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> To be honest the second amendment, for all the out-sized media attention it receives - is a rather ineffective and unimportant portion of the Bill of Rights -

> To be honest the second amendment, for all the out-sized media attention it receives - is a rather ineffective and unimportant portion of the Bill of Rights - falling quite far down any reasonable ranking Particularly since most of the US's peer countries manage to get along quite well without anything like it.

elliekelly 7y ago
Why on earth is this downvoted? There are many “freedom” indices[1] that measure the rights afforded to individuals in each country. These indices are published and maintained by groups all along the political spectrum. They all include things like due process and free speech but I’ve yet to come across one that gives weight to an individual’s access to weapons. The “Human Freedom Index”[2] published by the ultra-libertarian Koch-funded Cato Institute doesn’t even include it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices [2] PDF page 24/numbered page 18 https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/human-freedom-index-2019-rev.pdf https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/human-fr...
- nickff 7y ago
  The parent said "most of the US's peer countries manage to get along quite well without anything like it", which is a bit vague, but you have to think about how all the peer countries have done in the last 240 years. Remember that the USA's peers from 1776 weren't Sweden, Germany, and England, they would have been the Latin American countries, and other colonies like India. The USA has definitely done better than any of its peers from 1776. The USA went from being a backwater that produced cotton and tobacco to being the pre-eminent global economic and military power, and it did this while avoiding totalitarianism and (devastating) war on the home front (i.e. WWi and WWii did little damage to the continental USA). Even the countries that started off far ahead of the USA (Germany, England, Sweden, etc.) have had much worse journeys over the past 240 years.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I disagree with this on two major points: I don't think that social evolution is an individual journey for countries. England as a nation might have a founding date around 927 though there have been some pretty major upheavals since then - it isn't fair to measure modern day America a success by comparing it to 1120 England - I think that as a global community all but the newest countries are on mostly even footing with those more aged and ancient countries being at someone of a disadvantage due to having much less solid bases in their constitutions/founding documents - more recent organized countries have been able to learn from history and create founding documents that allow them to have a more stable society... though many of those are in extremely volatile areas of the world. Canada is like a hundred years younger than the US and doing a fair bit better and Australia founded a mere twelve years after the US is clearly within the peer range and is pretty close to the top of that list with New Zealand (founded slightly more recently than that in 1840 which puts it closer to US unification following the civil war) is usually really close to the top of most of these rankings. Additionally, I'm not certain the validity of some of the points mentioned above: In terms of the US's journey it gets the advantage of geography and the same advantage Canada and New Zealand received - it wasn't a theater of war during WWI & WWII, Australia actually suffered catastrophically during WWI with massive numbers of casualties received when participating in the Asia Minor theater (Gallipoli is part of the Australian cultural memory) and in WWII Papau New Guinea was a territory (albeit a relatively autonomous one) of Australia and was a heavily contested theater. In terms of economy, the USA wasn't a cotton churning backwater on founding, it had a strong plantation based economy but as the world industrialized so did America. Britain & Germany definitely take the cake in terms of the most extreme economic transformations but America was on the upper end of the curve - it did quite well in industrialization building a strong power that it transformed into global power as the other colonial powers collapsed. Lastly, I don't know if the US really is the pre-eminent power of the globe - certainly in terms of military it's on the top of the pile... but economically - dutch and british service industries move a lot of money around and, the ordering you didn't mention, quality of life for the citizenry, is one category America is really hurting in at this point with endemic obesity, poor healthcare and extremely poor education.

elliekelly 7y ago

Why on earth is this downvoted? There are many “freedom” indices[1] that measure the rights afforded to individuals in each country. These indices are published and maintained by groups all along the political spectrum. They all include things like due process and free speech but I’ve yet to come across one that gives weight to an individual’s access to weapons. The “Human Freedom Index”[2] published by the ultra-libertarian Koch-funded Cato Institute doesn’t even include it. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices [2] PDF page 24/numbered page 18 https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/human-freedom-index-2019-rev.pdf https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/human-fr...

nickff 7y ago
The parent said "most of the US's peer countries manage to get along quite well without anything like it", which is a bit vague, but you have to think about how all the peer countries have done in the last 240 years. Remember that the USA's peers from 1776 weren't Sweden, Germany, and England, they would have been the Latin American countries, and other colonies like India. The USA has definitely done better than any of its peers from 1776. The USA went from being a backwater that produced cotton and tobacco to being the pre-eminent global economic and military power, and it did this while avoiding totalitarianism and (devastating) war on the home front (i.e. WWi and WWii did little damage to the continental USA). Even the countries that started off far ahead of the USA (Germany, England, Sweden, etc.) have had much worse journeys over the past 240 years.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I disagree with this on two major points: I don't think that social evolution is an individual journey for countries. England as a nation might have a founding date around 927 though there have been some pretty major upheavals since then - it isn't fair to measure modern day America a success by comparing it to 1120 England - I think that as a global community all but the newest countries are on mostly even footing with those more aged and ancient countries being at someone of a disadvantage due to having much less solid bases in their constitutions/founding documents - more recent organized countries have been able to learn from history and create founding documents that allow them to have a more stable society... though many of those are in extremely volatile areas of the world. Canada is like a hundred years younger than the US and doing a fair bit better and Australia founded a mere twelve years after the US is clearly within the peer range and is pretty close to the top of that list with New Zealand (founded slightly more recently than that in 1840 which puts it closer to US unification following the civil war) is usually really close to the top of most of these rankings. Additionally, I'm not certain the validity of some of the points mentioned above: In terms of the US's journey it gets the advantage of geography and the same advantage Canada and New Zealand received - it wasn't a theater of war during WWI & WWII, Australia actually suffered catastrophically during WWI with massive numbers of casualties received when participating in the Asia Minor theater (Gallipoli is part of the Australian cultural memory) and in WWII Papau New Guinea was a territory (albeit a relatively autonomous one) of Australia and was a heavily contested theater. In terms of economy, the USA wasn't a cotton churning backwater on founding, it had a strong plantation based economy but as the world industrialized so did America. Britain & Germany definitely take the cake in terms of the most extreme economic transformations but America was on the upper end of the curve - it did quite well in industrialization building a strong power that it transformed into global power as the other colonial powers collapsed. Lastly, I don't know if the US really is the pre-eminent power of the globe - certainly in terms of military it's on the top of the pile... but economically - dutch and british service industries move a lot of money around and, the ordering you didn't mention, quality of life for the citizenry, is one category America is really hurting in at this point with endemic obesity, poor healthcare and extremely poor education.