> That said it's also true that Germany is, in practice, a freer country than the USA [citation needed]

Freer by what standard?

I’m a European living in Europe, but if I could move to the United States, I’d do it overnight.

Don't. In addition to the fact that our police are intrusive, our criminal legal system is optimized for tallying high numbers of convictions rather than justice, everything is dependent on your credit score, you get effectively no vacation and very little in the way of labor protection compared to back home, and you're fucked if you get sick or injured without adequate employer health care -- according to various European Hackernews who came here, our food is terrible.

As for how Germany is freer than the USA... it consistently scores higher on various press freedom indices and on Cato's Human Freedom Index. Social mobility and legal protection of privacy are both higher in Germany.

Trump was an asshole and awful public speaker but his policies were good for the country. The current administration is further diving the US and pushing the limits of what’s acceptable. I fear this is only the beginning of much worse policies to come.

> which got us Trump and the current antivax movement

I think that you are stretching it a bit here. Claiming that individualism is responsible for that seems unsubstantiated.

The problem with the 1st Amendment is that it protects all speech (in general, and if you quote yelling "fire" in a crowded theater you have not read the case law) no matter how stupid that speech is. The issue is that anything else could be a slippery slope to authoritarianism. Drawing that line is hard. Education is the key here however some people seems to be to stupid to be educated.

It’s a stretch to blame “absolute rights” for Trump’s election. That can be placed pretty solidly on xenophobia.

The anti-maskers? The only reason those guys think they have a case is exactly because they think bodily autonomy has no limits.

> ...they think bodily autonomy has no limits.

...they think THEIR bodily autonomy has no limits -- not even where sane people would see that it has to be limited to not encroach on OTHER PEOPLE'S bodily autonomy.

There, FTFY.

This also seems to be bi-partisan sadly.

I'm not so sure about that. Stands to reason, AFAICS, that "MY freedoms (and screw yours)!" ideologically resonates more on the right than the left: The whole left-right dichotomy is one of ~ "my freedoms above all" vs "freedoms for all, balanced with responsibility for all".

I think that this is extremely simplistic. For example it does not account for individualist anarchism or the collectivist "for our country/nation/race" pushed by various fascist governments.

I can't see how "doesn't cover absolutely all corner cases" equals "extremely simplistic". I'm fairly sure that in broad terms, "left / right" covers the political spectrum the absolute majority of people inhabit. Your objection feels like futile quibbling to me.

These are not really corner cases but whatever man, you believe what you want.

> That can be placed pretty solidly on xenophobia.

It can be, but it probably shouldn't be.

Makes no sense, Trump is pro vaccine and has been from the beginning.

It has been incredibly interesting how the antivax movement has suddenly become a right wing thing after years of festering on the left (including not so long ago with our own VP). I mean... I used to live in Marin county, one of the bluest in the country and one of the least vaccinated. Then COVID comes around and suddenly everyone's pro-COVID-vax, but anti every other vax. Robert Kennedy JR was also instrumental in the 'normal' anti-vax movement, but now it's suddenly a partisan and 'conservative' thing.

(Actually, I don't think it's 'conservative' at all. Living in Portland now, I know a lot of old hippie liberals that are anti-covid-vax, and I know few conservatives here, but it's certainly more mixed in that crowd than the hippies).

Doesn't all this just go to show that anti-vaxxery[§] is not really a partisan political issue in the first place?

Plain old lunacy in itself is politically neutral. The distribution, some shades at some times being more popular on one side of the political spectrum only to sometimes migrate to the other or spread all over it... That seems to be influenced by fashion, by world events like COVID-19, etc, etc -- but basically, mainly, more or less random.

___

[§]: Like, say, spiritualism, crystal healing, homeopathy, flat-eartherism, past lives, shoving rocks up your vajazzle...

I don't believe anti-vaxxing is a political issue, yes. WHile conservatives are maligned for being anti-vax, in reality, groups like Hispanics and Blacks (not historically conservative or republican in huge amounts) have the highest rates of unvaxxedness.

Its not right or left or conservative its anti-authoritarian it makes perfect sense that "hippies" are now considered anti-vaxer. They want to decide what "drug" they inject and no gov should decide what isn't allowed and also no gov should decide whats mandated to inject. If its voluntary they likely dont care at all. The whole term "antivaxxer" is biased anyway. Most people now pushed in that group are not against vaccines they are against mandating, pushing, incentivizing, shaming etc. people into getting it especially if the gov is behind it.

I love how obvious the narrative on this angle now is, and how even on a very normie place like hn you are seen right through. Blaming individualism is a favorite past time of oligarchs and totalitarians.