Originally Posted by
Bell_ringer
Of course, if the law says its ok, I'm sure you won't mind them exercising their freedoms.
And indeed most people do not mind in the US. But that's not what gets reported. The old media saw, "If it bleeds it leads", can also be expressed in a less rhyming form, "If it whines it leads". Hence hit pieces like the one in Outside.
The problem in the US is not that people are selfish, it is that a) they are stupid and b) our media is a huge stupidity amplifier. And, arguably, it is the stupid folk, and the media who exploits them, that are ultimately the ones who are being selfish.
We are all well familiar with the type of stupidity associated with those who choose to live near an airport and then complain about the airport. But there are things called zoning laws in the US, as there are in the rest of the world, and this same stupidity happens in innumerable other ways. Folks who move to the country because they think it is somehow more peaceful, only to realize after the fact that all their neighbors enjoy legal target practice in their backyards, or fireworks, or that they legally raise Guinea hens (incredibly noisy fowl), or have roosters, or enjoy riding dirt bikes and ATVs. All time-honored US country traditions. Or those who move to a mixed use zone and find out that somebody is, legally, opening a cremation facility, or a pig farm, or junk yard, or some other "distasteful" industrial operation. My favorite form of this stupidity are those who willingly, knowingly, settle in flood zones--that ought to be illegal!
But the reality is that these conflicts do not occur all that often, they are not all that prevalent. But you'd never know that based on the torrent of "news" vomiting out of our "stupidity amplifier system", aka media, both mass and social.
That said, the freedoms, and concomitant responsibilities, afforded US residents are greater than that found in other parts of the world. Hence there is more opportunity for such conflicts here. To those who have grown up and lived under more rigid rules and regulations, it may seem the height of folly to allow that much freedom. Conversely, those raised in the US often find the environment in other countries stultifying.
I wish that we could divide the world, or even the US, into zones such that people could easily move to and live under the rules that they like. Alas, that is not the human condition. Humans will always seek to control other humans. Interestingly, freedom lovers don't seem to do that as much, while those who seek to control under the guise of making the world better are much more interested in, and much better at, obtaining that control and making people do what they want. Which is actually the less selfish of the two? The one who is live and let live, or the one who says live like I tell you to live? And thus the slow slide towards socialism and/or facism that history has shown us is the inevitable evolution of every society in history.
In twenty more years, short bloody revolution, the US will be the UK, and you will all have your best wishes come true. In the meantime I'm enjoying myself as much as I possibly can before that happens.