Before I left Italy, there was a land-mark case involving a thief and a produce stand owner. Long story short, the thief was pardoned because he was able to "prove" that without resorting to theft, he would have starved. His "right" to survive trumped the produce stand guy's right to make a living.
Coming soon to our shores...
That sounds about right, because I recently read a story where it took the Italy SUPREME COURT to finally quash the notion that parents are legally liable for giving 40-year old children an allowance!
Yeah, it finally came down on the reasonable result, but it took the supreme court to get there.
I also just read an article about how apparently Sweden's rate of sexual crimes is off the charts - like, far more than other countries.
Why am I saying this? Well, we get a lot of grief about the USA, as if our gun violence problem is the be-all and end-all of country to country quality of living comparisons. But there is a lot more to it.
It tells me that there is no need for us to feel "behind the times" and longingly drool for Europe's supposed "progress" in many areas.
As it turns out, a general dependence on the government to solve problems (socialism) and a culture of wildly unchecked sexual license (under the guise of "it's just a human body, why be ashamed of it"), do not necessarily lead to good places nor places we would want to be as Americans.
On the other hand, upon more careful study, it turns out that the problem MIGHT actually be the exact polar opposite: Sweden's relatively extreme position on how sex crimes are defined (which at its MeToo-esque most extreme means that essentially everyone who had sex but didn't particularly want to at the time in hindsight is now officially a victim), among other radical aspects of their definition, might be the cause of these "statistics". Sweden appears to have finally gotten to the natural logical end of "MeToo" philosophy, and the ludicrous results are apparent.
There is no longer an acceptable "gray area" wherein one out of two generally consenting parties essentially convinces the other person to engage.
Which you only have to be alive (or married) for a few weeks to see the nonsense of it, since 90% of all sex encounters on planet earth involve one person wanting it measurably more than the other person did at that exact moment, and using at least
some form of 'persuasion' to get their way. Seeing those 90% as a crime is as stupid as calling it a robbery every time my daughter cajoles or otherwise somewhat forcefully persuades me to give her money.
That's the flipside of the coin, and not the right or best result either. Both are wrong.
Between topics such as Freedom and Reasonableness, we should still be proud of our nation, although we have some work to do.
It could be a lot worse.
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