> An enormous number of Americans have been persuaded to believe that they are freer in the abstract than, say, Germans or Danes precisely because they possess

> An enormous number of Americans have been persuaded to believe that they are freer in the abstract than, say, Germans or Danes precisely because they possess far fewer freedoms in the concrete. They are far more vulnerable to medical and financial crisis, far more likely to receive inadequate health coverage, far more prone to irreparable insolvency, far more unprotected against predatory creditors, far more subject to income inequality, and so forth. For a comment that adopts a rather condescending tone, it's odd that it displays such a lack of understanding of some basic truths. When Americans speak about their rights, they are generally speaking of negative rights, i.e. the natural rights of man which cannot be infringed upon by their government. The "freedoms" referred to above are exclusively positive rights, so named because they require positive action--in other words, these "Freedoms" are imposed by the state. Europeans who are compelled by the state to cough up half of their incomes to the state are free to refer to the resulting programs as "freedom", but this is a new formulation of freedom that has no basis in the historical meaning of freedom to which most Americans adhere. > while effectively paying more in tax (when one figures in federal, state, local, and sales taxes, and then compounds those by all the expenditures that in this country, as almost nowhere else, their taxes do not cover). This is nonsense. The taxation rate in the us is far lower than those in Democratic Socialist countries, while incomes are ~40% higher after accounting for healthcare costs. Taxation by country: [0] Denmark - 52% of GDP Norway - 55% of GDP Finland - 53% of GDP Sweden - 50% of GDP Iceland - 42% of GDP >>Average - 50.5% USA - 22% of GDP ----- OECD data shows that Median American income is 40% higher than the oft-hailed bastions of Social Democracy: Household Income in US dollars (2018) [3] Denmark - $34,712 Norway - $39,555 Finland - $34,497 Sweden - $34,301 Iceland - Not reported USA - $50,292 ----- Household Debt as % of disposable income (2015-2018): [1] Denmark - 281% Norway - 239% Finland - 145% Sweden - 189% Iceland - Not reported USA - 105% ----- Household Net worth as % of net income (2014): [2] Denmark - 553% Norway - 318% Finland - 359% Sweden - 526% Iceland - Not reported USA - 601% ----- [1]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm [2]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-net-worth.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-net-worth.htm#indicator-... [3]https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm#indicator-chart https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm#in...