What evidence do you have for suggesting that a citizenry with guns serves to protect other freedoms? The US generally isn't among the top countries on the various international freedom indexes[1] despite our prevalence of guns. We are usually behind Canada, New Zealand, the Scandinavian countries, and a few other European countries depending on the specific criteria being evaluated.
Interesting. Kids in many countries throughout the middle east and northern Africa have essentially unrestricted access to firearms, including shit you can't buy in most US states, but your "Draw a Muhammad" litmus test wouldn't fly. What does this indicate?
Let's burn the American flag instead. How's that gonna go in rural counties of the US? Will it be safe, or will the response be armed?
The litmus test is to measure freedom and not effectiveness of guns on freedom.
It is pretty hard to organize 'Draw A Muhammad' workshop in non-muslim countries like Canada, UK or India. That tells you how less free those countries are.
Secondly, freedom is used (always) in the context of Government. In India, Canada or UK it is not the fellow muslim you have to worry about but the government jailing you. In the absence of a robust violent respons from society government will take away your freedoms one by one to simplify their own life at your expense.
> Let's burn the American flag instead.
Please do. It is an important freedom Americans have and constitutional granted free speech right. American flag is burned, insulted on regular basis in USA. Just like flag insulting national anthem is another form of protest in USA. I have not heard of anyone being punished or killed in USA for burning American flag. Most certainly the government can't punish you for the same.
> It is pretty hard to organize 'Draw A Muhammad' workshop in non-muslim countries like Canada, UK or India. That tells you how less free those countries are.
Sorry, bub. I live in Canada, and you're extremely misinformed about the law here. It would not be hard to organize a "draw a Muhammad" event here. If Megan Murphy speaking at the Vancouver Public Library is any indication, you could even do it on government property, replete with security to keep you and the protesters away from eachother.
Or, change my mind. Show me the legal precedent where Canada jailed somebody for drawing Muhammad. I'm curious about the UK, India and Australia, too. But I'm calling bullshit on your claim about Canada.
The closest I've seen was a dude got fined for distributing hate speech targeting an individual. He couldn't afford to pay the fine, and that was the end of that.
You're saying that I should expect to be assaulted and arrested in response to an exercise of free speech. That's a fail.
If I persist, or defend myself, as people attempt to stop me, are you positive that I wouldn't get shot by some trigger-happy kid like Kyle Rittenhouse?
That is a poor test in my opinion. I do not value symbolic personal liberties like bible burning or drawing Muhammad more than economic or press freedom which have a much larger cascading effect on our lives. And the fact that the US is lacking in those two latter categories compared to many of our peer nations calls into question whether our freedom regarding guns or speech actually protects our other freedoms.
There are 2 indexes each for economic and press freedom. Our rankings on the economic freedom lists are 5th and 20th. On the press freedom ranks we are 44th, and 37th.
You seem to be looking at the the rank order alone, which just means there are a lot of closely bunched countries near the US on the indices.
If you look at the heat maps and the actual indices themselves, along with the countries with comparable numbers, you’ll see that those lists precisely support my claim.
You are simply factually wrong in your description of this data. 3 of the 4 indexes I listed provide defined tiers. The US is in the top tier on only 1 of the 3 lists. On that one list there are 60 counties in the top tier. On the other two lists we are in the 2nd tier defined as "satisfactory situation" and "mostly free". The organizations behind the lists clearly think there is room for improvement. This data does not corroborate your point.
Here is what I said: “The US is not lacking in either press or economic freedom compared to ‘peer’ nations.”
Whether or not there are countries who have better ratings, any honest reading of the list sees that the US ratings are similar to peers.
When you consider how large and diverse the US is compared to most countries on the list, the ranking becomes more impressive.
The first list puts the US above all of Europe except Switzerland, and above all of Scandinavia, and Canada and Australia.
The second list puts the US above Sweden, Germany, and Japan for example.
The third, doesn’t have ranks, but places US in the ‘satisfactory’ category along with most of Europe, Canada, and Australia.
The fourth, is the only one in which the US does a little worse on their points scale, however *it is back in the top tier described as ‘free’ alongside all its peers, and above the UK, France and Japan in the ranking.
It’s just bullshit to claim these lists indicate that the US is lacking compared to peers.
I started writing out a longer response to you, but then realized it isn't worth it. If you aren't going to acknowledge that we maybe have room for improvement when we are internationally ranked in the 30s and 40s in press freedom then I don't see much value in continuing the conversation on how our freedom might be lacking.
> If you aren't going to acknowledge that we maybe have room for improvement
This is a completely dishonest representation of what I have said.
Here it is again:
> The US is not lacking in either press or economic freedom compared to ‘peer’ nations. Whether or not there are countries who have better ratings, any honest reading of the list sees that the US ratings are similar to peers.
Nowhere did I say there wasn’t room for improvement or even claim the US was at the top.
If you’re going to lie about both what I said, and what the links show, what do you think we can accomplish?
These lists seem to show that the US is pretty much on par with the rest of the western world. I'm not sure how you could look at these and say that the US is behind it's peers very much, especially on the economic freedom measures. Only the second press freedom list seems to have the US at the low end compared to other western countries, but it's still above the UK, South Korea and a few others.
>We are usually behind Canada, New Zealand, the Scandinavian countries, and a few other European countries depending on the specific criteria being evaluated.
The countries we are behind on all 4 lists and therefore unanimously behind:
- New Zealand
- Switzerland
The countries we are behind on 3 of the 4 lists and therefore countries we are "usually behind":
- Canada
- Australia
- Ireland
- Denmark
- Finland
- Netherlands
The countries we are behind on 2 of the 4 lists and therefore countries we are on par with:
- Germany
- Norway
- Sweden
- Iceland
- Belgium
- Austria
- Portugal
- Czech Republic
- Lithuania
- Slovenia
- Andorra
- Liechtenstein
- Luxembourg
- Estonia
- Cyprus
- Jamaica
- Costa Rica
So that is a yes on "Canada, New Zealand... and a few other European countries". I don't know why you and the other poster are pretending that naming countries that we are ranked higher than disproves this statement. The only thing that isn't backed up by those rankings is that I said "the Scandinavian countries" when it is only Denmark and Finland ahead of us while we are on par with Norway, Sweden, and Iceland.
> And the fact that the US is lacking in those two latter categories compared to many of our peer nations
Which is still bullshit.
As I said before, whether or not there are countries who have better ratings, any honest reading of the list sees that the US ratings are similar to peers.
Is your enter point through these several posts that my definition of "peer" is too broad? It should have been obvious in context that I was referring to something along the lines of "western democracies" since I listed countries before ever using the word "peer". It honestly seems like you are arguing just for the sake of argument at this point.
> It should have been obvious in context that I was referring to something along the lines of "western democracies" since I listed countries before ever using the word "peer".
I said "compared to many of our peer nations". You are acting as if I said "compared to all our peer nations". Pointing out countries we are ahead does nothing to disprove that there are 8 countries in which we are "usually behind".
But either way, I give up. This isn't worth spending any more time on. Congrats, you win!
> I said "compared to many of our peer nations". You are acting as if I said "compared to all our peer nations"
This is where the misunderstanding arises. You are actually incorrect. I’m not acting as if you said compared to all of our peer nations. I clearly and repeatedly accepted that we are behind some of our peer nations.
You on the other hand, are using the fact that we are not literally at the top of the list, to argue that we are behind our peers in a general sense.
If you weren’t you’d simply say “we aren’t at the top of the list - there are 8 countries ahead of us”, instead of the false, and more generic sounding “compared to many of our peers”.
Wow, it is infuriating that people are still getting harassed for that. However, the fact that it is constitutionally protected basically precludes any of those charges from being pursued. Apparently, sometimes flag burners are harassed with other petty crimes like theft/littering.
How often do you make use of your freedom to make meaningless antagonistic gestures to Muslims or Christians? Would you rank it as more or less important than the freedom to go for a run in public without being shot or harassed (which is not really afforded to Black Americans [0])?
You clearly didn't read the collected stories in that article. The NYTimes requested letters from Black people on their experiences running after a Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, was murdered awhile running and a big part of the national narrative consisted of false allegations that he had just burgled some place.
It seems a lot of Black people are afraid to run because they know there's a real risk that they'll be shot by white people who will assume they've committed a crime. They're afraid people will immediately assume they're scofflaws, as you joked (?), and hurt or harass them.
So you may have seen black people running, but that may be because you live in a more progressive neighborhood with BLM signs that has made Black runners feel less like they'd be murdered in your neighborhood than in other neighborhoods (as one person explained in that article).
If we're measuring freedom, the right to exist in public without a reasonable expectation of violence and harassment seems important.
Okay, but you said "Blacks are not afforded the freedom to run," not that some people (how many?) have apprehensions or misgivings about doing so (not a lack of freedom). Apartheid in South Africa was a different thing from "some people are afraid, possibly irrationally so".
Lastly, this has nothing to do with gun ownership? You can find people expressing exactly the same sentiments all over western Europe.
>...the freedom to go for a run in public without being shot or harassed (which is not really afforded to Black Americans)".
I could quibble about that claim, or point that I've read countless tweets and anecdotes from Black people describing that they have to carefully plan their routes and wear shirts from ivy league schools because they've been assaulted or harassed by white people in the past and they just want to make whites feel safe, or look back to my upbringing in Grosse Pointe, a wealthy suburb just east of Detroit that was hardcore redlined [0] where I saw Black people routinely harassed for existing in public. But the core of this is that Black people in American don't have the freedoms white people do. Black people don't get personhood here, unlike people who look like me [1].
And as a homicide researcher, I assure you, gun ownership is extremely relevant to the denial of freedom to Black Americans.
Your argument sounds compelling on a sentimental level. Unfortunately, as soon as one digs down into the numbers and does any sort of statistical analysis -- I guess something I'd expect a homicide researcher (what is that anyway? [0]) to do -- the claim falls apart. Controlling for any correlated factors -- criminality, age, income -- whites and blacks are about even in many (but not all) respects [1]
It's true that in some cases, there are disparities that seem to suggest a very small amount of racial bias. Summing up that situation by saying that as blacks are not free is about as unproductive and untrustworthy as using Jamelle Bouie as a source for anything.
[0] seriously, what is that? A description of your hobby of reading newspaper articles and downloading public datasets?
My title is "data scientist", and my main job function has been researching homicide and developing policies that reduce the homicide rate/increase the homicide clearance rate. I was embedded in the homicide unit of the Bureau of Detectives my local (Chicago) police department for a year and a half, and over that time, I saw footage of hundreds and hundreds of homicides, and one remarkable thing about them (besides how horrible they are) is how racially segregated the victimization is.
Over 80% of people shot or killed in the city I've lived in for over a decade are Black, and over 80% of shootings or homicides occur in neighborhoods where 80+% of residents are Black. These observables forced me to ask "Why are Black people so disproportionately victimized by violent crime?" and "Why is housing so intensely segregated?". Looking into segregation, I found this problem isn't unique to Chicago, rather it's a feature of every US city with a significant Black population [0], so the cause likely wasn't purely local in nature.
Growing up in the Detroit suburb I mentioned previously, I was very familiar with "redlining", as the the boundary line separating Detroit and Grosse Pointe was also the boundary line separating white and Black residents as that Wikipedia image clearly shows. I am somewhat embarrassed that I had to watch hundreds of people be murdered before I thought to ask "why are we still so racially segregated, over 50 years after LBJ's administration signed so many civil rights bills into law?" but asking that question lead me to investigate, and unsurprisingly, a nation-wide effect was the consequence of a nation-wide federal policy. The Federal Housing Administration's explicitly racist mortgage underwriting guidelines [1] explicitly incentivized racially segregating Black Americans out of areas with desirable land, low pollution, good schools, or good services. Here are some excerpts from this Federal policy that provided a massive investment vehicle nearly exclusively to white Americans:
* "Natural or artificially established barriers will prove effective in protecting a neighborhood and the locations within it from adverse influences. Usually the protection from adverse influences afforded by these means includes prevention of the infiltration of business and industrial uses, lower class occupancy, and inharmonious racial groups." (Section 935: "Natural Physical Protection"),
* "Areas surrounding a location are investigated to determine whether incompatible
racial and social groups are present, for the purpose of making a prediction regarding the probability of the location being invaded by such groups. If a neighborhood is to retain stability, it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes. A change in social or racial occupancy generally contributes to instability and a decline in values." (Section 937: "Quality of Neighboring Development"),
* "However, if the children of people living in such an area are compelled to attend school where the majority or a considerable number of the pupils represent a far lower level of society or an incompatible racial element, the neighborhood under consideration will prove far less stable and desirable than if this condition did not exist." (section 951: "Quality and Accessibility of Schools"),
* "Satisfaction, contentment, and comfort result from association with persons of similar social attributes. Families enjoy social relationships with other families
whose education, abilities, mode of living, and racial characteristics are similar to their own." (Section 973: "Social Attractiveness"),
* "The infiltration of inharmonious racial groups will produce the same effects
as those which follow the introduction of incongruous land uses, when the latter tend to lower the level of land values and lessen the desirability of residential areas." (Section 1360, "Estimation of Remaining Physical and Economic Life of Buildings",
* "Racial Occupancy Desiqnation. This will be a letter indicating predominating racial characteristics, as follows: W-White M-Mixed F-Foreign N-Negro" (Section 1850)
* etc.
The FHA is a federal agency of the US government, which extends its reach across the US. The FHA's underwriting manual provided explicitly racist rules for determining whether the FHA would insure mortgages in an area, and if the FHA wouldn't insure mortgages in an area, that drastically reduced the number of banks that would issue mortgages in an area, which reduces the supply of buyers, which reduces land value. As a consequence, these policies incentivized real estate agents, banks, and white residents to push Black people out of desirable areas and into ghettos or areas far from economic opportunity. While these policies were outlawed by the Fair Housing Act of 1968, many millions of white Americans were able to buy real estate thanks to this program thereby enabling those white Americans to generate generational wealth on those assets, while Black Americans were denied access to this class investment, or could only access it through predatory means (eg "contract buying", where the buyer gains no equity until the very last payment is made, so failure to pay the penultimate payment could result in the resident being evicted with nothing). Even with redlining being explicitly illegal, banks still do it [2].
Over the past hundred years in the US, real estate has been an incredibly well performing investment, and access to this investment class many decades ago has allowed white families to profit from (and pass down) the compounding returns, while Black families were locked out of this. The resulting racial wealth gap [3] is staggering, with the median white family net wealth being around $188k, while the median Black family's net wealth is around $24k. As a result, segregation is maintained by the massive population of white Americans who are able to afford rents or mortgages in areas with high quality services, while the population of Black Americans able to afford the same rents or mortgages is disproportionately smaller.
As a result of this intense, systemic racial bias (which is undeniably obvious, just look at these maps [0]!), average Black Americans enjoy nowhere near the freedom that average white Americans do. Last year, there were over 4000 shootings and 769 homicides in Chicago, and the overwhelming majority of them occurred in the neighborhoods where the majority of Chicago's ~780,000 Black residents live. In the Detroit suburb I grew up in, I could (and regularly did) go for walks between midnight and 3am, never once thinking "oh, this isn't safe". None of my classmates were ever murdered or shot. Few if any of my classmates had to work a job to help their family get by, and even most of the mediocre students in my grade went to college. The conditions for Black people my age who just lived 4 blocks north of me, just across the Detroit border, lived under very different conditions.
If you think this is a "very small amount of racial bias", I assume you've just never taken the time to think about this issue. When you look a maps of racial segregation in the US [0], [systemic racial segregation via federal housing policy] is the only explanation that stands up to scrutiny. If you're actually interested in the truth on this issue, you should read "The Color of Law" [4]. If you aren't interested in the truth, keep doing what you're doing.
Citing several small countries with many significant differences from the U.S. isn’t solid logic. All of those countries are much smaller, much less diverse, and enjoy the geopolitical shelter of the U.S.
Are you suggesting that a country needs to take away press freedom as its population increases or it becomes more diverse? Otherwise I don't see your point. I can concede that economic freedom might become more complex for larger countries, but why shouldn't press freedom scale? We rank in the 30s and 40s on those press freedom indexes. If you want to eliminate smaller countries, why can't we keep up with a country like Germany who is ahead of us on both lists?
I don't think the suggestion is that a country "needs" to take away freedoms as it grows larger or more diverse. It's just that a larger and more diverse country is simply more likely to have to grapple with tensions between different groups of people. This may lead to some freedoms being challenged.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices