Just to give you some background, I grew up in Germany and moved to this country just in time for George Bush and Co. to completely screw things up. I moved to the US in 1999. At the time, gas was at about $1.30 per gallon and the country was still “cool” for the most part. I don’t have to go into what happened after that, it’s history.
The reason I’m writing this article is to give people some idea of what’s really going on in this country. I know it’s great to go to Disney World (my grandparents used to take us there all the time when I was a kid) and to pretend everything is just fine and dandy, however if you stop and think for a second, moreover stop think and compare our situation to other industrialized countries, it’s easy to see how clueless most people are here.
First of all I don’t really blame most people for their lack of interest. People are busy with getting by that they don’t have time checking on the government. It’s understandable, but very regrettable. I’m going to list a few items that are facts. I was born and raised in Germany, was 100% integrated into German culture, went to German Schools and became a German licensed carpenter in my mid 20’s. I was also unemployed for about a year and guess what? I had full health coverage the entire time.
See the thing in this country is that politicians and companies keep telling you that this is the best country in the world and they would never want to live anywhere else. Yes it’s true, we currently still have the most liberties compared to many countries in the world. However, when I compare let’s say my swimming skills with someone else, I don’t pick someone that’s 300 lbs overweight to measure my abilities - I pick someone of equal stature, so the comparison has any validity. It’s along those same lines that I think it’s lame to compare yourself to 3rd world countries and to then they “we’re better than them”. It’s true that over 90% of the world consists of countries that I wouldn’t even call my favorite travel destination. However the countries I compare the US too are countries like France, Germany, Canada, Luxembourg, Holland, Sweden, Finland, etc (don’t be offended if I left your country out).
It’s common rhetoric to hear that we supposedly have the best health care in the world - that’s a total myth or maybe there’s some more in depth definition needed. When I say health care, I mean health care and not “elite care”. Elite care is care that’s only available to people with enough money, whereas health care I believe should be available to everyone. I know so many voices say that you can’t have socialized medicine because it will bankrupt us, but that is the biggest piece of bullshit I’ve ever heard. In regards to the title of this article, yes we’re free - but we’re pretty much free to deal with it on our own. For me it’s a question of quality of life. Wouldn’t you like to be able to say that you live in the most free country in the world, where all people are taken care of? Do you really believe that this is a move towards Socialism? Because if you do I urge you to cancel your next Disney Vacation and head on over to Europe and watch how people live untroubled lives, not having to worry about health care.
What else do we have that makes us such a free country? Other than the Japanese I don’t think there’s any other industrialized country that has as little vacation as we do. In Germany for example no matter who you are, you get at least four weeks of vacation. How on Earth could any country stand for something like this? It’s called science. The Germans for example early in their history had people that investigated the effect of vacation on productivity and it was determined that human beings are just that much more productive, if they can take some proper time off from the job. So here I am working my ass off to get by and I have 10 days off the entire year. My friends at home laugh at me when I tell them this. “I thought the United States is so free?” - my reply: So did I>
Another example of how you are not free is the police force. Most people here are so used to it that they don’t’ even question it and that’s dangerous in any event. I am not used to, nor will I ever be that Police officers can harass me - that’s Fascism. The police work for us and they are not employed by Black Water and can do whatever they want. I don’t care what crime someone has committed, the moment our Police force turns into the same criminals they’re supposed to protect us from, we’re not talking about Freedom anymore. You may think it’s OK for a police officer to beat up someone if they did something wrong - I don’t. I also don’t believe in the Death sentence which most of the industrialized countries regard as something that can only be attributed to the Middle Ages.
You want another example of how we’re not free? The press. It’s supposed to serve as a whistle blower, an entity that independently uncovers things nobody would find out about if not. Oh wait, they don’t report on the important things do they. I’m pretty well informed on Britney Spears current legal battles for custody over her children, but I don’t see much in the news about how many veterans are coming back FUCKED and how the VA under leadership of this great Republican Government is ruining our soldiers. I have nothing but respect for soldiers and anyone that serves in these tough times and it kills me to see these young people abused to no end.
Lastly, a country can also be judged on its prisons. Why are we locking so many people up? How is that helping us? Why do we jail pot smokers and other non-crimes but we let big corporations get away with ripping off entire states? You call this freedom? - I call it a fucking joke. If you’re going to reply with “well why don’t you go back to where you came from” I guess you’re doing OK - you’re private rights aren’t being infringed upon, I’m sure your kids enjoy world class education, nobody you knows has ever wrongfully been accused of any terrorism charges, etc.
For those of you that don’t believe me I have one suggestion - go on vacation outside of the U.S. for once and take notes. Watch how people live, and see what they worry about and come back and tell me what you saw.
This article was written by Arno - Author's Website
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