From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Mon May 22 2000 - 07:15:32 MDT
Zero Powers wrote:
> >From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
>
> >Depends. Property crime rates 5 times higher than the US? No right to
> >privacy on email? Political dissidents (irish) getting assassinated by
> >government SAS units? No free press (Official Secrets Act and various
> >libel laws)? What are the tax rates now over there? What are the value
> >added tax rates? Any country that taxes you on the number of closets you
> >have and the number of televisions you have is NOT a free country.
>
> To hear you tell it, though, there is not a free country on the face of the
> globe, and there never has been. Seems your criteria for what constitutes a
> "free" country is unsurmountably high.
By my standards, there are some states in the US that are relatively free, but
that is being eroded by the continuing federalization of many 'crimes'. The US
as a whole used to be very free, at least for most people. Its seems though,
today, that those in power are now trying to impose on everyone the sort of laws
that were once restricted to minorities under the Jim Crow statues. Beyond the
US, from what I know, I think Switzerland is a pretty free country, and New
Zealand might be considered a relatively free country, though they seem to have
more socialist institutions, and so far as I know there is no Bill of Rights
there, all sovereignty originates in the Parliament.
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