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Canada > United States

The United States has capitalized on freedom. To a certain extent, it’s hardly even practiced anymore, but you can walk into any Wal-mart or grossly oversized department store and see patriotism for sale. Giant flags, t-shirts, star spangled booty shorts… because we are ‘Merica! But no matter how big the fireworks are on the 4th of July, or how proud you feel to stand at the National Anthem at the baseball game, we are comparably less free than even our closest neighbor Canada. According to new findings by the Legatum Prosperity Index and Amnesty International, “[the United States] has the same level of political violence as Saudi Arabia.”

“Overall, the U.S. was ranked the 11th most prosperous country out of 142, with Norway snagging the top spot. Other areas measured are the economy, entrepreneurship and opportunity, governance, education, social capital and safety and security.”

Topping the ranks are mostly nordic countries and Canada. And with Canada literally sharing a border with the United States, you’d think we’d learn a little more from our friendly neighbor to the north. Canada ranks highest in tolerance for immigrants, freedom of choice, and tolerance of ethnic groups. It’s pretty obvious that the United States has a big problem with this particular topic. With one of the candidates for president running on a platform of “building a wall” on the Mexico border, and wanting to ban Muslims from entering the United States, it’s not looking so good for US.

The United States, whose identity is built on the notion of freedom, lags behind with embarrassing numbers. Not only do we rank shamefully in the tolerance of immigrants, we still have a seriously deep rooted problem with systemic racism. For a country built on the backs of slaves, it’s a dark history to shake off.

“Personal freedom, as defined by the London-based Legatum Institute, measures a nation’s performance at both guaranteeing individual freedom and encouraging social tolerance.”

The Legatum Institute has reasonable components for defining personal freedom, but when it comes to the United States, we can’t decide what the hell is going on. When we take a look at “guaranteeing individual freedom,” many people would say that goes hand in hand with protecting constitutional rights like the right to bare arms. Some argue that the right to carry a gun is a personal freedom, but when relating this issue to “encouraging social tolerance,” likely the same person who advocates for carrying guns as a personal freedom would not be the poster child for encouraging social tolerance. Gun violence in the United States is often propagated as an act of severe intolerance, like the tragic murder of nine black people by a young white man at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

The endless stalemate in the U.S. congress is the biggest blemish on the country’s fight for legitimate freedom. Self-interested politicians, lobbyists flooding the government with grotesque amounts of money, and stubborn representatives all make for a greater problem. In Canada, they run on a proportional representation parliamentary system which allows for greater equality of representation and less polarization in government. Moreover, Canada’s newest Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is not only the most handsome world leader alive and refreshingly progressive, has been instrumental in bumping Canada up the ranks of freedom. He has committed Canada to progressive agenda with some of his biggest moves being the following: naming a gender-balanced cabinet for his term, committing to accept 25,000 Syrian refugees, apologizing and promising reconciliation to the abuses of Canadian aboriginal people... and the list goes on.

And to hope that maybe the United States will become more progressive, tolerant, and free as time goes on is just wishful thinking at this point. The current Republican nominee for president is a xenophobic racist, the U.S. congress is practically useless due to legislative stalemates, and systemic racism has come to the forefront of our country’s greatest issues due to widespread killings of black Americans by citizens. So maybe the United States and it’s citizens should worry less about people “disrespecting” the symbols of freedom, and more about actually attaining freedom. Canada has proven a great example for what it means to be free. The United States should start taking notes.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article105618381.html

http://media.prosperity.com/2015/pdf/publications/PI2015Brochure_WEB.pdf