[ElDragonRojo]

Your pessimism seems endemic in European culture. It's actually a bigger problem, to my mind, than anything else you've mentioned here. As I like to say, Americans need to calm the hell down, and Europeans need a kick in the ass. Hopefully the Appsterdam movement will help us help each other, and we can find cultural bliss in the middle.

I will say this though, every gay person I know is a lot less worried about being beaten up by a cultural stereotype and a lot more worried about when they are going to be able to get married. That's something Amsterdam has that even San Francisco doesn't.

And hey, if you're right and the government (AKA the people) manage to turn the Netherlands into an intolerant police state, we'll move the whole thing to Germany.

[econgeeker]

I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I have to laugh at the idea of moving to germany to escape some future police state in the Netherlands. I am part german, love germany and germans, but that idea is funny. Maybe you were making a joke.

When last in berlin, I remember reading something that said "If germans were going to storm a subway station in protest, they'd all be sure to buy tickets first."