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Originally Posted by Daniel_
I think it's not "US=gun nuts vs. Britain=peaceniks", I think it's "US=personal freedom at the possible expense of collective safety, vs. Britain=public safety at the possible expense of collective freedom".
The point being that in this country, we have far more controls on all sorts of areas of life many of which confuse and anger Americans, but in consequence we have fewer people dead of gunshots, fewer people allowed to die because their medical cover was insufficient, more controls over food ingredients, more controls over industrial pollution, and so on.
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I don't think it is like this at all. At the level of discourse, maybe, but in actuality its nothing like that. In several respects the US, and many American citizens, are much more comfortable imposing draconian restrictions on personal freedom, usually claiming it to be in the name of collective safety. If on healthcare provider and guns the discourse of personal freedom is very strong in the US, the same is not true for sex, drugs and law enforcement.
In fact, I think few western countries regulate sex to the extent that the US does, with its sodomy laws, its indecency laws, and its anti-gay laws. Same with drugs, where in most states you can get a pretty strong opiate for pain, but mention medical marijuana and you are in trouble.
Just as an extreme example, in the state I live in right now, there are less regulations concerning the buying and selling of guns then there are regulating the buying and selling of cough syrup.
National cultures are usually schizophrenic like that, so it is not exclusive to the US or any country. What works at the level of discourse is often very different from reality.