What rights does America not allow its citizen?

Universal health-care. Real separation of Church and State.

The right to live no matter what re: the death penalty.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir pretty much hit it on the head. Most injustices or rights “disallowed” spring forth from the lack of true separation of Church and State.

I’m not a defender of America but we should remember when we say “the rest of the world” there are many. many countries that have fewer rights than we do. You seem to be comparing us to the Western nations of Europe mainly. Having said that, I will add to Simone de Beauvoir’s list the right to a secure old age.

Gender equality and privacy are not constiutionally protected. Marriage rights are not universally extended to all consenting adults (I’m referring to both same-gender and polygamy). The constitutional separation of religion and state has been blurred or disregarded. The right of a woman to make reproductive choices is only recognized in some places. The right to universal health care is still not acknowledged, even under the monstrosity currently pending in Congress. The right of armed self-defense varies widely from one jurisdiction to another.

Our system has a tendency to swing from underreaction to overreaction in many areas. The current system of election campaign financing means that the desires of corporations and well-financed “interest groups” have precedence over the will of the people. Politicians are more interested in manipulating public opinion rather than following the will of the people.

Our foreign policy over the last century has little to do with what the American people want; superpower status and this unilateral “Pax Americana” was never put to a vote. The events of 9/11 called for vengeance against al-Qaeda and their Taliban rogue-state protectors but there was no call to invade or occupy anywhere. Our foreign policy is largely driven by the desires of large corporate interests; a country that lacks resources that corpoarations covet gets little interest from the US.

Marijuana legalization .. not that I’d ever vote for it.. but just to answer the question… it IS legal in many other places… XD

@NaturalMineralWater Good point. I’d forgotten that one. Another instance of government intruding into peoples lives without proper reason.

Alcohol. You can vote and go to war but not drink at 18. Some leftover from the prohibition I feel, but I’ve read studies that suggest that number is the age your body can really handle it. However, Europeans seem to be doing fine at younger ages so I don’t know. I just think there needs to be a consistent age for all three. When you can be ezpected to die for your country you should have the right to enjoy a drink.

The right to die (i.e., euthanasia).

I think there’s some fuzzy “rights” talk going on in this discussion.

For instance, as much as I smoke, and as much as I want pot legalized or at least decriminalized, recreational drug use is not a human right. At least, not in my opinion, and not according to any authority I know of.

Are we talking human rights, or are we simply talking human activities? Shouldn’t the State limit the actions of its citizenry to some degree? Hence murderers are put in jail? Isn’t it natural that, on minor points (drug use), there will always be disagreement? Of course the US is notorious for failures of logic in its justice system, for hypocrisy, for claiming a separation of Church and State while religious morality clearly affects the laws (gay marriage, marijuana use, abortion, euthanasia, flamboyancy in the military). This is a serious problem, but it doesn’t necessarily have to do with “rights.”

Rights are bare-bones of what a State should be. “Rights” talks about what a person can’t be denied: it doesn’t talk about what a person should be provided with. It can get very tricky when we’re considering systemic classism, like they have in the US… perhaps no one’s denied, by law, access to any social services, but certainly there are barriers between certain social communities and social services that the US is doing nothing to remove. How does that kind of thing fit in to this discussion?

Anyway, to answer your question, for me, it’s summed up like this: according to Article 25 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “Everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living.” The US does not support this right in its citizenry.

The right to freedom of religion. Some people are still prosecuted or not allowed to follow certain religious beliefs more because of politics vs. other reasons but for some communities this is a real issue.

Freedom of expression and speech. ( censorship ) Also what Simone said. Also marijuana should completely be legalized

somewhere along the way I feel we lost sight of the rights to pursue happiness, maintain privacy, and hold the government directly accountable to the people. Those seem to have been chipped away at by society, law, and government. Oh and let’s not overlook fair taxation, too often the tax code is used as a threat/punishment/reward system.

It seems like the freedom of association is being chipped away. Many laws on the books criminalize providing “material support” to terrorist groups. The problems with this are: 1.) Material support can be as little as taking someone’s laundry to the dry cleaners; and 2.) A terrorist group is whatever the State department says it is. These laws are so unconstitutionally vague (my opinion, but the Supreme Court is hearing a case challenging them) that they represent the government trying to control who associates with whom.

@Dr_Dredd good point, one I wouldn’t thought of but it is certainly true

A harmless bottle of beer for a 20-year-old adult.

Discreet public breastfeeding of babies (which is a no-brainer in Germany for example). I think it’s a human right of the baby.

Affordable health insurance for everyone (not yet, but hopefully pretty soon).