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Re:The Engineer vs. the Border Patrol by superkuh on Monday May 28, 2018 @03:15PM (#17174215)
All those things are true and yet the freedom you mock isn't a delusion. It's just not evenly distributed. And that's the key idea of the USA. Instead of concentrating on using government force to ensure equal outcomes for everyone instead it's about equal opportunities in a free for all. Free to fail and free to succeed. There's a lot of extremes here and the USA is a much larger, more heterogeneous place than many imagine from watching the exported news and media.

re: this story, for example: nothing like this exists in states that are not on the southern border. From state to state there are huge differences in culture, demographics, and governance.

Re:The Engineer vs. the Border Patrol by anigbrowl on Monday May 28, 2018 @04:13PM (#17174568)
about equal opportunities in a free for all. Free to fail and free to succeed.

But that's self-evidently not the case. Formal and informal discrimination massively limit participation, and quite often commercial success is rooted in an ability to dump externalities rather than create value.

Re:The Engineer vs. the Border Patrol by roenxi on Monday May 28, 2018 @05:50PM (#17175083)
Perfect can be the enemy of good, in the sense that in a city of people there must be compromises so that everyone can coexist in a small space.

Sure, the US isn't fair. In practice it is grossly unfair. But talk to anyone with, eg, a congenital disability and it is apparent that this isn't because the US is doing something wrong, it is because life is unfair.

The US is very free. Some people have to work orders of magnitude harder to excercise their freedom, but in freedom of speech and action the US compares well with, eg, the UK, China, Russia, Middle Eastern countries, etc, etc. There are a few very small nations (eg, Luxembourg, Sweden, New Zealand, etc), where the numbers are smaller and the results are arguably better. But recall that human communities are governed by absolute numbers (see Dunbar's number) and reflect that the US does pretty well for its size.

Basically, don't conflate freedom and fairness. The US has a lot of freedom, but freedom is a pretty basic idea, and exercising it is crazy hard for some people.

Re:The Engineer vs. the Border Patrol by incompatible on Monday May 28, 2018 @05:49PM (#17175076)
It's the same freedom you have in any country. You can do what you like as long as you don't upset the authorities.

The US has just as many (maybe more) laws and regulations as anywhere else.

Edit: upsetting individuals and companies may be a bad idea too.

Re:The Engineer vs. the Border Patrol by vvanders on Monday May 28, 2018 @03:20PM (#17174243)
> nothing like this exists in states that are not on the southern border.

Are you sure about that? Pretty certain I've seen articles covering similar stories up in Montana and like.

[Edit]

Here's at least one that was easy to find offhand: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-montana-border-patrol-20...