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Comment by whybroke | Hacker News Reader

Every American I know who has lived in Holland says they felt freer. That's all I can offer on that. In Montana, you can't smoke a joint in a cafe, can't sun bathe naked on the beach, can't drink a beer walking in the park and, regarding safety, you'd be unwise to be a gay couple holding hands in town, have cancer and loose your job etc.

But feeling free and safe is subjective and the number leaving is not large. But it is vastly larger than those leaving for tax reasons is my point.

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>In Montana, you can't smoke a joint in a cafe, can't sun bathe naked on the beach, can't drink a beer walking in the park and, regarding safety, you'd be unwise to be a gay couple holding hands in town etc.

We don't really have much beachfront property in Montana, though I've seen plenty of naked folks in the rivers.

Montanans are intensely private people and proud of it. I have never heard my gay friends mention being unwelcome, though I'll certainly not speak for them here. I've never been stopped drinking beer in a park, though yes it isn't legal in my town (although not true of all towns in Montana like Butte). Sorry that you can't smoke a joint in a cafe right now, however you can pretty much smoke it anywhere else in public so long as you don't bother others.

I'm guessing Americans that moved to Holland are probably pretty happy there. That says absolutely nothing about the United States.

>I'm guessing Americans that moved to Holland are probably pretty happy there. That says absolutely nothing about the United States.

True and I personally would recommend everyone who can, try to live in both places as each suits different temperaments.

And I do not mean to denigrate Montana particularly which surely has virtues. But at the risk of being provocative I would cite this billboard near Malad city which simply would not exist in Europe. http://i.imgur.com/MDSWg.jpg

Mate, it's a billboard.

I'm happy for you that speech is legislated so carefully in Europe, if that's something you value. What's the point you're making? Should I bring up how nice it must feel to be a muslim in Serbia in the 90s? Of course not.

Safety and freedom are relative terms.

This could be read either way, so it's hardly provocative: I matter to him because god doesn't matter to him. So the answer is yes. The only provocative thing here is the inability of the creators to make their point to anyone but the stupidest of idiots.

That's pretty shocking even for America. Malad City is pretty remote (population around 2000), but I've never seen a more literal example of "clinging to guns and religion."

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