I know a few friends of mine who are extremely risk averse: they live boring safe lives and think I'm crazy going to those dangerous mountain bike trails. They don't seem to get the concept of freedom: their freedom ends with a choice of a tv movie for the evening and that's enough for them. Some people here really believe that freedom is more valuable than safety, more valuable than the number of deaths or whatever else statistic you might have there. Once these people pass away evenrually, the drive behind this freedom will vanish, and America will turn into Australia, with draconian control of guns, speech and whatever else, but I hope to not be alive by that time.
I think you have a strange view of freedom in Australia.
We'd have to be one of the more free countries around.
Yep, there are some laws that you would see as draconian, but are you offended because they actually impact you, or are they just something you don't like for "reasons"? Many places have laws and conventions that are different, it's about how you live with them.
We have crappy and corrupt politicians.
We have criminals and we have gangs. we are not perfect.
The way we treat our first nations people is frankly shameful.
Unemployed are in a in a hard shake, with benefits being far too low to both live and search for a job without family assistance.
We also have a country where you can walk down most streets without concern for your safety.
Most places in the city you lock your doors but can get away with not setting an alarm.
My current work at home office is on our back deck, and I'm happy to leave my computers out here for a few hours if I need to go out.
Most places outside the cities you don't bother locking your doors.
If you break down on a country road, your biggest fear is that somebody won't turn up to help you, not that they will come and rob you.
Most of us don't know of anybody who has been killed by violence. I know one, she was shot by her boy friend when I was about 8 years old, way before the current gun laws were enacted.
Most of the population understand that we need to work together for the common good, be it responding to natural disasters or putting on a bloody mask to help stop the spread of covid. In a disaster your neighbour will come and check that you are ok.
If I want to have my say about something, as long as I'm not stupid or violent, there are many forum.
I've walked all over the big (lol) cities in the country and never felt threatened or been accosted. This would be different if I were female, but I believe that is a problem world over.
I still believe that the police are there to help and look after me, and have no fear about talking to them. Of course I'm white middle class male and my experience is not that of other groups, however police violence is still rare enough that it creates an outcry.
Overall, the only place I would prefer to live than Australia would be New Zealand, and then I'd have to put up with the cold weather.
See, you're putting so much emphasis on safety: your entire text is about how safe Australia feels. I just don't see what's so valuable in feeling safe on a dark alley if you have zero control over the situation should anything go wrong.
You are not more free in the US than you are in Australia. Unless you cherry pick specific laws (guns for example) as the definition of what freedom is. Freedom to me means having choices. So if you pick (say) healthcare then not having access to healthcare in the US (for example) means you have less freedom in the US than most European countries. If you pick guns then people living in failed states have more freedom than the US because there are no laws stopping them from (say) acquiring nuclear weapons (illegal in the US). My point is that claiming that you are more “free” in country A vs. B is very much a subjective assertion.
