What freedoms does the US have that other countries don't?

Answer 1

The US doesn't have many freedoms that other democratic Westernised nations do not have- most of the freedoms enjoyed by the US are shared by most of Western Europe, Scandinavia and also the advanced democracies of South-East Asia and the Antipodes. However, there are some 'liberties' in US law that are regarded as controversial in other advanced democracies, such as the US laws on gun ownership and 'the right to bear arms'. In the US, it is legal to own a wide variety of small-arms, which in certain other democratic countries is much more restricted or banned altogether (the one exception being Canada). Some European nations, such as France, have sought to limit the freedom of cultural and religious expression in the face of Islamic terrorism, such as preventing women from wearing the berkha (which is perfectly legal in the US, although it may attract some public hostility and antagonism). In Germany, for obvious reasons, it is illegal to display or express any support or sympathy for Nazism- the swastika is banned, as is doing the Hitler salute, and political parties of the extreme right are forbidden. But there are other areas in which the United States lags behind other advanced democracies, such as it's widespread use of the death penalty, which has been abolished in the British Isles and the EU, as well as in Russia, much of Eastern Europe and most Commonwealth nations (in some democracies of the developed world, such as Japan, it is still legal, but it is only used very rarely in comparison to the US). Also, in the US, violations of civil and human rights by the police are far more often ignored or turned a blind eye to, than in other nations, where the officers responsible would be prosecuted and jailed for their actions- Americans seem to want their police to be more confrontational and unfriendly than they are in other countries. There are also difference in public attitudes between the US and other developed nations- for example, mental illness and the need to see a therapist or psychiatrist is regarded as being perfectly normal in the United States and no big deal, whereas elsewhere- even in Britain- a certain amount of stigma is attached to emotional or mental disorder and it's not something that you can afford to mention without the risk of alienating people, who find it frightening and regard the sufferer as being actually mad. On the other hand, public attitudes towards homosexuality and transgender issues tend to be more liberal and accepting than they are in many parts of the US, but on this latter point it depends where in the US you are talking about- the big cities would be more likely to show an accepting public attitude than would small Southern towns, for example. You also have to remember that the USA is a federal country and a very huge one, split up into states that have complete control over their own internal affairs, so even WITHIN the United States there are differences as to what you might call 'freedoms'- laws differ from state to state, to the extent that even laws as fundamental as the death penalty are illegal in some states but not in others. Americans from one state or another are always complaining when they travel to different parts of the States and find that what is legal in their home state, is ILLEGAL in the one they've travelled to!

In very general terms though, the US has more in common with other developed democracies than differences- the main two sticking points are the US practice of the death penalty and it's liberal gun control laws.