Where I live, police are reasonable and populace is unarmed.
On the other hand US is on of a few modern republics that hasn't produced a tyranny yet. And perhaps 2nd amendment may have something to do with that. Along with rest of the constitution.
Washington state also went concealed carry in 1961, and it's crime rate rose and fell with the rest of the country over time. Seriously, it's not an armed population, but an incarcerated one that reduces crime. It is, after all, the point of incarceration.
Do you have any sources on that? The causality is not obvious.
http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUndersta...
>Four factors appear to explain the drop in crime: increased incarceration, more police, the decline of crack and legalized abortion.
Other factors often cited as important factors driving the decline do not appear to have played an important role: the strong economy, changing demographics, innovative policing strategies, gun laws and increased use of capital punishment. In stark contrast, the crime experience between 1973 and 1991 is not well explained by the factors identified in this paper. The real puzzle in my opinion, therefore, is not why crime fell in the 1990s, but why it did not start falling sooner.
What about most european countries?
It is interesting however, from here it seem one of the US presidential candidates is much more above the law than any leader in Europe, and no one bats an eye.
I always read about this supposed "freedom" in the US, but what does that mean actually?
I mean here you can drink alcohol in public, wear no t-shirt on the subway, still smoke in many bars, say what you want online, and there are even illegal misdemeanours like kids smoking weed in public that nobody really cares about.
But if in 2050 I live in united authoritarian Europe, I won't be surprised the least.
We don't have anything in that magnitude.
I think it's actually way easier to defend yourself against the state here, than in the US.
Everything you say is true. But I think that adding yet to the end of each statement is not great stretch.
Tell that to the Native Americans and slaves.
"Only" 300.000 black people have been brought to US as slaves. Less than 5% of American families owned slaves.
Also to put things into perspective - between 1MM and 1.3MM white Europeans have been enslaved by Arabs.
What has been done to Native Americans is horrible. Slavery is horrible.
But I have no idea what any of that has to do with the fact that United States is really a one-of the kind country in the world.
I think that Americans should take a long hard look at all the problems on their plate, but they should really stop falling for snake oil peddlers who are selling Identity Politics and trying to benefit from pitting communities against each other.
That's a really odd point to make. From Wikipedia:
"In South Carolina in 1720, about 65% of the population consisted of enslaved people... The number of enslaved people in the US grew rapidly, reaching 4 million by the 1860 Census."
There were 1bn people in 1800, there are 7bn today.
Facts don't care about your feelings.
And seriously, does it matter if it was 5% or 30% that owned slaves, if 65% of the population were slaves themselves?
Slavery was horrible. And American people fought a bloody war so it could be abolished.
All I am doing is I am setting some perspective. As some people on the left engage in fallacy that every single white person owes them something because some of their ancestors may have been slaves.
Slave population in 1860 was 12%, 65% was for a single state, that was an outlier.
Yes, and America took advantage of that to increase the slave population in a cheaper manner than importing. They ripped children from their parents.
That you're portraying this as a positive fact is horrifying.
That's an exceedingly uncharitable interpretation. Please don't do that here.