The Land of the Free - US or EU?

[Saigon]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

 

[American_Jihad]

Sweden’s March Into Oblivion

December 20, 2013 by Bruce Bawer

Sweden is self-destructing, and more and more people are writing about it – but, with very few exceptions, still not in the mainstream Swedish media, where denial continues to reign supreme. Indeed, even as concerned observers abroad (especially in neighboring Denmark and Norway, where the elites still look to their larger neighbor as a multicultural role model while many, if not most, ordinary householders view it as a cautionary example) are sounding the alarm about the fallout of Swedish immigration policies, Sweden’s own mainstream media – and the rest of its cultural establishment – are laboring overtime to silence the truth-tellers and keep the rabble from openly questioning the wisdom of their betters.

Case in point: recently, in an attempt to win back the nearly 30 percent of male union members between ages 18 and 49 who support the heterodox Sweden Democrat Party, LO, the country’s powerful confederation of trade unions (think of the AFL-CIO at the height of its powers and multiply by two or three), spent a big chunk of cash to demonize the Sweden Democrats, painting them as a pack of fascists. (Never mind that LO’s own oppressive, ideologically lockstep alliance with the political establishment is right out of the Mussolini playbook.) One rare recent exception to the Swedish media’s see-no-evil approach to immigration and its consequences was a fascinating map, published last month in the newspaper Sydsvenskan, showing the relative levels of danger in the various neighborhoods of Malmö, the city that is regarded by many cogent observers as the ninth circle of the Scandinavian inferno.

Meanwhile, as I say, the admonitory essays keep coming. One example: “Sweden’s Race to the Bottom,” a bracingly frank piece that appeared on December 4 on the website of Jyllands-Posten, Denmark’s biggest newspaper. The author, Morten Uhrskov Jensen, didn’t mince words. His opening sentence: “Sweden has chosen to break down.” Jensen went on to outline the steady slide in the quality of education in Swedish primary schools over the last decade or so, as detailed in a recent PISA study, and to link that decline to what Jensen bluntly called the country’s “insane immigration policy.” Sweden, warned Jensen, “will have to pay a very high price for its experiment with permitting excessive immigration from dysfunctional states.” He placed special blame on the media, noting that in an article about the PISA study, Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest paper (and, as he put it, “official Sweden’s mouthpiece&#8221, chose to ignore the real reason for the school crisis and to pretend it’s all the fault of “the decline in equality in schools,” which, in turn, is a result of “free school choice.” Reacting to this transparent hogwash, Jensen commented: “One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

...

Thursday evening processions, which showed the pious multicultural multitudes flaunting yet again their proud refusal to test their common ideology against reality, I couldn’t help pondering the melancholy question: are they really unaware that they’re marching their country into oblivion, or are they consciously embracing extinction in the belief that even self-slaughter is preferable to being called a racist?

Sweden?s March Into Oblivion | FrontPage Magazine

 

[asterism]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

"Christian Democrat on the right."

That should tell you why the EU isn't particularly free. There is little choice in politics unless you want to go for the very fringe groups. Fiscal conservatism is virtually non-existent in the EU.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Fiscal conservatism = anti-science and infrastructure

Oh noo's you can't be exploring that or building that as I am a penny pinching asshole.

 

[asterism]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

The US leads the world in self-made millionaires and billionaires. You're also applying the same "poor" standard in the US to the "poor" standard in Europe and they are far from parallel. Europe has many truly poor people, those who have no means to access food and shelter.

The "poor" in the US generally own their own homes and/or have multiple cars, are overweight (meaning they aren't starving) and have excellent healthcare.

 

[asterism]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

How long have you lived in the US, if ever?

There's a night and day difference. A quip such as "staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom" tells me you don't quite get it. After all, the slaves from centuries passed were "free" to be "alive" right?

No.

 

[theHawk]

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

The murder rates are not much lower than what most of America has. America's high murder rates are caused by black and Latino thugs killing each other in their hoods. Middle class white American neighborhoods are just as safe if not more so than Europe. Without a few spots like Detroit, Chicago, Oakland, DC, ect....America is just as safe.

 

[Indofred]

What about other countries.
There are loads of names on ballot papers here but we aren't being spied on by anyone except America and Australia.

 

[The Rabbi]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

Europe will be a Muslim colony in about 75 years. With a shockingly low birthrate and economic stagnation the only population growth comes from Muslims, who are intent on Europe's destruction.
How free is Europe? Try publishing cartoons critical of Islam and find out.

 

[Esmeralda]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

I agree. From what I know of the EU, having lived there for 4 years and additionally, now spending 2-3 months there every year, I think not only are Europeans freer but they are a good deal happier.

 

[Esmeralda]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

The US leads the world in self-made millionaires and billionaires. You're also applying the same "poor" standard in the US to the "poor" standard in Europe and they are far from parallel. Europe has many truly poor people, those who have no means to access food and shelter.The "poor" in the US generally own their own homes and/or have multiple cars, are overweight (meaning they aren't starving) and have excellent healthcare.

This is totally untrue today about poor people in Europe. There are far more poor people in the US, and they are citizens. The only truly poor people in the EU are undocumented aliens who do not have access to social services.

You obviously do not know anything about the poor in your own country. They generally do not own a home, do not have excellent medical care. You have a vision of a certain type of person who takes advantage of the social welfare system: you have a vision that is not true for the actual poor in America. And you do not even consider the millions of Americans living on the streets or in cars, in shelters, in old run down shacks and trailers with no running water, heat, w/o decent food and clothing. You think these people don't exist? They do. And they are American citizens.

With the exception of Romania, no developed country has a higher percentage of kids in poverty than America. Similarly, America also has a remarkably high percentage of people living in what is called “deep poverty,” at less than half the official poverty rate.

http://www.thenation.com/article/176242/americas-shameful-poverty-stats#

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I agree. From what I know of the EU, having lived there for 4 years and additionally, now spending 2-3 months there every year, I think not only are Europeans freer but they are a good deal happier.

My emphasis.
I think you are right, I saw a bit on Fox news awhile back about the "happiness scale".
IMO - Americans in general are lost. We have become mindless-blind consumerist-zombies, always looking to get the next thing we want. Where else can you see people who can barely afford their rent, have no money in their savings and constantly behind on bills - walk around with the latest iPhone...40" TV in their living room and can't wait to bang out their credit card to get the XBox One? All the while fighting with each other, ignoring our children because we are under so much stress?

 

[Peterf]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

1. Under PR you may well have a choice of 10 or 15 parties to vote for but you have no say in which combination a few will get together to form a government. A coalition is a certainty - and nobody gets a vote for a coalition. In the US the choice is clear cut.

2. In Finland the schools may be "great" but in the two EU countries I know well, Sweden and the UK, they are most certainly not. In the UK many of the Universities are dreadful.

4. I agree that crime rates are low. Unless, of course, one has the misfortune to live is some immigraant dominate city like Malmö or Göteborg.

Freedom of speech is much better in the US for the individual. And the US media is far more diverse. In Sweden the entire print and broadcast media is in the hands of the ultra-PC moderate to far left.

So I disagree with much of what you say. Now I shall read other's comments.

 

[Peterf]

Sweden’s March Into Oblivion

December 20, 2013 by Bruce Bawer

Sweden is self-destructing, and more and more people are writing about it – but, with very few exceptions, still not in the mainstream Swedish media, where denial continues to reign supreme. Indeed, even as concerned observers abroad (especially in neighboring Denmark and Norway, where the elites still look to their larger neighbor as a multicultural role model while many, if not most, ordinary householders view it as a cautionary example) are sounding the alarm about the fallout of Swedish immigration policies, Sweden’s own mainstream media – and the rest of its cultural establishment – are laboring overtime to silence the truth-tellers and keep the rabble from openly questioning the wisdom of their betters.

Case in point: recently, in an attempt to win back the nearly 30 percent of male union members between ages 18 and 49 who support the heterodox Sweden Democrat Party, LO, the country’s powerful confederation of trade unions (think of the AFL-CIO at the height of its powers and multiply by two or three), spent a big chunk of cash to demonize the Sweden Democrats, painting them as a pack of fascists. (Never mind that LO’s own oppressive, ideologically lockstep alliance with the political establishment is right out of the Mussolini playbook.) One rare recent exception to the Swedish media’s see-no-evil approach to immigration and its consequences was a fascinating map, published last month in the newspaper Sydsvenskan, showing the relative levels of danger in the various neighborhoods of Malmö, the city that is regarded by many cogent observers as the ninth circle of the Scandinavian inferno.

Meanwhile, as I say, the admonitory essays keep coming. One example: “Sweden’s Race to the Bottom,” a bracingly frank piece that appeared on December 4 on the website of Jyllands-Posten, Denmark’s biggest newspaper. The author, Morten Uhrskov Jensen, didn’t mince words. His opening sentence: “Sweden has chosen to break down.” Jensen went on to outline the steady slide in the quality of education in Swedish primary schools over the last decade or so, as detailed in a recent PISA study, and to link that decline to what Jensen bluntly called the country’s “insane immigration policy.” Sweden, warned Jensen, “will have to pay a very high price for its experiment with permitting excessive immigration from dysfunctional states.” He placed special blame on the media, noting that in an article about the PISA study, Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest paper (and, as he put it, “official Sweden’s mouthpiece”), chose to ignore the real reason for the school crisis and to pretend it’s all the fault of “the decline in equality in schools,” which, in turn, is a result of “free school choice.” Reacting to this transparent hogwash, Jensen commented: “One doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

...

Thursday evening processions, which showed the pious multicultural multitudes flaunting yet again their proud refusal to test their common ideology against reality, I couldn’t help pondering the melancholy question: are they really unaware that they’re marching their country into oblivion, or are they consciously embracing extinction in the belief that even self-slaughter is preferable to being called a racist?

Sweden?s March Into Oblivion | FrontPage Magazine

Thank you for passing on this very good article. This Swede agrees with all of it.

Btw I vote Swedish Democrat and I HATE fascism.

 

[Peterf]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

You're also applying the same "poor" standard in the US to the "poor" standard in Europe and they are far from parallel. Europe has many truly poor people, those who have no means to access food and shelter.

I think you would have to go to Albania, Romania, Bulgaria and now maybe Greece to find the truly poor' that you describe. There are none in Western and Northern Europe.

 

[editec]

NOBODY who is not a sociopathic monster is really free.

FREEDOM is one of the most misunderstood concepts in our political discussions.

free·dom
ˈfrēdəm/Submit
noun
1.
the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

AT best we have degrees of freedom.

Americans are not an especially FREE people.

We are mostly our own BEST prison guards.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Fiscal conservatism = anti-science and infrastructure

Oh noo's you can't be exploring that or building that as I am a penny pinching asshole.

Shut Up, Jake

"You didn't built that!"

 

[skookerasbil]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

Europe will be a Muslim colony in about 75 years. With a shockingly low birthrate and economic stagnation the only population growth comes from Muslims, who are intent on Europe's destruction.
How free is Europe? Try publishing cartoons critical of Islam and find out.

Muslims will be the majority in France by......ready for this.......2020. Good luck to that culture!!


Progressivism is gay.....and the pushback, when it comes, ( oh.....and its coming ) is going to be fucking ugly as hell.

 

[Esmeralda]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want.. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

Europe will be a Muslim colony in about 75 years. With a shockingly low birthrate and economic stagnation the only population growth comes from Muslims, who are intent on Europe's destruction.
How free is Europe? Try publishing cartoons critical of Islam and find out.

Muslims will be the majority in France by......ready for this.......2020. Good luck to that culture!!


Progressivism is gay.....and the pushback, when it comes, ( oh.....and its coming ) is going to be fucking ugly as hell.

There are 66 million people in France. It is predicted that by 2030 there will be 70 million people in France, including 7 million who are originally from countries considered Muslim. Of those 7 million, only about 30% are or will be practicing Muslims. The other 70% will be, as they are now, people who are not practicing Muslims. You people do not realize that at present, 1/4 of the Earth's population is Muslim. Just like people who are born Christians, people born in Islamic countries are people who range from fundamentalists and extremists to those who don't even practice a religion. You are ignorant and unlearned about Islam. You do not know the realities. Your perspective is warped by Islamaphobia. You have Islamaphobia: see a professional psychiatric care giver.

 

[Peterf]

Let me start by saying that I think both the US and the 27 countries of the EU are amongst the freest regions on earth, and anyone born in either has little to complain about.

There is no tyranny on either continent, and has not been for since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Bit after seeing a couple of comments last week about how Europe is not free, I thought it might make for an interesting discussion, because in my opinion at least the dozen wealthiest countries in Western Europe are freer than the US.

Why Europe is free than the US

1. Political choice. Americans hve 2 real choices at the balot box - I have 10. Options from Christian Democrat on the right to Left Alliance on the left mean most voters should feel that they have a party that represents them. That's a huge freedom.

2. Free education & healthcare. Every child in western Europe has the chance to become whatever they want. Yes, we pay higher taxes than Americans do, but the fact that even a child from a poor home can go to a great school and university is something I consider a genuine liberation. Many of Finland's greatest achievers grew up in homes of real poverty.

3. Economic mobility. The UK aside, economic mobility is greater in Western Europe than in the US. This is largely because of the free education and healthcare. People can work their way up from nothing to whatever they can dream of more easily than poor Americans can.

4. Safety. Western European countries are generally much safer than the US. We have plenty of crime here, and rates of assault and robbery may even be higher in some European countries than in the US, but with murder rates often 75% lower than the US, staying alive is perhaps the ultimate freedom.

On the other side, I do admit that freedom of speech is fractionally greater in the US. Laws against Holocaust Denial and Hate Speech are tighter here - although I don't have a problem with that myself.

I agree. From what I know of the EU, having lived there for 4 years and additionally, now spending 2-3 months there every year, I think not only are Europeans freer but they are a good deal happier.

One cannot generalise about happiness. Right now the Greeks are extremely unhappy. The EU and the mad EURO project has brought them nothing but misery.