Is America actually more "Free" than most other Democractic Countries?

Great Debates
141

[QUOTE=aquarius]
Speaking as someone who was part of the protest mentioned above, your understanding isn’t quite right. Protests do not require a permit, except in the area designated in London by SOCPA, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005.
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Well, I don’t think you need to apply for a permit to protest in the US either,* per se.* But various uses of public property do require a permit. I would be surprised if this weren’t also true of the UK. Are you telling me that if I want to have a march down a big street in Leeds in the middle of the day, I don’t need to apply for a permit?

142

[QUOTE=Themenin]
I agree with you in principle (although I believe this concept is not a US invention), but in practice, the US incarceration rate is (one of) the highest in the world. The incarceration rate is probably the single biggest instance where ‘the land of the free’ is on shaky ground.
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My point was that we have a great concern with protecing the accused. Greater, probably, than most European nations. While your point about incarceration rate is probably valid to counter some argument, I don’t see how it counters mine.

The statistic you should be using is not incarceration rate, but conviction rate. (I.e. not the percentage of the population that ends up in prison, but the percentage of arrestees that ends up in prison.) I agree that a much higher percentage of our (US) population gets arrested every day, but I think the protection afforded to the accused keeps a sizable percentage of those people out of prison. I know the European criminal justice systems only in theory, but I would hazard to say that conviction rates are higher over there, because it is easier to get convictions over there. And this, in turn, is because the accused has less protection over there.

I have no cite for the above, but I find the theory pretty sound. If someone comes forward with some proof that defendants have greater protection under inquisitorial systems than under the US adversarial system, I’ll eat my hat.

143

If I had to register for the draft, I’d count that a heavy imposition on my freedom.

However, several Western Democracies are as bad, or worse, still requiring military service.

144

[QUOTE=Maastricht]

For instance, and as an addendum to my above points, the Dutch tend to see the government as inept and yet as the one who “ought to do something about it”. At the same time, we don’t really, deeply believe in the strenght and rights of the individual either. I guess the Dutch attitude can be summed up as: “Both government and individuals can be inept, so we need to make sure they control each other and have a system of checks and balances”. The American attitude, if I see it correctly, is more convinced strengh lies in the individual. Or at least a belief that the individual should be strong and able to fight for himself, and if they don’t, that reeks of a moral failing.

>snip<

I’m not very sure myself what my point is if I combine this post with my previous one, though. I guess the Dutch value the right of biological parents to raise their kids just as highly as the USA does, even if that puts the child at risk. The difference then remains that the Dutch put a slightly less high value on the parental right to raise a kid according to the parents religion.

I’m not saying one is better then the other. It’s just cultural differences, and those are interesting if one wants to have an objective look at one’s own culture.
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Here’s how it looks to me having lived in both places: Both Americans and Dutch guys consider that the state has a responsibility to protect children in the final analysis. I think the primary cultural difference is that Dutch culture does not value methods of childrearing which place the child outside the larger culture. You can raise your kid as a contrarian without interference because the Dutch value their weirdos and outsiders and lone voices in the wilderness (see, Geert Wilders, lol) as also members of the social conversation.

They do not value raising your child not to take part in the social conversation.

Speaking broadly, Americans think being unable to think of something, failure to be resourceful, is a weakness which stinks of a moral failing; Dutch guys think that being unable or unwilling to recognize when you need help and ask for it, failure to take advantage of the resources available, is a weakness which stinks of a moral failing.

In the Savannah case you mention, my own sense is that the outcry is because the social workers had actual evidence that the mother was a threat to the child and disregarded it in the interest of what an american social worker would call family reunification.

145

[QUOTE=fetus]
.13% of the population of the UK is 109 people.
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The UK population is around 60,000,000, so 0.13% of that is 78,000.

146

Without having the numbers, I’d have to say it’s equally plausible that if conviction rates are higher over there–and I don’t see any rational reason to believe that they are–it could also be because they’re more selective in who they arrest.

Yeah, I thought my number looked pretty small. Still, my point stands.

147

[QUOTE=Northern Piper]
Link to Freedom House’s map of the world, assessing comparative freedoms in different countries.
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Hey, I think it’s a pretty good link, even if no one else does. There’s also freethe world.com

148

[QUOTE=Plan B]
Hey, I think it’s a pretty good link, even if no one else does. There’s also freethe world.com
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It’s informative, but the problem is that it rates the US and pretty much all other comparable industrialized free democracies as even in civil liberties. That’s great if you want to differentiate free countries from those which are, for lack of a non-Orwellian adjective, unfree. But it doesn’t provide a lot of utility in comparing the finer points of modern democracy, at least according to my brief analysis of it. I’ll check out your other link though, although frankly I’m a little suspicious that you had to break up the URL. Is it NSFW?

149

[QUOTE=Marienee]
Speaking broadly, Americans think being unable to think of something, failure to be resourceful, is a weakness which stinks of a moral failing
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It goes deeper. Failure of any kind has moral weight here, but the greatest failure of all is to need help you’re not entitled to.

150

[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
What I propose is that everyone stop pretending that we have free speech when we have so many willing to take away your livelihood if you don’t toe the patriotic line. Sure people can vote with their wallets, you can’t stop that. Just don’t pretend that the US tolerates dissent.
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I’m anti-war, pro-Dixie chick, and pro-free speech, and I still think this is one of the stupidist statements I’ve ever heard.

151

[QUOTE=xtisme]
:dubious: Completely ridiculous claim. Bob…both you and I heard exactly what they had too say. Despite their anti-war, anti-Bush speech. If it wasn’t ‘free’ then, you know, we wouldn’t have heard it. See?

[/QUOTE]

And how do you count the times someone who wants to, doesn’t speak out? cos, you know, you don’t hear it… :dubious:

152

[QUOTE=Tristan]
You always can. You always have the choice to go out and try to find another job. It may not be the dream job, it may not even be what you are trained to do, or want to do, but you can always try.

Failure to find a job you want is not a restriction imposed on you. As I told my brothers, you can always find a job, if you’re willing to work. It may be flipping burgers, but you can work.
I’m not sure where you are getting this big “If you quit your job you’ll starve to death and thus are being coerced” mindset, as it’s pretty much garbage.
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I think your missing it.

Easy example: single mother w/ two kids working two menial jobs just make ends barely meet. Can’t quit either job simply beacuse she can’t afford to be out of work for even a week. Or can’t take the risk that it might take longer.

That’s not too obscure, is it?

153

You’re :smack:

154

[QUOTE=Tibidabo]
And how do you count the times someone who wants to, doesn’t speak out? cos, you know, you don’t hear it…
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Well, obviously you can’t. So…we can just go on the the evidence of what we DID hear…which was pretty loud and wide spread. If someone out there got stifled then it really didn’t seem to have much overall effect…which was the point I was making to Bob. If they didn’t speak out because they didn’t want to for some reason…well then, that would be their lookout. The government only protects your right to speak…it doesn’t help you speak.

-XT

155

[QUOTE=Tibidabo ]
I think your missing it.

Easy example: single mother w/ two kids working two menial jobs just make ends barely meet. Can’t quit either job simply beacuse she can’t afford to be out of work for even a week. Or can’t take the risk that it might take longer.

That’s not too obscure, is it?
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I’ve been there (though, not a mother. Father with wife not working, if I had lost my job we would have been in trouble).

The thing is, while it sucks for this hypothetical mother, if she does get fired or let go, there are programs in place to help her out.

And if she takes what little spare time she has to try to find a different job (hopefully one that pays better), she can quit.

I’m not saying in anyway that the system is perfect, I’m saying that in the US, it would be pretty dang hard to starve to death if you lost a job.

156

I woud say, as a general rule, Americans have greater economic freedom. The combination of lower taxes and cheap land make it easier to leverage money into a higher life style.

157

[QUOTE=MrFantsyPants]

Freedom to smoke pot

.
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Is it really and truly legal to smoke pot anywhere? By legal, I mean also “legal to grow enough for your own use”, since you have to get it somewhere.

Though I admit that other countries seem to be a bit less hysterical about it than the U.S. Times change. When I was in Europe in the 1970s, it had the reputation of being much more strict about drugs than the U.S., although even then The Netherlands was the outstanding exception, and I remember being pat- searched on the train at the border entering The Netherlands, because I had just woken up and must have appeared drugged to the customs officers. I mean, I was entering the country…according to common wisdom all the drugs were supposed to be crossing the border in the opposite direction.

Now pot is still illegal in the U.S., though legal in California for medical use, and California is very much at odds with the federal government that still bans all use of pot. One reason we do have so many laws here is that each state has its own codes, and and I’ve been told that the overwhelming majority of laws that I have to obey on a day to day basis are state laws, not federal. Believe it or not, in some legalistic contexts, the word “foreign” can mean “from another state”. It comes up in insurance law. An insurer domiciled in Nevada is considered a “foreign” insurer by California law. Really foriegn insurers, like that little place just inside Mexico where you have to stop on the way to Ensenada, are “alien” insurers.

158

Considering how cheap it is in Amsterdam, I don’t think that’s a big deal. Who needs to buy more than 5 grams of hash in one place anyway?