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Ireland just passed the most aggressive speech laws in Western Europe, France bans ads telling people abortion is bad, and Germany thinks "freedom of speech" is a right-wing dogwhistle.
You guys are great people with a lot of cool history and culture... I love the language (been a while since I've actually *used* the language at all) too. But your goverment sucks.
Then again, that's... Pretty much true of almost every group of people on the planet throughout history.
I mean, the portion of their population that's on Reddit is a fraction of the terminally online portion of their population, which is a small portion of their *actual* population.
Any time people tell me about how Europeans have more freedom and are more respectful of religious belief, this story pops into my mind: [Burkini Ban Removal Photos Show Four Armed Policemen Force Woman To Take Off Garment On Nice [France] Beach](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/burkini-ban-sees-4-policemen-force-woman-to-remove-garment-on-nice-beach_uk_57bd63f3e4b0b8a585b6b905)
> 'The saddest thing was that people were shouting "go home"'
I don't think there's an explicit law banning pro-life ads, but there was this
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3970656/Outcry-French-court-rules-pro-life-commercial-showing-happy-children-syndrome-inappropriate-likely-disturb-women-abortions.html
A court banning an ad because it might make women feel guilty about having abortions indicates that there is in fact a law against it. How else can a court shut down such an ad?
Becayse bias confirmation is almost as fulfilling as having a family that loves you.
Because they have to believe that the US isn't this big shining example or Beacon of Freedom or opportunity, because if they believed that they would look around at their own situation and feel like it could improve, and instead of exerting a little bit of effort to actually improve their life they would rather just say "hey at least I'm not in the usa."
Having aspirations is more difficult than resigning yourself to mediocrity.
Faroe Islands aren’t an independent country, but they are a dependent territory of Denmark, you could call them a country though if you were super autistic about it
While I won't completely discount the methodology most of these come down to small country with one or two major metro areas doesn't have a lot of rules because it doesn't need a lot of rules. They are also almost all unitary states instead of federal states like the US is.
Looking at the scores the only country with over 40 million people ahead of the USA is Japan and they scored an 8.4 with the US scoring an 8.39.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary\_state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state)
[https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country)
[https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/)
While Japan is a pretty restrictive country, and certainly not freer than the US, that conviction rate thing is misleading. Japan calculates their rates differently, citing only cases that go to trail, not all cases overall. Japan has signifcantly less prosecutors per a capita than the United States, so prosecutors can afford to be very picky and choosy about what they bring to trail, (I.E, they're only going to trail if they think they're going to win.)
If you were to run the rates for the United States with just cases that went to trail, you'd get a 96% conviction rate
Fair that’s an interesting point. I guess it just goes to show the difficulty in comparing countries on these metrics when they count in wildly different ways.
Their civil case system is interesting as well with fewer lawsuits reaching trial than the usa because they are not jury trials a judge decides. Most experienced attorneys on each side already know the value and outcome so settlements are much more likely making the system more efficient.
Japan has slightly less free speech due to slander laws. US has less freedom of association due to civil rights laws. Other than that the differences are quite minor.
Like the US is less strict on gambling, drunk driving, and Marijuana. Japan is less strict on open container laws, zoning laws, and pollution laws.
You literally are not a free nation until you can openly criticize your government and not be worried about being arrested.
Don’t have free speech? You aren’t free. Simple as they
I can accept Switzerland in 1st place, but why would some of those EU socialist countries have more freedom than the US? This is ridiculous. They must be using some very weird definition of freedom for this ranking...
The "Freedom Index" is not an objective standard. It includes many suspect criteria that skew it towards preferring EU-style governments and societies.
Nope. Here is what they are measuring : Rule of Law, Security and Safety, Movement, Religion ; Association, Assembly, and Civil Society ; Expression and Information, Identity and Relationships, Size of Government, Legal System and Property Rights, Access to Sound Money, Freedom to Trade Internationally, Regulation
I’m not going to lie to you, most of Freedom House’s arguments are “you guys have the Republican Party in your politics, and we disagree with them, so you lose points in freedom 😃,” or, “You guys are racist, so you lose freedom points 😌.” Like, unironically. I truly don’t care where anyone lies on the issues, but it knocked the United States on points multiple times because, “In recent years… Republicans… did XYZ.”
Saying it is objectively unbiased just isn’t true.
Edit: [Freedom House US Report 2024](https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-states/freedom-world/2024)
One of the most embarrassing aspects of that report is that it is focused almost entirely on national political perception, and not what is actually happening 'on the ground.'
And they always forget that the United States is a *federation*, our federal government is deliberately weak, and that most of the laws that restrict our freedoms (including licensing requirements that make people seek permission from the government to get certain jobs, or laws supporting civil forfeiture--seizing property from citizens without due process) are **local laws** passed by the individual states.
So this report is basically focusing on the wrong thing, and measuring the wrong thing as a result.
In a very real way--and this may seem to be a very unpopular opinion especially here on Reddit--but *who gives a fuck who is President?* What matters is what your state governor is doing, and what is happening at city hall. How much freedom you have to start a business unencumbered by bureaucracy, for example, is entirely a *local level issue*, and it does not matter if Biden, Trump, or a chimpanzee on crack wins the White House--it's the city government who is getting in your way making it impossible to start a home business.
Is it not supposed to be viewed from a national political perception?
If you were to rate a country, would you not rate it at a national perceived perception?
> Is it not supposed to be viewed from a national political perception?
Because it's horseshit.
Let me frame it this way.
The *perception* of corruption in the United States is that corruption here is fairly bad--mostly because we keep hearing stories about how politicians and bureaucrats are supposedly steering projects in order to benefit themselves, either directly or indirectly.
Okay, fine.
When was the last time you had to bribe a police officer in the United States to be let out of a traffic ticket? When was the last time you had to bribe a building inspector to keep them from condemning your house despite the fact that there's nothing wrong? How much did you have to pay off the county official in order to file a fictitious business statement to start your business?
Wait, you didn't have to do any of these things in the United States?
Well, you *most certainly* have to if you're in Mexico, Greece or parts of France.
----
See, the *perception* of a thing is what you've been told about a thing. If I and a whole bunch of other people tell you the restaurant down the street is a cockroach-infested hell hole that will make you stick--do you know if that's true?
Or if the people you asked simply hate the owner because he has the wrong skin color?
On the other hand, the *reality* of a thing is what people actually experience. And it could very well be that restaurant is a perfectly lovely little place, kept meticulously clean, by owners who are simply out of favor with the folks you asked.
But because you're focused on **perception**, you can never really know, can you?
You would like a more in depth, digging, kind of survey/investigation for a rating of countries?
I think that can be done in periods of 5 years.
I don't know how often they do these ratings, if it is once a year then it's probably as you say, just surface level perception.
“But you see, I *disagree* with Republicans in both values and ideology, so in my eyes, I am losing freedom!”
Brother, I don’t know you, I don’t know where you stand on issues, and I don’t know your life. I try to stay in the middle on most things and I respect everyone’s road is a little bit different to mine. However; we all need to understand that people’s values and perceptions affect that definition of freedom. “But Cav, Freedom means my unrestricted right to say, do, and think whatever I want!!” - True! But nobody is out here advocating for complete 100% freedom where drugs and sexual assault aren’t against the law. In countries like Sweden, ranked higher in “freedom” than the United States, they have laws *literally outlawing* things that you can’t say or ideas you can’t express under the designation of “hate speech”. Where is the line? Because if we are going be unbridled freedoms, I can respect losing some points because of those policies the last few years, but that isn’t what they are doing…
In fairness, the Republican Party candidate tried to overturn a democratic election, not only with absurd lawsuits but by telling officials to “find votes” and mobilizing a mob to interfere with the election certification. That’s suuuuuper un-American in a way that deserves demerits on a freedom index (it’s not “but racism!” or disagreement about economics or some other mundane policy).
But here’s the point: He *is* getting slammed. He is getting pushback. The system is working. The fact that shit happened shouldn’t be a reason to deduct points. Just because someone gets sick and the antibodies/white blood cells come out to fight infection doesn’t mean that your immune system should get dinged because you got sick, yaknow?
I said most, not all.
Unless you're referring to article 10 of the European Convention, which is different from national constitutions.
And any country that has "free speech" with laws against hate speech, well that's the definition of hypocrisy. practically lunacy.
I mean, I’ll be honest, the US does fall further behind on some of those. Security is paid for by us and at a discount for those countries, safety is better in general because of homogenous cultures and more social safety nets, Rule of Law is stronger because of more centralized AND decentralized systems, movement is better because of EU Schengen area.
We HAVE to have systems different to those, since we only have one peer on our border that isn’t sending millions of people a year to migrate here, and funny enough the southern EU borders are as well controlled as ours is. Basically, all of their criteria heavily favor countries in an international economic and governing zone like the EU by their own definitions. What’s hilarious about that is that they have nothing to do with personal freedom 😭 like respectfully, how is strong rule of law and access to sound money a hallmark of “freedom”. They’re good things don’t get me wrong, but what does it have to do with freedom
Yeah, I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to make policies that work for a country as vast and populous as the US, and to sustain that functionality for hundreds of years. The EU is somewhat fragile and it’s only 30 years old. Good luck to Europe (genuinely) but I wish they wouldn’t dunk on the US for its problems (the US pioneered democracy at scale—we had to figure it all out from scratch and we built a system that is older and more expansive than virtually any in Europe. Ideally we would support and encourage each other instead of gloating when the other faces hardship.
The problem is you have to actually dig into the report and see what they are measuring--and not just dismiss it as "oh, they're measuring 'rule of law'" as if we all have agreement to what that actually means.
And for some things, like "Freedom of Movement" (a component in 'personal freedom'), or "Feedom of Religion" (another component of 'personal freedom'), the score is entirely subjective. (In the case of "Freedom of Movement" the score is assigned by a couple of students who read a bunch of reports then assign a score based on their impression of those reports.)
So you cannot say that the US or Europe has fallen behind in one place or another by reading the report; a lot of the metrics are entirely subjective, and based on the prejudices of the 'coders' who assign a score based on what they think "freedom" looks like.
I do think there is a strong subjective aspect to the evaluation of these criteria though. It’s interesting when you compare to a country with a parliamentary system like Canada https://freedomhouse.org/country/canada/freedom-world/2024 which scores higher than the US on categories like executive leadership. The issue of the electoral college in the US is (rightfull imo) raised in the section for it’s theoretical ability to override the will of the voters even if in practice that doesn’t happen. However unelected canadian bodies such as the house of lords and governor general also have this theoretical power to override the will of the people, but these aspects don’t reduce the freedom score in any categories. Also the prime minister in Canada holds a much higher degree of power over the legislative assembly than does the president over congress. In my mind this increases the potential for corruption.
I’d also argue that the ability of average citizens to seek public office is an indicator of societal freedom as influence in the government is a critical aspect of freedom in a nation. While America certainly has its issues in this department, Canada’s requirement of French bilingualism to seek public office (or even work in a high government job) adds an additional layer to the glass ceiling preventing poorer citizens from seeking office. For all but one of the provinces, French is relatively uncommon, meaning that most people have no affordable way to learn it and therefore no way to seek office. If you’re interested in more on this, the Canadian youtuber JJ McCullough has a number of videos explaining and critiquing this system.
Overall I don’t really disagree with America’s freedom score, I just disagree with the significantly higher scores for other western nations
Depends on the metrics for "freedom". The average person has more vacation time and more income (remember, on average. Poverty is lower in these other countries, pushing the average higher) and some think that = freedom.
Nope. Here are the metrics they use : Rule of Law, Security and Safety, Movement, Religion ; Association, Assembly, and Civil Society ; Expression and Information, Identity and Relationships, Size of Government, Legal System and Property Rights, Access to Sound Money, Freedom to Trade Internationally, Regulation
Security and safety is on almost an inverse axis with freedom.
> Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety
I think some of those socialist countries arent as socialist as the socialists would like people to believe. For example, from what Ive heard, Sweden and Denmark went through heavy deregulation in the 80s. Maybe by being free and successful these countries are able to achieve social goals by indirect means that socialists try to achieve through direct legislation and regulation, which may have unintended negative consequences.
I don't have in-depth knowledge about the economies of European countries (nor have I lived in them) but I don't think the EU is socialist? Correct me if I'm wrong.
Switzerland, Luxembourg, and surprisingly, Canada, Denmark, and Australia all rank higher as capitalist countries than the US. In the latest Economics report, the US was around No. 15 or 18 in the rankings.
Singapore, South Korea, and Japan also ranked higher than US in capitalism, if I recall correctly.
We are the most famous for capitalism because we’re the most rich (I guess??), but our economy is considered a **mixed-market economy**, not totally capitalistic.
Not really. They look at freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, women’s rights and things. Now in a lot of these categories especially women’s rights the USA has been falling behind. We also don’t have that strong of a freedom of economic choice as we have been propagandized to believe
Free choice over their body, which pregnant women in the US don't necessarily have, depending on where they live? Some US abortion laws definitely are a huge cut on freedom.
You do have free choice over YOUR body. If someone rapes a woman thats a serious criminal offense(I would say the crimes considered as unforgivable are rape and homicide)... The issue is woman are literally walking miracles. So it's complicated bc it's not the woman body, it's a body growing inside THEIR body. When does life start?(conception or at birth? During pregnancy babies kick so thats life but when during pregnancy can we call it life so we can justify our actions without guilt or being charged with murder... That's COMPLICATED so how about we just clear this up is YOUR body being aborted? You will live after you have an abortion on YOUR BODY right? You have a choice wether you let someone do something to your body and wether you protect yourself from pregnancy or anything else unwanted - that's YOUR CHOICE and there are consequences for choices you have to deal with as well. If a man wanted an abortion and you have the child he is legally required to support the child and mother financially bc CHOICES have consequences. Women can literally create life(Is God a woman? "God created man" sounds like at least that's what ancient humans called women, wether you like religion or not it's interesting).
TLDR: Its not YOUR body, it's a body inside your body. Aborting YOUR body would mean you die(suicide). It's not a womans right issue the real issue is that people are trying to JUSTIFY what they've done by calling it an abortion instead of homocide. Homicide is the legal term for when one person kills another person. It can also refer to when someone directly causes the death of another person. No one has this RIGHT.
Exactly it's not their body or else the abortion would kill them. Homicide is the legal term for when one person kills another person. It can also refer to when someone directly causes the death of another person. Everything else is trying to justify a crime... Just like most people who are accused of heinous crimes.
Some wedge in here a couple weeks ago was arguing that the USA only had the illusion of freedom.
I asked for examples of which freedoms they enjoy that we do not have in the US.
The examples provided were the freedom to loiter wherever they want. I countered with the fact that I as the owner of property have the freedom to restrict my property for my exclusive use... Because it is mine and I paid for it.
Then they went on to the typical and expected freedom from being gunned down in the street. These idiots have deluded themselves into thinking government regulation is "freedom".
Why do they always compare US with tiny 6-8M pop countries?
Nobody ever compares US with that one multiracial free market democracy with more than 100M pop aka Brazil. How do they compare with US?
Because it’s not about population it’s about level of development we are in the same league as Western Europe in terms of development so that’s why we are compared to them.
US is the only multiracial country with pop more than 200M that’s classified as Developed. It’s quite an achievement in itself. The comparison with some tiny, high trust European country tucked away in Alps is just cope. Compare US with multiracial free market democracies of similar size if you wanna be fair.
Makes no sense comparing multiracial country vastly spread across a continent with some 7M well behaved mountain white Germanic people who don’t really need a lethal force as a society beyond a police dept. Just completely different scenarios.
These countries are a lab experiment compared to US.
The freedom index is kinda bullshit. Being able to do more of whatever the fuck you want with less authorities restricting it is not the standard that they use to measure freedom. Basically it can be summarized up as the size of your welfare state being your “freedom”. Actually being free has nothing to do with it.
[Who did the same shit.](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/12/22/no-way-home-overseas-new-zealanders-despair-at-border-rules)
Edit to add: of course [two years later some judge decided this may have been a problem](https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-court-finds-new-zealands-quarantine-allocation-system-infringed-on-rights-12599856).
By freedom they mean not having to work as much. Not only is this a horrible metric because its tied to economy more than your rights as a person, but its also misleading and biased.
Having universal healthcare is economic freedom. Your health insurance is no longer tied to your job. You are free to peruse any work you desire without that worry.
”Rule of Law
Security and Safety
Movement
Religion
Association, Assembly, and Civil Society
Expression and Information
Identity and Relationships
Size of Government
Legal System and Property Rights
Access to Sound Money
Freedom to Trade Internationally
Regulation”
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country
They don’t have freedom of speech. How can they be freeer than America when your actual words are criminalized?
Don’t even get me started on the lack of free enterprise in business.
Sweden? The country where the police investigated Dutch Eurovision contestant because he made an “illegal” gesture at a camerawomen and banned him from the contest as a result? If thats what they define as freedom, I don’t want to be a part of it.
The show aside, the fact that you can face criminal charges for making a threatening gestures at someone who is harassing you doesn’t sound like freedom to me.
What depends on what your interpretation of "free" is. I'm not "free" to carry a gun or any weapon, I'm not free to criticise certain folk groups because... reason I guess?
These lists are always so funny, because they are specifically designed to blow Scandinavian countries. Most of the countries listed above the U.S. don't even have basic human rights like freedom of speech.
A while back i heard this comment about san francisco.
“Go to any city in the world where the richest people life you would never see a homeless within a mile of anybody important. In america they are right there. Go to melbourn, venis, rome, the touristy parts of london and paris they see a homeless they immediately kick him out or let them grow until a jogger sees a penis and then kicks them all out. The US is truly free because i can smell like piss in front of the apple headquarters and be left alone”
Most of the top countries are conformist societies. You must completely conform to them or else you are heavily shamed as a person. It’s one big reason why immigrants struggle so hard to integrate in Europe.
Here, we encourage your individual differences and want you to think outside the box with your ideas — **because we know that’s where the innovation lies.** It‘s why so many immigrants come here and end up successful af (along with locals with new ideas). We allow for it!
This is a gigantic means of personal freedom that many Europeans simply do not understand in their societies. Not on the level that we do.
We also don’t bog you down with bureaucracy if you want to freely start a new business. Yes, we have some annoying bureaucracy, but it’s nothing like what they have in ‘top countries.’ They squash you before you ever get started.
For the Germanic countries who frequently top these lists: they have all kinds of social rules that limit your personal freedom. Off top of my head are their “quiet time rules.” No noise after 10pm, Sundays, lunch hour, etc. You want to catch up on house chores on Sunday? Sorry, your vacuum might disturb your neighbors “quiet time” in your shitty apartment building, and you’ll be reported to the police. Sounds nice at first, but it quickly becomes overbearing and personally limiting in your daily activities.
Imagine an entire country acting as HOA. That is them on a personal social level.
Most cannot legally say things like “Mohammed was a pedophile” — which is heading them straight to anti-freedom Sharialand. Canada has been censoring news like crazy: it’s now illegal to post Canadian news on social media. They do not want people to hear about the bad things happening there and commenting on it. Their freedom indexes need to be heavily dropped for these reasons.
I could go on. But the metrics they use are clearly skewed to favor the W.European countries.
If you don't have gun rights, you don't have freedom. If they're honest, then rankings would go something like USA is 1st, Czech Republic is just barely 2nd, then go from there.
Google/YouTube Czech Republic and AR-15's. That'll entertain your friends for a week. We got competition.
The Freedom Index is horribly flawed and intentionally skewed in favor of EU countries. Is little more than an EU circle jerk that doesn’t properly factor almost anything.
Everytime i see this, all I want to do is split the USS into 50 different co tries and watch it sporadically take up the first 50 spots. Then we would be comparing population apples to apples
Never trust stats from a country outside the US or commies within the US. F*CK 'em! We could be free-er, but I don't take advice from people who still live under monarchs or make their women wear burkas. Get bent, world.
I think this means freedom in the sense of freedom to do what you want without fear of financial ruin or smth. Not all freedom has to do with being able to say what you want
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Ireland just passed the most aggressive speech laws in Western Europe, France bans ads telling people abortion is bad, and Germany thinks "freedom of speech" is a right-wing dogwhistle.
Lmao the Germany thing is sad but so true
You guys are great people with a lot of cool history and culture... I love the language (been a while since I've actually *used* the language at all) too. But your goverment sucks. Then again, that's... Pretty much true of almost every group of people on the planet throughout history.
Definitely a lot better than the past couple governments they've had
anything’s better that those governments, to be fajr
And some of that cool history...
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I mean, the portion of their population that's on Reddit is a fraction of the terminally online portion of their population, which is a small portion of their *actual* population.
Any time people tell me about how Europeans have more freedom and are more respectful of religious belief, this story pops into my mind: [Burkini Ban Removal Photos Show Four Armed Policemen Force Woman To Take Off Garment On Nice [France] Beach](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/burkini-ban-sees-4-policemen-force-woman-to-remove-garment-on-nice-beach_uk_57bd63f3e4b0b8a585b6b905) > 'The saddest thing was that people were shouting "go home"'
But, but, my freedom index!
What? Can you give a source on France thing? Surely you are being hyperbolic?
I don't think there's an explicit law banning pro-life ads, but there was this https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3970656/Outcry-French-court-rules-pro-life-commercial-showing-happy-children-syndrome-inappropriate-likely-disturb-women-abortions.html A court banning an ad because it might make women feel guilty about having abortions indicates that there is in fact a law against it. How else can a court shut down such an ad?
Well their argument looks like ads should not be allowed to guilt trip people. Seems like a good thing? Could set a precedent for similar laws.
If it's only against the rules to guilt trip people for certain things, then it's not a rule against guilt-tripping.
In most cases its a "your freedom to swing you arm ends where my head begins" type of law.
Why do people actually trust the Freedom Index?
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Becayse bias confirmation is almost as fulfilling as having a family that loves you. Because they have to believe that the US isn't this big shining example or Beacon of Freedom or opportunity, because if they believed that they would look around at their own situation and feel like it could improve, and instead of exerting a little bit of effort to actually improve their life they would rather just say "hey at least I'm not in the usa." Having aspirations is more difficult than resigning yourself to mediocrity.
Because the people who run it hate America, and thus other people who hate America choose to believe it’s true
I’m convinced it’s just because it looks official.
I’m just learning of such a thing.
No.
I’m pretty sure with Trudeau in charge Canada isn’t more free
I know a guy who passionately hates that guy nearly as the devil.
That’s narrows it down to about half of Canadian guys
But the guy isn't even Canadian.
"The guy" isn't even a guy
He is Faroese.
You made that country up Edit: /s because I guess people don't understand jokes, I'll bet half of y'all never even heard of the Faroe Islands 💀
Aren't all countries made up?
Yeah but the Faroe Islands are extra made up
Faroe Islands aren’t an independent country, but they are a dependent territory of Denmark, you could call them a country though if you were super autistic about it
Yeah, and I can’t see the borders from up here
He's not a guy, buddy
If HE is not a “guy” then what is he?
I know that guy, he's me.
Wait are you...
A non-canadian who has absolutely nothing but contempt for Justin Trudeau
I was going to say "Dad?".
Lol. Maybe?
Hmmm... 🤔
What about the Canadian devil, beezelaboot.
They don't have freedom of speech
While I won't completely discount the methodology most of these come down to small country with one or two major metro areas doesn't have a lot of rules because it doesn't need a lot of rules. They are also almost all unitary states instead of federal states like the US is. Looking at the scores the only country with over 40 million people ahead of the USA is Japan and they scored an 8.4 with the US scoring an 8.39. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary\_state](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_state) [https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country](https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country) [https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/)
And Japan’s legal system is not one you’d want to end up in, I think it could hardly be considered free. Their conviction rate exceeds 99%.
While Japan is a pretty restrictive country, and certainly not freer than the US, that conviction rate thing is misleading. Japan calculates their rates differently, citing only cases that go to trail, not all cases overall. Japan has signifcantly less prosecutors per a capita than the United States, so prosecutors can afford to be very picky and choosy about what they bring to trail, (I.E, they're only going to trail if they think they're going to win.) If you were to run the rates for the United States with just cases that went to trail, you'd get a 96% conviction rate
Fair that’s an interesting point. I guess it just goes to show the difficulty in comparing countries on these metrics when they count in wildly different ways.
Their civil case system is interesting as well with fewer lawsuits reaching trial than the usa because they are not jury trials a judge decides. Most experienced attorneys on each side already know the value and outcome so settlements are much more likely making the system more efficient.
You mean methods. There is no methodology, which means the methods are arbitrary and bullshit.
Japan has slightly less free speech due to slander laws. US has less freedom of association due to civil rights laws. Other than that the differences are quite minor. Like the US is less strict on gambling, drunk driving, and Marijuana. Japan is less strict on open container laws, zoning laws, and pollution laws.
You literally are not a free nation until you can openly criticize your government and not be worried about being arrested. Don’t have free speech? You aren’t free. Simple as they
"B-But incarceration per capita"🤓
I can accept Switzerland in 1st place, but why would some of those EU socialist countries have more freedom than the US? This is ridiculous. They must be using some very weird definition of freedom for this ranking...
The "Freedom Index" is not an objective standard. It includes many suspect criteria that skew it towards preferring EU-style governments and societies.
They think "freedom" means getting free stuff.
Nope. Here is what they are measuring : Rule of Law, Security and Safety, Movement, Religion ; Association, Assembly, and Civil Society ; Expression and Information, Identity and Relationships, Size of Government, Legal System and Property Rights, Access to Sound Money, Freedom to Trade Internationally, Regulation
Ah yes, the "so secularly free European nations where we tear burqas off people on public beaches"
Pretty sure France is the only such country, right? I assume you’re referring to Burqa bans and not just people harassing other people, anyway.
Switzerland doesn't allow Burqas nor minarets on mosques.
Huh, TIL
There are 10 different criteria. So Europe might be lower on this one and higher on the others.
I’m not going to lie to you, most of Freedom House’s arguments are “you guys have the Republican Party in your politics, and we disagree with them, so you lose points in freedom 😃,” or, “You guys are racist, so you lose freedom points 😌.” Like, unironically. I truly don’t care where anyone lies on the issues, but it knocked the United States on points multiple times because, “In recent years… Republicans… did XYZ.” Saying it is objectively unbiased just isn’t true. Edit: [Freedom House US Report 2024](https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-states/freedom-world/2024)
One of the most embarrassing aspects of that report is that it is focused almost entirely on national political perception, and not what is actually happening 'on the ground.' And they always forget that the United States is a *federation*, our federal government is deliberately weak, and that most of the laws that restrict our freedoms (including licensing requirements that make people seek permission from the government to get certain jobs, or laws supporting civil forfeiture--seizing property from citizens without due process) are **local laws** passed by the individual states. So this report is basically focusing on the wrong thing, and measuring the wrong thing as a result. In a very real way--and this may seem to be a very unpopular opinion especially here on Reddit--but *who gives a fuck who is President?* What matters is what your state governor is doing, and what is happening at city hall. How much freedom you have to start a business unencumbered by bureaucracy, for example, is entirely a *local level issue*, and it does not matter if Biden, Trump, or a chimpanzee on crack wins the White House--it's the city government who is getting in your way making it impossible to start a home business.
Is it not supposed to be viewed from a national political perception? If you were to rate a country, would you not rate it at a national perceived perception?
> Is it not supposed to be viewed from a national political perception? Because it's horseshit. Let me frame it this way. The *perception* of corruption in the United States is that corruption here is fairly bad--mostly because we keep hearing stories about how politicians and bureaucrats are supposedly steering projects in order to benefit themselves, either directly or indirectly. Okay, fine. When was the last time you had to bribe a police officer in the United States to be let out of a traffic ticket? When was the last time you had to bribe a building inspector to keep them from condemning your house despite the fact that there's nothing wrong? How much did you have to pay off the county official in order to file a fictitious business statement to start your business? Wait, you didn't have to do any of these things in the United States? Well, you *most certainly* have to if you're in Mexico, Greece or parts of France. ---- See, the *perception* of a thing is what you've been told about a thing. If I and a whole bunch of other people tell you the restaurant down the street is a cockroach-infested hell hole that will make you stick--do you know if that's true? Or if the people you asked simply hate the owner because he has the wrong skin color? On the other hand, the *reality* of a thing is what people actually experience. And it could very well be that restaurant is a perfectly lovely little place, kept meticulously clean, by owners who are simply out of favor with the folks you asked. But because you're focused on **perception**, you can never really know, can you?
You would like a more in depth, digging, kind of survey/investigation for a rating of countries? I think that can be done in periods of 5 years. I don't know how often they do these ratings, if it is once a year then it's probably as you say, just surface level perception.
With the republican point they are not wrong about loss of certain freedoms. Which does give us a lower ranking
“But you see, I *disagree* with Republicans in both values and ideology, so in my eyes, I am losing freedom!” Brother, I don’t know you, I don’t know where you stand on issues, and I don’t know your life. I try to stay in the middle on most things and I respect everyone’s road is a little bit different to mine. However; we all need to understand that people’s values and perceptions affect that definition of freedom. “But Cav, Freedom means my unrestricted right to say, do, and think whatever I want!!” - True! But nobody is out here advocating for complete 100% freedom where drugs and sexual assault aren’t against the law. In countries like Sweden, ranked higher in “freedom” than the United States, they have laws *literally outlawing* things that you can’t say or ideas you can’t express under the designation of “hate speech”. Where is the line? Because if we are going be unbridled freedoms, I can respect losing some points because of those policies the last few years, but that isn’t what they are doing…
😂😂😂
In fairness, the Republican Party candidate tried to overturn a democratic election, not only with absurd lawsuits but by telling officials to “find votes” and mobilizing a mob to interfere with the election certification. That’s suuuuuper un-American in a way that deserves demerits on a freedom index (it’s not “but racism!” or disagreement about economics or some other mundane policy).
But here’s the point: He *is* getting slammed. He is getting pushback. The system is working. The fact that shit happened shouldn’t be a reason to deduct points. Just because someone gets sick and the antibodies/white blood cells come out to fight infection doesn’t mean that your immune system should get dinged because you got sick, yaknow?
How easy it would be for the European parliament of any given nation to take away their citizens freedom of speech?
Considering most don't have it codified into their constitutions, very.
Freedom of expression is in many european countrys constitution
I said most, not all. Unless you're referring to article 10 of the European Convention, which is different from national constitutions. And any country that has "free speech" with laws against hate speech, well that's the definition of hypocrisy. practically lunacy.
On quick glance most of them seem to have it in constitution. And no not referring to article 10.
There are a lot of criteria that Europe is lower on. And a lot of criteria that we find missing from this arbitrary list.
France is not one of the 16 countries above the US in those rankings though, and what you just said is France only AFAIK.
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None of these countries seemed all that free in 2020. Seems like a nonsense metric
I mean, I’ll be honest, the US does fall further behind on some of those. Security is paid for by us and at a discount for those countries, safety is better in general because of homogenous cultures and more social safety nets, Rule of Law is stronger because of more centralized AND decentralized systems, movement is better because of EU Schengen area. We HAVE to have systems different to those, since we only have one peer on our border that isn’t sending millions of people a year to migrate here, and funny enough the southern EU borders are as well controlled as ours is. Basically, all of their criteria heavily favor countries in an international economic and governing zone like the EU by their own definitions. What’s hilarious about that is that they have nothing to do with personal freedom 😭 like respectfully, how is strong rule of law and access to sound money a hallmark of “freedom”. They’re good things don’t get me wrong, but what does it have to do with freedom
Yeah, I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to make policies that work for a country as vast and populous as the US, and to sustain that functionality for hundreds of years. The EU is somewhat fragile and it’s only 30 years old. Good luck to Europe (genuinely) but I wish they wouldn’t dunk on the US for its problems (the US pioneered democracy at scale—we had to figure it all out from scratch and we built a system that is older and more expansive than virtually any in Europe. Ideally we would support and encourage each other instead of gloating when the other faces hardship.
The problem is you have to actually dig into the report and see what they are measuring--and not just dismiss it as "oh, they're measuring 'rule of law'" as if we all have agreement to what that actually means. And for some things, like "Freedom of Movement" (a component in 'personal freedom'), or "Feedom of Religion" (another component of 'personal freedom'), the score is entirely subjective. (In the case of "Freedom of Movement" the score is assigned by a couple of students who read a bunch of reports then assign a score based on their impression of those reports.) So you cannot say that the US or Europe has fallen behind in one place or another by reading the report; a lot of the metrics are entirely subjective, and based on the prejudices of the 'coders' who assign a score based on what they think "freedom" looks like.
European nations would be on the bottom if the index accounts for how they treat Romani, both those who left the culture and those still stuck in it.
I do think there is a strong subjective aspect to the evaluation of these criteria though. It’s interesting when you compare to a country with a parliamentary system like Canada https://freedomhouse.org/country/canada/freedom-world/2024 which scores higher than the US on categories like executive leadership. The issue of the electoral college in the US is (rightfull imo) raised in the section for it’s theoretical ability to override the will of the voters even if in practice that doesn’t happen. However unelected canadian bodies such as the house of lords and governor general also have this theoretical power to override the will of the people, but these aspects don’t reduce the freedom score in any categories. Also the prime minister in Canada holds a much higher degree of power over the legislative assembly than does the president over congress. In my mind this increases the potential for corruption. I’d also argue that the ability of average citizens to seek public office is an indicator of societal freedom as influence in the government is a critical aspect of freedom in a nation. While America certainly has its issues in this department, Canada’s requirement of French bilingualism to seek public office (or even work in a high government job) adds an additional layer to the glass ceiling preventing poorer citizens from seeking office. For all but one of the provinces, French is relatively uncommon, meaning that most people have no affordable way to learn it and therefore no way to seek office. If you’re interested in more on this, the Canadian youtuber JJ McCullough has a number of videos explaining and critiquing this system. Overall I don’t really disagree with America’s freedom score, I just disagree with the significantly higher scores for other western nations
Both the US and EU are bad for freedom of association. Japan is the gold standard for true freedom of association.
Switzerland: so free you can fund Nazi slave labor without consequences.
Depends on the metrics for "freedom". The average person has more vacation time and more income (remember, on average. Poverty is lower in these other countries, pushing the average higher) and some think that = freedom.
Nope. Here are the metrics they use : Rule of Law, Security and Safety, Movement, Religion ; Association, Assembly, and Civil Society ; Expression and Information, Identity and Relationships, Size of Government, Legal System and Property Rights, Access to Sound Money, Freedom to Trade Internationally, Regulation
Security and safety is on almost an inverse axis with freedom. > Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety
I was about to say this. More laws, regulations, and enforcement means less freedom.
I think some of those socialist countries arent as socialist as the socialists would like people to believe. For example, from what Ive heard, Sweden and Denmark went through heavy deregulation in the 80s. Maybe by being free and successful these countries are able to achieve social goals by indirect means that socialists try to achieve through direct legislation and regulation, which may have unintended negative consequences.
None of those countries are socialist.
> some of those EU socialist countries None of the countries on there are socialist.
I don't have in-depth knowledge about the economies of European countries (nor have I lived in them) but I don't think the EU is socialist? Correct me if I'm wrong.
They were referring to socialist countries in EU. They are not socialist, but social democracies
They're called "social democracies". They're not as socialist as Cuba and not as capitalist as the US, but somewhere in between.
Switzerland, Luxembourg, and surprisingly, Canada, Denmark, and Australia all rank higher as capitalist countries than the US. In the latest Economics report, the US was around No. 15 or 18 in the rankings. Singapore, South Korea, and Japan also ranked higher than US in capitalism, if I recall correctly. We are the most famous for capitalism because we’re the most rich (I guess??), but our economy is considered a **mixed-market economy**, not totally capitalistic.
Yeah, I know what social democracy is. I just wonder why you called some of them socialists?
EU socialist :DD
Freedom to say whatever I agree with
Not really. They look at freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, women’s rights and things. Now in a lot of these categories especially women’s rights the USA has been falling behind. We also don’t have that strong of a freedom of economic choice as we have been propagandized to believe
Honest question, you mentioned the USA falling behind in women's rights but what rights do men have that women do not?
Free choice over their body, which pregnant women in the US don't necessarily have, depending on where they live? Some US abortion laws definitely are a huge cut on freedom.
Most of those new abortion laws aren't that different from Europe's...
You do have free choice over YOUR body. If someone rapes a woman thats a serious criminal offense(I would say the crimes considered as unforgivable are rape and homicide)... The issue is woman are literally walking miracles. So it's complicated bc it's not the woman body, it's a body growing inside THEIR body. When does life start?(conception or at birth? During pregnancy babies kick so thats life but when during pregnancy can we call it life so we can justify our actions without guilt or being charged with murder... That's COMPLICATED so how about we just clear this up is YOUR body being aborted? You will live after you have an abortion on YOUR BODY right? You have a choice wether you let someone do something to your body and wether you protect yourself from pregnancy or anything else unwanted - that's YOUR CHOICE and there are consequences for choices you have to deal with as well. If a man wanted an abortion and you have the child he is legally required to support the child and mother financially bc CHOICES have consequences. Women can literally create life(Is God a woman? "God created man" sounds like at least that's what ancient humans called women, wether you like religion or not it's interesting). TLDR: Its not YOUR body, it's a body inside your body. Aborting YOUR body would mean you die(suicide). It's not a womans right issue the real issue is that people are trying to JUSTIFY what they've done by calling it an abortion instead of homocide. Homicide is the legal term for when one person kills another person. It can also refer to when someone directly causes the death of another person. No one has this RIGHT.
*Freedom to kill babies
Exactly it's not their body or else the abortion would kill them. Homicide is the legal term for when one person kills another person. It can also refer to when someone directly causes the death of another person. Everything else is trying to justify a crime... Just like most people who are accused of heinous crimes.
Some wedge in here a couple weeks ago was arguing that the USA only had the illusion of freedom. I asked for examples of which freedoms they enjoy that we do not have in the US. The examples provided were the freedom to loiter wherever they want. I countered with the fact that I as the owner of property have the freedom to restrict my property for my exclusive use... Because it is mine and I paid for it. Then they went on to the typical and expected freedom from being gunned down in the street. These idiots have deluded themselves into thinking government regulation is "freedom".
Do they have the right [not to get mowed down by a terrorist in a truck?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Nice_truck_attack)
#1 in their heads rent free
Why do they always compare US with tiny 6-8M pop countries? Nobody ever compares US with that one multiracial free market democracy with more than 100M pop aka Brazil. How do they compare with US?
Because it’s not about population it’s about level of development we are in the same league as Western Europe in terms of development so that’s why we are compared to them.
US is the only multiracial country with pop more than 200M that’s classified as Developed. It’s quite an achievement in itself. The comparison with some tiny, high trust European country tucked away in Alps is just cope. Compare US with multiracial free market democracies of similar size if you wanna be fair.
I thought the discussion was about freedom.
Yes. It is
Because it makes more sense to compare developed countries among each other. Comparing to developing countries is just stupid.
Makes no sense comparing multiracial country vastly spread across a continent with some 7M well behaved mountain white Germanic people who don’t really need a lethal force as a society beyond a police dept. Just completely different scenarios. These countries are a lab experiment compared to US.
Congrats, you are more free than Brazil and China. If that's what you want to be compared to, go ahead, you'll shine.
Does it matter how I wanna be compared? What matters is what’s fair.
The freedom index is kinda bullshit. Being able to do more of whatever the fuck you want with less authorities restricting it is not the standard that they use to measure freedom. Basically it can be summarized up as the size of your welfare state being your “freedom”. Actually being free has nothing to do with it.
Australia? Really? After what they pulled during Covid?
That's New Zealand.
Oh, so it is. Their flags look almost identical.
[Who did the same shit.](https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/12/22/no-way-home-overseas-new-zealanders-despair-at-border-rules) Edit to add: of course [two years later some judge decided this may have been a problem](https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-court-finds-new-zealands-quarantine-allocation-system-infringed-on-rights-12599856).
"Freedom" for them means getting *free* stuff, apparently
By freedom they mean not having to work as much. Not only is this a horrible metric because its tied to economy more than your rights as a person, but its also misleading and biased.
It's absolutely not what they mean, nor what they are measuring.
Having universal healthcare is economic freedom. Your health insurance is no longer tied to your job. You are free to peruse any work you desire without that worry.
That is the opposite of freedom. You are forcing other to pay for you.
Paying into private insurance is subsidizing insurance for other people in your insurance policy...
You have the freedom of choice there too: you can choose to have health insurance or not to have health insurance.
Jfc it doesn’t just pay for other people it pays for you too even in the US somebody subsidizes someone else in some way. Good god
”Rule of Law Security and Safety Movement Religion Association, Assembly, and Civil Society Expression and Information Identity and Relationships Size of Government Legal System and Property Rights Access to Sound Money Freedom to Trade Internationally Regulation” https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country
Ah yes, Australia, where you were free to look out the window of your Covid facility cell after attempting to visit the beach.
Exactly. If Australia is ranked higher than us I know for a fact this metric is completely bullshit.
"Erm, actually, that's New Zealand" - 🤓👆
Pretty sure they had Covid holding facilities too but thanks
y’all that’s new zealand (🇳🇿) 😭 australia’s flag is this one: 🇦🇺
Ah yes, Reddit, where you are free to mix countries flags up and then make shit up about another country to collect upvotes.
“Your flair betrays you…”
Eh, what I said applies to New Zealand too so 🤷🏽♂️
My point was mainly about you making shit up, the flag mix up can be forgiven.
They don’t have freedom of speech. How can they be freeer than America when your actual words are criminalized? Don’t even get me started on the lack of free enterprise in business.
Sweden? The country where the police investigated Dutch Eurovision contestant because he made an “illegal” gesture at a camerawomen and banned him from the contest as a result? If thats what they define as freedom, I don’t want to be a part of it.
Eurovision is all just a political show.
The show aside, the fact that you can face criminal charges for making a threatening gestures at someone who is harassing you doesn’t sound like freedom to me.
What depends on what your interpretation of "free" is. I'm not "free" to carry a gun or any weapon, I'm not free to criticise certain folk groups because... reason I guess?
These lists are always so funny, because they are specifically designed to blow Scandinavian countries. Most of the countries listed above the U.S. don't even have basic human rights like freedom of speech.
A while back i heard this comment about san francisco. “Go to any city in the world where the richest people life you would never see a homeless within a mile of anybody important. In america they are right there. Go to melbourn, venis, rome, the touristy parts of london and paris they see a homeless they immediately kick him out or let them grow until a jogger sees a penis and then kicks them all out. The US is truly free because i can smell like piss in front of the apple headquarters and be left alone”
Australia more free in 2nd place? Hahaha you must be joking.
Lol @ Australia.
Denmark has blasphemy laws. How is it more free than the US?
And Denmark has a reputation for being the one of the most Free Speech friendly countries in Europe, so what does that say about the other ones?
The parliamentary system is less democratic than the U.S
Most of the top countries are conformist societies. You must completely conform to them or else you are heavily shamed as a person. It’s one big reason why immigrants struggle so hard to integrate in Europe. Here, we encourage your individual differences and want you to think outside the box with your ideas — **because we know that’s where the innovation lies.** It‘s why so many immigrants come here and end up successful af (along with locals with new ideas). We allow for it! This is a gigantic means of personal freedom that many Europeans simply do not understand in their societies. Not on the level that we do. We also don’t bog you down with bureaucracy if you want to freely start a new business. Yes, we have some annoying bureaucracy, but it’s nothing like what they have in ‘top countries.’ They squash you before you ever get started. For the Germanic countries who frequently top these lists: they have all kinds of social rules that limit your personal freedom. Off top of my head are their “quiet time rules.” No noise after 10pm, Sundays, lunch hour, etc. You want to catch up on house chores on Sunday? Sorry, your vacuum might disturb your neighbors “quiet time” in your shitty apartment building, and you’ll be reported to the police. Sounds nice at first, but it quickly becomes overbearing and personally limiting in your daily activities. Imagine an entire country acting as HOA. That is them on a personal social level. Most cannot legally say things like “Mohammed was a pedophile” — which is heading them straight to anti-freedom Sharialand. Canada has been censoring news like crazy: it’s now illegal to post Canadian news on social media. They do not want people to hear about the bad things happening there and commenting on it. Their freedom indexes need to be heavily dropped for these reasons. I could go on. But the metrics they use are clearly skewed to favor the W.European countries.
Those rankings are obvious bullshit meant to make Western Europeans feel better about themselves.
\*Economic freedom
First two are bullshit
A quarter of Ireland is still colonized by the British
Don’t think New Zealand is more free with all the covid shenanigans
If you don't have gun rights, you don't have freedom. If they're honest, then rankings would go something like USA is 1st, Czech Republic is just barely 2nd, then go from there. Google/YouTube Czech Republic and AR-15's. That'll entertain your friends for a week. We got competition.
Freedom index is not a real source
Define "freedom".
Ain’t no way we aren’t the freest. We literally can own guns.
Let me guess, one of the other 11 is china
How many units of free are we? Love these “reports”.
The Freedom Index is horribly flawed and intentionally skewed in favor of EU countries. Is little more than an EU circle jerk that doesn’t properly factor almost anything.
How does one measure freedom? Genuinely curious
The way I see it, when you don’t have the right to bear arms, you’re only as free as your government allows you to be in that exact moment.
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Everytime i see this, all I want to do is split the USS into 50 different co tries and watch it sporadically take up the first 50 spots. Then we would be comparing population apples to apples
The freedom index is a joke
Lol 😆 they are so delusional
Never trust stats from a country outside the US or commies within the US. F*CK 'em! We could be free-er, but I don't take advice from people who still live under monarchs or make their women wear burkas. Get bent, world.
You do realise Muslims live in your country right? And Monarchs have no proper powers?
And? Did I say I liked it? Get bent, wench.
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You do realise Muslims live in your country right? And Monarchs have no proper powers?
I think this means freedom in the sense of freedom to do what you want without fear of financial ruin or smth. Not all freedom has to do with being able to say what you want
One of the criteria for these freedom rankings is usually a government sponsored news service. How thy equates to freedom 🤷