For the purposes of this thread, guns are ‘off the table’. Please leave guns out of it.
I often hear at Conservative-leaning message boards and from Conservatives in real life that American ‘freedoms’ are under attack. Obama is Stalin, the government is going to turn us into slaves, blahblahblah. An old acquaintance found my email address and started sending me email forwards. (I never get Liberal email forwards. All of the ones I get are from Conservatives, and they send A LOT of them! Fortunately they’ve mostly given up on me. Mostly.) He repeated the oft-heard claim that Americans are losing their ‘freedoms’, so I challenged him on it. I gave him a couple of off-the-cuff examples of how Europeans and Canadians have more ‘freedom’ than we do and asked him to provide counterexamples (excepting guns). His reply was basically, 'Well, you may have a point – a small point – but WE’RE LOSING OUR FREEDOMS! :eek: ’
So the debate is this: Except for guns (and yes, I know there are gun owners in Europe), how are the citizens of Western European nations less free than U.S. Americans?
They have to speak French and German and other unnatural languages. Since they are little kids they are forced to attend schools where they are brainwashed into speaking like that.
There are restrictions on individual freedoms that Americans have. For example, the United Kingdom can legally censor the press, France prohibits some religious practices, Germany bans some political views, and Norway regulates what names you can give your children.
That, and also higher tax rates, which some would count as limiting freedom to spend what you earn.
Also in general, labor markets are more rigid, meaning businesses make a long-term commitment whenever they hire someone. Sounds good, right? Problem is, when you can’t fire the bad workers, you’re much more careful about hiring, resulting in higher normal unemployment rates. Also this can create a “two-tiered” labor market, as in France.
Many Western European nations also have higher marginal tax rates than the US. The highest marginal US tax rate is 35%, and most western European nations have highest marginal tax rates from 40-50% (Denmark’s is 62%). So, in that sense, Americans, especially richer Americans, have more freedom to choose how to spend their income than Europeans. Along with that, most Western European countries have governments that provide more social services than the US (national health care, extended poverty and unemployment help, etc.) So, in that sense, the government has a more direct role in the lives of their citizens.
Which of course means you are more free to leave a job you hate, rather than staying because you need the medical benefits. One problem with this “America is the freest country in the world !” bit is that it always assumes that the government is the only thing that can take away freedom.
Because, if you believe, like the writers of the e-mail do, that government is, at best, a necessary evil, and that people should be free to succeed or fail on their own merits, then expanding the role of the government and expanding the social safety net is dangerous, because it helps to isolate people from the consequences of their actions, and, by increasing the role of government, it makes them believe that it should be the role of the government to provide for their needs.
That’s somehow “less free” than being crushed into poverty ? Or being dependent upon some employer ? What makes employers pushing you around more free than a government doing so ?
In my understanding, I’d think they would say that if you were pushed around by your employer, you’re free to quit and find a better job, and if you’re poor, you’re free to use your skills and talents to improve your life, but you’re not free to refuse to pay taxes.
I follow you this far. I don’t agree with it, but I see the reasoning.
This does not follow.
I understand what you’re saying: That if the government’s role (through expanding the safety net) is to provide services to people, then people will come to believe that the government’s role is to provide services to people. But what I don’t see is this: How does this make people less free? For example, most people believe that it is the role of government to build roads. (I haven’t seen anyone calling for the privatisation of all roads.) Does the government therefore take away our freedom to take Highway 99 through Central California instead of the 5? Does the government say, ‘Since we provide the roads, you have to go to Las Vegas before you can go to San Diego’?
In other words, they pretend that potential loss of freedom from a government helping you is important, but actual loss of freedom from anything else is not. They aren’t really pro-freedom ( the opposite, if anything ); they are just anti-government.
Really this is stretching the definiton of freedom past the breaking point. Even if you accept the dubious premise that there is a freedom to fail, the government is not taking it away by offering a social safety network. Anyone who wants to fail can still choose not to accept the government handouts.