It isn't like we have free speech here in the U.S. over the last few years either.
For instance all the crazy ass muslim shit. Well, we here in the U.S. all seem to agree that they are extreme and have lost their fucking minds. BUT...we are NOT allowed to hear what they have to say or read any of the radical writings. And when I say "allowed" I mean that if you do and openly discuss any of it...the FBI will kick your door in and then use the stuff you read as "evidence" against you.
In other words "WORDS" themselves and the thoughts behind them are very censored here in the U.S. To me it's shocking. But I have read quotes from different govt. officials (trying to justify impounding peoples laptops at airports) that said that propaganda that could be contained on those laptops was potentially more dangerous than any threat we have ever faced.
WTF?!?!?!?! Okay...the govt. has to tell us what we are allowed to watch. What kind of drugs we can legally use for partying. What we can and can't do with our own bodies. What we can listen to. And now what we can read and THINK.
My thought is our govt. is both power hungry and incredibly paranoid all at the same time.
But I could be wrong...we're only trying to build a wall across the southern border (wasn't it only 20 years ago that Pres. Reagan told Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall") to stop Mexican people from crossing.
Of course people have pretty much freely crossed that border since BEFORE our country existed. But now suddenly it's a problem. Any minute now a half dozen Arabs could just come walking across and go apeshit.
Or maybe we need to close the border to stop the evil drug wars. Oops! I forgot...WE are the ones who made all these drugs illegal in the first place and then pressured all the countries who grow them into making them illegal too. Thus creating the drug cartels. (The EXACT same stupid shit we did with Prohibition)
Eh...maybe, just maybe if our govt. would leave people the fuck alone and quit trying to be everybodies mommy and daddy a lot of these problems wouldn't exist.
I know that I envy the people in Amsterdam. I never felt so free in my life as I did there.