The world's best countries

[lawrocket 3]

I don't disagree with you. I PERSONALLY believe that drugs should be legalized and prostitution should be legalized, etc. I'm a libertarian. I think I should have the right to do what I want, so long as I am harming nobody else, and the sole responsibility of sucking up the consequences myself.

I personally believe that the US has a long way to go towards achieving greater freedoms (in a true sense I believe that we are far less "free" than in 1908).

But that's my opinion.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[nerdgirl 0]

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(And yes, the USA is considered "Free.")

Why do Americans always insist on that simple word "free"? It's an implicitness in nearly all [Western] nations and covers all in one: Personal freedom and protection of an individual within the/as well as a society itself according to standard guidelines of that country, known as laws.



And that's standard here and in most countries I know of. So, what's new in "beeing free"?? It's just a basic law.

Oh, purely speculatively & completely non-scientifically … on a beautiful Friday morning watching the sun rise over downtown Atlanta drinking fair-trade coffee … more writing from my own romantic idealism and classical liberalism than pragmatic realism:

It’s in our psyche & our history. It’s a cultural meme that we were taught and that we teach our children: “Manifest destiny” and “rugged individualism” necessitate and simultaneously feed the strong sense of individual liberties and personal freedoms. It permeates the characters that populate our national mythologies.

It’s an accident of history & geography, along with guns, germs, and steel . Americans probably owe (or the rest of world can blame) the French for our fascinations/obsessions with individual freedom more than any other people. The French were (comparatively more) constrained in their realization of liberté, égalité, fraternité, by their own history & geography (nevermind other people with guns on the continent), whereas the early Americans did not have those restrictions and took those French Enlightenment ideals to an extreme. (And really focused on the first one – maybe we’re the first nation founded and developed by a bunch of ADHD-children whose attention never held beyond “liberté”?) It's also a cause & effect of American exceptionalism.

America – the nation-state not the geographical land masses – was formed by rabble-rousers. Iconoclasts. Stubborn, tenacious folks. Those who left Europe, particularly in the late 1700s and 1800s, didn’t do so because life was good for them in the old country.

Those are broad generalizations and 243 words can’t capture the substance, nuance, or complexity of history. And I could probably quibble and provide counter-examples to each statement myself.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[pirana 0]

BOGUS. What kind of politically slanted crap was used for criteria that resulted in 6 of the 9 being mini- or micro-states smaller than a decent sized urban center?

And they also need to learn how to count. Top 10. Ten being the number after 9, but just before 11; 12 being right out.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

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That may be "stable" to them, but it's not as free as America.

I anxiously await your reasoning that the Netherlands (for example) are less free than the United States, considering the United States imprisons more of its citizens, both in absolute numbers and per capita, than any other nation in the world. That's a very difficult statistic to reconcile with a claim of being among the freest nations in the world.

http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t6132006.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t657.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t656.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t619.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t612006.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t5372006.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t5392006.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t386.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t387.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t388.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t376.pdf
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/correct.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/enforce.htm
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/poad.htm

Keeping the crooks in jail versus putting them on the dole and setting them loose, improves the freedom for the rst of us.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

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Another ridiculous generalisation survey.. Wgere was the poll option for "Who gives a shit"



But...
> BS - I can't see any of those 10 listed every needing to beg the US for help.

As long as you ignore the fact that they'd all be speaking German, goose-stepping to Wagner, and enjoying the fruits of Naziism today if the US had not stepped in back in the middle of the 20th century to put a stop to the last time Europe's big powers reverted to fisticuffs to settle the waning battles left over from a dozen or so centuries of dynastic quibbling.

They appear to have finally grown up. Looks like we won't have to ever do that again.

It's so nice to have grown up in a place where monarchy, being born to hereditary ownership of Kingdoms, becoming an area's King just by being willing to marry some other King's butt ugly daughter, and crap like that was never even allowed to get started.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[jcd11235 0]

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Keeping the crooks in jail versus putting them on the dole and setting them loose, improves the freedom for the rst of us.

You seem to have missed my point entirely. We have a bad habit in the US of prosecuting, and often imprisoning people for actions that should not be considered crimes in a "free" country. Incarcerating people for such actions does nothing to improve the freedom of others. Conversely, it makes them less free.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[pirana 0]

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What he said. "Best" is too subjective to merit any sort of serious discussion.

"Freest" is slightly more objective, but not much, and I don't think anyone is making the argument that the USA is the freest country in the world anyhow.

Blues,
Dave

I think too many people read "free" as "taken care of and not allowed to fail."

In my definition of freedom, the US is very near the top of the list. If anything, the freedoms that have been removed are largely the freedom to fail.

Related to the number of people in jail - - all those people were perfectly free to make the choices that landed them there.

We don't have perfection, but we have pretty close to the best thing going when it comes to freedom.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[shropshire 0]

That from a country that has a monkey for it's C-i-C... 301million people and that's the best that you can do

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[SimonBones 1]

The original list must be backwards.
How 'bout this, the "freest" country is Zimbabwe. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose... right?

108 way head down world record!!!
http://www.simonbones.com
Hit me up on Facebook

[pirana 0]

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Keeping the crooks in jail versus putting them on the dole and setting them loose, improves the freedom for the rst of us.

You seem to have missed my point entirely. We have a bad habit in the US of prosecuting, and often imprisoning people for actions that should not be considered crimes in a "free" country. Incarcerating people for such actions does nothing to improve the freedom of others. Conversely, it makes them less free.

Yes, I did miss that. We do put some people in jail for stupid reasons. Murderers should go to jail. Joint-rollers should not. In general.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

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[More importantly: One could build a very strong argument that the prosperity and global technical & innovation leadership of US is based on the (controlled) instability that our entrepreneurial capitalist system fosters.

VR/Marg

You must have watched Conspiracy Theory recently.
Saw a few minutes of it last night. Very fun movie.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[nerdgirl 0]

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[More importantly: One could build a very strong argument that the prosperity and global technical & innovation leadership of US is based on the (controlled) instability that our entrepreneurial capitalist system fosters.

VR/Marg

You must have watched Conspiracy Theory recently.
Saw a few minutes of it last night. Very fun movie.

No. Not even sure to what you are referring.

That's just political economics. E.g., see Bob Litan, et al.'s latest book Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity. Litan currently spends most of his time at AEI.

VR/Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[pirana 0]

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It’s in our psyche & our history. It’s a cultural meme that we were taught and that we teach our children: “Manifest destiny” and “rugged individualism” necessitate and simultaneously feed the strong sense of individual liberties and personal freedoms. It permeates the characters that populate our national mythologies.

It’s an accident of history & geography, along with guns, germs, and steel . Americans probably owe (or the rest of world can blame) the French for our fascinations/obsessions with individual freedom more than any other people. The French were (comparatively more) constrained in their realization of liberté, égalité, fraternité, by their own history & geography (nevermind other people with guns on the continent), whereas the early Americans did not have those restrictions and took those French Enlightenment ideals to an extreme. (And really focused on the first one – maybe we’re the first nation founded and developed by a bunch of ADHD-children whose attention never held beyond “liberté”?) It's also a cause & effect of American exceptionalism.

America – the nation-state not the geographical land masses – was formed by rabble-rousers. Iconoclasts. Stubborn, tenacious folks. Those who left Europe, particularly in the late 1700s and 1800s, didn’t do so because life was good for them in the old country.

Those are broad generalizations and 243 words can’t capture the substance, nuance, or complexity of history. And I could probably quibble and provide counter-examples to each statement myself.

VR/Marg

Very good. Kind of what I was alluding to in my smart-ass comments about having to settle their quibbles. The English especially, and the French too, were really getting on the right track; but for the most part the European royal houses couldn't quite get over the hump of not believing they did not own all the lands and all the loyalties they were born to. They really thought their House WAS the country, or nation, or whatever kernel of thought they had before those terms came to be what they mean today. Soveriegn is probably the best word. They thought divine and heriditary reasons were the basis of sovereignty, and that it was extended to groups of people only thru their House's will. Their pride kept them from seeing that their House wasn't at all necessary for sovereignty to exist, that it could be the will of any group of people who so desired to claim it and defend it.

Real freedom started when people were not born to nobility, or born to officially state and church sanctioned priveleges such as Kingship and Dukedom. For that reason, the US taking the beginnings of freedom born in England and France and pursuing them as they did constitutionally makes the US the true birthplace of individual freedom.

Free at birth to fail or succeed.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[pirana 0]

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That from a country that has a monkey for it's C-i-C... 301million people and that's the best that you can do

Well, there is that.

Like I said; we are as free to fail as we are to succeed.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[jcd11235 0]

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For that reason, the US taking the beginnings of freedom born in England and France and pursuing them as they did constitutionally makes the US the true birthplace of individual freedom.

Or maybe not.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[pirana 0]

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[More importantly: One could build a very strong argument that the prosperity and global technical & innovation leadership of US is based on the (controlled) instability that our entrepreneurial capitalist system fosters.

VR/Marg

You must have watched Conspiracy Theory recently.
Saw a few minutes of it last night. Very fun movie.

No. Not even sure to what you are referring.

That's just political economics. E.g., see Bob Litan, et al.'s latest book Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism, and the Economics of Growth and Prosperity. Litan currently spends most of his time at AEI.

VR/Marg

It's a movie, with Mel Gibson. More of a comedy than anything. He's a paranoid CT'er. He's got a line about capitalism and stability very much like the one at the end of your post that I quoted.

Very entertaining, and funny, and worth watching.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[jakee 1,596]

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Related to the number of people in jail - - all those people were perfectly free to make the choices that landed them there.

Don't be daft. For that argument to ring true you must believe that no law will ever reduce freedom, since you'll be 'free' to not break it. And that's just bollocks.

Ban alcohol? Free to not drink.
Ban guns? Free to not shoot.
Ban cars? Free to not drive.
Ban dissent? Free to shut your mouth.

See what I'm getting at?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[christelsabine 1]

2:

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Like I said; we are as free to fail as we are to succeed.

Excerpts from your previous posts:
1:

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If anything, the freedoms that have been removed are largely the freedom to fail.

2:

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Free at birth to fail or succeed

Interchangeable, if necessary? Even No. 1 is a bit hard to understand for me as an alien ....

GWB does not fall under the term "largely", right?

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[lawrocket 3]

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That from a country that has a monkey for it's C-i-C... 301million people and that's the best that you can do

Hey, we were free to choose him.

You had no choice but to be stuck with Prince Charles. And to think y'all accuse southerners of being inbred rednecks.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[shropshire 0]

Prince Charles is a southerner too (anywhere south of the Watford Gap is south).. Not sure that one would call him a redneck though.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[christelsabine 1]

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You had no choice but to be stuck with Prince Charles. And to think y'all accuse southerners of being inbred rednecks.

See, instead of his folks, Charly OTOH had a lot of choices! I mean, girls, girls, girls ...

Is that nothing?!?

I, personally, if given the chance to select, would prefer Prince Ears instead of Mr.

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[jakee 1,596]

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Hey, we were free to choose him.

You had no choice but to be stuck with Prince Charles.

The most important decision Charles ever had to make was whether to go stag hunting or play polo. Not quite of the same importance as which country to invade or constitutional freedom to quash.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[livendive 8]

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I think too many people read "free" as "taken care of and not allowed to fail."

In my definition of freedom, the US is very near the top of the list. If anything, the freedoms that have been removed are largely the freedom to fail.

Related to the number of people in jail - - all those people were perfectly free to make the choices that landed them there.

That argument is kind of silly. That's like saying the women in Afghanistan were free to discard their burqas and go shopping in bikinis, neverminding the consequences.

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We don't have perfection, but we have pretty close to the best thing going when it comes to freedom.

My definition of freedom would involve something along the lines of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. With the medical system we have in place, our ability to keep our life going is near the top. On the liberty and pursuit of happiness fronts, well, the "war on drugs" has deprived a LOT of people one or both of them.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[pirana 0]

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Related to the number of people in jail - - all those people were perfectly free to make the choices that landed them there.

Don't be daft. For that argument to ring true you must believe that no law will ever reduce freedom, since you'll be 'free' to not break it. And that's just bollocks.

Ban alcohol? Free to not drink.
Ban guns? Free to not shoot.
Ban cars? Free to not drive.
Ban dissent? Free to shut your mouth.

See what I'm getting at?

I'd say laws have the potential to reduce the freedom of people that break them. But everyone is still free to break them or not.

I see what you mean. But total freedom would mean total chaos.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[lawrocket 3]

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But total freedom would mean total chaos.

And chaos is not free, for there are dangers involved with that.

This is why I described freedom as two edged. There is an irreconcilable tension between freedom and order (and equality, too). It is where one draws his personal line for the right mix between anarchy and order that makes it subjective.

My wife is hotter than your wife.