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Are you living in fairy land? Or in a bubble? How does USA citizen have more rights/freedom than for example Scandinavians?
by ssijak 9y ago
Are you living in fairy land? Or in a bubble? How does USA citizen have more rights/freedom than for example Scandinavians?
- whatshisface 9y agoThe core idea of the American vision of rights is that rights against future governments matter just as much as rights against present ones. For example, a Democrat speaking in support of the DNC doesn't need free speech against a Democratic administration, but they would need it against a Republican one. That's the reason behind the "what if we need to rebel?" argument against gun control, the "turnkey tyranny" argument against self-surveillance, and the rest. American political philosophy will seem totally incomprehensible if you miss this point!
- Aloha 9y agoYes, this. In politics, you should never give yourself more power then you wish your opponent to have at some point in the future. Another is, a right by executive order isn't a right.
- marcoperaza 9y agoA few ways: 1) Freedom of speech in the US is the most unrestricted in the world. "Hate speech" (or more accurately: whatever the current cultural consensus deems to be beyond the pale) is not an exception. 2) Protections for criminal defendants in the US are the greatest in the world: * No other country has a hard rule that excludes all illegally-collected evidence, and legally-collected evidence flowing from illegally-collected evidence, from trial. * More generally, we have very extensive rules of evidence that limit what can be admitted into court, to protect the rights of the criminally accused, and both sides of a civil case. The UK has similarly extensive rules, but the rest of Europe does not. * An absolute right to trial by jury for anything greater than a petty criminal charge. 3) The right to homeschool your children. This is essentially illegal in Sweden, Germany, and some other European countries.
- Daishiman 9y agoYou forgot how it is the other way around bro...
- PoachedSausage 9y agoI think I would still rather be a defendant in the Swedish justice system than the US one if I had a choice.
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- irhd 9y agoYou also have the highest incarceration rate in the world, private prisons, mandatory minimums, DAs who extort people into accepting plea deals under the threat of extreme sentences, a civil system which encourages frivolous lawsuits, etc...
- ddxxdd 9y agoRe: incarceration rate We have one of the highest crime rates in the world. If our penal system didn't work the way it did, America would descend into chaos.
- skissane 9y ago> 2) Protections for criminal defendants in the US are the greatest in the world: Other countries (such as Western Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) have weaker protections for criminal defendants during the trial, yes. But, assuming you are convicted, prison sentences tend to be shorter on average and there is no death penalty. On another point, to compare Australia to the US, the High Court of Australia has basically full appellate jurisdiction (even on state law questions) when it chooses to exercise it, whereas the US Supreme Court's jurisdiction is limited to appeals on points of federal law only, and AEDPA has limited access to federal habeas corpus. So I think the convicted have greater rights of appeal under Australian law than US law. So it isn't clear to me that criminal defendants actually have more rights under the US system overall – they have more rights prior to conviction, but less rights afterward.