> Sounds like the "wild west" compared to where I live (rural Australia). Then again, > the "wild west" sure does have its attractions. > > Where I live you cannot even fart without filling out forms in triplicate and getting > stamps of approval from a dozen government departments. The rediculous and every > growing list of rules and regulations are strangling me. > > "Man is born free but is everywhere in chains !" sure applies to a lot of Australia > now.
Well at least for all of your trouble you get to live in Australia. I travelled there for 3 weeks in 2009, driving Brisbane -> Noosa -> Port Macquarie -> Sydney -> Blue Mtns -> some crummy place in the outback -> Melbourne -> Adelaide. Had lived in New Zealand for two years prior to that and decided that I had probably made the wrong decision and should have gone to Australia instead. What a truly awesome place. Much more beautiful than I was expecting. I was expecting a land dry as a bone and flat as a table top from coast to coast, Australia is amazingly green and lovely and mountain-y over surprisingly large swaths.
There is something good that comes from all of the over-zealous government interference, and that is that the rule of law is respected in countries with social systems like that. I also lived in China in 2001 and that is a place (or at least was back then) with a much less strong rule of law, at least in alot of areas. People were exploited very frequently and without much consequence there. In countries like Australia, New Zealand, and - yes - even America (especially America?) - the strength of law and the fact that people abide by it cuts out alot of the wasted energy that goes into things like, what Sune is talking about, all of the petty crime and graft and general lawlessness.