Yup, and that's precisely why "it's a free country" is a false statement for any country. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a country.
You have to first define the limits of "free", i.e. the rules that "everyone" will have to obey, and what happens if they don't obey, and who enforces those rules.
So all that's left is the degree (or the type) of non-freedoms you'll live with. Easy, right?
A few remarks, from the point of view of someone who is neither an "outsider" nor an "insider".
It's so naive to compare EU to USA. It's probably not surprising, but most EU residents aren't very familiar with how the USA works, and most USA residents aren't very familiar with how the EU works. For better or for worse, you can't very meaningfully directly compare EU's policymaking and decisionmaking with respect to its countries, to USA's policymaking and decisionmaking with respect to its states.
Perhaps, unless you lived for many years or decades in both, you may not be able to realize this.
But to anyone who traveled and lived extensively in both, there's quite obviously no way to make direct comparisons hold in a very meaningful way. It's perhaps less meaningless to compare the USA to an individual country within the EU, just like you may compare the USA for example to Canada or Mexico - they're also countries, after all.
In any case, if you really want to compare the USA with the EU, with respect to this pandemic, let's:
(just a few random comparisons here)
1) the EU was late in coming up with a common policy, but they did, eventually. Many EU policies were also preceded by individual EU countries' measures, such as actual complete lockdowns. Not pseudo-lockdown measures as witnessed in most of the USA territory, where everyone pretty much kept moving about without much fuss - of course excepting a few places such as NYC, etc.
The USA government and legislation, in a country that is a federal union of states (which the EU isn't) did what, exactly, other than spending tons of federal funds, in good part to save corporations?
3) When USA residents pay their taxes, do you realize how much of those taxes are federal taxes, compared to the portion of EU residents' taxes that end up in EU-wide taxation and use of such EU-based taxes? The sheer power of USA federal funds is quite obvious at the military level. Not so much about using federal funds to protect some other human rights within the USA - such as the right to health, and this obviously shows, especially this year. If it were a democracy, USA citizens could perhaps decide about it - but perhaps they don't care about their health as much as they care about their guns. This also shows, in many comments throughout slashdot. Not so much in EU-based equivalents to slashdot. Few other people around the world seem to be as obsessed about guns as people are in the USA, especially among so-called "industrialized countries".
4) I'd have a hard time imagining any state within the USA enforcing entry/exit at its borders with other USA states, in the same way that EU countries can (and did, during lockdown) quite strictly enforce entry/exit at their borders with other EU countries.
" And so the problem remained, and lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches. "
The lifespan of most species is, or rather was, before humans showed up, in the millions of years (unless you are a creationist, of course). Doesn't look as promising for your current dominant species though.
Good luck in your respective countries.
There isnâ(TM)t that much differenceâ¦
Current or previous administration, the health system in the USA remains a for-profit business.
No other "rich" country in the world considers healthcare optional, and yet collects a disproportionate amount of socialist financing from their citizens (i.e. IRS federal taxes) to fund weapon manufacturers and so-called defense sector.
A socialist-funded military, controlled by a federal government not elected democratically (1 person not equal to 1 vote, and a president who didn't even get a simple majority of votes), and a capitalist health system: a winning combination for the USA population
Who would be the leftists youâ(TM)re referring to?
The USA has no main party that could be considered leftist anywhere else in the world other than dictatorships.
There are the Democrats, who are primarily right wing religious conservatives, led by millionaires and controlled by corporations. And then there are the Republicans, who are mostly right wing extremists, religious fundamentalists, also led by millionaires and controlled by corporations. Anybody who is left wing is also left out.
And you may not realize this, but one order of magnitude would mean 500,000 deaths due to coronavirus in Europe. Is that whatâ(TM)s happening?
You mean that kind of inhuman?
it's a sad state for a Slashdot story, when all the first comments are about how the editor:
on the other hand, with Slashdot's continual increase of name-calling and threats of violence between Anonymous Cowards (and not), the right-wing extremism, the machismo...
attention to factual information does not seem to be among the main goals of Slashdot.
The Slashdot of your youth is probably gone forever, together with CmdrTaco.
My sympathies...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/p...
Jill Stein and husband together: 302,258
http://money.cnn.com/2014/04/0...
It takes "at least $389,000 to make the club".
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. -- Henry David Thoreau
