Humanity has a few universal values — we protect the lives of our children, we protect our freedom of speech, our freedom to believe whatever we want without being persecuted for it, and so on.
These basic principles are, in turn, understood and implemented very differently in different parts of our world — and we're not talking about emerging economies with fundamentalist or religious rulers. These, it seems, have pretty different understandings of the same things — and this is reflected in their rules and regulations, too.
What's acceptable in Europe, for example, is out of the question in the United States. And we're not only talking of regulatory differences like the one concerning, say, online gambling. All EU citizens can benefit from the attractive jackpots and the latest casino games at Red Flush online under the same conditions. The EU is not a federal government enforcing laws as it sees fit, but a regulatory body that creates frameworks that are decided to benefit the majority of the member states' citizens.
In the U.S., there are federal laws that completely disregard the individual states' legislation. Take marijuana, for example: it is legal for medical use in several states, and for recreational use in many others, yet the DEA still classifies it as a Schedule I drug, along with heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote. And to stick with the above example (the one of gambling): although right now the states do have the freedom to decide for themselves whether they want to allow it or not, a federal ban could always be implemented to override their decisions.
And these decisions are often made under the pressure of stakeholders and groups that have a dubious motivation — and this motivation is often fueled by bigotry. Sometimes, it's fake bigotry, with strong monetary interest behind it (the anti-online gambling movement, for example, had slogans that involved religion's opposition to gambling, but it was strongly supported — and funded — by one of the biggest casino billionaires of the United States, Las Vegas Sands chairman Sheldon Adelson). In a country where church and state are officially separated, religion — or rather bigotry and fundamentalism — have a serious effect on a variety of policies. These include questions like gay marriage, sex ed in schools and beyond, and the right of women to have an abortion, among others.
These are all things that are accepted in most European countries (there are a few exceptions, like Romania for example, where they are still considered a taboo, albeit there, the church is still a pretty powerful factor) but still a subject of heated debate in the United States.
So, whatever we consider “acceptable” depends a lot on policymakers — and, ultimately, on our society.
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