Do Americans actually sincerely believe that they live in an actual "free society" / "democracy" / whatever... Blows my mind.

That's what their corporately owned, government friendly, media tells them. So a lot of them do.

I think the internet has done a lot to help escape the typical narrative. For one example, there is a stark difference between what young and older Americans think of Israel because of where both groups get their news.

Now, sure, there is a natural tendency with the internet for conspiracies to form. In particular if you hang out all day with extremists. But I'd prefer to have that problem than the alternative problem of most public discussion coming from a dozen or less large corporations.

So, which countries are democratic according to the Americans who escaped the typical narrative ?

edit: it's a serious question

None. America has a lot of barriers to keep certain people from the franchise, and all mainstream media is lies and ads. But America is the only place where the concept of truly free speech is even held up as a virtue, let alone accorded the people in practice.

Tough to say. I suppose you need an intersection of high voter turnout, low scores on corruption indexes and laws that prevent companies from donating or having too much sway over individual representation. All of the above is rare, I figure, but not ideally impossible. The phrase "money talks," comes to mind...

The bit regarding what my young and old compatriots believe based on source of news resonates with me. I generally don't debate with "pre internet" people.

Well let's see if this discussion gets deleted by the government.

Speech is suppressed commensurately with its threat to power. It is difficult to see the absence of speech; negative space, absence is difficult even to talk about. Historically speaking, movements of people that posed a threat to the US Government were shattered, suppressed, and then rewritten out of the canonical history as promulgated by the government and its subordinate institutions.

What isn't being said today because of the way speech and power is structured in the USA? Is there really any voice out there whose words substantially threaten the government? Whenever such a voice gets loud enough, out come the battalions of cops with riot gear, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons. The mainstream media never questions this clockwork logic: it must be as natural as the sun rising and setting in such a society.

It is almost a truism that any institution of power will renege on all of its promised rights towards those who would curb or abolish its power. We know after the fact that the government of the USA has done so towards many, many people whom it felt threatened it.

> What isn't being said today because of the way speech and power is structured in the USA?

Let's try an experiment: you post some of the things that you think aren't being said, and we'll all see what happens.

I don't have to run the experiment. I can already tell you that anything said in Hacker News comment threads doesn't threaten the government or much of anyone, really.

You misunderstand: he has the freedom to speak, so long as he has no voice.

Say whatever you want whenever you want; they're watching, but don't care enough to interfere if you're a nobody. Nobody will bother you until you have a following, and nobody will bother you in meatspace until you have a massive and physically active following.

It won't be deleted, some non profit package will hire some schills to write smooth rebuttals or down vote it to lessen the impact.

Compared to, say, Russia, Americans are correct to believe they live in a free society. These things are relative.

It's amusing that Americans constantly compare themselves to Russia, China and North Korea.

Are you actually proud to compare favorably to them? Is that as high as you want to set the bar? Surely there is little to be gained from continually pointing out you're better than the lowest. Aim higher.

I mean, congrats for being competitive against high school teams, but man, you gotta move up into the big leagues if you are serious.

Go and learn how societies like Switzerland, Norway, Australia and France operate, and compare yourself to them. You will learn something, which will help you improve something. Comparing yourself to the bottom of the list teaches you nothing, which improves nothing

I'm not American so I'm not the "you" you're referring to in your bizarre "aim higher" lecture.

That said, the comment I was answering implied the US is an unfree country. That is simply not the case. To illustrate this, let's see how some other countries, including the ones you named, compare to the US.

Freedom House ratings[1] for selected countries (100 is best):

Switzerland: 96

Norway: 100

Australia: 98

France: 91

Canada: 99

Russia: 22

China: 16

United States: 90

So the US is roughly equivalent to France, one of the countries you named. Russia is lousy, as expected, but certainly not the worst.

[1] https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-...

Your last point contradicts the first three

But even freedoms in the liberal European states are slowly being eroded. Globally, society is moving further into the forest and only a few will be left to see the trees.

But where else is better?

Wherever people like you and me are willing step up and actually fight. A "free society" is not some intrinsic property; we get to have a free society - and a democratically elected government - if and only if we defend it.

Patrick Stewart has a great line at the end of TNG 4x21 "The Drumhead"[1]

    [V]illains who twirl their mustaches are easy to spot.
    Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well camouflaged.
    ...
    [Admiral Satie] or someone like her will always be with us,
    waiting for the right climate in which to flourish – spreading fear
    in the name of righteousness. Vigilance, Mr. Worf. That is the price
    we have to continually pay.

Any system will eventually fail if it isn't maintained. When we allow small, trivial abuses of power, people become conditioned to expect exceptions to the rule of law. These exceptions are normalized into a power structure that deviates significantly from anything resembling a free society.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eahs1H9tdcU

I'd say the Nordic countries plus Switzerland.

To my knowledge, the Nordic countries and Switzerland have criminalized hate speech, including speech that might be found insulting by one of several protected classes.

In the U.S., hate speech is legal unless it will immediately lead to violence or a criminal act--the so-called "fighting words".

So, distasteful as hateful speech is, there is an example of how the U.S. protects a free society.

The Nordic countries have their own problems.

The press is owned by the state, making the freedom of the press a little difficult.

Because of the high taxes and plentiful regulations, your only options for employment are huge corporations or government.

Hardly what I call freedom.

Switzerland, on the other hand, is more free. Mostly because the majority of citizens have some wealth.

Many people associate more government programs and freebies with freedom. In reality, it only creates dependent groups of people and gives more control and power to the government. The exact opposite of freedom.

The government doesn't own "the press" in Nordic countries.

In Sweden, there are a couple of TV channels (SVT) and a few radio channels (SR) which are run according to the "public service" model.

The existence of SVT/SR is protected by the constitution and they are funded by a kind of flat tax on media receivers while still managed independently of the government (the majority coalition has no direct power over public service).

Anyone familiar with SVT/SR or the public service model understands that they aren't "state media" in an authoritarian sense, most obviously because there is a plurality of commercial channels too.

There is no state press whatsoever, and the existing commercial papers are mostly center-right liberal, except for the venerable social democratic Aftonbladet.

I work at a small startup in Stockholm so I'm existence proof that there are options other than huge corporations or the state....

Of course there are problems, but your criticism seems misinformed and exaggerated.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Several of which have mandatory taxes that go to a state church.

Freedom isn't relative to others.

Not sure what you mean -- it's hard to think of a concept less relative than this thing called "freedom", actually. Especially as people (particularly across different cultures) tend to have wildly different conceptions as to what "freedom" really is.

> But where else is better?

I was trying to say that just because you're the best doesn't mean you're "free".

It is important, since governments often use other countries' policies to excuse or justify their own.

Our concept of what "freedom" means is relative.

Quit treating it as a binary distinction.

Does anyone believe they live in a pure "free society"? There is a deep state beneath every nation.

Like a rational mind exists atop lower forms, higher forms of social organization exist atop lower ones. Democracy is built on intrigue, is built on naked violence. Just as true for smaller countries with smaller deep states.

Free society doesn't pay the bills. Might makes right and does amazing things for consumer prices. We are lulled by our proximate pleasures while true freedom and honest democracy remain fantasies at best.

Yes, they do. And they'll defend that thought to the death without understanding it.

More free than the majority of other countries.

Oh sure, the level of rational discourse has certainly fallen off and most news outlets are now heavily slanted to one party or the other - but the mere idea of having the ability to raise your voice is something that is rare in this world.

Even the countries that people always point to (Scandinavia, Europe) have their own issues which are not dissimilar from those in the US.

It's like when you have a job and you complain how horrible the place is you work at because of a,b,c and d. So you leave and go to another big company because they don't have a,b,c and d problems. Within two months, you suddenly realize that now this company has other issues and drive you nuts because if f,g,h and i problems.

You want an "actual free society" go live on an island, and be a government of one. That's the only way you'll have the utopian vision I'm sure you're thinking about.

I would say that MOST of them do, and consider you to be a fringe lunatic if you express a belief in something else. I don't mean 9/11 conspiracy theories either, I mean things like, "The intelligence services greatly abuse their powers, and experience only token oversight."

I whole-heartedly disagree with that statement. I live in a very rural, unbelievably conservative part of the states. We love guns, god, and the USA.

And even here people are concerned about the reach of the US's intelligence agencies.

America remain one of the most free society even though not truly free.

In India or China no records are ever made public, if they are the people asking for information are simply killed off in a dark street.

In USA you have a good opportunity to clip the wings of CIA and others. A small chance but still a positive chance.

"people asking for information are simply killed off in a dark street"

Sorry, but this is absurd. People that are asking for information are usually harassed and threatened. They don't kill people like flies. This kind of rhetoric is meant to paint black and white portraits of the world, and is simply inaccurate.

I don't think its necessarily as clear as you make it out.

Two private individuals donated their personal papers to a private institution, and the CIA asked, but certainly did not compel, the private institution to remove them from the public collection. If you assume that this is simply pure coverup of an embarrassing episode, then the bad guy is really Georgetown (which I say as an alumnus.)

In the film Spotlight there's a similar worry about disappearance of public records and a race to get them when they are released before a sort of Boston/Catholic Omerta makes them disappear.

Amazing film. I had weirdly never heard of the Boston scandal, so I went in with a fresh mind.