i've always taken this to explain why americans are so obsessed by 'dont tred on me' freedom -- they have so little of it where its actually experienced: at the daily, local, level
In a city I can't even leave a garbage bin in front of my garage. Rural, I could burn it in my front yard
Big country is big, isn't homogeneous.
The county government does little and our property taxes reflect that.
I can and have burned very large piles in my yard, but we're not savages. I have to notify the local volunteer fire department first, or they're libel to show up, and not happily.
There's a high fire risk in this area and smoke watchers will report it, and the VFD gets dispatched. They don't respond individually.
We left because over the last 15 years the decay of uniform public law enforcement has essentially led to "norms" being enforced by the local landowning elites. And they have certain characteristics that make them highly identifiable. IOW, if you look like them, you get all the space you have said you prefer. If not, well, there's not a lot to limit the potential downsides.
This has also led to a large increase in trash behavior out on the public lands. Lots of new wildcat trails/double track for instance. For us it got pretty uncomfortable a few times in the last 5-6 years. We began to post the shotguns in a highly visible place in the camp, or in the truck. That definitely helped.
Like New York? The above commenter said law enforcement advised them to get guns which is what I've experienced growing up rural; tyrannical power mongers who are as you said, the sole power, try to take people's guns away.
https://www.quora.com/Who-originally-said-To-my-friends-ever...
In the history of the world, there has never been a law enforcement institution that enforced the rules equally to itself. The same is true of every power structure e.g. governance; financial elites; ...
Dictators don’t strike me as generally inclined to recommend having the capacity for self defense. I think you are just trying to come up with the worst possible interpretation of intention.
Americans also feel more taxed, again, at every level above.
Ironically, I think the more centralised power is, the more uniformly its managed, the more free one feels under it -- since there arent as many competing interests to worry about
Where I'm at, the city doesn't even care if you put up a fence blocking sight triangles at an intersection, much less what you do with your property that they can't see.
The obsession with reminding us how flawed and comedic our checks and balances are, how little accountability there is. how “but at least you can talk about it” will be used to invalidate the issue by people indoctrinated by our compromisestitution
Literally on an article documenting the state being checked. A corollary to those who choose security over freedom deserving neither is those who choose nihilism over truth and activism are choosing a weak form of mental security.
Quite a sweeping generalization considering we're talking about a headline of a single, unusual case.