Make America great - for everybody!

[Medusa]

Correct me if I'm wrong but except for Canada and Australia, their racial population is mostly made up of well, themselves. Their immigration numbers are tiny. Hive minds make happy minds. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

[iris]

Lets look at Denmark... The tax to GDP ratio is 48.9%. They have the highest tax rate in the world. Free speech and press exists only as long as the courts agree. Religious freedom is only protected for Islam according to 266b of the criminal code and a judgment made by a district court in 2013 it was acceptable for a local Imam to berate Jews and the Jewish religion but speaking about the "ideology" of Islam (not the religion) was worthy of a conviction and fine. There are few cars in Denmark but more bicycles than people. Well, with nearly 50% of your money going to taxes and having to import most food products there are very few people who can afford a car.

So the people of Denmark are happy. I think that is wonderful, if it is true. I will take free over happy every time.

Ok. First off, and this is important, don't trust everything you read in the media. Second. I'm currently sitting about 20 kilometers from Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark (the point of this being I am in Denmark. Have been for the past 23 years).
The taxes I won't disagree with. They're high, we know. What is not mentioned is that those taxes ensure free healthcare and school for us, hell! young people at university actually get payed to study,not much, rarely enough to pay our rent, but enough that we can focus on studying over working. Our taxes pay for that. Unemployed get payed from the state, noone will be left without an income without choosing it - they also get very intensive help and guidance looking for jobs and improving qualifications.
Nursing homes are free, so is any help elders might need in their own home. Our taxes pay that. They also pay research into vital areas like enviorment and illness. They support youth clubs, local sports teams and private initiatives into integration and helping kids from difficult backgrounds. Just to mention some things.

Next up: no cars. Well. Have you seen the size of the country? We don't need cars. We are 5-6 million people. We would all fit snugly in Paris. It takes me 5 hours to cross the country by train. I'd say 8 by car. And our public transport (despite how much we whine about it, and that's a lot) is very good... we use bikes a lot, and we're F*ing proud of it, because why shouldn't we? It's good for the enviorment. Why take the car if you can walk or take your bike?... but we do have cars. They're expensive to buy, yes. But not impossible. It's not because we can't afford them we don't have them. We may not have money for the newest model. But even I could afford a car if I wanted. My profession? Actor. Aka unemployed. I grew up in a working class family, but we always had a car. Most of my life we had 2.
The food? Expensive if you buy the wrong stuff. There are higher taxes on unhealthy food in an attempt to make the healthy cheaper. But we get by ^^.

As for the imam, do you have a source? Because it goes against everything I know about my home. But I don't know the particular case so I won't make comments on it without being sure.

[Briton]

Lets look at Denmark... The tax to GDP ratio is 48.9%... There are few cars in Denmark but more bicycles than people. Well, with nearly 50% of your money going to taxes and having to import most food products there are very few people who can afford a car.

UK tax to GDP ratio is not far off at 39% and our salary averages 3,000EUR net a year less than Denmark, so that doesn't stack up that people can't afford a car. Furthermore, 9 out of 10 Danes own a bicycle, and they're healthier for it http://www.cycling-embassy.dk/facts-about-cycling-in-denmark/statistics/ so I'm also not sure where you got this "more bicycles than people" unless you're talking about ones in stores unsold, which doesn't really mean anything.

They have the highest tax rate in the world. Free speech and press exists only as long as the courts agree. Religious freedom is only protected for Islam

Not true at all. Denmark does not have separation of Church and State, so the Christian Church of Denmark is very much protected, whilst ritual slaughter (kosher and halal) is banned in Denmark as of 2014.

according to 266b of the criminal code

What?

"(1) Any person who publicly or with the intention of dissemination to a wide circle of people makes a statement or imparts other information threatening, insulting or degrading a group of persons on account of their race, colour, national or ethnic origin, belief or sexual orientation, shall be liable to a fine, simple detention or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years."
(2) When handing down the punishment, it is to be considered as an aggravating circumstance that the statement is in the nature of propaganda."

Nothing about special treatment for Muslims there, mate.

and a judgment made by a district court in 2013 it was acceptable for a local Imam to berate Jews and the Jewish religion but speaking about the "ideology" of Islam (not the religion) was worthy of a conviction and fine.

Source for this please?

So the people of Denmark are happy. I think that is wonderful, if it is true. I will take free over happy every time.

What's the point in being free if you're poor and miserable?

Meanwhile, financially, there is little difference. Their salaries are a little above the US, matching the fact that their housing prices are a little above US too. I think you're making a great fuss over nothing.

You also clearly do not appreciate the level and quality of healthcare and public transport etc that can be expected with higher taxes. The fact that 10% of the US population has no health insurance, because it's so expensive, makes me wonder just how "free" you guys really are.

[Medusa]

Briton all your post is white text. Can't read a thing.

[Briton]

Briton all your post is white text. Can't read a thing.

Sorry, had a formatting issue with copy-pasted text. Sorted now.

[Denarius]

Their immigration numbers are tiny. Hive minds make happy minds.

Well, there are more factors to it than that. I mean Japan is one of the most ethnically homogeneous places on the planet, and yet they have extremely high depression and suicide rates.

[Briton]

Well, there are more factors to it than that. I mean Japan is one of the most ethnically homogeneous places on the planet, and yet they have extremely high depression and suicide rates.

I'm also under the impression that disdain to foreigners is quite common.

[anunitu]

I would listen to Iris about Denmark ,as she lives there,and would have a much better idea of what it is like.

[B. de Corbin]

What does it mean to "be free," when, for most people, the only way to get out of poverty is to sell yourself into slavery for student loans to get a college degree? And yes, I mean literal slavery. The Romans had a system where, to learn a trade, one could sell one's self into slavery (they called it what it was) to pay the education fees. The different was that, in Rome, a slave owner would customarily free his slaves when he died, but in America there is no way - even by pulling a Donald Trump and declaring bankruptcy - to get out of that debt.

What does it mean to "be free" in a country where the second best chance to get out of poverty is graduate high school, when the government is systematically destroying public education in favor of for-profit education?

What does it mean to "be free" in a country where the simple act of having a child either forces people into poverty, or forces them to abort the child?

What does it mean to "be free" in a country where an illness requiring hospitalization forces you to lose anything you may own because the bills are so stinkin' outrageous?

Yeah... Give me more of that crap theory...

[Medusa]

Is this where we whine again about 'oppression'on the interwebs?