I'm not going to try to defend civil asset forfeiture (it's an abhorrent practice), but I still do think America is marginally more free than most places for a

I'm not going to try to defend civil asset forfeiture (it's an abhorrent practice), but I still do think America is marginally more free than most places for a few reasons: - I don't think the number of people in prison is the best measure of whether a country is free or not. By that logic, a backwater regime which simply dealt with undesirables via extrajudicial shootings would be more "free." - Likewise, the notion that police can "shoot you dead and barely get a slap on the wrist" is quite hyperbolic. Yes, there are plenty of cases of police brutality and we need a better system for prosecuting police murders (ideally an independent prosecutorial office which only prosecuted police). But I'm no more afraid of getting shot by the police than I am of dying in any other unlikely way (terrorist attack, random serial killer, etc.). - We do still have some rights which are freer than anywhere else. Free speech, for example, enjoys much better protection in the US. Trying to prosecute someone for insulting a foreign leader would get laughed out of court here, but apparently it's a crime in Germany. Our secret police are marginally less brazen than GCHQ. The prospect of a national firewall/blacklist is a lot more distant here.