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I think that's an insane argument to use to "prove" that NL is descending into tyranny. Loud cars(and motorbikes) are an actual nuisance to people and it's great that they are being introduced. What's next, speed cameras are tyranny too?
By the way, the boiling frog thing has been debunked many times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
And even though OP is too dramatic.
The fact is that much of the world news Snowden was revealing already, was common practice in Netherlands for a while before that; and it was publically accepted.
For instance they could & can eaves drop on your phonecalls without any warrant needed from an independent judge. They just need approval from a commission they can create themselves: https://www.aivd.nl/onderwerpen/afluisteren.
There is definitely a big issue with the Government having too much power, lack of independent checks, and being hard to hold them responsible.
It seems to work well for things other than frogs, like normalizing microtransactions and gambling in video games.
I do not hope for it. But if it happens, may it serve as a warning and example to everyone else who has freedom and does not currently cherish it enough. I know that what happened to the truckers in Canada when they had their electronic assets frozen certainly woke up people in Canada to a degree.
Why would they be paying for upkeep of cameras that do absolutely nothing?
It's just such a weird argument that you're making. It's like saying that once roads disappear all the speed cameras are going to be repurposed to take pictures of you walking about to match facial data or something. Technically possible I suppose, but given how these things work it might as well be sci-fi. Government would have to scrap the entire system and buy new devices that do what you suggest, and that's where the whole idea will fail.
In EU we still have some power over politicians. US with its cemented dual party is basically a fasade of democracy. Thats why US people are so anti government.
Everything is always set in us vs them context.
Lets hope this trend will not affect eu countries too much.
In some countries like Netherlands, the citizens largely trust their government to represent their interests by enacting such rules.
Not saying whether it’s right or wrong, just stating how it works…not everything is “muh, freedom!”
I’ll take our freedom over yours any day.
The things I paid/got paid for/in cash (say above $500) are so far:
* advance for a house, which is pretty much done cos it makes whole procedure easier for both sides
* that one time buyer of the land we were selling decided to pay in cash, but that was back when transaction costs were % of the value (that got changed to something more reasonable), so just taking a bag of money out of bank to give someone else that then went to bank and put it into their account was significantly cheaper than electronic transfer
I think it's also semi-common in buying cars, as then it's simple trasaction (here are your keys, here is your money) vs buyer maybe not being paid. But for mine I just paid via elixir transaction, it was cheap enough to be under daily limit.
As for sub-$500 still happen reasonably often but mostly old people.
It's paradise.
Yes, people with big cars and serial killers are frowned upon. What's not to like though?