At the moment a crazy man in Denver opened fire and killed 12 moviegoers at the midnight showing of Batman, I was sleeping in a rustic farmhouse in rural Sweden, a country that is perhaps the political polar opposite of the U.S. (in the Western world, at least). Sweden is a prime example of socialism at its best, and many conversations around the breakfast table with Janne and Anna were spent discussing the lifestyles and politics between our two respective countries.
The cost of living in Sweden is high. You must spend 6 euros just for a one-way ticket on a city bus, and forget about going out to more than the occassional club and drinks on a student budget. But the quality of life in the Scandanavian country seems close to perfect. People pay a high price--nearly 50% taxes--but get so much in return. Janne was mindblown by the fact that Obama´s healthcare initiative even wound up in the courts in the first place--isn´t it simple? If someone gets sick, they should have a universal right to treatment. In Sweden, even luxuries like braces, which cost upwards of 5,000 dollars in the States, are included in the coverage. People generally get at least 4 weeks of vacation a year, not including sick days--and that´s ordinary workers, not CEOs. Parents get 400 days of maternity leave, compared to about 2 minutes of maternity leave in the U.S. Anna feels comfortable letting her young girl rome around the neighborhood or even closer to central Stockholm alone because the city is so safe. There´s not even any poisonous animals to fear in Sweden´s nature! It´s merely ¨suggested¨ that you go to the hospital after a snake bite.
In the car on a drive to the city the song ¨Fuck You¨ by Gnarls Barkley came on the radio, undubbed. I had heard the U.S.´s version ¨Forget You¨ for so long that I forgot it wasn´t the original, but it´s not censored in Sweden. And while flipping through the channels one night we landed on ¨The British Sex Survey,¨ basically a show for teens unveiling everything about sex and puberty in explicit--and I mean very explicit--detail. And this was public TV! The U.S. can´t seem to produce a movie these days without suggestive material, but I´m positive that if this show were even proposed to a network in the States, some conservative Christian group would put an end to it before they even finished pronouncing the title.
So after discussing all this, we hear news of the shooting in Denver. Conversation turns to gun laws. It´s absolutely tiring trying to understand or rationalize U.S. policies after so much time spent in countries with lower crime rates, stronger social safety nets, and arguably higher quality of life for a large percentage of the population. Our country refuses to curse on the air and views anything outwardly relating to sex as sinful, but we think it´s constitutional to uphold a 300+ year law that no longer applies in today´s modern context. How many more Columbines or Virginia Tech´s or Denver Theaters will happen until people realize that this isn´t normal? It´s not normal to hear every so often about this type of tragedy. It´s not something we just accept as a hazard of society. Some places don´t have to listen to presidential addresses lamenting the loss of innocent lives, because these places don´t see the rationale behind selling deadly weapons to civilians. The right to feel secure in your own neighborhood, to grow up without loosing a family member to homicide, to watch the opening show of Batman with your friends without risking your life should be valued above the forefathers´ belief in the right to bear arms.
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