Freedom: 15 Things I Can Do in Denmark That I Can’t Do in the USA

So here we go again. Another farcical election looms in the world’s greatest circus nation: AKA The United States of America. As ever, it’s not even worth wasting popcorn on. Nevertheless it occupies obscene amounts of media coverage and the same-old same-old narrative is oddly still in play.

You know the script: “greatest country in the world”, “land of the free” and all that yada yada. It is soooo tiring. As a European in my mid-fifties I have a hard time finding any example of the US influencing my daily life — and thank Odin for that. The industrialised world’s most broken nation shouldn’t have any influence on anyone else.

I live in Denmark and, like many Danes, we are proud of the society we have built together through many generations. This pride does not cause us to chant our nation’s name like they do over there with their unfounded U-S-A!, U-S-A! bravado. We are simply content that we have one of the finest societies on earth, in many ways aligned with our other Nordic neighbours.

So here’s me pondering what things I can do in Denmark that many Americans can’t do. What freedoms do I have that average Americans sadly miss out on? Let’s get this party started by revisiting the brilliant opening scene of the series The Newsroom, where Jeff Daniel’s character embarks on this…