I’m an American with every intention of retiring early in the EU, but I wouldn’t be so confident. There are plenty of examples of “liberal” western governments trying hard to become as totalitarian and anti-citizen as possible. Even today, I don’t think Australia (for example) is lagging behind the USA at all when it comes to surveillance and complete disregard for personal liberty, and they’re in fact far worse in many cases. The UK isn’t far behind either of us. The USA is just the biggest and the baddest and gets the most airtime. Some of the shit I read coming out of Australia just makes me think no one cares how dictatorial some Pacific island-continent becomes, otherwise we would all be talking about it more.
I’m an American with every intention of retiring early in the EU, but I wouldn’t be so confident. There are plenty of examples of “liberal” western governments trying hard to become as totalitarian and anti-citizen as possible. Even today, I don’t think Australia (for example) is lagging behind the USA at all when it comes to surveillance and complete disregard for personal liberty, and they’re in fact far worse in many cases. The UK isn’t far behind either of us. The USA is just the biggest and the baddest and gets the most airtime. Some of the shit I read coming out of Australia just makes me think no one cares how dictatorial some Pacific island-continent becomes, otherwise we would all be talking about it more.