Do we hav freedom ? * You could say that there is more Freedom of speech, because in the US you can say ANYTHING while in many European countries hate speech is forbidden.
That's a question of personal opinion, personally I prefer when hate speech is forbidden, I don't think Freedom of speech's role is to protect racist/xenophobic/homophobic pigs.

Americans also have the "freedom" to own guns (though it isn't completely forbidden in other Western countries, just less easy), but this "freedom" is considered barbaric in most of the Western world and is even seen as a threat towards the freedom of others.
The fact that it leads to high crime rates doesn't help.
For some reason, Americans often seem to associate "Freedom" with guns and most Westerners don't understand that.

Freedom of Religion is VERY different among "free" countries. Issues linked to Religion are also treated very differently.

"Red Rover", the American Bill of Rights is far, really far from being alone.
For example, the slightly older French "Universal Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" is generally considered as the reference for Human Rights.
As for the religious aspect of the American Bill or Rights, claiming it's a good thing is a matter of personnal opinion. That and its lack of universalism (it's only about American citizens) are probably the reason the "French" Bill of Rights is considered the reference.

You (like other answerers) also seem to think that Democracy (and everything it implies politcally) is an American invention and that it only exists in the US, which is very, very much wrong !

You already knew money can't buy love — but it turns out it can't buy happiness either.

The real key to finding happiness is personal autonomy and freedom, which, in many cases, can be the result of having a sufficient amount of money.

This is good news for entrepreneurs and small business owners, who, perhaps, were ahead of the curve when it came to figuring out that working for oneself is the key to finding happiness.

That's the finding of new research published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

What is Freedom?
I was sitting with Tammy and Logan (they of the tiny house) and with our friend Michelle, who also lives in a tiny house. We brainstormed ideas. One obvious answer was that, in many ways, money equals freedom. When you have money, you have more options. Or, more precisely, when you have no debt, when you spend less than you earn, then you have more options.
But freedom is more than money, of course.
“To me, freedom means being able to what you want, when you want,” I said. We talked about that for a bit. We talked again about how money makes this more likely.
“But I think to be free,” said Michelle, “you have to somehow be aware of what your options are. You have to be conscious that you’re making choices that reflect your values, choices that allow you to do what you want, when you want.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
After more discussion, we realized that each person at our table already felt very, very free. None of us worries about money: I’ve experienced a windfall; Tammy and Logan and Michelle have intentionally minimized their expenses so that money is no longer a stressor. We each do work we’re passionate about. We have good friends, we have purpose. We’ve adopted lifestyles that give us freedom, or at least a sense of it.
“I think a lot of feeling free comes down to shifting priorities,” Tammy said. “It means choosing to relate to money, and other parts of life, in ways that others don’t.” Tammy wasn’t saying that she thinks we’re better than anyone else — far from it! — but that in order to obtain this feeling of freedom, we’ve each made choices that we like but others might not. Such as living in small spaces. (If I’m doing my math right, the four of us live in three separate spaces that combine to total 985 square feet. My apartment is the bulk of that.)
Money and Freedom
Money can’t buy happiness, it can’t buy love, and it can’t buy freedom either. But money does make obtaining these goals much, much easier. When you have money, you don’t have to worry about the basics. To re-visit Psychology 101, money helps you build the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

When you have money, you’re able to take care of your physiological needs, like finding food and water. You’re also able to better take care of your body and your belongings, able to afford a safe place to sleep. Because money makes it easier to have these things, it further grants you the freedom to focus on higher parts of the hierarchy, such as self-esteem, confidence, and achievement. If you worried each day about how you were going to feed yourself and your family, you wouldn’t have time to pursue these higher aims. You wouldn’t have the freedom to do so.
But here’s the thing: I don’t think money does buy freedom if the person with the money becomes obsessed with protecting it or with obtaining more. Money is a tool. It’s useful only insofar as it helps you achieve your goals.
An old friend contacted me by Facebook the other day. We’re going to get together for coffee soon. (Where “coffee” is a euphemism for “any other drink because J.D. doesn’t like coffee”.) During our conversation, my friend asked, “So what do you do now that you sold your web site? Do you not work? Do you just go to the gym and travel the world?”
Ha. I wish. I feel like I’m busier than I’ve ever been. But to tell the truth, I’m busy in a different way. In the past, I was busy, but I was busy doing things that other people wanted. Now, I do things that I want. Most of the time, even my work feels like play.
I’m a happy man. I have a good life. I’m able to do what I want, when I want. This isn’t because I’ve bought my freedom and my happiness, but there’s no question that having savings, eliminating debt, and living below my means has given me peace of mind, has allowed me to take risks that I might have otherwise avoided.
Gender Inequality
Women are not equal with men. The last forty years have been spent trying to convince the human race that women are equal to men. This is not true. At least in education.
Mothers are the first educators of children. This is true in America and even more true in other countries around the world. In China, there are strong cultural beliefs that the mother must remain at home for at least a month after giving birth. Even in America, and especially after the family medical leave act was passed, mothers are the ones that stay at home with the infant. Hundreds of millions of mothers all over the world still live in a society where mothers stay at home while the fathers farm or work outside the home.
Most teachers are women. I am the professional development coordinator in a school district of 14,000 students and 1,300 teachers. By far, the majority of the teachers are women. I lived and taught in China for eight years. There too, the vast majority of the teachers are women.
Children have a special close connection with their mothers that can't be matched with the relationship they have with their fathers. It's often said that if women ruled the world, there would be no wars because, as mothers, they couldn't bring themselves to send their sons to war. A world ruled by men seems to have no problem doing so. And now they send their daughters, too.
So, as the first educators of children and the ones that have that special connection with the offspring of this world, women are indeed not equal with men. They are superior.
In China, and in many other countries, America included, when the family can only afford to send one child to school or university, and they must choose between the son or daughter, it's the son that goes. From a systems point of view, where the effects are often separated from causes by months and sometimes years and decades in time, sendind the boy to school instead of the girl makes no sense. An uneducated and unsophisticaed mother can't help but to pass on the same to her children. If we are serious about educating our children, we should make sure our mothers are educated first, and fathers second if there must be a choice.
Sociologists know that with each year of education added on to a woman's life, the likelyhood of her having less children rather than more increases. Education of women is now a favored method of population control in many developing countries. China is often criticized for their One Child Policy. To be fair, the policy is only a short term solution and has resulted in some unwelcome practices that likely were not anticipated before its implementation. However, to China's credit, and this is never mentioned in western news when the One Child Policy is criticized, they are more than halfway through a 40+ year campaign aimed at 100% compulsary education. They have already nearly achieved 97% 9th grade compulsary education. There are more Chinese k-12 students in public schools than there are American citizens. Half of them are girls; girls likely to have less children than more, and of their own free will and choice, based on sociological statistics because they have received an education. China plans to have 12th grade compulsary education by 2020. That means China will have higher high school graduation rates than America has.
Of course, fathers have a significant influence on their children. An educated father will no doubt have a more positive influence on his children than an uneducated one. However, it appears that mothers, and women (as school teachers) in general exert a greater influence on our children than fathers and men do. Therefore, women, from an educational point of view, are more important than men. In whatever country in the world, if finances or other restraints force parents to choose between sending their son or daughter to school, whether it be elementary, secondary or postsecondary, the daughter should be the one to go. In this regard, women are not equal with men. They are superior

Purposes in Writing
When a person writes something, he or she has purposes for writing. The writer may have motivations of which he or she is unaware. The writer may also have mixed, and even contradictory, motivations for writing.
For instance, a student writing an essay for a class may wish to please the teacher and to amuse his or her classmates. Unfortunately, what might amuse classmates the teacher could find unacceptable.
In general, people write either because they are required to or because they choose to write for their own reasons.
Required writing happens on the job and in school. Self-chosen writing happens in many circumstances. Both required and self-chosen writing can be of many kinds. In either case, reflection on different purposes for writing can help one produce the most effective piece of writing.
Roman Jakobson's model of the communication situation provides a good framework for classifying the varied purposes of writing.
Adapted to written communication, Jakobson's model has these parts: 1. Writer 2. Reader 3. Context 4. Message 5. Contact 6. Code
Writing can be seen as having six general types of purpose, each type of purpose focusing on one of the parts of the communication model. 1. Writer: Expressive purposes. One may write simply to express one's feelings, attitudes, ideas, and so on. This type of writing doesn't take the reader into consideration; instead, it focuses on the writer's feelings, experience, and needs. Expressive writing may take the form of poetry, journals, letters, and, especially, free writing. Often, a person will do expressive writing and then be disappointed when readers don't respond to it. 2. Reader: Conative purposes. Conative writing seeks to affect the reader. Persuasive writing is conative; so is writing intended to entertain the reader. Writing intended to arouse the reader's feelings is conative. Conative writing may take about any form, so long as its intention to persuade the reader or affect the reader emotionally. 3. Context: Informative purposes. Informative writing refers to something external to the writing itself, with the purpose of informing the reader. For instance, this page is informative, as are the other components of this Map. In our times, informative writing is usually prose, although in earlier periods poetry was used for informative purposes. 4. Message: Poetic purposes. Poetic (or literary or stylistic) purposes focus on the message itself—on its language, on the way the elements of language are used, on structure and pattern both on the level of phrase and of the overall composition. Poetic writing can be in prose as well as in verse. Fiction has poetic purposes. Anytime one writes with an emphasis on the way the language is used, one has a poetic purpose. 5. Contact: Phatic purposes. Phatic language (and nonverbal communication) establishes and maintains contacts between speakers or between writer and reader. In speaking, for instance, we may greet someone by saying, "Howya doin?" or Hozit goin?" These questions are not requests for information. They are intended to establish and maintain friendly contact. Phatic purposes are not significant in most writing. The use of greetings and closings in letters is one example of phatic purpose in writing. 6. Code: Metalinguistic purposes. Comments on a piece of writing are metalinguistic. If a student attaches a note to an essay to explain why the essay is late, the note is metalinguistic in relation to the essay. An author's preface to a book is another example of metalinguistic purpose in writing.
If you think about it, you will realize that many pieces of writing have more than one purpose. A poem may be intended to arouse the feeling of sadness in the reader (conative), express the poet's feelings (expressive), and use the language imaginatively and forcefully (poetic).
When you write, define the purposes of your writing. Decide what your primary purpose is and subordinate the other purposes to it. If you have conflicting purposes, be aware of that, and try to resolve the conflict or exploit it to make the writing more intense.
I have discussed the purposes of writing from the writer's point of view, not the reader's. The reader's purposes are discussed with interpretation. But for now, consider that the reader's purposes may be quite different from, and may conflict with, the writer's purposes. A poet may have written a poem to experiment with the language. A reader may read the poem seeking biographical information on the poet. Such conflicts and tensions produce much of the energy and excitement of literature.