Freedom ranking for US falls

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/u...om-ranking-slips-below-france/article/2556322

Philippines should also be on the list of countries that have more freedom than US. IMO

 

Wonder how they count. If Sweden is #6, do they then consider paying 75% tax a freedom to pay? I saw it as an obligation and a burden...

 

Given immigration is one of the criteria, I would think many on the countries in the top 10 are extremely unhappy with the results of immigration by religious radicals living in their countries.

 

Big Brother is alive and well in the US;

All you phone calls and e mails are scanned by BB.

Your checking and savings accts as well as other assets can be seized without warrant by IRS. You will then have to sue them to get it back.

If a law enforcement agency stops and searches you and you have cash, regardless of the amount, they can seize it without due process and you will have to sue them to get it back. Police on a regular basis take "stuff" from citizens that have committed no crimes with immunity.

The US sends drones to kill american citizens without due process, (Yes these guys are dirt bags but it violates our constitution).

The US bails out big banks and the taxpaying citizens get to pay for it. The US bails out car companies along with unions and the stockholders, us citizens lose everything they had in the deal. US citizens have to pay for these bailouts.

The US bails out Solendra, citizens get to pay for it. Solendra's investors get their money back after the bailout, read Obama donors, Solendra declares bankruptcy within 6 months after bailout.

If you have a small business with minority workers and one of them "thinks" you have discriminated against them they can file a grievance with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which will sue you on behalf of the plaintiff. Even if you did absolutely nothing wrong it will cost you tens of thousands in attorney's fees. In the meantime you cannot sue this person or file criminal charges against them during this process. You also have no legal recourse against them once you are exonerated.

The US has 80 to 90% of the world's attorneys and 80% of the lawsuits. Laws are written by lawmakers that are usually lawyers. They can and will sue you over almost anything or nothing at all. If they collect anything they get a portion of the settlement.

What was gained by all the lives lost in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan? How many of those guys had a choice of living or dying? Many of them were drafted went to do their duty and their country pissed on their graves. Those of us that did come back couldn't get a good job because we were a Vet. Yes the attitude seems to have changed for the time being but it can change back to what it was too.

My son will be raised in another country that will not send him to die in a war that some politician thinks is necessary and he will not pay for all the bailouts that have taken place and more will probably follow because now there are even more TOO BIG TO JAIL.
If the above scenario is not slavery then I don't understand what slavery is.

There are millions of people on food stamps, subsidized housing, subsidized medical, free cell phones and phony disability, all being paid for by hard working citizens that has the money taken from their pay checks before they get it. Their housing, medical, food, cell phones are all taxed.

All the federal employees with their bloated salaries and sense of entitlement with their cushy retirements that we all must pay for.

The US passed laws that all gold had to be turned into the federal government at a set price. Those same laws made criminals out of law abiding citizens that were practicing freedoms we have had since the foundation of our country. Yes, it is legal today to own gold but the point is the government makes laws that benefit itself and makes criminals of law abiding citizens.

Every US citizen, except congress and their aides, are FORCED to purchase health insurance at bloated prices which is used to subsidize others.

Congress passes laws but exempts themselves from those same laws.

There is more but that should be enough to make most of us sick.

 

Well Guys & Gals, So many friends from across the Pond But.... I have to Admit this is definatley another time again I have to Admit and say I am SO Glad I am British

Love you all but sometimes I really do not understand all this talk, time we just settled down and started to live in Peace. Lets face it, This is what all the OTHER Wars were suppose to be about.

 

Cletus, were you ever in the U.S. military?

 

Give a certain amount of time for a project and the project will grow to fill that time.

Give a project a budget and the costs of the project will swell to fill that budget.

In both cases, the resource usage will often exceed that which has been budgeted.

Create a beauracracy and give it a task, then it will keep building on that mission, pushing the rules to the max and drumming up new ways to carry out the task.

The U.S. government is no different in this regard than any other government or organization. The reason why this problem seems worse in the U.S. than it does anywhere else is because the U.S. has more resources both in money and manpower.

Even when I sit down to work on a project solo, I have to fight some of the same problems. I can get distracted all day by doing "busy-work" which doesn't contribute to getting paid. That's spending too much time checking email, wasting time screwing with new tools when my existing tools work good enough and anything else which I can procrastinate on rather than actually doing the work.

Directing my focus to getting paid is actually really hard. It requires a lot of will power and an eye for locating the signal among the noise. What is it that is the next most important item for getting paid? Locating that item in a complex project isn't always easy.

But I have to get through this or I don't eat. Because I practice this daily as a lean freelancer, I understand this. I know how to operate lean, keep my nose on the trail and to get the product shipped to the client.

Imagine an entire organization of distracted people. Imagine that the leader is distracted, creates organization busy-work and then shoves that down through the rest of the structure. Imagine that few of these people have ever learned how to grab that focus to get things done. Imagine they don't have to worry about eating because they have a massive budget and little to no competition.

The story of SpaceX is a great one for contrasting what's possible with a lean operation vs. a status quo with little competition and bloated budgets. Elon Musk has gone through the pain of starting businesses from scratch. He understands how to get by on very little and to ship a product. When he was quoted rediculous prices and timeframes to get parts from suppliers, he created his instead. He knows that to compete with the entrenched incumbents, he can't be just a little bit better, he has to be far better.

The issues you guys are referring to are the same forces playing out. If the U.S. government looks jacked up compared to X government, it's because the U.S. government has more resources. When the NSA sh*t hit the fan, the leaders of other countries were openly critical, yet privately they wished they had the resources to do the same things.

Two countries doing the same thing will be just as jacked up. The answer is to break up the big government into smaller pieces. Just like the answer to "too big to fail" banks is to break them up. This is the same reason that Ebay recently spun off Paypal, which is to regain that focus.

We can endlessly b*tch and cherry-pick examples. That gets old though. Why not actually discuss why these problems exist and possible solutions? It's a much more creative and productive process.

By the way, the U.S. government does get at least one thing right. We have 50 different states which get a lot of freedom to govern as they choose. To complain that they make mistakes is silly. Of course they will make mistakes. Failure is necessary in reaching success. Failure contains information which is needed to achieve positive results. The 50 states are free to run 50 different experiments from which each of them can learn from.