Please Stop Using Windows....))
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As for Cuban healthcare? Don’t make me laugh.
Infant Mortality Is a Misleading Statistic for International Comparisons - Mises Institute
Don't Trust Cuban Health Care Statistics - Mises Institute
People Love to Move to States Paul Krugman Hates Most - Mises Institute
The NHS, life expectancy and America's health care debate. - Clasically Liberal
John Stossel pwns Michael Moore
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A reason why Asians are so accepting of authoritarianism & even totalitarianism is because of the Mongol Empire, which was so cruel that people are willing to give up almost anything to not experience it again.
(The Mongolian empire at its territorial peak (1279))
(World Press Freedom Day: Map shows the countries with the least press freedom in the world)
This is also mentioned in What if the Mongol Invasions Never Happened? & Understanding Orthodox Civilization.
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Here’s an excerpt from The Dangerous Idea of the Greater Good;
"There's a ton of laws still on the books designed to shape society for the 'greater good'. Public dress codes, free speech zones, the FCC's censorship of TV and radio, of Washington wives, prostitution laws, restrictions on home schooling and private schools, the War on Drugs, Eminent Domain, Civil Asset Forfeiture. Even the stuff most people think is not that bad, like occupational licensing, zoning restrictions, or anti-smoking laws, are based in the same kind of utilitarian thinking. At the core of all of this, is the idea that individual people's interests and values just aren't that important. And really, what we should learn from this is that, as positive and well-meaning as the whole thing seems, more often than not, the 'greater good' isn't a reflection of what's best for everyone, but if what's best for the people in power.
And as long as people don't think about it too much or fight back, it all kind of works out, but it breaks down pretty quickly when someone challenges the status quo. No society is going to be perfect, and of course different communities will probably always set some rules on what people can do, but perhaps we should at least start with the presumption that everyone should be free to live their lives however they want. Instead of forcing society to fit our own personal preferences, a single 'greater good' for everyone might be a myth, but the good for individual people that comes from tolerating a diverse society where everyone can pursue their own interests without fear of fines jail of being killed."
Part 5. Economic situation.
I’d just like to mention that European Union has fallen behind & shrunken as a share of the global economy since 1970. In 1970, the European Union was over 35% of the world’s economy, & in 2015, under 25%. Meanwhile, the United States, by comparison, remained at approximately 25% of the world’s economy.
(The decline of Europe - whythings.net)
The EU has shrunk as a percentage of the world economy - Full Fact
Global Talent Flows (Last page.)
The Gift of Global Talent: Innovation Policy and the Economy - Harvard Business School
Part 6. Comparing psychological shadows.
America’s shadows:
. Capitalism, regulatory capture & corporatocracy.
. Sexual freedom (with bans on prostitution & overzealous prosecutions).
. Incarceration rates & victimless crimes in general.
Europe’s shadows:
. Superficial cosmopolitianism in the form of political correctness.
. Weapon exports to imperialist & authoritarian regimes.
. Neocolonialism (France & the United Kingdom).
Part 7. In the end…
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. America is not the freest country in the world by any single measure.
. America is a decently free country by most measures & one of the freest all things considered.
. No single country can give the individual as much choice as America. Only the entire area of Europe is a real rival, & the Europe has its own set of problems as already mentioned.
. America is far, far, far from the worst country in the world.
. America is not some borderline dog-eat-dog dystopia that some people think it is.
. Americans can learn better attitudes towards child-rearing & sex from the Dutch, while Europeans can take a hint about self-defense & psychological strength from Americans.
America is a highly flawed country, but in total is no worse than any 2nd or 3rd world country.
Conservative Americans tend to not be interested in other cultures, unless looking at other cultures with contempt. Leftist Americans are interested in Europe, but very superficially & rather selectively as I’ve written.
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I’m sorely disappointed at political discourse right now. Much of what I’ve written can easily be found if you just put in the slightest amount of effort from sources as mainstream as Wikipedia (specifically, personal freedoms). Believe it or not, even the very best military & intelligence organisations utilize open-source intelligence.
“For all the focus most writers and the general public place on bold high-risk operations, the majority of useful intelligence has been and probably will continue to be gathered through open sources. This means newspapers, blogs, media, and anything else that anybody can have a gander at. To quote General Anthony Charles Zinni, USMC (Ret.), former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Central Command (CINCENT): "80% of what I needed to know as CINCENT I got from open sources rather than classified reporting. And within the remaining 20%, if I knew what to look for, I found another 16%. At the end of it all, classified intelligence provided me, at best, with 4% of my command knowledge."
“An example of just how simple intelligence gathering can be: after writing The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy was visited by government agents who were very put out that the book had discussed highly classified aspects of modern submarine technology. Clancy was able to get off the hook by showing that he had gotten all his information by going to the local library, reading up on unclassified information there, and just doing a little extrapolating. All that top-secret information was essentially lying around in the open for anyone who cared to invest in nothing more than a library card and a few hours of studying.”
Boring But Practical / Real Life - TV Tropes
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There is no such thing as a perfect country. There is no such thing as a perfect country. There is no such thing as a perfect country.
Every country in the 1st World has its advantages & disadvantages. You just have to prioritize with which values you care about the most.
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There are lots of reasons why people hate America.
By no means all, but definitely, some envy. America is the world’s beating heart in the economy, politics, & so on.
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Libertarianism also fails to motivate people the way religious fanaticism does, & pushes against every single power interest there is, with the possible exception of merchants who can gain success in a market economy.
In general, libertarianism gets opposition from:
. Government officials & bureaucrats who will be either unemployed, or if they are employed, have little power to change society as they see fit, &/or lose aid/subsidies from other stronger, richer governments.
. Academics (teachers & college/university professors) because it will not give them cushy unionized white-collar careers nor power to make sweeping changes change society as they see fit.
. Priest class/religious leaders who want to tell other people what to do.
. The Warrior Class (military, paramilitary, law enforcement & intelligence organisations), who may feel handicapped by libertarianism.
. Big businesses who want government bailouts, subsidies & regulatory capture.
. Lazy people who want welfare.
. People who feel helpless, especially in a structured society who fear that they’ll struggle without assistance from the state.
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However, I do have long-term optimism for both libertarianism & mankind as a whole:
The Four Trends of the 21st Century., 19:30-25:00.