A Surprising View of the US, from a Brit...

Hi All,

*MODS, please move if not in the right place*

Stumbled across an article called Mapping Childrens Chances. Basically it is a 13 slide map of the world with applicable colour keys to specific questions. These questions are quite basic i.e. smoking in schools, paid maternity leave etc. It is a global comparison and i would have to say that as a Brit, i am quite shocked at the level of basic rights the citizens of the US are NOT offered by law.

The biggest ever global picture of children’s well-being, education and family life has been assembled into a series of maps by the University of California, Los Angeles. "When you look at a map, everyone's eyes go straight to where they live," says Dr Jody Heymann, director of the university's World Policy Analysis Centre. In the US, they might be surprised to see how unusual it is not to have a statutory right to maternity pay. Source: World Policy Analysis Centre, Adult Labour Database www.childrenschances.org

I was wondering what your thoughts were on this ATS? In my opinion it makes quite surprising reading...

* see extracted slides below...

reply to post by jrmcleod
Up until a few short decades ago, America was the paradigm of opportunity and success until the liberals got into power and dragged us down to the lowest common denominator. How did they do this? By creating a constituency dependent upon their handouts. Instead of creating opportunity, they created despair. Odd isn't it that conservatives are those considered cold-hearted.

There were always poor and there will always be poor, but making sure enough stay that way to ensure their vote is hard work. With the media's help, liberals appear to have been up to the task. Now we have 50mil on food stamps and public subsidy, with an ever increasing demographic crossing our border. The land of opportunity is dead and unceremoniously buried through the greed of the labor unions, big business and their partners in Congress.

Originally posted by Bilk22
reply to post by jrmcleod

 

Up until a few short decades ago, America was the paradigm of opportunity and success until the liberals got into power and dragged us down to the lowest common denominator. How did they do this? By creating a constituency dependent upon their handouts. Instead of creating opportunity, they created despair. Odd isn't it that conservatives are those considered cold-hearted.

There were always poor and there will always be poor, but making sure enough stay that way to ensure their vote is hard work. With the media's help, liberals appear to have been up to the task. Now we have 50mil on food stamps and public subsidy, with an ever increasing demographic crossing our border. The land of opportunity is dead and unceremoniously buried through the greed of the labor unions, big business and their partners in Congress.

And the John Birch society strikes again!

OP- It shouldn't surprise you that the U.S is well behind other industrialized nations when it comes to social issues. The U.S. is the most right wing/conservative industrialized country on Earth. Countries that choose conservative policies will by definition not move forward.

reply to post by jrmcleod

As, an American, I found these charts you provided quite telling. The final chart which you showed indicated that our country was favorable where it came to our drinking water. Well, where I live, we have well water, and they do fracking in our area; therefore my family is unable to safely drink the water coming from the well. We have to send it through an expensive filtration system, or purchase drinking water from the store.

This is crazy, because even when we have a good thing going like drinking water, someone wants to go and ruin it.
Here is a link to the harmful effects of fracking on well ground water:

www.csmonitor.com...

I think the most shocking for me were:

1. No maternity paid leave for mothers
2. Smoking isn't banned at school
3. No discrimination laws in work based on ethnicity

When "outsiders" view the US, they see it as a country to aspire towards because of how the world portrays the US (media, Hollywood etc.), but the truth is that (what i believe to be) some fairly basic laws aren't applicable.

I don't know how to put this exactly, but while that may be a comprehensive view of national policies, it's not exactly a comprehensive view of how things really are. Speaking from a U.S. perspective

For instance, there may not be a federal law making it mandatory that employers give employees x amount of days maternity leave, but that's not to say it doesn't happen,because it does. It's one of things that are left to the discretion of the employer. Most people here in the U.S., believe it or not, don't want the Government to be intrusive to the point where they make it mandatory for private businesses to do things like that. Or mandate that employers HAVE to give employee's certain benefits such as paid breastfeeding time. That used to be all and fine back when businesses had ethics. Now, they cut benefits like that because it cuts into profits. This is where we need the Government to step in and take more control, but you can't trust them to do right by people either. Either way, we're screwed.

Really, the more you look at that map, the more you can say "Well Russia treats their children and parents, by and large, better than the U.S." While that may be true, it's also true that those things that are better for the children are actually mandated by the Government without any chances for certain states or regions to say no. The way it is here in the U.S. This is what a lot of people fail to realize I think. The communist and socialist countries may be more hard-lined about national policies, but according to those maps, they're also more beneficial to their children.

Pretty interesting stuff, thanks for sharing it.

Fortunately, these maps are beyond SKEWED... Here's why. It only takes into account those things provided BY LAW. However, many employers provide these things, BY CUSTOM and BY EMPLOYEE EXPECTATIONS. I've never worked for a company that DIDN'T provide some paid leave or paid maternity leave, etc. So, by ignoring this, the charts show a very skewed picture.

As for disabilities, there are both national and state regulations and programs dealing with assisting the disabled. So it being colored as NONE is simply wrong. You should see the Florida fields of a student's record regarding this, about 5 PAGES of information....

Also, that one about discrimination is completely wrong. Reference Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

And smoking banned in schools? Smoking is banned in nearly every public building (and where it isn't, there are dedicated smoking areas). In addition, you need to be 18 to smoke. So, effectively, yes, it is banned in schools.

That said, I'd love to have you European's vacation(holiday) rules. Here in the US, most of us would fear our jobs wouldn't be there if we took more than a week's vacation. The concept of a month vacation is completely alien to us (well, most of us).