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Comment by aryehof | Hacker News Reader

The constant affirmation of being "free", the need to "protect our freedom" and "the greatest country in the world", simply stops people questioning anything about the relative state of society and freedom.

Instead of being 1st in the world, the USA ranks 23rd in the world for freedom [1], and 11th for economic freedom [2].

It's only likely to get worse.

Even sadder is that there are countries where people have a average life expectancy up to 5% longer than the USA.

[1] https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index [2] http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

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USA is only 41th in the rankings of press freedom[0]. That's worse than some African countries.

0. https://rsf.org/en/ranking#

I don't disagree with US not having freedom, but I don't think the nordic countries should be up there either.

For example, you can't publish news in Sweden/Finland/Germany that can be interpreted as anti-feminist or has an anti-refugees sentiment.

This soft pressure is hard to quantify because as a journalist you would lose your job and be accused of various things if you attempted to publish something like that.

Where did you get such information? I don't know about anti-feministm, but I've seen plenty of anti-refugees articles both in Swedish and German. Moreover, Pegida (openly anti-refugees and anti-islamisation) is an officially registered association in Germany.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegida

Didn't know this. Thanks.

Sorry thats pure non sense, you can publish whatever you want in germany (and i guess the other countries too...) as long as it isn´t hatespeech etc.

There are books for sale like the ones from Thilo: Sarrazin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thilo_Sarrazin

Which are full of anti immigration speech and whatever...

Interesting. Thanks. Wasn't aware

What is hatespeach? That in itself chills a lot of possible stories. Anything anti-feminist, is hate speech - it might or not be true.

Curious. Where did you even get that from?

> that can be interpreted as anti-feminist or has an anti-refugees sentiment

This is a lie.

How would expect to control a population if not by ideology and propaganda ? Keep them as dumb and uninformed as you can, keep them busy working or else they may ask questions and initiate change that would jeopardize the caste in power.

Most people actually believe they live in democracies while there are no democracies on the planet right now though a couple countries are not so far from it.

"Swiss are the most armed and most free nation" - Niccolo Machiavelli

100% freedom is a pipe dream, but they are as close as mankind can get these days and sustain it (for 800 years). Looking as an expat on their system, I am not sure about 1 thing I would like them to change, honestly.

US reality is megaparsecs behind in most regards.

And in that 'ranking' they put 'Hong Kong' as the #1 'most free' place in the world.

Yes, the same Hong Kong that is not a democracy, wherein the CCP can and will come and get you anytime they please, wherein if you speak out against the government, you can go to jail, wherein every action of every citizen is monitored by the CPP.

I find this to be somewhat problematic.

Apparently they forgot to include 'political freedom' - which is a rather odd thing to overlook :)

They also place nations such as UAE far ahead of the US in terms of 'economic freedom' - this, a 'nation' wherein the various 'mini monarchs' have absolute authority, can pluck your finances, do as they please with you - for whatever reason they want, at any time, and are completely above the law. Of course total censorship of information, and absolute power by the police to intervene in your personal affairs have something to do with 'economic freedom'.

The Cato institute does some good (but opinionated work), but find this is irresponsible.

Agree. Also: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_the_United_Arab_Emi...

The thing with Hong Kong is a bit more complicated. Although there has been kidnappings of booksellers who were selling critical books and magazines about the CCP leaderchip, in general you can say whatever you want. You can demonstrate for an independent Hong Kong and won't land in jail. Also a bunch of other stuff can be considered more 'free'. Prostitution is legal etc. In the end HK is not really China.

Anyway, I am sure the internet access here in HK is also monitored, but my guess its about the same as the US (so everything).

You dont see the ironie do you?

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