The prominence of a loud minority which has gone of the rails is not a universal symptom, though.

It's in my opinion a society's essential requirement to keep dangerous people from power (not from voting, of course). Many Western countries are much less about to fail spectacularly in this regard.
Just look at the current firearms regulation debate:
The NRA's leadership which represents a minority of NRA members (in regard to its stance concerning universal background checks, loopholes etc.) who are in turn a minority of the citizens effectively plays the role of representing one half (side) of the debate. It does even so after an obvious record of fearmongering, hypocrisy, inconsistency and distortions.

A society working well would not have paid much attention to the NRA leadership and would instead have moved on with overwhelmingly popular measures such as universal background checks a long time ago.


It's dysfunctionality that dominates, not some supposedly unique "freedom" to be proud of.


Sadly, this dysfunctionality extends to foreign policy and eve the question of war or not war. This is where it becomes important to foreigners.