How free do you feel in this free country?

25 comments

  3. I feel like the answer to this question will vary wildly based on sex, age, political party affiliation, and location. With that being said I feel like a solid 9 out of 10.

  5. I suspect a lot of the answers will use “free” and “good” interchangeably and answer based on the latter adjective

  7. I still can’t legally own an A-10 Warthog subsonic attack aircraft, so not free at all. If I can’t establish air superiority over my neighborhood, I might as well just open up my doors and let every burglar, vagrant, and armored vehicle column into my house.

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    The democrats can pry my Ohio-class sub from my cold dead hands, however.

  8. I can’t think of much that I would want to do, and it could be done responsibly, that I can’t do because it’s illegal. 9/10.

  9. Some of us have all the rights and freedoms. The rest of us, have limited freedoms.

  10. People always like to say freedom isn’t free. That used to mean, you had to fight for it, defend it, be responsible with it. Now it means you have to literally buy it with money. The amount of freedom you have is tied directly to how much money you have.

  11. 8- The state I live in forbids me from owning a Savanah Cat or Box Turtle. Box turtles are commonly captive bred nowadays.

  15. Pretty free. The only things tying me down and keeping me from doing other things are things I chose to do voluntarily.

  16. 7- Political parties on both sides still arbitrarily want to ban things forever because they think it’s icky.

  17. Overall, pretty free. Although things like the Patriot Act have been terrible for liberty, and the proposed RESTRICT Act is ominous. The “uniparty” has been really fond of increasingly encroaching on freedom in the last two decades.

  19. More or less. There are essentially two types of freedoms: positive freedoms are the power to do something, and negative freedoms are an absence of constraints on a thing. It can be important to differentiate between them on topics such as the freedom of religion that is often confused between the two. Some people view freedom of religion as a positive freedom empowering them to do certain things, while others view it as a negative freedom where it eliminates constraints. In practice this comes to a head when you get people arguing over whether religious groups should be allowed to influence elections (positive freedom) while avoiding taxation (negative freedom). This doesn’t directly answer your question but I think it’s an interesting thing to note.

    What I feel like is in the U.S., these are basically granted or taken away based on the “cost” of that freedom. People make a big deal out of freedom of speech which I think is great, but realistically it costs little to nothing to society. On the other hand, making public education free to all children *does* have a social cost, mostly in the way of taxation, time, etc. America does a great job with freedoms that don’t directly cost the political and wealthy classes anything and struggles with things that will come to some sort of cost to them. There’s no way public school would be implemented in most states of the U.S. in 2023 if we were starting from scratch. A lot of things that are common in other free countries like healthcare and better labor rights are unlikely to improve in the U.S. anytime soon because it has a cost. As a result, we’re nowhere near as free as we should be, when we’re dependent on employers, corporations, etc. to be able to live our lives.

  21. I think that I have no way of judging that because I’ve never lived anywhere else. I guess what I can say is that there are things that feel like they are limiting my freedom, such as the fact that my healthcare is tied to my employer, and I resent that.

  22. Around 7/10 at the moment. Still doing pretty good, but both parties are trying their best to chip away at various freedoms around the edges.

  23. I based my feeling on facts.

    The US is only number 42 in the Press Freedom Index of 2022 (Source: Reporters Without Borders). Only number 25 in the Index of Economic Freedom 2022. Only number 21 in the Women Peace and Security Index (Source: Georgetown Institute, PRIO Centre). There is no federal law regarding paid maternity leave. The US is the only Western world/”first world” country without such a law. Number 15 in the Human Freedom Index (Source: Cato Institute).

    The US has had more mass shootings than any other country.

    From 1980 to 2018, more than 30,000 people have died by police violence in the US. The US police has killed more people compared to any other industrialized democracy, with a disproportionate number of people shot being people of color.

    The US has 5% of the world’s population, but holds almost 25% of the world’s prisoners.

    For a country that claims to be the freest country of the world, these rankings and stats are pretty bad.

  24. I feel very free, I know there are issues in my country, but no country is perfect, I have peace of mind to live the way I please, something I can’t do in some other countries.

  25. I eat freedom for breakfast. I have American flag decorations all over my apartment and on clothing. Nah, but to answer your question, I feel incredibly free. 10/10

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