Travel has indeed changed my perception. Upon going through most areas in the European region, I find myself amused in how the people in Scandinavia see the taxes they are being made to pay up. You see, a Dutch person would tell you bluntly that it is better to take and pay huge amount of taxes and reside in a place wherein there is bountiful food, education, health care,
fast internet connections, and basic necessities in life for all than a place where you don't break your back paying taxes yet hourly see a hungry family sleeping in one of the benches of a nearby park. We Americans are supposedly the wealthiest human beings, yet we are not the people who have total freedom in everything we do. We vote for a president which could make us even wealthier, but the countries in Scandinavia make it a point to keep the government within the grasp of people themselves.
This is how I view the current recreational drug laws and provisions being made in Scandinavia. Marijuana, heroin, and cocaine addiction are perceived as the same addiction people all over the world experience with alcohol and cigarette use. With this viewpoint, recreational drug use are regulated for the maximum safety of all the people within Scandinavia. It is of utmost importance why we should value the acceptance of more and more
alternative lifestyles. If not, then we are condemned to build more and more prisons than schools, parks, or hospitals. Locke seems to hold the ideals of each and every American, but it is Rousseau's set of principles which govern each and every Scandinavian's outlook in life and governance.
