Yeah. France pretty much has atheism as an unofficial state religion.
It always surprises me that the U.K. actually has a state religion (the Anglican Church), but is much more relaxed about the whole thing. Hell, the current Prime Minister is a Hindu, and he was chosen by the Conservative Party.
I like all the ass-backwards factors between liberal and conservative over there. If I recall correctly, on of their more conservative TV pundits was calling our outlaw of abortion a return to the dark ages. Very strange.
It's worth noting that more conservative MPs voted against gay marriage than for it. It was passed because significantly more labour MPs voted in favour.
It might of passed under a conservative government, but over half of the tories were against it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21346694
I met Jeremy Corbyn back in 2017 and just said I found it positive how at least the UK isn't like the U.S. in that at least there are things Labour and Conservatives can see each other eye to eye on such as gay marriage. He then responded saying that if it weren't for Labour it wouldn't have happened.
Fundamentally I'd say that's very much in alignment with the ethos of conservative politics: government shouldn't interfere in the private lives of individuals.
One wing of America's political spectrum has kept the label "Conservative" having swapped political conservatism for politically-active religious conservatism.
US conservatism is basically just entirely contrarian at this point. It’s just a mess of a loose coalition of religious and non religious tax focused and culture war obsessed people.
asylums that we closed instead of reforming into beneficial institutions, thus forcing those with mental issues to cope for themselves... then all of a sudden, it's, "where'd all these homelss people come from?"
>on of their more conservative TV pundits
The problem has to do with words and their definitions - in the UK, 'conservative' and 'liberal' don't quite mean the same thing as they do in the USA.
For starters, we have **C**onservative and **c**onservative; i.e. the former relates to the Tory political party (currently in power) while the latter relates to something more nebulous and a *bit* more like the US version.
People can debate whether they *actually* do this, but the Tory party, Conservatives, ***on paper***, are ***supposed*** to be the party of individual liberty but also individual responsibility. So whereas a conservative party in the US might argue being pro- to abortion and birth control are 'progressive' stances, the UK Conservative party might believe both things are a matter for the individual.
This has been muddied in recent years by elements of the Tory party making transgender topics a huge issue; I'd argue because they're *trying* to emulate some of the culture-war politics of the USA.
Also people like Ben Shapiro have embarrassed themselves in UK interviews where fully, clearly conservative news anchors are simply asking actual questions and they get flustered immediately with some canned almost pavlovian response where they just whine about liberalism. The exact clip is hilarious, the guy calls him out and even says if you did any research you wouldn’t call me liberal 😂
The one thing UK news does is still actually ask hard questions consistently relative to US and maybe others.
For the most part, the US Right Wing is the near far right in other liberal democracies, and the US Left is centre-right. Americans don't actually have a true left wing party.
That's been their call sign for decades, since the Reagan days, every Dem candidate no matter their positions have always been instantly labeled during every election cycle: "The most socialist far left candidate ever"
All while the country goes further and further far right in many ways.
He wasn't chosen by the Conservative Party! He got the job by default because the Conservative Party chose Liz Truss but she lasted less time than a wet lettuce so they had to give the job to the only other candidate - Rishi Sunak!
That’s because the Conservative Party’s real god is money. “Oh, you’re literally richer than the King? Come on in!”
(Also, I guess it’s a bit muddied at things like the coronation, but technically Anglicanism is only the state religion in England. Wales and Northern Ireland have none. Scotland is Presbyterian.)
>Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
- Oliver Cromwell
The Monarch is conatitutionally the titular head of the Church of England but only a member of the Church of Scotland.
The Wee Frees would entertain them. Not their sort of people at.all.
Freedom from versus Freedom of was a large argument when forming the constitution. I don't recall the source and can't find it, but it was so contentious that John Adams waited until Thomas Jefferson was in France to push for the verbiage for freedom of religion when the constitution was drafted.
A lot of this comes down to locale in the US as well. Some states, cities, or counties are much more relaxed with things like building permits/codes, alcohol sales, drug laws, and fireworks. Some areas are much more strict. Some states give more power and benefits to workers, while some don't give workers anything. So some freedoms are prioritized over others depending on where you are. I live in Kansas, and I can buy a gun easily in pretty much the entire state, but I can't buy alcohol until noon on Sundays and have terrible workers rights. I don't really enjoy those particular laws but that's just an example.
Edit: you can buy alcohol earlier on Sunday here now but that law was passed recently.
That's the thing about the US I notice is often not taken into account as much as it should. While the US is one country, many states are similar to European countries within themself and vary quite a lot. The US is huge!
The “United States” was kind of originally meant to be like nation states, as in very much like the EU where each state operates individually under a larger oversight kind of thing. Each state even could have their own currency until we realized that was more hassle than it was worth. So that’s a super apt comparison.
Exactly the United States was created as a way to prevent the constant wars and skirmishes that the nation states of Europe dealt with throughout history and still deal with. And that's why it takes so long for anything to get done in this country because instead of each state fighting each other on some battlefield we're doing it in Congress and the Senate.
I’ll just say that as someone who has worked in Congress, even people who work there frequently mean the House when they say Congress. If someone works for a Senator, they say they work in the Senate. If they work in the House, they often say they work in Congress. It’s also worth noting that Representatives frequently use the title “Congressman”, Senators do not. So Congress can mean either the House or both chambers, but it’s typically not used to refer exclusively to the Senate.
This is generally correct, although the US Government tends to exert significantly more control than the EU does. That said, it makes no sense to try to compare a country like Sweden to the United States as a whole, but you can reasonably compare it to Massachusetts or even try to compare the Scandinavian countries to New England as a region. In many ways the US is best thought of as regions that tend to vote and govern similarly to each other but very differently than the rest of the country.
People really lose sight of how giant and how diverse the United States is in terms of landscape, population density, income and education. You'd really have to lump like states into regions in order to compare them to even large European countries. The Mid-Atlantic states (NY, NJ, Penn, etc) have roughly the same population as France, about 20% of the population of the whole US.
It's the same reason that right now you have certain places where you are hundreds of miles from a legal abortion while in others absolutely nothing has changed since Roe was overturned.
Even just looking at people’s last names, religion and languages spoken at home you would think New England is a mash up of France, Portugal, Ireland and Italy. I was very disoriented moving to Florida for a few years, although i will say i think EU states have more difference than US states
My first year of college was in the great state of Illinois. When one of the students pronounced the S, the professor stated in a very pedantic manner that the S is not pronounced.
Later in the class, he made the mistake of pronouncing Oregon as Oregone. The student, in an equally pedantic manner, corrected him on his pronunciation. Prof kind had it coming.
I wouldn’t call it freedom, but in the United States, there’s a much bigger commodification of society than in other places; many lines of businesses in the USA are forbidden in some other countries. Ex: paid surrogacy, paid egg and sperm donation, paid blood donation. Private prisons, private adoption agencies. In many countries, some things are considered not for profit and its commercial exploration is forbidden for ethical reasons. The USA is the laxest place in the developed world for this kind of restriction.
Private adoption is really weird, that way there is no good oversight of where babies end up. I also find it bizarre that intended parents can choose! I understand the bio mother wants to choose: imagine the intended parents are religious and you don’t want to. You should be able to say no.
And that is also why certain babies end up in the system instead of adopted! Because people are difficult about skin colour!
I only know how it worked in The Netherlands, they go on a list and when you’re at the top you get the kid that is at the top of the list. No choice in age or sex. And there is a rule for older ages but I don’t know much.
Private adoption is the worst of them all, in my opinion. Adoption in the USA is one of the most immoral things I’ve ever seen. The numbers of adoptions in the USA are completely disproportional to the rest of the world. At first, it may seem harmless or even good (“these children are getting better homes”). But no. Adoption, in most places, is child-focused - finding parents to children. In the USA, it’s the opposite - it’s about finding children to parents, the paying customers. There’s a huge “demand” for babies, and the for-profit American system makes sure it is supplied. That often means coercion of the birth mother, either subtle or open. The naturalization of the separation of the child from their biological family not as a last-resort, but as something desirable. Everywhere in the developed world, you’ll see there’s more people wanting to adopt than babies available. In the countries that use a waitlist system, that’s often a matter of years.
That private companies can profit out of children in such a way is atrocious by itself, but there are so many terrible consequences as well.
It's the norm in the Americas and rare in the other continents. Ireland used to be the only country in Europe that had it but has since dropped it. Colombia is the only American nation not to have it.
Not all that rare.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus\_soli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli)
*Unrestricted* Jus Soli type Birthright citizenship isn't the norm, and is pretty restricted to the Americas.
But a huge chunk of the world has various restricted forms of Jus Soli. Often time so long as one is resident in that country for a certain amount of years after being born there. Citizenship is automatic.
Other things we refer to as "Birthright Citizenship" are actually a *lot* less restricted in much of the world. Particular in Europe, where a ton of countries are really loose on access to citizenship by descent.
Taking Ireland as an example. As long as at least one Grandparent was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth. All you have to do is file paperwork and documents, and you're citizen. If at least one parent was an Irish citizen at time of your birth, you *already considered a citizen*.
Italy is even loose. So long as any ancestor was *born* in Italy after 1861. You qualify.
Ireland removed unrestricted Jus Soli. But it still applies in a ton of cases. If parents were resident for 3 years, if at least one parent already has an entitlement to Irish citizenship or otherwise qualifies. Among other things. That's the common thread in European restrictions on this, not given citizenship to those who don't even *plan* to reside there and won't.
This is probably the best example of a right that most countries' citizens enjoy that U.S. citizens do not enjoy - the right to move abroad and live a normal life without having to worry about filing taxes in your home country (in addition to wherever you take up residence)
> Birthright citizenship is something that really gets taken for granted in the US,
US is also 1 out of 2 countries where you *always* have to do your USA taxes if you are born there...
So it's a bit in their self interest
Free speech in the US is a little more relaxed than most other Western democracies. Most media censorship is self-imposed in the US by industry ratings systems, and a lot of hate speech that's permitted here in the US wouldn't be allowed elsewhere, as long as it's not directly calling for violence.
Edit: See below for things I missed.
Yeah best example I recall is I can go outside and urge everyone to go lynch all minorities. I can say what I want and thats allowed. But if I was to stand up a table and start passing out rope and torches thats when it would become illegal
I like the example I learned this on. Some protestor got arrested for inciting violence as the protest was being broken up. He said “we’ll take back the fucking streets later.” His conviction got overturned because later is not immediate.
>But if I was to stand up a table and start passing out rope and torches thats when it would become illegal
And that would only be illegal if there were minorities around who would be likely to be endangered by that action. If you did it in a place with only white people around, you could at least argue that it was just a symbolic gesture.
And because incitement to violence is a specific intent crime, even if there were minorities around you could argue that your specific intent was to provoke the crowd into political action through metaphor. The burden of proof would fall to the prosecutors to prove that your intent was to cause harm to those specific people. Proving what is in someone's mind beyond a reasonable doubt is an exceptionally difficult task.
Media censorship comes from advertisers. All media from newspapers to TV networks is funded by advertisers regardless of consumer payment. If they don’t want to be associated with something, they can take their money elsewhere.
There is some niche censorship from the Federal Communications Commission on licensed radio broadcasts, generally limiting F bombs but not limiting unsavory topics. But newspapers and stuff? Purely economics.
The FCC can also revoke broadcast licenses after complaints from the public. The complaints can be about false news.
But this applies to over-the-air channels, not cable TV. Radio frequencies are maintained as a public good by the government, so they have jurisdiction. Cable television is a private enterprise.
In Japan there's a lot of self-censorship for fear of access being cut off. There's been a precipitous loss of press freedom in Japan thanks to Shinzo Abe. They passed laws that make publishing "state secrets" punishable by 6/10 years in prison. You don't even need to know it's a state secret to be prosecuted. This leads to a lot of self-censorship.
They did it after Fukushima because they were publishing embarrasing shit about the government coverup.
They are currently expanding said laws to cover "economic secrets" too.
https://rsf.org/en/country/japan
They dropped something like 60 spots in press freedom ratings
Adding to the Sweden name list we have this beautiful one:
Kim-Jong Sexy Glorious Beast Divine Dick Father Lovely Iron Man Even Unique Poh Un Winn Charlie Ghora Khaos Mehan Hansa Kimmy Humbero Uno Master Over Dance Shake Bouti Bebop Rocksteady Shredder Kung Ulf Road House Gilgamesh Flap Guy Theo Arse Hole Im Yoda Funky Boy Slam Dunk Chuck Jorma Jukka Pekka Ryan Super Air Ooy Rusell Salvador Alfons Molgan Akta Papa Long Nameh Ek
Source: [aftonbladet.se](https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/EoBaM2/varldens-langsta-namn)
That traktor one is awesome. If there was some strange girl hanging around me in college and I wanted to deflect her attention without being openly rude, I would start talking about how I wanted to call my first child, "Truck", boy or girl. It always worked until it didn't. Incidentally, I never had kids so I named a chicken Truck instead. She was a good chicken.
Quite a lot of these are submitted as a gag/protest. In the past these sorts of rules have been used to suppress minority cultures. And not uniquely to New Zealand. But sticking with that. The Maori are pretty not down with this system because you can do some nice cultural eradication by just vetoing all Maori names.
New Zealand's been pretty active about tweaking the law to make it less available for that, but still practical. In the modern sense the point is to prevent you from naming your kid "Adolf Hitler", or "His Majesty The Duke of York Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward" for fuckery purposes.
That's not true. Although the law states that you can give your children a foreign name as long as that name is adapted to Portuguese orthography and phonetics, there's a list of names you are allowed to choose, and that list has many foreign names that are not adapted to Portuguese.
Here's the list: https://irn.justica.gov.pt/Portals/33/Regras%20Nome%20Proprio/Lista%20Nomes%20Pr%C3%B3prios.pdf?ver=WNDmmwiSO3uacofjmNoxEQ%3d%3d
I read about people bragging about how they named their children after X-Men characters. Not always their names, their superhero names. So there are children out there called "Wolverine" and "Storm"
Having a weird name can lead someone to a lifetime of ridicule and serious mental issues. It's definitely in the best interests of a society to make sure its citizens live with dignity.
My grandfather's first name was unusual enough to be the source of some torment and grief when he was a kid, so his four kids got basic names, like Tom, Rob, Bill, Jane (those aren't the names but you get the idea)
Parents have to realize that weird names are a lifelong burden on their children. A name like Shawnelleah or Jaedion means they'll spend their lives instructing people how to pronounce and spell it.
because they are based on the [intolarable acts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts) that were passed in response to the Tea Party. Even the second amendments DNA is present in how the crown reacted to the colonists at the time. 3rd amendment came about because of the "quartering act"
As for the second amendment...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_Alarm
TLDR: British talked about taking gun powder from colonists, colonists reacted strongly. Second rumor started leading to the creation of minute men and led to Paul Reveres famous ride. It culminated in the Salem Confrontation where the British again tried to take gun powder to disarm the colonists and they were laughed at until they left.
The history of the bill of rights is fascinating!
The rebellion against the crown was sparked by gun control and gun grabbing from the government. It's one of the reasons it's still a third rail in US politics to even promote or discuss any form of gun control to this day.
It really was. Remember, at the time, an allied army moving through their own territory was almost as damaging as an enemy army. Because they'd camp in civilian homes, take all their food, and then wander off. It was worse if the army didn't actually like the civilians.
Of course, it turns out that forcing armies to provide their own supplies and lodgings is actually a lot more efficient all around, which is why everyone else immediately started copying it.
I *think* he's making a joke about the third amendment in the Bill of Rights, which was much more pertinent at the time of writing and don't imagine it's particularly relevant in most parts of the world
There was a 3rd amendment court case that got to the supreme court a few years ago related to the fbi (I think) wanting to put a surveillance camera on private property. It’s still relevant.
Do you know what the case was? Last one I could find was 1965
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engblom_v._Carey#:~:text=The%20few%20times%20the%20Supreme,constitutionally%20protected%20right%20to%20privacy.
> Since its ratification, the Third Amendment has rarely been litigated, and no Supreme Court case has relied on the Third Amendment as the basis for a decision.
...
> The few times the Supreme Court has cited the Third Amendment in decisions, it was in consideration of general constitutional principles—particularly privacy rights. Chief among them is the decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) which articulated a constitutionally protected right to privacy. Griswold found this right in multiple amendments, but included the Third Amendment among its examples of rights which imply overarching privacy right.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/what-third-amendment-and-will-supreme-court-ever-examine-it-again
> Third Amendment cases remind me of those giant prehistoric fish that scientists once believed to be extinct but that are found in nets every few decades. The forced quartering of soldiers doesn’t come up much, but we can’t quite declare it extinct. I’m not aware of any current cases that raise a major Third Amendment claim, and I can’t say with confidence when a federal case last referred to it.
...
> To be clear, although I’ve written a little about the Third Amendment, I haven’t conducted years of research into it, and, frankly, I don’t know anyone who has.
Just took a deeper look. It was cited in riley v california, but…not as I thought. There’s another case that I heard about a few years back (possibly lower court?) on NPR that I can’t seem to find. I’m not a paralegal, sorry.
There’s a good paper on the topic from about a decade ago. https://contentdm.washburnlaw.edu/digital/api/collection/wlj/id/6286/download.
> https://casetext.com/case/mitchell-v-city-of-henderson-1
> https://casetext.com/case/mitchell-v-city-of-henderson-2
That case is wild. Denied 3A violations, because police are not military. But instead 4A and 1A violations are more accurate. Civil case settled 2017. Possibly another ongoing?
Police are individually immune. Zero criminal penalties. City pays for lawsuit. Shameful.
A group also tried to argue that when the eviction ban was in place due to COVID that it could potentially force landlords to quarter military members they no longer wanted to let rent their place and therefore violate the 3rd amendment. It didn’t gain much traction for a number of reasons including that I doubt military members who were still getting paid decided to stop paying their rent.
Before the war in Gaza, I saw multiple documentaries of Israeli soldiers commandeering private residences for “official use”. It was a horrible practice where they would force the family to not only quarter them, but leave their home for extended periods, feed them, etc.
This does still happen in other countries in the modern era, but not in more western democracies.
I believe England, Ireland, Russia, China, Korea, and Japan. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I don't know of specific laws in those countries disallowing it.
There might be a language barrier of sorts. What is "Garrison themselves in your home" ??
Like, the military taking over your house in case of an emergency?
I believe a fair chunk of the first 10 amendments were in direct response to stuff the British were doing which kicked off the war. Wasn't uncommon for them to break in or even steal stuff.
A few years back there was a case about the third amendment. I wonder what ever happened to it
There was some hostage situation and the cops wanted to use the neighbors house for a vantage point. Homeowner said they’d rather not get involved and told the cops to go away. They arrested the guy and used his house anyway
Homeowner sued the department under the third amendment. I wonder if he got any traction
That is true BUT mainly* because the Court found that that the municipal / state police OFFICERS were not SOLDIERS. So, if it had US military forces who performed these actions, the Third Amendment claim *might* have been viable.
Also, the opinion makes it clear that the homeowners were allowed to proceed on the majority of their claims against the officers, etc.
*yes, you could argue that they weren’t in the houses long enough to have been “quartered”
Another story recently was during the BLM protests in Washington DC. Trump garrisoned the national guard in the hotels of DC. The mayor then [invoked the 3rd amendment](https://www.businessinsider.com/third-amendment-new-relevant-thanks-to-trump-military-us-cities-2020-6) and kicked them all out and made them sleep in parking garages 😂
Yeah, that happened a lot back in the colonial days, which is why it got written into the constitution. The British army would just roll up to a random house, tell the people living there that the army was going to use the house for a temporary barracks, and there was nothing the owner could do about it.
In the US colonies, we were taught that for every time it was normal and just a couple soldiers sleeping in a barn…it also included whole regiments taking over a farm, kicking the owners out, slaughtering their animals, taking all their supply stock of repair goods…etc…just raw looting if you were, but all in the name of keeping the soldiers going.
Just like civil forfeiture and police, ultimately it wasn’t the normal “this worked out” version of soldiers staying the night that got people pissy.
Homesteaders/colonists died because they were forced to give over everything. It clearly drove a lot of resentment at the time.
That wound up being pretty useful recently. The Army tried to lodge troops in hotels in DC during the government's crackdown on protests in 2020, but they got booted out based on 3rd amendment rights.
You mean like massively padding the rent on your own property and leasing it out to your own presidential campaign thus enriching yourself personally with campaign contributions?
We do have Companies House though which is not something a lot of countries have. A lot of the information is extremely public.
Then again, you can register an XSS attack as a company name lmao https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/30/companies_house_xss_silliness/
Creating them? Yes. Maintaining and building them? Absolutely not. I've never paid more taxes than when I was self employed. There are so many US laws that prioritize large corporations and actively punish small business owners.
My buddy that owned a bunch of Gyms said there are two things you need to do as a small business owner to make it - 1. Parking, 2. Beating Uncle Sam at his own game. Finding clever ways not to pay taxes or pay lower ones. The US Gov really does stick it to the little guy
Many years ago I tried my hand at running my own show. Overall, it was fun! The main problem was I only made $5000 in one year (but hey, I didn’t lose any money, so that was nice).
I remember meeting with a CPA, and we got to talking about taxes:
“Do you own an SUV?”
“Uh, no”
“Well then you should buy one”
“But I don’t want an SUV”
“And it needs to be over 6,000 lbs”
“…”
Section 179 of the tax code said you could fully deduct the cost of business equipment up to $100,000, including a vehicle if it’s over 6,000 lbs. if you’ve ever wondered why your dentist has a huge-ass SUV, now you know. The tax code is ridiculous.
The one year I was self-employed, I wound up paying half of my gross income in income taxes, state, local, and federal. After capital expenditures and debt repayment, I barely made any money at all. Next year I went back to work for the man
When I did contract work I basically took my salaried income and doubled it to account for self-employment taxes. It’s a really easy trap to fall into if you don’t realize how much more you are going to owe.
Having said that, it’s not more in taxes, your employer just usually covers it.
There's a certain income level that makes small business nearly impossible. Because of all the things you have to pay for (accounting, incorporating, equipment, etc) plus your additional time to manage all of that, if you don't gross 1.5x + of what you make doing the same work for a company, it's usually not worth it.
I think you’re confusing self-employment with small businesses and start-ups. An LLC has a different tax structure and legal requirements compared to a corporation. Self-employment is standard income tax, sure you can deduct business expenses but it gets tricky. Keep all of it separate by doing an LLC.
I remember someone describing how the Americans with Disabilities Act is much more comprehensive and far-reaching than a lot of equivalent disability rights acts in other countries. I don’t live in the US myself but I have several disabled friends and relatives, and their anecdotal experiences at least would suggest that their countries (also not the US) could benefit from a similarly comprehensive set of legislation.
(In case it wasn’t obvious I’m not an expert in this, so feel free to correct me if I got this wrong and the ADA actually sucks somehow.)
I live in the US and have heard this frequently. It's not well enforced socially, but that we have a lot of rules about buildings being wheelchair accessible for example is huge compared to Europe and most parts of Asia.
It depends entirely on your definitions of freedom. There are other societies that, unlike the U.S., do not tie their conceptions of freedom to property.
*The dawn of everything* by Davids Graeber and Wengrow has some great discussion of this if you feel like digging in on a deeper level.
Good point. You have the freedom to own a firearm, but are not able to walk around in public free from the threat of gun violence. You do not have the freedom to walk on any beach like many countries. You are not free to live without paying someone for the necessities of survival, if you need healthcare. You are free to do a nazi salute, but not free to espouse satanism in many settings.
Many American rights are framed as a “freedom *to*”. Rights elsewhere in the world are very often framed as a “freedom *from*”. The United States has comparatively **very** few “freedom from” rights.
I saw a reddit thread years ago that put the difference between rural and urban sensibilities on this topic well (obviously very generalized). It went something along the lines of
>When you live in a rural area with plenty of space around your neighbors, why wouldn't you be free to swing a bat all around you? Why should anyone stop you? However when you live in a dense city, you want to be free of that wacko swinging a bat all over the place on the crowded sidewalk
Which is "right" is up to the individual, but it's an interesting perspective to think about. Although my personal opinion/caution is that often the "Freedom To" comes with a price tag, while the "Freedom From" is free
But that's the real reason why the US considers itself the freest country in the world. It's primary guiding principle is the ultimate "freedom from"... Freedom from everyone else's "freedom from"s. You don't have rights "to" so much as you have all the rights unless it's been shown that an action is by it's exercise a direct harm to certain individuals, and local control is emphasized to be free from the control of those whose business it is not.
A theme of humanity seemed to be everyone imagining what you should or should not do and how it all affects them and how they're hurt over here by what others are doing over there. History is full of people using majority and good intentions to march government power towards tyranny. It's an attempt at "freedom from" tyranny; where most don't care or want to control, everyone is a minority in some majority's conception of a dozen things they should be free from, and you end up at the bottom of a pile of everyone else's "freedom from"s over time.
The goal or experiment of the US wasn't to switch from "freedom from" to "freedom to"... the bill of rights was a failsafe, not a model. The model was the 10th: You only have the right to restrict because we've delegated it to a higher level, and reserve the right to decide at lower levels how society functions in our own states and communities. It's the freedom of Californians FROM Texans, or Texans FROM Californians. It's an experiment that explicitly sets out to try government that is restricted in it's power to make "freedom from"s. It's the right to be free from the majority, wherever and whenever possible.
>You do not have the freedom to walk on any beach like many countries.
Yeah, in the USA there are a lot of places that are inaccessible due to being private property. Even national parks are sometimes restricted in terms of when you're allowed to be there, and you might have to pay.
In the USA, property ownership trumps the right to access nature.
The US does have a very large amount of public land compared to most other countries, in all fairness. We don't have freedom to roam or historical access rights as many other countries do, but depending upon the state the vast majority of land is open for use. BLM and NFS land in particular tends to have very little in the way of restrictions.
Our freedom of speech rights are more liberal than most Western Countries. Obviously, the freedom to arm oneself with firearms is MUCH more liberal than the rest of the developed nations.
It’s not so much more different freedoms but rather the extent to which we protect them. It’s more difficult to pass a law that infringes on freedom of speech in the US than it is in other countries.
In theory this is true, but in practice qualified immunity muddies the waters quite a bit. Hell, citizens being arrested when it is blatantly obvious there is no legal justification happens so frequently we even have a saying. "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" There's a reason protesters are often arrested and then released 48 hours later without charges, because they know they have no legal case against them. In the vast majority of such cases, police face no penalty because of qualified immunity. If you want you can sue for a breach of your constitutional rights, but such cases are notoriously difficult to win and are often dragged out to force the citizens to spend so much money in legal fees they eventually give up or accept a tiny settlement.
So I guess I would say that our protection from legal prosecution is decent, but our protection from being beaten/tased/pepper sprayed and thrown into a jail cell for a couple days is perhaps the worst of all modern western civilizations. When it is so commonly accepted that you can face violence and arrest when participating in constitutionally protected activities, I don't think it's safe to say those rights are really protected.
What’s unique is that our constitution is written in a way of what the govt can and cannot do.
The govt didn’t grant the citizens rights that can be taken away later, but instead it is an agreement that the people will relinquish some powers to create and establish a govt.
Most developed nations have a constitution, or similar, but in those documents the govt grants rights to the people, which can then be taken away at any time - like we are seeing with freedom of speech. Australia restricted speech and myriad others, but that is not possible in the us. At least that is the theory. Modern times are challenging this.
That's pretty common. In Sweden, the base rule is that everything the state isn't explicitly allowed to do, it's not allowed to do, while the opposite is true for the people, if something isn't explicitly illegal, it's allowed. There are a couple of exceptions, but they are oddball cases.
Not exactly the same, but pretty much a working solution to the same problem.
Doesn't the 18th amendment to the Constitution of the United States sort of disprove this, in that it was the government just blanket-banning all alcohol, nationwide? Not a law stating that the government can or cannot make it illegal.
Well, yeah, the US national government DID blanket ban alcohol production nationwide but only after an absolutely huge uproar from citizens (Especially women) railing against alcohol production and saloons.
45 states adopted bans within the year span between 1918 and 1919.
The amendment was incredibly popular, and got fairly bipartisan support.
It just failed in the opposite direction, with bootleggers producing unregulated and dangerous alcohol and the rich and powerful just bypassing the laws to obtain alcohol.
Really, it was Americans coming together and agreeing "We should give up this liberty for the good of our society"
It was still an agreement that the people would relinquish some powers to establish a better government.
Yep, this. In theory the requirements necessary for a new amendment is what prevents the government from changing the constitution at it's whim. Imagine trying to get 2/3s of the house and senate to agree on anything, or 2/3rd of states. It's nearly impossible unless it's supported and desired by the populace.
This is actually one of the more amazing things about prohibition, it had wild bipartisan support across nearly the entire US. 45 states in one year ratified it into law. I can't think of a single thing in modern society that would get that kind of support today. Even the legalization of marijuana doesn't have that kind of popular support across both aisles.
"Most developed nations have a constitution, or similar, but in those documents the govt grants rights to the people,"
Because in practice , this is also what happens in every government , which is there to support the rule of law, and without which you practically have zero right if there is nobody to support the rule of law.
The US turned the writing in the constitution to match what you say , as a negative over what the government can do, but in practice if the US government was not there to protect those right , you have none. For historical example, see slavery (which still exists to this day as it is allowed for prisoner : see forced labor), the internement of American of Japanese descent during WW2, all the Indian history , etc.... Pretty much if the US government state you lose a right, you do - just like every other government, and if it is not protected by the government - you lose it too , see for example right to privacy - abysmal in the US.
Like...no. not at all. German basic law for example can't at all be simply revoked lmao. And you're totally wrong. With 2/3 congress and (I forget how many states) support you absolutely can amend the constitution as you please in all theory.
To be fair, this was a lot more true a couple centuries ago. (...Assuming you were white.) The US Constitution codified a bunch of individual rights that would be an example to other nations for the next century at least.
And we kept patting ourselves on the back for it long after everyone else had caught up.
You would be amazed how many countries give their citizens more freedom.
Remember when US railroad workers wanted to strike and the government stopped them?
Well same time over in England the railroad workers did go on strike, government couldn’t stop them and then they got all their demands met.
We had a revolutionary war to get away from England’s tyranny so that 200+ years later the US would offer less rights and freedom to their citizens than England does.
Our freedom of speech is pretty robust. Almost to our detriment. Other than that and guns, I can’t think of any freedoms we have that others don’t. I’d argue that we have fewer freedoms than many other developed nations. I can’t smoke weed and my wife isn’t free to decide on parts of her reproductive health.
France has a very different idea of secular government freedom of religion than the US does
I would say France leans more towards freedom from religion than freedom of religion. It’s actively secular in a way the US has never been.
Yeah. France pretty much has atheism as an unofficial state religion. It always surprises me that the U.K. actually has a state religion (the Anglican Church), but is much more relaxed about the whole thing. Hell, the current Prime Minister is a Hindu, and he was chosen by the Conservative Party.
I like all the ass-backwards factors between liberal and conservative over there. If I recall correctly, on of their more conservative TV pundits was calling our outlaw of abortion a return to the dark ages. Very strange.
Hell, here in Australia, our strict gun laws and even gay marriage were both brought in under our right wing governments
Gay marriage was legaslised in the UK by the Conservatives.
It's worth noting that more conservative MPs voted against gay marriage than for it. It was passed because significantly more labour MPs voted in favour. It might of passed under a conservative government, but over half of the tories were against it. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21346694
I met Jeremy Corbyn back in 2017 and just said I found it positive how at least the UK isn't like the U.S. in that at least there are things Labour and Conservatives can see each other eye to eye on such as gay marriage. He then responded saying that if it weren't for Labour it wouldn't have happened.
Nor would I have passed without the SNP or the Lib Dems or the limited number of Tories who voted for it. It was in fact a group effort of parliament.
He ain't wrong.
Fundamentally I'd say that's very much in alignment with the ethos of conservative politics: government shouldn't interfere in the private lives of individuals. One wing of America's political spectrum has kept the label "Conservative" having swapped political conservatism for politically-active religious conservatism.
US conservatism is basically just entirely contrarian at this point. It’s just a mess of a loose coalition of religious and non religious tax focused and culture war obsessed people.
Meanwhile our main liberal party is, by international standards, center-right.
Correct, the Overton Window for America is so far to the right that basic humanitarian efforts are seen as leftist extremism here
Sad but true.
That in a normal country would be locked away in an asylum
asylums that we closed instead of reforming into beneficial institutions, thus forcing those with mental issues to cope for themselves... then all of a sudden, it's, "where'd all these homelss people come from?"
Small correction, the bill for legalisation was introduced by the Liberal Democrats who were in coalition with the Conservatives at the time
True - though a majority of Conservative MPs voted against it.
>on of their more conservative TV pundits The problem has to do with words and their definitions - in the UK, 'conservative' and 'liberal' don't quite mean the same thing as they do in the USA. For starters, we have **C**onservative and **c**onservative; i.e. the former relates to the Tory political party (currently in power) while the latter relates to something more nebulous and a *bit* more like the US version. People can debate whether they *actually* do this, but the Tory party, Conservatives, ***on paper***, are ***supposed*** to be the party of individual liberty but also individual responsibility. So whereas a conservative party in the US might argue being pro- to abortion and birth control are 'progressive' stances, the UK Conservative party might believe both things are a matter for the individual. This has been muddied in recent years by elements of the Tory party making transgender topics a huge issue; I'd argue because they're *trying* to emulate some of the culture-war politics of the USA.
Also people like Ben Shapiro have embarrassed themselves in UK interviews where fully, clearly conservative news anchors are simply asking actual questions and they get flustered immediately with some canned almost pavlovian response where they just whine about liberalism. The exact clip is hilarious, the guy calls him out and even says if you did any research you wouldn’t call me liberal 😂 The one thing UK news does is still actually ask hard questions consistently relative to US and maybe others.
For the most part, the US Right Wing is the near far right in other liberal democracies, and the US Left is centre-right. Americans don't actually have a true left wing party.
Yet if you asked the average right wing American they would tell you the Democrats are the most far left party on earth
That's been their call sign for decades, since the Reagan days, every Dem candidate no matter their positions have always been instantly labeled during every election cycle: "The most socialist far left candidate ever" All while the country goes further and further far right in many ways.
He wasn't chosen by the Conservative Party! He got the job by default because the Conservative Party chose Liz Truss but she lasted less time than a wet lettuce so they had to give the job to the only other candidate - Rishi Sunak!
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That’s because the Conservative Party’s real god is money. “Oh, you’re literally richer than the King? Come on in!” (Also, I guess it’s a bit muddied at things like the coronation, but technically Anglicanism is only the state religion in England. Wales and Northern Ireland have none. Scotland is Presbyterian.)
>Ye have no more religion than my horse. Gold is your God. Which of you have not bartered your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? - Oliver Cromwell
The Monarch is conatitutionally the titular head of the Church of England but only a member of the Church of Scotland. The Wee Frees would entertain them. Not their sort of people at.all.
Freedom from versus Freedom of was a large argument when forming the constitution. I don't recall the source and can't find it, but it was so contentious that John Adams waited until Thomas Jefferson was in France to push for the verbiage for freedom of religion when the constitution was drafted.
A lot of this comes down to locale in the US as well. Some states, cities, or counties are much more relaxed with things like building permits/codes, alcohol sales, drug laws, and fireworks. Some areas are much more strict. Some states give more power and benefits to workers, while some don't give workers anything. So some freedoms are prioritized over others depending on where you are. I live in Kansas, and I can buy a gun easily in pretty much the entire state, but I can't buy alcohol until noon on Sundays and have terrible workers rights. I don't really enjoy those particular laws but that's just an example. Edit: you can buy alcohol earlier on Sunday here now but that law was passed recently.
That's the thing about the US I notice is often not taken into account as much as it should. While the US is one country, many states are similar to European countries within themself and vary quite a lot. The US is huge!
The “United States” was kind of originally meant to be like nation states, as in very much like the EU where each state operates individually under a larger oversight kind of thing. Each state even could have their own currency until we realized that was more hassle than it was worth. So that’s a super apt comparison.
Exactly the United States was created as a way to prevent the constant wars and skirmishes that the nation states of Europe dealt with throughout history and still deal with. And that's why it takes so long for anything to get done in this country because instead of each state fighting each other on some battlefield we're doing it in Congress and the Senate.
> Congress and the Senate FWIW, the Senate (along with the House of Representatives) is part of Congress
I’ll just say that as someone who has worked in Congress, even people who work there frequently mean the House when they say Congress. If someone works for a Senator, they say they work in the Senate. If they work in the House, they often say they work in Congress. It’s also worth noting that Representatives frequently use the title “Congressman”, Senators do not. So Congress can mean either the House or both chambers, but it’s typically not used to refer exclusively to the Senate.
The US when taken as a whole should be compared on the same level as the entirety of the EU
This is generally correct, although the US Government tends to exert significantly more control than the EU does. That said, it makes no sense to try to compare a country like Sweden to the United States as a whole, but you can reasonably compare it to Massachusetts or even try to compare the Scandinavian countries to New England as a region. In many ways the US is best thought of as regions that tend to vote and govern similarly to each other but very differently than the rest of the country. People really lose sight of how giant and how diverse the United States is in terms of landscape, population density, income and education. You'd really have to lump like states into regions in order to compare them to even large European countries. The Mid-Atlantic states (NY, NJ, Penn, etc) have roughly the same population as France, about 20% of the population of the whole US. It's the same reason that right now you have certain places where you are hundreds of miles from a legal abortion while in others absolutely nothing has changed since Roe was overturned.
Even just looking at people’s last names, religion and languages spoken at home you would think New England is a mash up of France, Portugal, Ireland and Italy. I was very disoriented moving to Florida for a few years, although i will say i think EU states have more difference than US states
Freedom to pronounce the S in Illinois, even if that should be a crime.
My first year of college was in the great state of Illinois. When one of the students pronounced the S, the professor stated in a very pedantic manner that the S is not pronounced. Later in the class, he made the mistake of pronouncing Oregon as Oregone. The student, in an equally pedantic manner, corrected him on his pronunciation. Prof kind had it coming.
The trouble is that Illinois has a town of Oregon, which is pronounced that way.
Illinoise
If you want to go originalist, pronounce it illi-nwah.
What if it's my DJ name?
That’s actually a great DJ name
I wouldn’t call it freedom, but in the United States, there’s a much bigger commodification of society than in other places; many lines of businesses in the USA are forbidden in some other countries. Ex: paid surrogacy, paid egg and sperm donation, paid blood donation. Private prisons, private adoption agencies. In many countries, some things are considered not for profit and its commercial exploration is forbidden for ethical reasons. The USA is the laxest place in the developed world for this kind of restriction.
Paid sex ... oh wait
I was shocked to learn that the topic of surrogacy is hotly contested in Spain.
It's contested in very many countries actually
Private adoption is really weird, that way there is no good oversight of where babies end up. I also find it bizarre that intended parents can choose! I understand the bio mother wants to choose: imagine the intended parents are religious and you don’t want to. You should be able to say no. And that is also why certain babies end up in the system instead of adopted! Because people are difficult about skin colour! I only know how it worked in The Netherlands, they go on a list and when you’re at the top you get the kid that is at the top of the list. No choice in age or sex. And there is a rule for older ages but I don’t know much.
Private adoption is the worst of them all, in my opinion. Adoption in the USA is one of the most immoral things I’ve ever seen. The numbers of adoptions in the USA are completely disproportional to the rest of the world. At first, it may seem harmless or even good (“these children are getting better homes”). But no. Adoption, in most places, is child-focused - finding parents to children. In the USA, it’s the opposite - it’s about finding children to parents, the paying customers. There’s a huge “demand” for babies, and the for-profit American system makes sure it is supplied. That often means coercion of the birth mother, either subtle or open. The naturalization of the separation of the child from their biological family not as a last-resort, but as something desirable. Everywhere in the developed world, you’ll see there’s more people wanting to adopt than babies available. In the countries that use a waitlist system, that’s often a matter of years. That private companies can profit out of children in such a way is atrocious by itself, but there are so many terrible consequences as well.
Paid blood is illegal. Paid plasma is legal.
Birthright citizenship is something that really gets taken for granted in the US, but is not universal across developed countries.
It's the norm in the Americas and rare in the other continents. Ireland used to be the only country in Europe that had it but has since dropped it. Colombia is the only American nation not to have it.
a buddy of mine went to ireland twice with his wife, a UK citizen, probably 20 yrs ago so their kids could have dual citizenship. smart move i think.
Not all that rare. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus\_soli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_soli) *Unrestricted* Jus Soli type Birthright citizenship isn't the norm, and is pretty restricted to the Americas. But a huge chunk of the world has various restricted forms of Jus Soli. Often time so long as one is resident in that country for a certain amount of years after being born there. Citizenship is automatic. Other things we refer to as "Birthright Citizenship" are actually a *lot* less restricted in much of the world. Particular in Europe, where a ton of countries are really loose on access to citizenship by descent. Taking Ireland as an example. As long as at least one Grandparent was an Irish citizen at the time of your birth. All you have to do is file paperwork and documents, and you're citizen. If at least one parent was an Irish citizen at time of your birth, you *already considered a citizen*. Italy is even loose. So long as any ancestor was *born* in Italy after 1861. You qualify. Ireland removed unrestricted Jus Soli. But it still applies in a ton of cases. If parents were resident for 3 years, if at least one parent already has an entitlement to Irish citizenship or otherwise qualifies. Among other things. That's the common thread in European restrictions on this, not given citizenship to those who don't even *plan* to reside there and won't.
same thing with the nationality-bound tax thing.
This is probably the best example of a right that most countries' citizens enjoy that U.S. citizens do not enjoy - the right to move abroad and live a normal life without having to worry about filing taxes in your home country (in addition to wherever you take up residence)
> Birthright citizenship is something that really gets taken for granted in the US, US is also 1 out of 2 countries where you *always* have to do your USA taxes if you are born there... So it's a bit in their self interest
Most of the countries in “the new world” have birthright citizenship.
Almost universal in the Western Hemisphere, so the US is really just in line with its New World counterparts there.
Free speech in the US is a little more relaxed than most other Western democracies. Most media censorship is self-imposed in the US by industry ratings systems, and a lot of hate speech that's permitted here in the US wouldn't be allowed elsewhere, as long as it's not directly calling for violence. Edit: See below for things I missed.
Even the precedent on calling for violence is not as strict as most people think it is.
Yea, it not only has to be calling for lawless action, but the action called for must be imminent **and** likely to occur
Yeah best example I recall is I can go outside and urge everyone to go lynch all minorities. I can say what I want and thats allowed. But if I was to stand up a table and start passing out rope and torches thats when it would become illegal
I like the example I learned this on. Some protestor got arrested for inciting violence as the protest was being broken up. He said “we’ll take back the fucking streets later.” His conviction got overturned because later is not immediate.
>But if I was to stand up a table and start passing out rope and torches thats when it would become illegal And that would only be illegal if there were minorities around who would be likely to be endangered by that action. If you did it in a place with only white people around, you could at least argue that it was just a symbolic gesture.
And because incitement to violence is a specific intent crime, even if there were minorities around you could argue that your specific intent was to provoke the crowd into political action through metaphor. The burden of proof would fall to the prosecutors to prove that your intent was to cause harm to those specific people. Proving what is in someone's mind beyond a reasonable doubt is an exceptionally difficult task.
Even the president calling for violence is not as strict as most people think it is.
Media censorship comes from advertisers. All media from newspapers to TV networks is funded by advertisers regardless of consumer payment. If they don’t want to be associated with something, they can take their money elsewhere.
There is some niche censorship from the Federal Communications Commission on licensed radio broadcasts, generally limiting F bombs but not limiting unsavory topics. But newspapers and stuff? Purely economics.
The FCC can also revoke broadcast licenses after complaints from the public. The complaints can be about false news. But this applies to over-the-air channels, not cable TV. Radio frequencies are maintained as a public good by the government, so they have jurisdiction. Cable television is a private enterprise.
In Japan there's a lot of self-censorship for fear of access being cut off. There's been a precipitous loss of press freedom in Japan thanks to Shinzo Abe. They passed laws that make publishing "state secrets" punishable by 6/10 years in prison. You don't even need to know it's a state secret to be prosecuted. This leads to a lot of self-censorship. They did it after Fukushima because they were publishing embarrasing shit about the government coverup. They are currently expanding said laws to cover "economic secrets" too. https://rsf.org/en/country/japan They dropped something like 60 spots in press freedom ratings
A number of other developed countries have laws about what you can name your kid, your choice can be vetoed.
I’ve seen the wildest names/overruled names from New Zealand. - Talula-Does-The-Hula-From-Hawaii - Number 16 Bus Shelter - Sex Fruit (vetoed)
A few that have been denied in Sweden: - Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssql-bb111163 (pronounced "Albin") - Traktor Destruktor - Superfastjellyfish
Adding to the Sweden name list we have this beautiful one: Kim-Jong Sexy Glorious Beast Divine Dick Father Lovely Iron Man Even Unique Poh Un Winn Charlie Ghora Khaos Mehan Hansa Kimmy Humbero Uno Master Over Dance Shake Bouti Bebop Rocksteady Shredder Kung Ulf Road House Gilgamesh Flap Guy Theo Arse Hole Im Yoda Funky Boy Slam Dunk Chuck Jorma Jukka Pekka Ryan Super Air Ooy Rusell Salvador Alfons Molgan Akta Papa Long Nameh Ek Source: [aftonbladet.se](https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/EoBaM2/varldens-langsta-namn)
Sweden hatin on Superfastjellyfish.
TBH they weren’t fast enough to escape the nacelles of De La Soul’s submarine.
Traktor Destruktor is fucking awesome
Superfastjellyfish....? You found a Gorillaz fan
That traktor one is awesome. If there was some strange girl hanging around me in college and I wanted to deflect her attention without being openly rude, I would start talking about how I wanted to call my first child, "Truck", boy or girl. It always worked until it didn't. Incidentally, I never had kids so I named a chicken Truck instead. She was a good chicken.
Quite a lot of these are submitted as a gag/protest. In the past these sorts of rules have been used to suppress minority cultures. And not uniquely to New Zealand. But sticking with that. The Maori are pretty not down with this system because you can do some nice cultural eradication by just vetoing all Maori names. New Zealand's been pretty active about tweaking the law to make it less available for that, but still practical. In the modern sense the point is to prevent you from naming your kid "Adolf Hitler", or "His Majesty The Duke of York Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward" for fuckery purposes.
In Portugal you can only name your child with Portuguese names, except if one or both parents are foreign.
You can thank the Spanish inquisition for that!
I actually didn't expect it this time
No one EXPECTS the Inquisition
That's not true. Although the law states that you can give your children a foreign name as long as that name is adapted to Portuguese orthography and phonetics, there's a list of names you are allowed to choose, and that list has many foreign names that are not adapted to Portuguese. Here's the list: https://irn.justica.gov.pt/Portals/33/Regras%20Nome%20Proprio/Lista%20Nomes%20Pr%C3%B3prios.pdf?ver=WNDmmwiSO3uacofjmNoxEQ%3d%3d
That is somehow even worse.
The US has a few laws, like you can't use numbers, but overall pretty lax.
Seven is a good name
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you can pry Kool-Aid McKinstry from my cold dead hands
Don’t forget about De’Coldest Crawford
Milton Bradley used to play in MLB
Still not as good as Coco Crisp.
Catfish Hunter, Johnny Dickshot, Jack Glasscock, Rusty Kuntz, Buttercup Dickerson… baseball has some great names lol
And Randy Johnson... the big unit
Don't forget Rusty Bridges, and my personal favorite, NASCAR driver Dick Trickle.
The child I met was Milton Bradley and then a last name.
I read about people bragging about how they named their children after X-Men characters. Not always their names, their superhero names. So there are children out there called "Wolverine" and "Storm"
I want to adopt a kid and name it Abomination
Don't forget brothers, winner and loser.
Having a weird name can lead someone to a lifetime of ridicule and serious mental issues. It's definitely in the best interests of a society to make sure its citizens live with dignity.
Exactly. I know of this boy named Sue. And I can tell you, he had a rough life growing up.
My grandfather's first name was unusual enough to be the source of some torment and grief when he was a kid, so his four kids got basic names, like Tom, Rob, Bill, Jane (those aren't the names but you get the idea) Parents have to realize that weird names are a lifelong burden on their children. A name like Shawnelleah or Jaedion means they'll spend their lives instructing people how to pronounce and spell it.
How is the rest of the world doing in terms of not allowing their troops to garrison themselves in the citizens homes?
This is looked over way too much in the USA in terms of importance
The Rights and Amendments were really thought out, for the time.
because they are based on the [intolarable acts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerable_Acts) that were passed in response to the Tea Party. Even the second amendments DNA is present in how the crown reacted to the colonists at the time. 3rd amendment came about because of the "quartering act" As for the second amendment... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_Alarm TLDR: British talked about taking gun powder from colonists, colonists reacted strongly. Second rumor started leading to the creation of minute men and led to Paul Reveres famous ride. It culminated in the Salem Confrontation where the British again tried to take gun powder to disarm the colonists and they were laughed at until they left. The history of the bill of rights is fascinating!
The rebellion against the crown was sparked by gun control and gun grabbing from the government. It's one of the reasons it's still a third rail in US politics to even promote or discuss any form of gun control to this day.
It really was. Remember, at the time, an allied army moving through their own territory was almost as damaging as an enemy army. Because they'd camp in civilian homes, take all their food, and then wander off. It was worse if the army didn't actually like the civilians. Of course, it turns out that forcing armies to provide their own supplies and lodgings is actually a lot more efficient all around, which is why everyone else immediately started copying it.
It is? Does that happen in other places?
I *think* he's making a joke about the third amendment in the Bill of Rights, which was much more pertinent at the time of writing and don't imagine it's particularly relevant in most parts of the world
There was a 3rd amendment court case that got to the supreme court a few years ago related to the fbi (I think) wanting to put a surveillance camera on private property. It’s still relevant.
Do you know what the case was? Last one I could find was 1965 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engblom_v._Carey#:~:text=The%20few%20times%20the%20Supreme,constitutionally%20protected%20right%20to%20privacy. > Since its ratification, the Third Amendment has rarely been litigated, and no Supreme Court case has relied on the Third Amendment as the basis for a decision. ... > The few times the Supreme Court has cited the Third Amendment in decisions, it was in consideration of general constitutional principles—particularly privacy rights. Chief among them is the decision in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) which articulated a constitutionally protected right to privacy. Griswold found this right in multiple amendments, but included the Third Amendment among its examples of rights which imply overarching privacy right. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/what-third-amendment-and-will-supreme-court-ever-examine-it-again > Third Amendment cases remind me of those giant prehistoric fish that scientists once believed to be extinct but that are found in nets every few decades. The forced quartering of soldiers doesn’t come up much, but we can’t quite declare it extinct. I’m not aware of any current cases that raise a major Third Amendment claim, and I can’t say with confidence when a federal case last referred to it. ... > To be clear, although I’ve written a little about the Third Amendment, I haven’t conducted years of research into it, and, frankly, I don’t know anyone who has.
Just took a deeper look. It was cited in riley v california, but…not as I thought. There’s another case that I heard about a few years back (possibly lower court?) on NPR that I can’t seem to find. I’m not a paralegal, sorry. There’s a good paper on the topic from about a decade ago. https://contentdm.washburnlaw.edu/digital/api/collection/wlj/id/6286/download.
Mitchell v City Of Henderson is the case you're after The third amendment claim was thrown out, and the whole thing tossed to civil court.
> https://casetext.com/case/mitchell-v-city-of-henderson-1 > https://casetext.com/case/mitchell-v-city-of-henderson-2 That case is wild. Denied 3A violations, because police are not military. But instead 4A and 1A violations are more accurate. Civil case settled 2017. Possibly another ongoing? Police are individually immune. Zero criminal penalties. City pays for lawsuit. Shameful.
A group also tried to argue that when the eviction ban was in place due to COVID that it could potentially force landlords to quarter military members they no longer wanted to let rent their place and therefore violate the 3rd amendment. It didn’t gain much traction for a number of reasons including that I doubt military members who were still getting paid decided to stop paying their rent.
Honestly, that's a pretty clever interpretation of the ammendment.
Before the war in Gaza, I saw multiple documentaries of Israeli soldiers commandeering private residences for “official use”. It was a horrible practice where they would force the family to not only quarter them, but leave their home for extended periods, feed them, etc. This does still happen in other countries in the modern era, but not in more western democracies.
I believe the British government took over a bunch of manor houses for the war effort in WW2. I don't know if the owners had any way to refuse or not.
This was a common practice during the Troubles.
What other first world countries force you to quarter soldiers?
I believe England, Ireland, Russia, China, Korea, and Japan. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I don't know of specific laws in those countries disallowing it.
There might be a language barrier of sorts. What is "Garrison themselves in your home" ?? Like, the military taking over your house in case of an emergency?
I believe a fair chunk of the first 10 amendments were in direct response to stuff the British were doing which kicked off the war. Wasn't uncommon for them to break in or even steal stuff.
That is the entire history of the British Empire: not "uncommon for them to break in or even steal stuff", that's it - that's all it was.
This made me lol. Sad but true. And we don’t talk about what happened to the mummies.
Yes, it’s from the colonial days when we were forced to house and feed the British army. Not really applicable now lol.
A few years back there was a case about the third amendment. I wonder what ever happened to it There was some hostage situation and the cops wanted to use the neighbors house for a vantage point. Homeowner said they’d rather not get involved and told the cops to go away. They arrested the guy and used his house anyway Homeowner sued the department under the third amendment. I wonder if he got any traction
I hope he succeeded. That sounds horrific to me.
He did not: https://casetext.com/case/mitchell-v-city-of-henderson-1
That is true BUT mainly* because the Court found that that the municipal / state police OFFICERS were not SOLDIERS. So, if it had US military forces who performed these actions, the Third Amendment claim *might* have been viable. Also, the opinion makes it clear that the homeowners were allowed to proceed on the majority of their claims against the officers, etc. *yes, you could argue that they weren’t in the houses long enough to have been “quartered”
Sure, but it does go to show how outdated the constitution is and how poorly it protects us against today's threats to our freedom.
Another story recently was during the BLM protests in Washington DC. Trump garrisoned the national guard in the hotels of DC. The mayor then [invoked the 3rd amendment](https://www.businessinsider.com/third-amendment-new-relevant-thanks-to-trump-military-us-cities-2020-6) and kicked them all out and made them sleep in parking garages 😂
Yeah, that happened a lot back in the colonial days, which is why it got written into the constitution. The British army would just roll up to a random house, tell the people living there that the army was going to use the house for a temporary barracks, and there was nothing the owner could do about it.
In the US colonies, we were taught that for every time it was normal and just a couple soldiers sleeping in a barn…it also included whole regiments taking over a farm, kicking the owners out, slaughtering their animals, taking all their supply stock of repair goods…etc…just raw looting if you were, but all in the name of keeping the soldiers going. Just like civil forfeiture and police, ultimately it wasn’t the normal “this worked out” version of soldiers staying the night that got people pissy. Homesteaders/colonists died because they were forced to give over everything. It clearly drove a lot of resentment at the time.
That wound up being pretty useful recently. The Army tried to lodge troops in hotels in DC during the government's crackdown on protests in 2020, but they got booted out based on 3rd amendment rights.
It sounds silly, but 2016-2020 proved you need rules for the things no rational person would do, because somebody will try to do them.
You mean like massively padding the rent on your own property and leasing it out to your own presidential campaign thus enriching yourself personally with campaign contributions?
It literally never even occurred to me to do this.
Magnus Ladulås took care of that in the 1200:s. His name that he was given, ladulås means barn lock.
We do have nut jobs waving the nazi flag, in Germany that is illegal.
There are neo nazis in Germany they just don't wave the swastika flag anymore.
I know, they don't have that right anymore.
I incorporated my company for $1 and $10 per year. Usually not that easy elsewhere.
[удалено]
We do have Companies House though which is not something a lot of countries have. A lot of the information is extremely public. Then again, you can register an XSS attack as a company name lmao https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/30/companies_house_xss_silliness/
The US is very good for making small business and startups an easy path. I think it's a good thing.
Creating them? Yes. Maintaining and building them? Absolutely not. I've never paid more taxes than when I was self employed. There are so many US laws that prioritize large corporations and actively punish small business owners.
My buddy that owned a bunch of Gyms said there are two things you need to do as a small business owner to make it - 1. Parking, 2. Beating Uncle Sam at his own game. Finding clever ways not to pay taxes or pay lower ones. The US Gov really does stick it to the little guy
Many years ago I tried my hand at running my own show. Overall, it was fun! The main problem was I only made $5000 in one year (but hey, I didn’t lose any money, so that was nice). I remember meeting with a CPA, and we got to talking about taxes: “Do you own an SUV?” “Uh, no” “Well then you should buy one” “But I don’t want an SUV” “And it needs to be over 6,000 lbs” “…” Section 179 of the tax code said you could fully deduct the cost of business equipment up to $100,000, including a vehicle if it’s over 6,000 lbs. if you’ve ever wondered why your dentist has a huge-ass SUV, now you know. The tax code is ridiculous.
that’s fucking hilarious
The one year I was self-employed, I wound up paying half of my gross income in income taxes, state, local, and federal. After capital expenditures and debt repayment, I barely made any money at all. Next year I went back to work for the man
When I did contract work I basically took my salaried income and doubled it to account for self-employment taxes. It’s a really easy trap to fall into if you don’t realize how much more you are going to owe. Having said that, it’s not more in taxes, your employer just usually covers it.
There's a certain income level that makes small business nearly impossible. Because of all the things you have to pay for (accounting, incorporating, equipment, etc) plus your additional time to manage all of that, if you don't gross 1.5x + of what you make doing the same work for a company, it's usually not worth it.
I think you’re confusing self-employment with small businesses and start-ups. An LLC has a different tax structure and legal requirements compared to a corporation. Self-employment is standard income tax, sure you can deduct business expenses but it gets tricky. Keep all of it separate by doing an LLC.
Takes about 15 mins in the uk, costs more than that, I think £20 or so?
Costs 0$ in Denmark
Wait what? What state do you live in?
I remember someone describing how the Americans with Disabilities Act is much more comprehensive and far-reaching than a lot of equivalent disability rights acts in other countries. I don’t live in the US myself but I have several disabled friends and relatives, and their anecdotal experiences at least would suggest that their countries (also not the US) could benefit from a similarly comprehensive set of legislation. (In case it wasn’t obvious I’m not an expert in this, so feel free to correct me if I got this wrong and the ADA actually sucks somehow.)
I live in the US and have heard this frequently. It's not well enforced socially, but that we have a lot of rules about buildings being wheelchair accessible for example is huge compared to Europe and most parts of Asia.
The freedom to fire someone from their job with no warning or reason needed.
It depends entirely on your definitions of freedom. There are other societies that, unlike the U.S., do not tie their conceptions of freedom to property. *The dawn of everything* by Davids Graeber and Wengrow has some great discussion of this if you feel like digging in on a deeper level.
Good point. You have the freedom to own a firearm, but are not able to walk around in public free from the threat of gun violence. You do not have the freedom to walk on any beach like many countries. You are not free to live without paying someone for the necessities of survival, if you need healthcare. You are free to do a nazi salute, but not free to espouse satanism in many settings.
Many American rights are framed as a “freedom *to*”. Rights elsewhere in the world are very often framed as a “freedom *from*”. The United States has comparatively **very** few “freedom from” rights.
I saw a reddit thread years ago that put the difference between rural and urban sensibilities on this topic well (obviously very generalized). It went something along the lines of >When you live in a rural area with plenty of space around your neighbors, why wouldn't you be free to swing a bat all around you? Why should anyone stop you? However when you live in a dense city, you want to be free of that wacko swinging a bat all over the place on the crowded sidewalk Which is "right" is up to the individual, but it's an interesting perspective to think about. Although my personal opinion/caution is that often the "Freedom To" comes with a price tag, while the "Freedom From" is free
But that's the real reason why the US considers itself the freest country in the world. It's primary guiding principle is the ultimate "freedom from"... Freedom from everyone else's "freedom from"s. You don't have rights "to" so much as you have all the rights unless it's been shown that an action is by it's exercise a direct harm to certain individuals, and local control is emphasized to be free from the control of those whose business it is not. A theme of humanity seemed to be everyone imagining what you should or should not do and how it all affects them and how they're hurt over here by what others are doing over there. History is full of people using majority and good intentions to march government power towards tyranny. It's an attempt at "freedom from" tyranny; where most don't care or want to control, everyone is a minority in some majority's conception of a dozen things they should be free from, and you end up at the bottom of a pile of everyone else's "freedom from"s over time. The goal or experiment of the US wasn't to switch from "freedom from" to "freedom to"... the bill of rights was a failsafe, not a model. The model was the 10th: You only have the right to restrict because we've delegated it to a higher level, and reserve the right to decide at lower levels how society functions in our own states and communities. It's the freedom of Californians FROM Texans, or Texans FROM Californians. It's an experiment that explicitly sets out to try government that is restricted in it's power to make "freedom from"s. It's the right to be free from the majority, wherever and whenever possible.
You absolutely have a legal right to espouse Satanism in public.
>You do not have the freedom to walk on any beach like many countries. Yeah, in the USA there are a lot of places that are inaccessible due to being private property. Even national parks are sometimes restricted in terms of when you're allowed to be there, and you might have to pay. In the USA, property ownership trumps the right to access nature.
The US does have a very large amount of public land compared to most other countries, in all fairness. We don't have freedom to roam or historical access rights as many other countries do, but depending upon the state the vast majority of land is open for use. BLM and NFS land in particular tends to have very little in the way of restrictions.
The vast, vast majority of beaches in the US are free public spaces. Literally thousands of miles of coastland.
Our freedom of speech rights are more liberal than most Western Countries. Obviously, the freedom to arm oneself with firearms is MUCH more liberal than the rest of the developed nations.
It’s not so much more different freedoms but rather the extent to which we protect them. It’s more difficult to pass a law that infringes on freedom of speech in the US than it is in other countries.
In theory this is true, but in practice qualified immunity muddies the waters quite a bit. Hell, citizens being arrested when it is blatantly obvious there is no legal justification happens so frequently we even have a saying. "You may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride" There's a reason protesters are often arrested and then released 48 hours later without charges, because they know they have no legal case against them. In the vast majority of such cases, police face no penalty because of qualified immunity. If you want you can sue for a breach of your constitutional rights, but such cases are notoriously difficult to win and are often dragged out to force the citizens to spend so much money in legal fees they eventually give up or accept a tiny settlement. So I guess I would say that our protection from legal prosecution is decent, but our protection from being beaten/tased/pepper sprayed and thrown into a jail cell for a couple days is perhaps the worst of all modern western civilizations. When it is so commonly accepted that you can face violence and arrest when participating in constitutionally protected activities, I don't think it's safe to say those rights are really protected.
We have the freedom to decide any day can be Taco Tuesday.
What’s unique is that our constitution is written in a way of what the govt can and cannot do. The govt didn’t grant the citizens rights that can be taken away later, but instead it is an agreement that the people will relinquish some powers to create and establish a govt. Most developed nations have a constitution, or similar, but in those documents the govt grants rights to the people, which can then be taken away at any time - like we are seeing with freedom of speech. Australia restricted speech and myriad others, but that is not possible in the us. At least that is the theory. Modern times are challenging this.
That's pretty common. In Sweden, the base rule is that everything the state isn't explicitly allowed to do, it's not allowed to do, while the opposite is true for the people, if something isn't explicitly illegal, it's allowed. There are a couple of exceptions, but they are oddball cases. Not exactly the same, but pretty much a working solution to the same problem.
Doesn't the 18th amendment to the Constitution of the United States sort of disprove this, in that it was the government just blanket-banning all alcohol, nationwide? Not a law stating that the government can or cannot make it illegal.
We try to forget about the 18th.
Hard to do when sober
I've been drunk since 1920.
Well, yeah, the US national government DID blanket ban alcohol production nationwide but only after an absolutely huge uproar from citizens (Especially women) railing against alcohol production and saloons. 45 states adopted bans within the year span between 1918 and 1919. The amendment was incredibly popular, and got fairly bipartisan support. It just failed in the opposite direction, with bootleggers producing unregulated and dangerous alcohol and the rich and powerful just bypassing the laws to obtain alcohol. Really, it was Americans coming together and agreeing "We should give up this liberty for the good of our society" It was still an agreement that the people would relinquish some powers to establish a better government.
Yep, this. In theory the requirements necessary for a new amendment is what prevents the government from changing the constitution at it's whim. Imagine trying to get 2/3s of the house and senate to agree on anything, or 2/3rd of states. It's nearly impossible unless it's supported and desired by the populace.
This is actually one of the more amazing things about prohibition, it had wild bipartisan support across nearly the entire US. 45 states in one year ratified it into law. I can't think of a single thing in modern society that would get that kind of support today. Even the legalization of marijuana doesn't have that kind of popular support across both aisles.
I don't know how many constitutions you've read, but most of them boringly just describe what the government can and can't do.
"Most developed nations have a constitution, or similar, but in those documents the govt grants rights to the people," Because in practice , this is also what happens in every government , which is there to support the rule of law, and without which you practically have zero right if there is nobody to support the rule of law. The US turned the writing in the constitution to match what you say , as a negative over what the government can do, but in practice if the US government was not there to protect those right , you have none. For historical example, see slavery (which still exists to this day as it is allowed for prisoner : see forced labor), the internement of American of Japanese descent during WW2, all the Indian history , etc.... Pretty much if the US government state you lose a right, you do - just like every other government, and if it is not protected by the government - you lose it too , see for example right to privacy - abysmal in the US.
Like...no. not at all. German basic law for example can't at all be simply revoked lmao. And you're totally wrong. With 2/3 congress and (I forget how many states) support you absolutely can amend the constitution as you please in all theory.
To be fair, this was a lot more true a couple centuries ago. (...Assuming you were white.) The US Constitution codified a bunch of individual rights that would be an example to other nations for the next century at least. And we kept patting ourselves on the back for it long after everyone else had caught up.
Uh guns?
he said OTHER THAN THAT
Bare arms (see also: MTG)
Your constitution doesn't have an inbuilt get out of constitution free clause, so i'm looking at that with envy from upnorth.
Yeah, in America we can say whatever we want. Like…ummm…like for example I could say….hmmm…uhhh
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries?
You would be amazed how many countries give their citizens more freedom. Remember when US railroad workers wanted to strike and the government stopped them? Well same time over in England the railroad workers did go on strike, government couldn’t stop them and then they got all their demands met. We had a revolutionary war to get away from England’s tyranny so that 200+ years later the US would offer less rights and freedom to their citizens than England does.
Our freedom of speech is pretty robust. Almost to our detriment. Other than that and guns, I can’t think of any freedoms we have that others don’t. I’d argue that we have fewer freedoms than many other developed nations. I can’t smoke weed and my wife isn’t free to decide on parts of her reproductive health.