Denmark (democratic socialist) is the #1 nation in the WORLD

[Dane_in_LA]

Originally Posted by johnsonkk

How about freedom of speech? In Denmark the government can decide what is libel for prosecutions. Conservative politician was charged for libel for criticizing islam. And journalists were prosecuted for writing that there were no WMDs in iraq (so both political parties have been prosecuted).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Denmark

Originally Posted by johnsonkk

How about freedom of speech? In Denmark the government can decide what is libel for prosecutions.

The government? Unless the case is exceptional - as in, the offended party is essentially incapable of deciding to bring a case - no. Although libel is part of the penal code, it is up to the offended party to bring the case to court. I have been looking for the last case where the public prosecuted a libel case, couldn't find one. And there are certainly libel laws in the US as well.

You want horrible libel law, look to the UK.

Conservative politician was charged for libel for criticizing islam.

Not libel, hate spech. 266b. I'll grant you that's a bad law, and I do wish Langballe (who, by the way, holds repulsive opinions, but should have the right to do so) had had the wherewithall to pursue that case further than just city court.

And journalists were prosecuted for writing that there were no WMDs in iraq (so both political parties have been prosecuted).

That was a case of uncovering classified material - it wasn't the content, it was the act of disclosing materials with national security implications. And they were found not guilty.

Incidentally, there's about 10-12 political parties in Denmark, and Berlingske Tidende is very much not a left-wing paper.

This IS the country that had pretty much every newspaper print the Mohammed cartoons, something a lot of US papers haven't been quite ready to do.

I'm a fan of our 1st amendment.

As well you should be, but let's not pretend it's put into effect without qualifiers. Not that I'm looking to make this a tit for tat - it's my experience (and I have lived in 3 Western countries by now) that the differences are in implementation as formed by history, not principle. A Dane can march with a poster of the PM swinging from a lamp post without a visit from the Secret Service - not that it's a worthwhile contribution in my opinion, but he can do it.

Technically, a Dane can be prosecuted for blasphemy, but it was last done in the late 1930s when a couple of early Nazis handed out fliers and a synagogue was vandalized.

[Ariete]

Originally Posted by johnsonkk

Personal income tax is at 55%. No wonder nobody works there.

That's the highest possible income tax, not not the average income tax.

There's are also a gazillion of possible deductions in the taxation system.

[renault]

A nice antidote to the brainwashed liberals who tout certain European countries as 'utopian nations' that the exceptional world-power USA must, for some unknown reason, follow as a model.

Why Denmark isn’t the utopian fantasy Bernie Sanders describes

What are some of the biggest misconceptions that you find in how the rest of the world understands the Nordic countries?

Again, I think we've all been guilty of projecting some kind of utopian fantasy on them. The Nordic countries are, for example, depicted as paragons of political correctness, yet you still see racial stereotypes in the media here — the kind of thing which would be unthinkable in the U.S. Meanwhile, though it is true that these are the most gender-equal societies in the world, they also record the highest rates of violence towards women — only part of which can be explained by high levels of reporting of crime.

Denmark, meanwhile, promotes itself as a "green pioneer" and finger wags at the world about CO2 emissions, and yet it regularly beats the U.S. and virtually every other country on earth in terms of its per capita ecological footprint. For all their wind turbines, the Danes still burn a lot of coal and drive a lot of cars, their country is home to the world’s largest shipping company (Mærsk), and the region’s largest air hub.

Sweden is supposedly "neutral" (it’s not, and has not been for decades), yet since the days when it sold iron ore to Hitler, its economy has always benefited from its arms industry, which is one of the world’s largest.

The Norwegians have fallen prey to precisely the same kind of problems as other oil-rich states: their economy depends far too much on one industry (oil), they’ve taken their foot off the gas in terms of their work ethic, and now all young Norwegians want to do is be "something in the media" or open a cupcake place.