[smcl]

Europe doesn’t bill itself as “the land of the free” and doesn’t proudly tout itself as having free speech above all else no matter the cost. So famously fascist symbols - like the swastika/hakenkreuz among other things - are banned a few places, it may be controversial but it’s not a dirty little secret or anything like that

[huijzer]

Updated comment to make argument clearer

[smcl]

Your argument is no clearer. Someone's claiming US is beginning to resemble China in that they hide criticism of the ruling parties - they have not mentioned Europe once and you're saying ... something about censorship in Europe?

This reminds me of my Dutch friend who is prone to exaggeration to make things sound dramatic and scary to outsiders, and frequently claims the Netherlands is a "narco state" - big "Nederlandse hiphop: Ik kom van de straat" energy going on here.

[huijzer]

> This reminds me of my Dutch friend who is prone to exaggeration to make things sound dramatic and scary to outsiders, and frequently claims the Netherlands is a "narco state" - big "Nederlandse hiphop: Ik kom van de straat" energy going on here.

Well I think there is definitely WAY too much drugs here. Definitely not as bad as California, but I've lived in Eindhoven for a while and people could just put their car window open a bit and text a certain number and get it delivered to their car! Also I've met plenty of students who took XTC during parties and thought it was all fine. When I said something about it they called me a "moral knight". Guess I'm old fashion.