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The above was written regarding the rankings from the Cato Institute. The Cato institute is a well-known libertarian (not liberal) think tank, founded in part by arch-conservative Charles Koch. So if the perspective is biased, it is biased in a right-wing direction. In other words, if they say that many European countries are more free than the US, it probably truer that represented.
In their report, Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Ireland, Sweden and UK were among the European countries that were ranked as "more free' than the US. The premise of this whole thread is faulty.
In general Europeans have similar freedoms and liberties but Americans have greater rights to own guns, speak freely protected by our Constitution, and employers have greater freedom to dismiss workers freely with a few exceptions. I can see why some favor the Euro model but I prefer ours, especially the freedom of speech and gun rights. If you like their system better, move there.
Why "move there"? Why not adopt some of the things that are working better in Europe, while keeping the things that are working better here?
No, "right wingers" believe that given freedom and liberty, I have the opportunity and potential to create, build, or design whatever I can and if it is successful, I can actually make money proving a service or product that other people want, and may actually become wealthy! This used to be called "The American Dream" Those pesky, extremist righties are willing to give up safety for liberty. They believe that the risk/reward is worth it.
Side note: Has anyone ever heard of "The Canadian Dream" or "The Germany Dream" or "The Russian Dream"? Why has there only been one nation that has created such prosperity and provided its citizens with such Liberty and Freedom and protection of God give rights, that it is known as a place where anyone can achieve and live "THE AMERICAN DREAM." I'm sure it's just a fluke or something.
Those perfect angelic progressives prefer safety over liberty/freedom and happily forgo the later for the mere perception of the former. Progressives believe that safety IS freedom. That is why they would happily give up free speech if it keeps them safe from being offended by different viewpoints or opinions. Progressive are the first to cheer the government and courts determinations when they are favorable to the progressive ideology, but when the outcome is different, they blame the evil "right wingers" anyway.
The vision of America was that you didn't have to live your life based on who was in the WH, because you always knew that there were certain unalienable rights that could not be infringed upon. You knew that you had the influence over your local and state law makers, so you could know who was enacting laws that effected you and your family.
You knew that the people in DC were constrained by the Constitution to only deal with SPECIFICALLY defined issues, so you did not have to worry about someone using Executive Orders to infringe on your 2nd Amendment rights or that one political party could legislate away your freedom to purchase or not purchase a commodity and failure to do so would result in a financial penalty called a "tax."
Our framers understood that the further and further away generations moved from living the historical founding of this nation, the less they would understand what an amazing creation our Government is. How nothing like it existed on earth and nothing will ever exist like it again. Sadly, it seems that no one in our current and future generations really care about that. They are more concerned about whether their "guy" got higher ratings or whether their guy can bully the other guys better, etc.
As this thread caught my eye, and I began reading the comments from the beginning, I couldn't help but yet again quickly recognize that what people believe is certainly not necessarily the truth at all. Someone commented that this is not the place to learn the truth about such matters, and reading still more of the comments makes me agree whole-heartedly. I got to thinking what this thread needs is European posters, so...
I went over to the threads in the World Forums section and checked into those under Europe, and still more proof that C-D is more mental garbage than much else. It isn't Europeans posting most of those comments there, it's obviously the kind of Americans that helped kindle the term "ugly American."
Anyways..., I am always similarly dismayed when conservatives serve up their version of what it means to be progressive, what progressive's think, but in a strange way it is these misguided portrayals that seem to suggest a real fear of knowing better. I think this is more often than not the explanation for baseless propaganda. It's so much easier to do battle with a boogy man of your own creation in your own mind than to grapple with the real arguments, reality.
I agree that this IS NOT the place to learn about the differences since city data tends to lean to the right.
Socialism is the biggest difference. Some things are better over in Europe but give me the good old USA. We have freedoms here and life is generally easy. I know people who have immigrated from Ireland and they will all agree that America really is the land of opportunity.
In December we met with a friend who was visiting from France and she complained about the high income tax rate there but she was happy that she just had the last few years off from work PAID to raise her baby. She will be heading back to work soon. It is terrific that she had so much maternity leave but someone has to pay for it.
Back after september 11th 2001 we visited France and brought a Tshirt to the same woman above and the shirt had a small American flag on it and she said that she couldn't wear it. If you remember after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 our whole country wanted revenge but not so in France. There was a real anti american / hate the war mongers Bush and Cheney vibe going on there.
That really struck me as a huge difference in our countries. America was ambushed and in return we struck back. IN France I guess they would not have since they didn't approve.
look at what was going on in the British parliament last week, they all got up one by one and denounced Trump and stopped short of a vote to ban him from the country. Trump tells it like it is and his ideas are very popular but in England he is despicable.
Europe is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there.
This comment is truly ironic, beginning with the warning about what to expect in these threads, and then serving up exactly the sort of thing to help the warning ring true.
Regarding the French. I have been to France more than a few times and have never found any justification to think that the average French person was/is any less sympathetic toward victims of terrorism than any other people. In fact, I still remember how the World reacted to 9/11, and what I better remember is this as represented by Le Monde...
Maybe the explanation for some of these comments to the contrary is some errant contact with someone a bit off-kilter like so many Americans commenting in these threads, but are we really to judge an entire nation by the actions of the less-educated numbskulls there (or here)?
PS: Trump is "despicable" to lots of foreigners and lots of Americans too, but just like there are people who will believe anything and anyone..., I suppose there are those who will continue to think Trump is their guy, just like hard as it is to believe, Hitler also appealed to hearts and minds drawn toward the same sorts of emotions. Disillusionment with the status quo. Something we all share but certainly don't respond to in the same way, thank goodness.
That really struck me as a huge difference in our countries. America was ambushed and in return we struck back. IN France I guess they would not have since they didn't approve.
Not to pick on Cape Cod here, but his one comment is full of great example to illustrate just how differently we Americans can view the same facts and history.
I so well remember the whole world reeling in support of America in the wake of 9/11. I don't know if we have ever had the outpouring of sympathy and want to help as we did from almost the whole world at that time. Yet, here again, the argument is NOT whether we were "ambushed" or that a show of force in response was appropriate.
The problem, like all too many comments in these threads, is what we chose our response to be.
Also as compared to the support and goodwill we enjoyed with our allies -- the U.N. -- when we went forward with Desert Storm, what we did in reaction to 9/11 was in no way similarly appropriate or acceptable. Ultimately culminating with the invasion of Iraq under the additional guise of hunting WMD, we blundered in at great expense of American lives and tax payer dollars, only to blunder our way out upon realizing there was no viable exit strategy or outcome to justify staying.
To write, "in return we struck back," as if that's all that matters is exactly the sort of limited perspective all too pervasively represented by the comments in these threads, by Americans when they cast their vote...
Back after september 11th 2001 we visited France and brought a Tshirt to the same woman above and the shirt had a small American flag on it and she said that she couldn't wear it. If you remember after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 our whole country wanted revenge but not so in France. There was a real anti american / hate the war mongers Bush and Cheney vibe going on there.
That really struck me as a huge difference in our countries. America was ambushed and in return we struck back. IN France I guess they would not have since they didn't approve.
Seeing as France sent a sizable troop contingent to Afghanistan and kept it there for years, I suspect your timeline is a little mixed up here.
But Bush & Cheney did manage to waste every bit of goodwill by snarking about "Old Europe" when France and Germany didn't heed the war drums against Iraq - a war that was very much sold on the premise that the US now lived in a post-9/11 world and could go to war when they bloody well pleased.
Once your representatives got smart about "Freedom Fries" - and more substantively, tried to strong-arm the UNSC into approving their little Iraq venture - of course the US administration was considerably less popular. The French and Germans (I don't think people understand how much of a Big Deal it was for Germany to send their soldiers far away to fight. It did not invoke happy memories. But I digress.) felt that they were engaged in a justified war in Afghanistan, and suddenly the US' focus shifted to Iraq. As omeone out it "Our neighbor's garage burned down and he asked for help repairing it, so of course we helped. But as we were in the middle of that, not only did he he take most of his tools and started building a deck - he actually yelled at us for not supporting his deck project."
Seeing as France sent a sizable troop contingent to Afghanistan and kept it there for years, I suspect your timeline is a little mixed up here.
But Bush & Cheney did manage to waste every bit of goodwill by snarking about "Old Europe" when France and Germany didn't heed the war drums against Iraq - a war that was very much sold on the premise that the US now lived in a post-9/11 world and could go to war when they bloody well pleased.
Once your representatives got smart about "Freedom Fries" - and more substantively, tried to strong-arm the UNSC into approving their little Iraq venture - of course the US administration was considerably less popular. The French and Germans (I don't think people understand how much of a Big Deal it was for Germany to send their soldiers far away to fight. It did not invoke happy memories. But I digress.) felt that they were engaged in a justified war in Afghanistan, and suddenly the US' focus shifted to Iraq. As omeone out it "Our neighbor's garage burned down and he asked for help repairing it, so of course we helped. But as we were in the middle of that, not only did he he take most of his tools and started building a deck - he actually yelled at us for not supporting his deck project."
I tend to agree with the sentiments, but I struggle with the notion of who is helping who...
If we call this the fight against terrorism, not begun but certainly highlighted by 9/11, and if that fight seems to take us to places like Afghanistan, Syria and the rest of those Al Qaida, ISIS breeding grounds, how can any country in the modern free world not consider that their fight as well as America's?
If we call this the fight against terrorism, not begun but certainly highlighted by 9/11, and if that fight seems to take us to places like Afghanistan, Syria and the rest of those Al Qaida, ISIS breeding grounds, how can any country in the modern free world not consider that their fight as well as America's?
Most countries do - Afghanistan & Syria are both coalition operations. The big schism opened by Bush/Cheney was over Iraq.
Most countries do - Afghanistan & Syria are both coalition operations. The big schism opened by Bush/Cheney was over Iraq.
Agreed, but I was reacting/responding to your "neighbor's garbage" analogy that suggests the neighbors [Europe] came to help [America] from somewhere else. That fight is not just America's regardless which country has to travel how far to fight it. Agreed that reality is being "felt" more by all countries today than ever before, but not so much in terms of helping with the "neighbor's" problem as you put it.
The problem is in everyone's neighborhood. "We" didn't take the tools and go somewhere else. We just got a little misguided in terms of where the fires were actually coming from, ultimately spreading ourselves too thin fighting wherever the fires seemed to be burning hottest...
A gun is a gun particularly when the government has bigger ones. That being the case, a gun is a dangerous delusion. More freedoms in the U.S. have been gained and maintained through moral suasion than a gun.
Good luck convincing gut fetishists that.
After awhile on this forum, you get the feeling that pretty much the only freedom these guys care about is their right to own a gun. And then these same people accuse other people of living in "fear". They need these guns to fight the government from their falling down POS house in southern Ohio.
Newsflash: The elites who run this country laugh at you. The government does not fear you.
These are the same nuts who say that liberals have a mental illness, yet their entire self worth is based around having weapons.
I've been to Europe. People go about their daily lives in a more care free way than Americans do. That part is plain to see. They tend to have more time to do what they want, when they want. They are not forced into occupations, not forced to live in any particular area, not forced to worship anything. Yet Americans somehow think they have more freedoms because (they think) taxes are lower.
Meanwhile if you add up what you pay for health insurance+taxes+funding your own retirement here, you're probably paying more than the average European.
But hey, those guns!!!!
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True or propaganda?
