The slow death of American freedom
The slow death of American freedom
The U.S. anthem no longer rings true. By many key measures, the ‘land of the free’ is badly falling behind the rest of the world.
By Scott Gilmore, MacLeans Magazine, July 25, 2017
Tattered American flag flies after Hurricane Sandy. (Education Images/UIG/Getty Image s)
Francis Scott Key, the man who named the United States “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, owned six slaves. Granted, this was extremely common in the early 1800s. But Key, a public prosecutor, actually worked very hard to maintain slavery in America.
When a Quaker wrote in an abolitionist newspaper “There is neither mercy nor justice” for African Americans in Washington, Key indicted him for trying to “vilify the good name” of the ruling class. He argued that even a public discussion of abolishing slavery was “wickedness”. The “land of the free” was a gross exaggeration.
Nonetheless the phrase caught on. Throughout the last 200 years, Americans have viewed their homeland as a bastion of personal liberty. The Pilgrims, the Boston Tea Party, the Wild West, Wall Street—every thread in the national story is spun from tales of independence, of individual freedom and opportunity.
But, over the years, and quietly, America has fallen behind the rest of the world, and without even noticing, its citizens have become much less free in comparison.
The annual “Human Freedom Index”, a joint publication of the Fraser Institute, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and the Cato Institute, considers 79 different indicators of personal and economic freedom. These days the United States doesn’t even make the top 10. In fact, it trails countries like Poland and Finland.
This index gives the U.S. a particularly low score for the rule of law. This shouldn’t be a surprise. Americans are the second most imprisoned people in the world. They are five times more likely to find themselves in prison than a citizen of China or Canada. To put these numbers in context, the only other countries, which are remotely close to the U.S. rate of imprisonment, are all ruled by notorious dictators, including Turkmenistan and Rwanda.
And those dire numbers are nothing compared to the incarceration rates of African Americans. They are jailed five times more frequently than whites. And while levels of drug use are the same for both whites and blacks, the imprisonment rate for the latter is six times worse. Incredibly, as a result one in four African American men will end up in jail at some point in their lifetime.
One of the most startling violations of individual liberty is the growing use of “civil forfeiture”. This is the official euphemism for the ability of police to legally seize money or assets from people they merely suspect of having committed a crime. No trial. No evidence. No guilty verdict. This is so widely used that the annual value of police seizures now exceeds everything stolen by criminals. In many states, this revenue is now paying for a sizeable portion of police budgets. Although it is increasingly seen as unconstitutional and several states have begun to repeal the practice, this week Attorney General Jeff Sessions signed an order actually encouraging law enforcement to seize private property more often.
The Human Freedom Index also gives the United States very low marks for “freedom of movement”. While the road trip remains an elemental part of the American Dream, foreign travel is considerably restricted. Last month President Donald Trump imposed new travel bans for Americans wanting to visit Cuba. This week North Korea was added. The list of countries off limits to American businesses is much longer.
In terms of broader economic freedom, the Heritage Foundation’s separate Index of Economic Freedom ranks the land of opportunity as only 17th globally. The annual report cites the growing amount of regulations and red tape faced by American entrepreneurs. The World Bank agrees. Its “Doing Business” report, an annual measurement of the barriers faced by businesses, ranks the United States 51st for the ease of starting a new business. (By comparison, Canada is listed as 2nd.)
And, with a president who declared the media “the enemy of the people”, perhaps it is not surprising that Reporters Without Borders now ranks America 43rd in the world for press freedom. American journalists are not protected by laws to shield their sources. Intelligence agencies have increased surveillance of the media. And journalists are having their phones and laptops seized at the border.
In 1814, when Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner, perhaps (white) Americans enjoyed more freedom than anyone else on earth. But that is no longer true. The title “land of the free” has become a truism that has masked an ugly reality: the United States is now among the more restrictive countries in the western world. And with a new authoritarian president, this looks like it is only going to get worse. The anthem may need updating.
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It's probably still the Home of the Brave.
And I fear that in the near future we are going to have to demonstrate a lot of that bravery...
In our own land....
I am getting old (61) and feel a whole lot older then that because my health sucks. Still, I remember how to handle an M16 and believe that bravery is not the problem, it's the number of those who choose to be brave. Instead we have a nation more concerned with the latest fashions, who will win "America's Got Talent" and are wondering why no on else thinks the way that they do. They are frozen in place and like it.
By the way, thanks for posting you age (61). It helps me get to know you a little better. I am older than you. And I too was trained and experienced on the M-16, as well as the M-50, M-79, .45 cal and .38 cal. Not that it matters much, just gives us something in common I guess. I suppose we could get into a debate about bravery versus fear. To me it doesn't take a brave person to fire a weapon. Most weapons are fired out of fear. But, again, that's just my opinion and no one has to agree with me, ever.
Bravery is not courage. It is the lack of caring if you live or die. When one is put in a position of being brave or not, those that are apparently brave simply did not consider the alternative, because they could not. The alternative does not exists at that time for time. They simply do what they are destined to do.
In my life when there have been times where other people have called me brave for my actions, I try to explain to them that not doing what I did simply did not occur to me. It was not an option that I considered at the time.
watch the video....
Civis Romanus
President Bartlet:
Did you know that two thousand years ago a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the Earth unharmed, cloaked only in the protection of the words civis Romanus -- I am a Roman citizen. So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens. Where was Morris's protection, or anybody else on that airplane? Where was the retribution for the families, and where is the warning to the rest of the world that Americans shall walk this Earth unharmed, lest the clenched fist of the most mighty military force in the history of mankind comes crashing down on your house?! In other words, Leo, what the hell are we doing here?!
America is not Rome.
This is not two thousand years ago.
Things change.
Shit happens.
What ya gonna do?
What the hell are we doing here?!
Having watched, and loved watching all of the West Wing series, I have in the past stated that my choice of POTUS would have been Jeb Bartlett, or even Matt Santos, in fact hell, I would have settled for Senator Arnold Vinick rather than who were running in 2016. They all depicted loyal and honest patriots. I learned much about how the American government works from that series, which of course is not taught in most of the schools were I lived.
And with a new authoritarian president, this looks like it is only going to get worse.
Even a cynical old atheist like me can give that an Amen. My Mrs. and I have talked about this many times. That, in spite of all of the terrible things that happened during our lifetime, we still think that we as baby boomers have lived through the true golden years of America. We need another "Greatest Generation" and I just don't see one coming. Maybe it's our fault?
It's nice to see other realistic people understanding , accepting and talking about the fact that America is not number one for a change.
I've felt that way for a ling time and rarely do I see it openly discussed.
What a shame because a problem not addressed grows.
The one thing I did was to drop my party affiliation and became an independent. Small step but one less republican or democrat in America I believe is one step in the right direction.