Is Protection Of Personal Freedoms In U.S. Declining ?

In the past, the United States was viewed by most in the world as a bastion of freedom -- a country that had not only established a working democracy, but had a government and Constitution that guaranteed personal freedoms to all of its citizens. That was never actually true (since their have always been groups struggling to get equal rights in the U.S. -- and still are), but that was the image this country projected and most of the world accepted it (because they longed for that same protection of personal freedoms they believed America had).

But that image has been tarnished. The rest of the world has watched as minorities, women, and homosexuals have struggled to get equal rights -- a struggle that continues for all of these groups. And they have seen how many in this country have treated (or rather mistreated) their first minority president. And this has had an effect on how the rest of the world perceives the United States.

Note that in the chart above (from the Pew Research Center), significant portions of the population in many countries no longer believe personal freedoms are protected in the United States -- and in fact, only 63% of the U.S. citizens believe that. As many nations elsewhere have guaranteed those personal freedoms for their own citizens, too many in this country continue to fight to deny those same personal freedoms to others.

I'm not sure whether our personal freedoms are declining or not, but the continual struggle for equal rights and the massive spying on U.S. citizens by the NSA, are certainly creating that perception -- and that is having an effect on how the world, and U.S. citizens, think about the personal freedom protection in this country. The very troubling chart below shows that, in just the last year, there has been a significant erosion in the belief that personal freedoms are protected in the United States.

We made a claim before the world that we are a free nation that guaranteed the freedoms of our citizens. Maybe it's time we actually started living up to that claim.