Achtung Baby by Sara Zaske, Reviewed

Re:Achtung Baby by Sara Zaske, Reviewed by maxxxxx on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @09:37AM (#16375971)

I think in the US you have more freedom if you take it. It's easier to start a business, it's easier to live an unconventional lifestyle (in Germany it seems difficult to just build a house in the middle of nowhere whereas in the US you can), you can live without health insurance, you can build a house the way you like it, you shop on Sundays or use your lawn mower. In Germany a lot of things are more regulated but within these boundaries you have more freedom in my view. Companies in the US often behave like absolutist kings who own their employees. You have no rights but you can leave anytime if you don't like it. You have drug tests and background checks.

So in short I think you can have more freedom in the US if you take it but the regular citizen with a typical employee lifestyle is less free.

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Re:Achtung Baby by Sara Zaske, Reviewed by Retric on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @01:49PM (#16378179)

Saying it's easier to do something is not the same as Freedom. Freedom is a question of what you can do, not the ease with which you can do something.

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Re:Achtung Baby by Sara Zaske, Reviewed by maxxxxx on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @02:03PM (#16378322)

The US has really more freedom. For example, you can call your kid whatever you want. In Germany you have some bureaucrat going through a list of allowable names. There is a lot of stuff like that.

But the average US citizen doesn't exercise most of these freedoms but actually lives a more restricted life than the average German citizen in my view.

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Re:Achtung Baby by Sara Zaske, Reviewed by Retric on Wednesday February 14, 2018 @02:08PM (#16378376)

> you can call your kid whatever you want

"several states limit the number of characters that can be used due to the limitations of the software used for official record keeping." and "The Office of Vital Records in California requires that names contain only the 26 alphabetical characters of the English language. Some states (for example, Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, North Carolina, Oregon) allow accents and some (not always all) non-English letters in birth certificates and other documents." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naming_in_the_United_States

So, it's a long way from total freedom, but I get your point. However, you can call your kid whatever you want, the limit is simply around what you can do with official paperwork.

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Re:Achtung Baby by Sara Zaske, Reviewed by ahartmetz on Thursday February 15, 2018 @08:46AM (#16383912)

There is no fixed list - AFAIK you need to prove that it's a first name in use somewhere in the world, with a few exceptions. "Jesus" is one I know about, it's a valid first name in Spain but not in Germany.

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