I feel much more free travelling and living in many other countries besides the US. Everyone seemed on a knifes edge while I was there. Don't get me wrong I loved it - everyone was wonderfully friendly and incredibly welcoming to guests - but there seemed to be this underlying unease and I was forever being told not to do this-or-that-or-else. I suppose I've always thought it was a bit ironic that the 'land of the free' has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world.
Personally, my envy is directed at those in the Nordic and Oceanic countries. They seem to have it pretty good over there.
EDIT: Just checking out some freedom index scores just to see whether my experience differs then that of the mean, but it seems to be about what I expected. The Freedom House report definitely covered it very well I think. Reference material below.
[0]https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2019/united-st... [1]https://freedomhouse.org/report/countries-world-freedom-2019... [2]https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking [3]https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/human-freedom-index-... [4]https://rsf.org/en/ranking_table
Reporting on court proceedings can get you arrested. Rude comments made on the internet, not even involving actionable threats, can get you arrested.
Orwell was British, but "Freedom is slavery" was supposed to be fiction. It was not written as an instruction manual.
You've also gone past guns, now starting to confiscate dull butter knives. More importantly, it's not the nature of the weapon, but the right to use it. You are generally not permitted to defend yourself. This does vary in the USA, with places like Maryland being rather British, but in large areas here we are permitted to fight back.
> Reporting on court proceedings can get you arrested.
I assume you're referring to the case of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. He was charged with contempt of court for violating a blanket ban on broadcasting of the proceedings of a specific trial. The ban was imposed by the judge as it was "necessary for avoiding a substantial risk of prejudice to the administration of justice in these proceedings".
Does your adherence to freedom trump the right to have a fair trial?
No, interfering with trials will get you arrested.
> a guy got in trouble with the law for making a comedy video with a little dog saluting Hitler.
It wasn't the Nazi salutes that caused the trouble, it was broadcasting the repeated use of the phrase "gas the jews".
He tried to use the "it was just a prank bro" defence in court, and they rejected it because i) to show it to his girlfriend he didn't need to put it on youtube, ii) there's no evidence she even saw it and iii) "gas the Jews" isn't funny.
Also, you can own a gun legally in the UK.
Well, you'd best never have a thought that offends anybody ever in your rapidly-changing culture. Someday that could be you going to prison for your 2019-era wrongthink.
What I'm struggling to understand is why we're trying to compare fining a person for a joke, versus the systematic imprisonment of four times as many people per capita as that in the UK, and exponentially more if you compare the US to the rest of Europe[1]. 46% of the population is in for non-violent crime. Hell, according to cut50, just under 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars, up 500% in 30 years. [2] More flag waving and anthem chanting doesn't change that, as much as that may upset the patriotic sensibilities of so many.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... [2] https://www.cut50.org/
a. We let them out, and this is fine because they are good people. LOL.
b. We let criminals run amok, pillaging our villages as they please.
c. We shoot them, then make their family pay for the cost of the bullet.
d. We send them to a prison colony like Australia.
e. We import better people. Maybe we could raid Japan or Iceland to get nicer people.
What I do know is that they aren't in prison just for being rude on Twitter.
This law is fantastic in my eyes. Contempt of court laws are designed to protect the rule of law, ensure fair trials - and avoid trial by media.
Contempt can be committed by a broad range of people and organisations including the press, jurors, and - as we have learned in recent years - social media users.
He was asked multiple times to stop recording, over the course of the day. He even went as far as filming all the way to the court room. Don't get me wrong, the defendants were scum in this case, but that's for a court to decide. It sets an awful precedent if court trials start to become media frenzies like that of the US. Yaxley-Lennon is a bigot and if they didn't charge him on this law I'm sure he'd get arrested for assaulting someone soon enough, like he'd already done 12 months in prison for previously.
You're coming in very righteous, so here's something I find quite entertaining - "Reporter Zachary Siegel held in contempt of court and arrested after recording trial" Oct 2018 - https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/reporter-zachar...
I might suggest that condemning British freedom of press looks questionable from a resident of a country that has a precarious situation at the moment with their press: https://pressfreedomtracker.us/arrest-criminal-charge/
With regards to your final comment, I agree that confiscating knives is extreme. But frankly, our gun laws have been excellent at stopping gun crime and mass shootings - the issue is that the government has extrapolated this to the nth degree and wants to do this for knives now too. It's a symptom of poverty in primarily the city residential areas, and the government wants to appear to be doing something about it. I don't agree it's the best way, but it's a way. It's selectively enforced, and getting charge will result in maybe some community service or a fine - a stint in prison for repeat offenders or those already with numerous misdemeanours; it's certainly no modern dystopia where people are getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads or getting beaten to death while pinned to the ground.
As I understand it, your situation is more like a general-purpose gag order on the entire trial. Part of ensuring fair trials is making them public. In secrecy, all sorts of bad things happen. Public trials are very much on purpose. Secret trials bring to mind the USSR, North Korea, and similar.
We don't have people getting gunned down in the street with their hands above their heads either. I think you refer to the August 9, 2014 shooting of Michael Brown. Evidence shows he was doing nothing of the sort. Instead, he was trying to grab the cop's gun. His fingerprints were inside the vehicle and evidence from his body shows that the gun was fired from very short range. Yeah, we do have criminals, I admit that, and it sucks.
I live in a state with very strong social security without too paranoid immigration laws, but I still would try to get a job in the US if I had no attachments or commitments.
I also do believe it is far easier to integrate in American society and be accepted than anywhere in Europe.