Not to put words in the OP's mouth, but I think it's not so much about the USA's not respecting human rights as about that _and_ its having too much power for everybody's good.
By not having to pay taxes to USGov, they probably hope to make that power diminish.
EDIT: Good God, I've always been the guy arguing with your average America hater that we should count ourselves lucky that in the monopolar world we live in, the US is that only superpower that remains (as other candidates, such as Russia and China, would be a lot worse for everybody). I still think this is the case, but it's getting harder and harder to justify the position, with USGov seemingly hell bent on tranforming the country into a surveillance state.
What big liberal democracy isn't becoming a surveillance state? The U.K. seems 10-15 years ahead of us on that front, and people seem to like it just fine over there. Maybe the answer is just that pervasive surveillance isn't something that upsets people?
Maybe that's because the US exports the surveillance state, not because the locals like it so much. It will be interesting to see if any US allies go their own way on this issue.
At least they dont have Guantanamo with prisoners with the same racial/religious profile..
wake up dude, US is at the end of the list when it comes to human rights.. (not to say the damage in human rights it has caused to other countries like cuba, iran or iraq, hurting economy or with wars)
Where are you going to go? People playing up third world countries don't know shit. The day-to-day corruption in nearly every such country is so bad that after awhile you'd rather have someone reading your e-mail but otherwise leaving you alone. And let me tell you from first hand experience--it is soul sucking to live in a country like that where you're constantly surrounded by people living on the edge of subsistence (or if you aren't you've segregated yourself into 1%-er bubbles, which is its own kind of bad).
Look at the BRIC countries, which are supposedly on an upward trajectory. Russia, India, and China are out off the bat. Russia and China do not have functioning democracies, and while India does, it is corrupt from top to bottom. Someone commented about Brazil yesterday how debts are inherited in that country, not to mention it's got outrageous income inequality.
Out of the big European countries, you've got the U.K. with cameras on every corner, and France where until recently it was a crime to insult the President. It has come out that Germany spies on people too, though apparently less than the U.S. to a degree (I guess just because of shorter retention periods).
Libertarians like to put up Hong Kong as some shining example, but that's just proof that libertarians don't really value democracy (since Hong Kong doesn't even pretend to have democracy). Hong Kong apparently does less internet surveillance, except if you're a pro-democracy activist in which case all bets are off.
That leaves the Scandinavian countries, I suppose, but I have a hard time seeing a lot of libertarian-minded people fleeing the U.S. for that collectivist utopia.
> That leaves the Scandinavian countries, I suppose, but I have a hard time seeing a lot of libertarian-minded people fleeing the U.S. for that collectivist utopia.
As a pragmatic libertarian, I am willing to pay many more dollars in taxes to provide services I don't agree with so long as little to none of my tax dollars go towards bombing brown people and spying on citizens.
I hear Human Rights Watch maintains a rank-order list. Probably Amnesty Internation does as well. But I'm about to leave to go home or otherwise I'd dig it up myself.
