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21d
I will NEVER understand why Election Day is not an official holiday. You would think the gov would want the maximum amount of voters…
You would think... but one party has been pulling out all the stops for years to prevent that very thing.
Ah. Do not forget that the government could be doing our taxes for us. But, H&R Block and TurboTax prevent that by lobbing.
Stupid Green Party... /s
Next holiday look at the demographics of who is at work and who has the day off.
Alternatively, next holiday DONT: Grab a coffee Get a beer, drink or soda Hit up the grocery store on your way to the beach Get fuel for your vehicle Stay in a hotel (even if you're away for the long weekend) Get take-out or delivery food Take advantage of the extra day off to do some shopping or errands
Because there is a large portion of the population who won't get the day off - stat holiday or not - unless you (and everyone else) agree to not do all of the above
Mail in ballot 🤦
There are those who are not able to. 💭
Because one party doesn't want poor people voting.
The issue isn’t really if it’s a holiday or not, because some people will always have to work on holidays. It’s really that there should be multiple days of voting with hassle free access.
Yes. I agree
It’s the law that employers must give workers time off to go vote.
And if they break that law, how is it discovered and punished? The employee would have to have the resources to sue their employer.
There are many ways to vote in advance in the U.S.
I thought work had to legally allow you to go vote as well. I could be wrong, also dont mean that they have to pay you either, which isnt a luxury some can afford.
The freedom to have a beer at the same age you can die for your country in the military
my dad got back from nam, was married with a child and still could not buy a beer.
Wasn't the drinking age 18 back then??
Depended on the state but most of them ya
This math isn’t mathing. Drinking age didn’t change to 21 until 1984. The US pulled out of Vietnam in the mid 70s.
He didn’t say he was there for the war, his dad probably just went to Vietnam on vacation.
He went to Vietnam to open a sweetshop. A lot of good men died in that sweatshop!
I’ll add to the drinking and Vietnam discussion here. Currently live in Vietnam, about for 5.5 years, can confirm you walk down the street drinking an open beer and not evening trying to hide it with absolutely zero consequences. You can also buy it at any hour you want to.
You can do this in almost every country
bro went to vietnam and had a child before the age of 18
Depending on the state the drinking age ranged from 18 to 21 . The federal government started threatening state highway money if the didn't raise it. I live in Wisconsin they did it 2 tiered went from 18 to 19 for a few years then to 21
Drinking ages differed state to state. A lot of em were 21+ then the rest were 18/19/20
Keep in mind people could be drafted and sent to war before they could even vote. The 26th amendment wasn't until 1971. States lowered their drinking age in response to that.
That's why we have history AND math class! 😁
In the United States, the minimum drinking age is set by the states. For most of our history, that age has varied by state. Federal funding for highways pressures every state to pick the same age, but before that change...
The following is a list of the states and the minimum age requirement they each have set for drinking alcoholic beverages: 21 for all alcoholic beverages: Alaska, Arizona (effective January 1985), Arkansas, California, Delaware, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee (effective August 1984), Utah and Washington. 21 for out-of-state residents; 19 for state residents: West Virginia.
21 for hard liquor; 18-20 for beer and/or wine: Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Virginia. 20 for all alcoholic beverages: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. 19 for all alcoholic beverages: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New York, Texas, Wisconsin and Wyoming. 18 for all alcoholic beverages: Hawaii, Louisiana and Vermont.
https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/27/us/drinking-ages-set-by-the-states.html
A handful of states had their drinking age set to 21 before 1984.
To pull one example to prove the rule, it's been 21 years old in Illinois since 1961.
lol imagine lying like this and still gettting upvotes
To be entirely fair, most nations that have alcohol at 18 have military enrollment at 16.
Technically, you can drink alcohol at 5 in the UK, but it's supposed to be more for things like tasting where you only drink a little.
The drinking age in the US used to be 18, but the feds strong-armed the states into raising it to 21.
Leveraging highway funds.
From what I’ve heard, this has historically caused more DUI deaths in some states that border Canada.
The drinking age was never 18 "in the US." It has always depended on the state, but it wasn't until the 80's when the fed convinced them all with highway funding to change it to 21. Before that, it varied by state, by sex, by type of alcohol, by venue...
Nixon did it. He also made the maximum speed limit 55. That only changed in the 90s (i think. I’m old, the decades blur together).
Most nations that allow drinking at 18 have military enrollment at 16? I'm gonna need a source for that, cause it feels like utter bullshit to me
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21d
Germany's drinking age is 16 for non-distilled alcoholic drinks. It is the same in Belgium and Denmark.
Denmark is 15 to drink beer and wine.
It is bullshit. Very few countries allow military enrollment at 16. Usually it is 17 or 18, with 16 only in a handful of countries with parental consent or during wartime conscription.
It's differed by state. You could die in vietnam but get arrested for having a beer in your home state when I was a kid
It used to vary by state by the federal government offered additional funding to states who made the drinking age 21. Which literally all the states eventually took advantage of. My Aunt was pissed when Michigan switched because she was 19 at the time, which meant she went from being able to drink whenever she wanted to having to wait an additional two years to do so openly again.
Technically, you can drink alcohol at 5 in the UK, but it's supposed to be more for things like tasting where you only drink a little.
Technically this is also true in many US states
21 is the age that you can buy beer. But many states have laws letting people younger drink it at home with their parents or other exemptions (mainly religious)
In Wisconsin you can drink at any age as long as a parent or legal guardian is with you.
Practically, in the US lots of parents give their kids a little sip of a drink and nobody would ever be prosecuted for it. There are probably even specific exceptions in some states.
In Germany beer and wine is 16 spirits are 18.
And to drink outside. Yes I know some cities allow it. But most do not. And it’s absolutely the norm to allow it in most of Europe.
It is the most paternalistic nonsense imaginable from a country that touts itself as freedom-loving.
America was founded by puritans.
Ive lived in New Orleans for about 15 years and whenever I am outside the city I always will crack a beer wherever and not think about it at all. A few times ive been approached by police and I show my LA i.d with a new orleans address and I've been let go both times.
Or in a car or public. Not sure about other countries, but there is no such thing as “public intoxication” laws in Japan. Sure you can be a nuisance and do misconduct, but just plain drinking is legal everywhere.
Also, nobody can drive when drinking even a drop, but car passengers are free to drink even when the car is on motion. In the US, just having an unsealed (previously opened even if capped currently) bottle of alcohol in your car while driving is a charge
That second part is variable.
For example, my state has no open container laws. But the country and/or city might.
The US is more car-heavy than other countries. Drunk driving is a bigger concern for us.
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21d
I was just in Munich and was going to relax by the river. You can go to the beer hall, grab a beer, walk to the river and return your glass for your 2 euro. You can’t do that in most places in the us
You can’t be trusted with a proper pint glass in USA.
You can fly on a domestic flight with a bag full of weed in Canada. Can't do that in the US.
...you can't do that in Europe, either.
Yeah. It depends on how much weed. There's a certain amount when they realize you're doing something illegal. Which is evading taxes.
And here come the prudes and hystericals.
The U.S. lacks the widespread public transportation infrastructure found in many European and Asian countries, limiting freedom of movement for those without cars.
Same in AU. I think a lot of is to do with the towns being built after cars were a thing, so they're not actually designed for people, they're designed for cars.
Paid maternity leave
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21d
one of my friends' company changed their policy on paternity leave and told me about it since i was about to go on mine. they got 5 days. i felt that was more of a slap in the face than getting 0.
That's not a freedom. That's a right.
In other countries maternity leave is at least partially funded by the government. Americans would reject that as a tax use.
Getting prescriptions from the pharmacist without being gate-kept by a doctor.
Wait you can just go to a pharmacy and get any prescription med?
Not sure about any
But a lot of them. You describe your problem to the pharmacist and they'll give you the prescription and sell the drug right there.
Stronger over the counter stuff too. I walked into a Caribbean island pharmacy and picked up a tube of hydrocortisone with 2 or 3 times stronger concentration than what you can grab in the States.
Depends on the country. Many countries ibuprofen is prescription only. I definitely take ibuprofen for granted
Wait seriously ?? In Australia, many other NSAID’s are prescription only, such as diclofenac and ketorolac. But ibuprofen, you can buy a bottle of like 50 tablets over the counter.
Just curious, how much does it cost there? IIRC, over the counter med like ibuprofen and acetaminophen/paracetamol are sold in tiny packs for ridiculous prices in most of Europe. I'm wondering where Australia lands on that.
For context, I can get a bottle of 1000 of the 200mg ibuprofen tablets for $15.
In the United States, you could buy a bottle with 500 of them
Shit, I've bought A LOT of bottles with 500 of them!
That’s something that Colorado has started doing in some places. Allowing pharmacies to administer basic medical tests, and prescribe medicines for it. It’s only limited to very basic things like strep throat, and things like that though, but it’s a very very good idea, and I hope it catches on every where
Did it clear the rash up in no time flat?
I'm in. When can I claim asylum status?
Not having your healthcare insurance linked to your job or you can't afford it otherwise. Not having to think about the cost of healthcare makes you freer to leave your job.
4 plus weeks vacation time a year. More free time.
Affordable university fees. Freedom from debt.
People in America don’t understand that having healthcare tied to a job IS THE FARTHEST THING FROM FREEDOM
“I don’t want to pay for someone else’s healthcare” says my father who can’t retire yet just because he needs healthcare.
The illusion is thinking paying insurance premiums isn’t paying for other people’s health care. That’s kind of the whole point of insurance.
What he’s paying for now is all that plus a bloated corporate bureaucracy and enriching idle shareholders.
The illusion is that there needs to be this whole other giant industry, whose sole purpose is to sit between you and your doctor and make a obscene amount of profit off of you by denying the healthcare prescribed by medical professionals.
Combine that with for-profit hospitals and you get two rabid animal with a never satisfied hunger for your money eating you alive.
I expect everyone reading this understands how a not for profit enterprise doesn’t mean free and that providers do get paid.
Well put. The nonprofit thing is important. Too often the only difference is if and how they get taxed.
Right!? It’s always a choice of your money going to the poor to help them, or to make a rich man richer
This is the heinous part - that cutting out the middleman would SAVE US MONEY and people are still arguing that they'd rather spend MORE money on a WORSE system
I pay for “someone else’s”…a lot of things. Medicaid and Medicare, WIC, food stamps, public schools…I don’t care. I don’t get why people get so offended by this.
Shit, I’d rather pay for healthcare than yet another war…
“I don’t want to pay for someone else’s healthcare”
Does he not know how insurance companies work? They are still taking money out of his paycheck to pay for the care used by people who don't take care of their health. If anything, having a larger pool of people will allow a company, or in this case the government, to negotiate with drug companies and care providers.
He also argues that in Canada, it takes longer to see a doctor because everyone has healthcare.
lol I was under insured for years. Never saw a doctor because I would get a bill $200+ in the mail months after. I finally have BCBS of Illinois. One of the best insurers in the country. It took me 5 months to see a doctor that my parents see.
But she suddenly had a family emergency back in India and left 3 days before I was supposed to see her. The staff called me day of and told me she wasn't there. I could reschedule and wait another 3 months, or see a nurse practitioner that day.
Yup. Takes 3 months just to see a specialist. But I think the issue in America having not enough doctors isn’t caused by the payer issue. It’s another side issue caused by the American Medical Association artificially limiting the amount of residencies to artificially keep salaries high.
That complaint always drives me up the wall.
I've never personally run into anyone saying this irl, but I've been curious to see if the argument of, " That's how insurance works. You're already paying for other peoples' healthcare, and you're being massively overcharged for it," would land.
I always tell people “you’re paying for others either way, but now you’re also paying some CEOs fat salary to do nothing but price you out further.”
So far I just get dismissive shrugs as if to say “Yeah I mean you’re right but I have been trained to get mad about free healthcare so that’s that”
I'm pretty conservative but universal healthcare is something I've completely flipped on from my younger years.
Would I trust the gov't to do it right, not really....but it's worth trying IMO. No one should go into life changing crippling debt over a health issue. Not to mention the # of people that could actually retire early (or just retire, period) if it existed.
Would I trust the gov't to do it right, not really...
Strange, how you (probably) trust the gov't to run your police depts, and fire dept's, and electricity grid, and roads, and bridges, and military complex, and dozens upon dozens of other services you probably neglect to think about.
Individuals have a collective action problem. Individuals aren't equipped to handle problems at scale. I wonder how many more of your conservative values you'll grow out of.
I appreciate your point, but lumping those various groups together does a disservice to your argument. There are plenty of reasons to fully distrust police, or the military complex, or our ability to keep our roads and bridges intact and updated, and even our ability to fully sustain our electric grid has faltered in recent years.
It's okay not to trust government entities while still recognizing that it would be worse if there was an additional profit motive. A healthy sense of distrust is how we recognize issues and hold them accountable
100%, and I appreciate your additional nuance! I think my frustration is that a lot of folks (of the conservative persuasion) have a healthy sense of distrust, but no will to hold [entities] accountable. I hope we as a society (not just the US) can continue to progress on both of those fronts.
I'd trust the government to do it more right than the insurance companies.
Insurance companies that are profiting BILLIONS
The government is already doing it, but they just pay a useless middleman who must demonstrate increasing quarterly growth to their shareholders, every quarter.
The amount of distraction necessary to keep people from taking a stand against the state of non-universal healthcare in the US is maddening.
I live in Australia, and honestly, the government does get it wrong sometimes.
But the number of times they get it right? Far outweigh the mistakes. Our cost per patient is roughly half that of the US, and we have better patient outcomes. They definitely screw up sometimes. But they try prettt damn hard to get it right.
It’s sad, we the people have to be worried about medical bills in an emergency or if we happen to get sick with cancer or need surgery with our plan We have crazy high deductibles they reset every year of course. It’s ridiculous. I like many put off things because of fhe cost. I have MS and the drug I’m currently on was denied so I have to change. The drug manufacturer won’t even help because they say my insurance is denying coverage to push the cost on them (manufacturer) so I have to switch medications again.
I wouldn’t say I trust the government to do it right, but I absolutely trust the insurance companies to screw me over. It’s happened to our high medical needs family several times over the years. They have an incentive to do so after all; their only source of “profit” is taking out premiums and not paying the doctors.
We recently retired (early, too young for Medicare) and switched to a state ACA plan. I can’t honestly say it has been put to the test, since nothing major has happened, but there have been some minor needs and complications, and we have been impressed by the responsiveness so far.
I hate that I'm saying this, but is he stupid? Or just a Republican?
The way I have sold single payer to some of my conservative family members is:
Would you rather have the people making coverage decisions be accountable to shareholders or the voters?
Paid family leave is nice too.
These are my leave entitlements (obvs there are conditions for taking some of them, but they’re all available if I meet the criteria):
- 5 weeks paid annual leave (accrues)
- 20 days paid personal/sick leave (accrues)
- 1 paid day off for my birthday
- 10 days paid domestic violence leave
- 26 weeks paid parental leave + 24 months unpaid parental leave
- 12 month unpaid career break leave
- 3 days paid discretionary leave
- 10 days paid natural disaster relief leave
- 5 days paid bereavement leave (per event)
- 3 days paid volunteer/charity work leave
- 8 weeks paid long service leave (after 10 years of employment).
Edit: that’s more than the minimum legally required.
If you think about it, linking your healthcare to your employer is a huge ‘fuck you’ to any type of entrepreneurship for most people. It ONLY benefits the company you work for. It’s got “GOP” thinking written all over it. (And BTW, the coverages and drugs your plan pays for (or more precisely, doesn’t pay for) are a way of weeding out certain folks with certain medical conditions. It’s all legal, and it’s shady as fuck.
Those GOP fuckers are 95% of what’s wrong with this country.
The trouble is, Republicans sell this to their base as “the freedom of not being forced to have health care.”
This is my least favorite thing about my country as an American. It’s really frustrating to feel trapped by a job I want to quit because I’ll lose access to affordable health insurance.
The “Affordable” Care Act was anything but. I spent 6 months on ACA insurance just paying as an individual independent of an employer because I was only working part-time while I applied for FT, unmarried, and too old to be on my parents’ anymore. It was like $380 a month. It’s ridiculous.
I was going to go without and just pay the tax penalty (which is minor) but I kept having that nagging thought: “what if you get into a serious car accident and don’t have insurance?” That thought was scary enough to bite the bullet and pay. You do NOT want that.
You think it’s bad with the ACA, and it is, but try to imagine how bad it was before. It sounds like you’re a bit too young to remember the “pre-existing condition” hell that was US healthcare before the ACA.
This! I was born with a very specific genetic condition. The only reason I was tested for it, is because my father had it and it’s genetic. I tested positive at birth. This condition affects just about everything broadly (spine, connective, tissue, digestive system, skin, eyes, etc.). Due to this, pre “affordable care act” I literally could not get insurance after I turned 26 and was taken off of my families insurance. Every single place I applied to denied me.
When I got a job with health insurance, the insurance told me I was either “ineligible” or was told I would have to pay a higher, premium to get coverage that wouldn’t cover anything they considered connected to my pre-existing condition… I was paying $900+ a month for insurance, more than 60% of my monthly income. I went to the doctor twice while on it. Once when I had a fever above 104 for five days due to the current flu circulating around, and a second time due to a burst cyst. Both times… Both times almost 100% of the bill was sent to me because the insurance would deny just about everything….
They claimed I only got so sick from the flu, because my immune system was compromised by my pre-existing condition. They claimed my cyst was related too, despite every doctor I ever asked stating ovarian cysts are NOT related to my disorder, nor is there any literature stating so. I had a family member who knew a “patient advocate“ with a law degree who agreed to help try to get that $10,000+ hospital bill covered or reduced. After one meeting with the insurance representatives law team, he came back, shaking his head telling me “you’re gonna end up paying“ because they had “research papers” that showed a higher prevalence of cysts in people with my disorder. These are not medically backed research papers, but they were good enough for the court to side with the insurance. Due to this, the insurance could deny payment for just about everything.
Years later the affordable care act kicked in. Don’t get me wrong… I was paying just about the same amount through the affordable care act out of pocket as I was through my former works insurance. The only difference, the insurance couldn’t deny me because I had pre-existing conditions… so at least I could USE what I was paying through the nose for….
They got rid of the tax penalty in like 2018. (It’s basically 0$ now.) You dont even have to file an exemption.
It was pre-2018 at the time but good to know for others.
Yeah that always bugged the crap out of me. Healthcare really should be a basic thing everyone should have easy & affordable access to.
Very often, choice in transportation. Many Americans are forced to drive due to lack of viable alternatives.
I - by most definitions - live downtown in my city. A city you have heard of.
Legally and safely walking to my favorite cafe ten blocks away for breakfast is a 40 minute affair.
It's 3 by car.
The city is fixing this. But only because they put in tourist attraction right next to me.
And thus, freedom of movement for people too old to safely drive, people under 16, and disabled people such as people in wheelchairs who can't afford the hella expensive custom cars that can fit a chair and don't need feet to operate, blind people, and many many other people with various conditions that keep them from driving.
Freedom of movement in the US is only for those with a sound mind and body, within a certain age range, who can afford it.
My town has almost 0 sidewalks. You’re either walking in the grass or driving to work.
I can walk to the store AND buy a snack with a toy in it
The walking to the store part is the best
The real treasures are the shoes we met along the away
To clarify, these aren’t banned because people are too stupid not to eat the toy. It’s a casualty of laws against inedible substances being in food, which is more about things like keeping sawdust and plaster out of flour.
Which is kind of hilarious considering our food and water supply is riddled with microplastics.
We do have Kinder Eggs though, they’re just separated on the inside by a little wall. I got one the other day with a little monkey in it
And knowing how much that snack costs without doing math, because the tax is already included in the sticker price
Isn't it illegal in the US to buy alcohol until you're 21 or something crazy like that? The sweet freedom of being a stupid teenager.
Prostitution is also legal where I'm from. It's not a choice I would make, but I have the freedom to sell my body as I please
Yes and cigs and porn have age limits as well
Where on Earth is it legal to access pornography below the age of consent?
well washington states age of consent is technically 21 (its 16 as long as the older participant isn't in a position of authority over the younger, but 21 unrestricted) but watching porn is still 18, soooo... America
I feel like it has something to do with driving being more common in the US. In Europe, public transit is more plentiful and drunk teens can just take the tube home or whatever, but in the US, if a bunch of 18 year olds are getting trashed, there's a much much higher chance that someone is gonna be driving drunk later that night.
I actually agree with the age limits, it just should be more consistent.
Sure, age limits, but 21 is a bit high don't you think? I mean those people are adults for 3 years or something
The right to a medically assisted death should I face a terminal illness.
This is a bigger thing than most people will ever realize until it's someone they know or themselves. It's outrageous that we force people to suffer through painful slow death spirals and tell ourselves it's the right thing.
Countries like Canada and the UK have more progressive stances on drug decriminalization, offering freedoms that Americans don't experience.
Worker protections. It's always pretty funny and sad seeing Europeans being flabbergasted at just how raw Americans have it when it comes to work, pay, benefits and protection.
Given how strong some of the early teamsters/unions were in the US, I’m just confused/shocked about how anti-union much of the US culture is.
My union, for an absolute pittance of my annual income (0.8%, and I’ll get a tax deduction and get back 0.35% of that back, so functionally 0.45%), my union has gained me:
successive 3-5% year on year pay rises
one off payments to keep my income inline with inflation
workplace representation for disputes
free legal representation if a dispute becomes a civil/criminal matter
professional indemnity insurance to the tune of 20 million dollars (and I’m required to have indemnity anyway, which would cost me about 0.2-0.3% of my salary anyway)
Increased allowances for specific activity (for example when I have to wear certain PPE, I get a daily allowance on top of my regular pay.
The list goes on. I just don’t understand anyone who is anti-union.
I can go to Cuba and buy 1000 cigars and bring then home.
The whole thousand? 😱
Australian, I can definitely go buy some Cubans and bring them home (cigars, not people. Australia doesn’t do slavery anymore (but let’s not talking about how recently we did)).
But without looking up the laws, I’m pretty sure there’s a limit on the amount of tobacco I can bring into the country. And there’s a decent chance I’m going to pay an import tax depending volume too.
Universal healthcare is a freedom enjoyed in nearly all developed nations except the U.S., where medical care remains a major financial burden for many.
In some countries you could just walk into a government hospital with what ever ailment you have and they are bound to give you consultation and free medication as required. Anything. No hanky panky.
In America I know a truly nice guy who cut his hand trying to do something, and knew that if he wanted medical care it would cost him a lot of money as he told me, so he used Krazy glue to solder his cut skin together. I think that's a freedom that some countries have. "SOME" countries. Not all countries.
I’ve seen news items of people fleeing ambulances called for them in the US.
Being able to visit Cuba without jumping through hoops to do so.
I can walk 5 minutes to the nearest small grocery store. 10 minutes to a bigger one.
I don't own a car, never needed one. Everything I need is here. My work, school, hobbies are a 20-40 minutes tram or bus ride away.
I travel out of town once a week to do a hobby and I still take a bus there and back. I once took a train to another city just to go to the cinema because I could and they had a bigger screen.
My parents never had a car. They were poor, so there's that, but I didn't feel excluded because of that. Living in a medium city, I was still free to go out and do stuff. No "can't practice sports today because my mom can't pick me up later" kind of bullshit.
Not sure what other countries are like in this regard, but there's virtually no more privacy in America without being super remote and free of internet/cellular service which is next to impossible for the overwhelming majority of the country. Everywhere else, you're on camera, tracked by gps, your data is sold to companies, etc. I can't remember how many times a major corporation has sent me a notice because my private info was released through their own fault (credit, SSN, email, name, address -- the works). Yet, they always tell ME how I should protect myself better in the future. Lol
Having my face scanned by Walmart every time I walked in really freaked me out and as a result, I actively avoid shopping there. They also have motion sensor cameras with monitors in specific isles, you can’t walk out the same you walk in due to motion sensor gates, you have to cash out in certain areas of the store before being free to roam the rest of the store, etc… absolute insanity.
Pretty sure most of that is basically worldwide, at least in developed countries.
Right. It probably is.
This is a global thing. My work recently showed us that if you've ever applied for a job then all your data has been sold to data hoarders
You forgot that satellites can still track you; even if you are off the grid your shed's location is still known.
True. It's virtually impossible to remain undetected these days without some serious Bin Laden vibes.
Isn’t London literally the most surveilled city in the world?
To not have all of our info mined any time we click on a website. Plus National health care. The leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. is from medical bills and are medical care isn’t even top notch.
Access to abortion.
I think You'd be shocked how the non USA world views abortion.
The freedom to have healthcare without going broke
Universal Healthcare
Drinking outside is one thing that is totally normal in many other countries yet illegal in like 95% of the US.
It’s bizarre to me that people don’t see how paternalistic such rules are. If I want to have a beer in a park on a nice summer day, why shouldn’t I be able?
"The Right to be Forgotten" exists in Europe. Nobody else has that.
Can you elaborate please?
The Right to be Forgotten in the EU basically means that you can request that search engines stop producing results on you. I think you can specify what results you want erased.
The freedom to travel or take risks and know that you won't go into medical debt or bankruptcy.
Many countries have freedom from religion
Sadly many other countries are now experiencing the hyper zealots in politics
The USA does, too. No one is forced to be a specific religion or sect, and very few people actually harm others for believing in a different religion/ no religion at all
Isn’t the US national motto “In God We Trust”? Is it still on the currency?
Not until the 1950s under McCarthyism.
Talk to me when an atheist can be elected president, and a full 4 year term goes by without a law enacted on religious grounds.
You’re not free from Christianity.
Eh, have you been following the news lately? Row versus Wade was overturned by religious zealots. Saying we have full religious freedom at this point is redirect.
The freedom to exist in even small towns and cities without being forced to purchase a car
The freedom to not go into debt when you get cancer.
TIL how many people do not know the difference between entitlements and freedoms.
Laws against vagrancy are popular in urban areas in the US, not sure how prevalent they are worldwide.
Gun-free schools.
No Electoral College vote. In other countries when people vote for their president their vote actually matters, the candidate with the most votes wins.
Several countries provide mandated maternity and paternity leave. Maybe Americans don't consider this a freedom, but I see it as the freedom to take care of your newborn without having to worry about your paychecks.
The freedom to walk around without thinking you’re going to get shot
The freedom to not die of preventable illnesses due to being poor and unable to get health insurance.
There's lots of regulation in the US that's more strict than the equivalents in other countries. For example, the ADA is particularly broad in how it regulates architecture, there's things you can build in Mexico and Canada but not the States.
Also IIRC the FDA are more strict than regulatory agencies in other western nations.
It's easier to get a silencer in some European countries than it is in the US. Here there's an entire industry dedicated to doing the paperwork for applicants to speed up the process because any mistakes could lead to months or even years of waiting.
The freedom to vote for a 3rd political party
Oh, you're free to vote for a 3rd political party and the parties are free to exist, I vote 3rd party quite often in California elections. But NO political party can win without very large monetary contributions from big corporations and postive exposure from very large media corporations, and only two parties are granted those, due to corporate executive decisions. So 3rd parties don't have the freedom to win in America.
Freedom isn't free in America, freedom costs big $$$.
That freedom exists. No third party is close to being popular enough to win, but you're allowed to vote for them if you want and if one of them were to be a huge success their win would be validated.
So I and a group of friends regularily goes on walks outside while getting drunk at night. Just chilling, going through the town and stuff. We did that even at 19 years old.
For one you are not allowed to drink in the USA before 21. For the other, you are often not allowed to drink in public or walk around drunk in public. Adding to this, from what I have heard, in many places in the USA you won't feel save walking around town in the middle of the night either.
Edit: Ohh yeah also I can go to every single neighboring country to mine without having to go through a single border check.
The freedom to go to a doctor if you are poor.
ITT: People who don't know the difference between freedoms and benefits
Many nations consider universal government sponsored health care a right. I consider it a freedom to avoid illness and/or death due to compassionate government.
rant
its so politically charged in the US. I can't fathom how the idea of being taxed for health care and then having those taxes become a reimbursement for treatment is anathema to an entire political group. Eespecially, by people that claim to be pro-life.
/rant
This thread almost entirely consists of people stretching the word "freedom" to mean "something I want provided to me" rather than "some sphere of my life where I am the sole authority." The few that stand out are rather small - can't buy certain products because of bans or age restrictions, can't carry drugs on a flight, can't be or frequent a prostitute. (I'm using the Cambridge definition: "the condition or right of being able or allowed to do, say, think, etc. whatever you want to." I also would use the American Heritage definition: "the ability to act without control or interference by another.") It just seems like an ideological stretch to make things like socialized healthcare a "freedom." And that isn't an argument against socialized healthcare, of course - just a recognition that the state providing you a service is not what most people understand by the word "freedom" (Webster: "the condition of being free of restraints").
The state isn't providing you a service in Universal Health Care. You are paying into the system through taxes, just like you pay into the system in America through private corporations. The difference is that the corporation -- such as UHG has a much higher interest in profiting from your suffering.
You can't hang out in many public parks after midnight and you have to wear shoes most places.
I understand the reasons why (too many drug deals / liability with the shoes thing) but still.
Being able to choose the person who leads the country from a pool higher than 2
I would be so pissed off if I had to be forced to vote for an 80 year old dude because the alternative is a psychopath/criminal
As a woman, I can access the reproductive care of my choice in a significant number of countries... but not in the US, depending on what state I live in.
You can get savagely butt fucked by medical bills oh so easily
The freedom to not have your life ruined by medical debt or student debt.
The freedom to protest without having your head smashed in by government thugs.
The freedom to vote outside of a duopoly that is both nonfunctional and 100% corrupt/captured.
The freedom to not fund genocides and death around the world. Gaza is horrible, but it's also the tip of the iceberg.
Rights to affordable healthcare, affordable schooling, and more affordable housing.
Stupidly, lack of socialised medicine. You can thank Richard Nixon for that.
Reasonably priced healthcare.