Land of the free? Not so much. Americans' sense of freedom drops

From an article by Gram Slattery published in the Christian Science Monitor about the rapid decline in the sense of freedom Americans feel since Barack Obama took office:

This Independence Day, Americans will celebrate the nation’s core values, especially freedom. But according to a new international poll, Americans have become significantly "less satisfied with the freedom to choose what they want to do with their lives."

Seventy-nine percent of US residents are satisfied with their level of freedom, down from 91 percent in 2006, according to the Gallup survey, released Tuesday.

That 12 point drop pushes the US from among the highest in the world in terms of perceived freedom to 36th place, outside the top quartile of the 120 countries sampled, trailing Paraguay, Rwanda, and the autonomous region of Nagarno-Karabakh.

Only 10 nations experienced as sharp a drop as the United States in terms of the satisfaction of citizens with their level of freedom: Egypt, Greece, Italy, Venezuela, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Romania, Yemen, Pakistan, and Spain.

Land of the free? Not so much. Americans' sense of freedom drops, poll finds.