*Promote the Norwegian classic!
(And the chocolate, with air bubbles, ain't half bad either.)

Metal is inherently misanthropic. In a fun way, not a serious murdery way. Like the story of Sabbath's Iron Man or Norwegian black metal songs about demons overthrowing heaven, raping angels, and then reigning over earth. It's mostly shocking and funny. Then there's Babymetal, which is still misanthropic in sound but cute in their display. I posit a similar effect is occurring.

I wish that a helpless person in a wheelchair might indeed find themselves being treated decently in the United States...I just think, if I were the helpless person, I would rather throw my chances in with the Canadians or Norwegians...
Sad, but true.

Hivju is part of the reason I started watching GoT(Because hes Norwegian, like me ) Well, that and the hype of course. But he has grown to become my favourite GoT character, independent of his nationality.(I think) And that is in a REALLY stiff competition.I mean, who doesnt agree with me? The guy is the perfect GOT character IMO.

Again, you are misrepresenting the road tax. There is literally no way that you do not use the road or travel system in some fashion unless you walk everywhere cross-country and make no other trips other than for food and work. Even if you ride a bike on a road or take a bus/train, you are using the transport system and therefore should have to pay for it.

Most of the rest of your points about education and healthcare are opinions and I refuse to waste time on them.

The numbers I listed are per dollar per family. I fell I've been very transparent on this and the fact that you continue to rail against it is doing nothing to impress upon me that I am wrong. The numbers are accurate. As far as the middle class, it is still the largest portion of our class structure. Yes, it is shrinking and this should be addressed, but it is what it is at the moment. They are the average American still.

Some of them are happy with it. There are numerous articles from Norwegians discussing their unhappiness with the system, especially since they are having an influx of poor immigrants like the rest of Europe. They suddenly do not like having to pay for people who moved to their country, odd right?

The idea of being the same as everyone else is a fucking cultural meme in Norway and similar countries, its called the Law of Jante. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante. Again, I feel I have been very clear and open on this and you are pissing me off by picking at it like i'm making it up. I don't make stuff up, I find facts and I list them. If the facts do not agree with your viewpoint, that is not my problem.

Finally, we are so far off the topic at this point and you continue to nitpick my facts instead of disproving them, so I am done.

The tax level in Norway has fluctuated between 40 and 45% of GDP since the 1970s. The relatively high tax level is a result of the large Norwegian welfare state.

You literally dwarf the US tax rate per person, almost by double the amount.

You have a VAT tax of 25%, among the highest in the world. My equivalent is sales tax, which is 8.25% on the dollar, and it should be 2.5% lower than that, but Austin is a super-left city that taxes extra to cover all their feel good plans.

To be clear, the average Norwegian household pays roughly $70,000 per year in tax. Including the state’s oil income, government tax revenue exceeds $100,000 per household.

Discretionary spending is kept to an extreme minimum, because you don't have much left after taxes. The cost of living and recreation in Norway is through the roof compared to other countries.

Workers come to the office, punch a clock, shuffle papers, and go home. There is no cultural drive to work hard and get promoted. Norway has created a system that makes it virtually impossible to pull ahead of your peers financially. In fact, culturally, there is a thing where you are NOT supposed to do better than someone else.

What major worldwide innovations or brands do we get out of Norway? None that I can think of offhand, but here is a list of some of their more important companies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_Norway.

So, you get taxed a ton, cost of living is incredibly high, there is no incentive to do better than anyone else, and in return you get to have free stuff like healthcare and education. Not that it matters really, because once you get out of school you get to become a worker bee drone. Unless of course you move to another country and get to achieve something there.

So, yeah, enjoy your hive mind country. As screwed up as mine is, at least there is a chance to become something if you work hard and invest correctly.

Ya, about that Norwegian national debt:

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

They have a Norwegian Ridgeback?!?!?

Norwegian cops dont carry guns, Swedish carry, but I think the bar that they have for actually DRAWING the gun is extremely high. I dont know the statistics in either country, so it is an uninformed and anecdotal impression I get, that US cops seems to draw weapons almost as a default reflex in any situation they deem to be potentially dangerous.

There was a video on here a couple of days ago, where the cop was praised for not shooting the suspect, well that suspect seemed to be unarmed (crazy, and suspected murderer, sure, but still unarmed) What about alternative methods, ie: Talking calmly, trying to defuse the situation etc. before drawing? (Maybe that did happen before the video starts, but it doesnt seem that way)

Happy Birthday you Norwegian bad ass!

How do you say "You're doing it wrong!" in Norwegian?

Lots of TL/DR here, but I'd just like to say it's funny how the US prison is called a "Correctional Facility" and the Norwegian correctional facility is called a "prison".

This is also a norwegian prison:
[url redacted]

The thing that many people forget is that spending 10, 15 or 20 years outside of the society is the punishment. Even though you have a nice television or a kitchen, you are still not free. You can`t go out to meet friends, family or wife/girlfriend. Your life is on hold. If you do something stupid as a 19-year old person, I belive that most of the people can change by the time you are 30 or 35. And you still got the punishment of loosing every single thing that every one of us have experienced during our 20`s.

It would have been nice to hear more from a Norwegian prison official about why they design their prisons the way they do, and less of the bewildered hardass new yorker. Still, just seeing what they've built is pretty amazing.

I wonder if this is typical or if it's only for the best connected white collar criminals.