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Comment by jsjddbbwj | Hacker News Reader

Considering that the EU doesn't even have freedom of speech, calling that the free world is quite the stretch.

But they don't have civil forfeiture, they have a less tyrannical justice system, they have fewer incarcerated people per capita, so there's that.

Americans claim they are free, but only if they contort the definition. There's more to freedom than guns and free speech.

A more tyrannical justice system and more incarcerated people are not necessarily bad per se. Remember that the US is vastly more heterogeneous which translates into more crime. Keeping criminals in prison is freedom--freedom to own a store and not being robbed, for instance.

Not sure how common civil forfeiture is, I'm not American, but it sounds quite fishy indeed. As I said below, I didn't mention the US at all...

Its a fair point, I'm just pointing out the fact that freedom is in the eye of the collective beholder.

You really think that the freedom to organize a neonazi cell is more important than the freedom not to be robbed at gun point by the police?

> Keeping criminals in prison is freedom--freedom to own a store and not being robbed, for instance.

I think when people mention the high incarceration rate in the U.S., they're usually bemoaning not the armed robbers, but those that are incarcerated for three-strikes laws, recreational drug use, non-violent recidivism, and those unconvicted but unable to afford bail.

> Remember that the US is vastly more heterogeneous which translates into more crime

Care to substantiate that claim?

Care to debunk it?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence or in your case, any. It's on you to prove it not vise versa.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43552152?seq=1

and

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227283604_Populatio...

I'm not sure that incarceration (and the circumstances under which it usually happens) in the US is increasing the "freedom". See i.e. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wtV5ev6813I

Neither does the US.

Definitely, I didn't mention the US at all, but at least the US doesn't have blasphemy laws, for example.

> at least the US doesn't have blasphemy laws, for example

True. And yet despite that, Christianity seems to be a litmus test for being President in the US.

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