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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

If your goal is to arrest someone for the crime, then this may be the best way; but if you optimise society for catching criminals you aren't optimising for prosperity, comfort or sustainability.

The country with the greatest personal liberty, currently probably the US, is consistently a place that people would choose to live if they had a choice. This is a hint that moving away from personal liberty will end up with a society that is (1) free of crime and (2) not a desirable place to move to.

I'm not really going to expand the argument; I hope it is self-evident why having your activities reviewed by a person who might choose to arrest you is going to make your life worse. Statistically and at the macro scale that is a bigger threat to you than a home invasion (even if you think you aren't committing any crimes - I hope you've read all the laws that apply to you, don't ever get into a grey area and the police never make a mistake!).

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> The country with the greatest personal liberty, currently probably the US, is consistently a place that people would choose to live if they had a choice

You haven't been around the world very much, have you? I wouldn't say that many people in the Nordic countries, for example, would choose to move to the US. If they do, liberty is certainly not among the reasons why.

If I'm strictly honest, I'd choose Switzerland. But there is not really any evidence that the models of countries that small can scale to any meaningful number of people; which is the same problem the Nordics have. The geography of economics doesn't really work in a linear way. At the 100M+ people America stands out.

Even if you want to make the argument that the US is coming 2nd to the EU or 3rd to someone else; it doesn't really alter the core point here. People prefer liberty; they aren't going to move to, say, China despite the fact that China is developing a more sophisticated surveillance network that will be used to fight crime.

Please note that my point wasn't about making a pissing contest on which country is the best or whether the US should adopt anything from any other country. I was simply replying to the claim that America is the beacon of liberty that everyone wants to go move to. That's a bit ridiculous statement to a bunch of people around the world.

I have visted a few countries.

In the US you have the potential to make more money but you damn sure arent more free.

Even Mexico has more freedoms

> Even Mexico has more freedoms

Citation needed.

personal experiences when driving 4 wheelers around drinking beer and other things.

weed is legal nationwide so is prostitution

is that enough ?

>The country with the greatest personal liberty, currently probably the US

What's their prison population again?

There's countries where the percentage is lower, yet it's basically illegal to criticize the government.

More importantly, what does that change about the argument that arresting criminals is hardly the only thing to consider? Here's the same argument with enhanced contrast: If you threw Earth into the sun, all crimes would stop. If that's all we care about, everything else is just kicking the can down the road. But that would be a "crime" in and of itself, right? IMO the same could be said about mass surveillance, it's stripping humans of their rights to preserve their rights, burning the village to save it.

Generally I can't help but notice that it's really not the size of the crime that seems to matter, but whether it's aligned with centers of power or not. We're aiming at a world where a tyrant can't be assassinated, and the defenseless can be murdered without consequence, with a bit of playing for time and lip service to principles here and there.

> It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

-- Voltaire

Are you ignorant or choosing to ignore how much of the prison population is there due to criminalising the use of narcotics and much of the violent crimes committed is a result of this policy? Are you also ignorant or choosing to ignore that the policy has been used to target especially minorities who get sentenced much more often than whites despite drug use being at similar levels across races?

Calling all these people simply "criminals" is a bit too straightforward term when the system has been set up to mainly jail black men for crimes that have no clear victim. That's a serious issue for a country that claims to be all about liberty.

> Are you ignorant or choosing to ignore how much of the prison population is there due to criminalising the use of narcotics and much of the violent crimes committed is a result of this policy?

Neither, that's simply besides the point.

How's putting people in jail based on racism besides the point when it comes to liberty? What good is being able to criticise leaders if you're in jail and can never vote again?

It's beside the point because the discussion is about mass surveillance, which will only make the problems you mention worse. If we give police more and more ability to track people, who do you think they'll track, murderers or drug dealers/users? As a hint, the latter is far more profitable to the police station.

Yes we need to change laws that disproportionately put non-violent offenders in jail, but that's beside the point when talking about mass surveillance. Both are bad, and both should have separate discussions.

> How's putting people in jail based on racism besides the point when it comes to liberty?

The point made upstream was that optimizing for jailing criminals and ignoring all else is not a good metric, while also making the terrible mistake of calling the US pretty free, which was "refuted" by with, well, a single metric, incarceration rate -- I asked what that changes about the original point, and said incarceration rate is not the one and only metric by which to measure liberty. If you wish to contest either of those points, actually do it.

Excuse me, what? I think you should step out of whatever propaganda feed you are sucked in.

Literally all of the EU have a massively lower rate and in none of the countries it is remotely illegal to criticize the government.

In Germany for example, you have multiple programs on TV dedicated to make political satire of current politics. On basically tax funded TV.

And you won't have your name published for criticizing the white house [1] like in the country some people apparently unironically think of as the place with the most personal freedom.

[1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/07/15/white_hous...

> Literally all of the EU have a massively lower rate and in none of the countries it is remotely illegal to criticize the government.

Yes, and? I didn't say that's the case in every country with a lower rate, I said there's countries that have a lower rate, but can hardly be called free. To judge something as complex as this by a single metric doesn't even pass the smell test.

>There's countries where the percentage is lower, yet it's basically illegal to criticize the government.

Don’t you see how deeply ironic that statement is? There are countries where even trivial things like criticising the government are illegal, and yet somehow the United States manages to imprison more of its own population than anyone else.

Put another way, you are more likely to have your liberty completely revoked if you live in the United States than if you live anywhere else in the world, both by population and per capita.

I'm aware of all of that, and that changes none of the points I made, nor the questions I asked. 3 comments freaking out, not one addressing the meat.

If you think its not illegal to criticize the govt get on twitter and start ranting.

Ask ted nugent how a secret service visit feels ?

or go local... simply go outside and start criticizing the local govt agents ( police )

I promise you will get a couple doses of freedom and likely be given the chance to donate to their cause

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