Thursday, March 12, 2009
Crazy Crap / Woods We're No. 7 in Freedom! We're So Free We're Almost a Third World Country
Posted by Jeff Woods on Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 2:04 PM
click to enlarge
A pair of so-called academics have ranked the states according to degree of freedom, and Tennessee comes in 7th. That seems like good news until you realize that we rank so high because we're "free" from stuff like clean water, safe streets and health care. The "researchers" used some kind of wacky libertarian scale. Dragging us down in the rankings, for example, are sobriety checkpoints and that terrible law making people buckle their seatbelts. Taxaphobics like Ben Cunningham love this study, which should tell you something. New Hampshire ranks No. 1, and New York is last. Big surprise. If they ranked countries, we think Haiti might win. After the jump, what the authors say about Tennessee:
Tennessee (#8 economic, #18 personal, #7 overall) is, along with Virginia, one of the freest states in the South. By one of our measures, Tennessee's over-all tax burden is the lowest in the country (6.8% of corrected GSP). The government debt ratio is also extremely low. Along with West Virginia, Tennessee also has the best gun control laws in the South. However, taxes on alcohol--particularly wine--are quite high. The first offense of marijuana possession is always a misdemeanor, but otherwise the state has fairly harsh marijuana laws. The state is one of three not to require auto liability insurance (permitting self-insurance instead), but it has sobriety check-points, primary seat-belt enforcement, and helmet laws for motor- and bicyclists. Gambling is highly controlled; Tennessee is one of just three states to prohibit even charitable gaming. The state also falls somewhat short on education, with mandatory kindergarten, mandatory registration of private schools, and burdensome notification requirements for home schoolers. Labor laws are above average, but health insurance laws are mediocre. Occupational licensing has gone way too far. Eminent domain has not really been reformed. The state has low cigarette taxes and no smoking bans on private property.
Comments (3)
Showing 1-3 of 3
Do you have any idea what "free" means? How could you mock this? It seems to me that seeing something like this would make a thinking person want to dig a little deeper into the concept of freedom and the reality that if you're not even free enough to decide for your own self whether to wear your seatbelt then you're not very free. And if you can be stopped at random just to see if you're breaking the law, you're not free. And that comes from a wacky libertarian document called the Constitution. Perhaps you should read it sometime.
For a look at the concept of personal liberty, check this:
http://www.isil.org/resources/philosophy-of-liberty-english.swf
like
dislike
Posted by
semperliberi
on 03/13/2009 at 5:28 AM
