[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Try chewing gum in Singapore. [/quote]
I have. Many times. And with absolutely no consequences whatsoever. See, chewing the gum is totally legal. It’s selling the gum, or importing a quantity of it above and beyond what would be considered reasonable use, that is restricted.
And yes, you will be fined if you are caught leaving your chewed-up wad of gum on the sidewalk, but I would hardly consider this an infringement on my personal liberty.
[quote]AdamC added:
Or being gay. [/quote]
As far as I know, being homosexual is not against any Singapore law.
Certain homosexual behaviors are prohibited in public places, such as getting a blowjob in the men’s room, but this is illegal for heterosexuals as well. A gay ex-colleague of mine, who often went to Singapore on business, reported that it is one of the “cruisiest” places in the world, including San Francisco. The only difference being that in Singapore he never had to worry about getting harassed by homophobe rednecks.
[quote]AdamC further advised:
And for fuck sake don’t get caught with any illegal drugs at customs.[/quote]
Name me one country on the planet where being caught with illegal drugs at customs would not have negative consequences.
[quote]AdamC next queried:
But is America really the most free country in the world? [/quote]
No, I would say that it probably is not the most free country in the world. But as Socrates (and Zap) pointed out, one must first define one’s terms.
My working definition of freedom is “the capacity to do whatever one pleases, without interference from authority, provided such activity does not infringe the capacity of another to do the same.”
I have yet to find a country where this is completely possible, but the one I’m in now comes close. It may not be a totally accurate assessment, because as a foreigner I get away with a lot more shit than I would be able to as a Japanese.
For most Japanese, whatever is not specifically allowed is assumed to be prohibited. The gaijin take the opposite tack: whatever is not specifically prohibited is assumed to be allowed. And even the prohibited stuff is not so heavily prohibited. Where I live, the cops all know that people grow marijuana and poach abalone and lobster and boar, but by and large they look the other way as long as these activities are kept quiet.
In the nearly two decades I have been here, I have never been harassed–nor even unduly inconvenienced–by a policeman or government agent, and I am not exactly the meekest and most law-abiding person on earth.
The drinking age is 20, the age of consent is between 13 and 17 (depending on prefecture), and it’s the only country I know where you can buy a bottle of beer, a pack of cigarettes, and a six-pack of condoms at practically any hour of the day, from vending machines.
And despite what you hear about perverts on the trains, or high school girls selling their panties (or perhaps even their bodies) to men old enough to be their fathers, Japan is for the most part an extremely moral society, whose morality is achieved not by force of law, but through force of conscience. And in the absence of religion, I might add.
Yes, Japan has silly rules, like if you have a tatoo you will be asked to leave certain gyms, but these are not laws as such, and can nearly always be circumvented without too much trouble (long sleeves).
The only laws I find annoying are the restrictive firearms laws, and the number of legal hoops through which one is required to jump in order to obtain even a hunting shotgun, but in a way it’s good: it keeps the guns out of the hands of the nitwits and nutcases.
On the other hand, in all the years of living here, even when walking down the midnight streets of Shinjuku, I have never had that deep, visceral feeling that I’d really, really like to have a powerful handgun within easy reach, as I had much of the time I was living in South Central LA.
As a foreigner with the Japanese equivalent of a Green Card, I have all the rights of a Japanese national, except that I can’t vote in national or regional elections, I can’t hold public office, and I couldn’t be drafted into the SDF (Self-Defense Force) in time of war or national emergency. Other than that, I can buy land, build a house, start a business, own a gun, fly a plane, hunt deer and wild boar… basically anything I want to do.
So which is the freest country? I have no idea. Only an opinion as to where I, personally, feel the freest.