This study doesn't show that liberal states are less free. It defines free as being politically reflective of their ideology and goes from there. It has absolutely nothing to do with your personal independence, opportunity, and fundamental rights.

It is utterly idiotic. It calls a state unfree because of labor laws that protect workers and spending on roads. However, it doesn't count against a state at all if it has huge swaths of abject poverty or a huge prison population (though it does count against victimless crimes).

Similarly, if a state require that private and home schools be remotely competent that is horrible and unfree, but a completely failed overall educational system isn't.

Or a state is more economically free if the taxes are lower, regardless of if the people actually have any money or opportunity. And any government spending is unfree, regardless of what it is doing, even it helps people have more choices and wealth.

In some ways, it is just kind of silly. I mean, honestly, to say that a sparely populated state like South Dakota is more free than New York or California because it spends less on infrastructure is beyond asinine.

If they did this with countries, Somolia would win. No laws on anything, no government spending whatsoever! Plus, the pirates don't need a license, and aren't guaranteed disability insurance.

More people who cite this should actually read it. It's ax-grinding. This wasn't any kind of a real study, they just fixed the criteria so that they could put forth their agenda. They pushed up the red states, avoiding the bible belt to be more "libertarian", and throwing the evil, liberal states to the bottom, mostly because they support public institutions more.

I'm not actually sure why the Republicans love this study so much, though. New Hampshire and Colorado both voted for Obama. If you read the study, it's not hugely fond of "traditional values" or whatever you are calling them now, though it panders to Republicans by not including gay marriage or abortion (because controlling your personal relationships and body has nothing to do with freedom, unlike not paying your taxes).

every aspect of a socialized government is buisness.politicians are in buisness collecting our tax dollars.prisons are in buisness to fill cells,the cells are filled by politicians whom make more laws and reduce our freedoms in order to deem everybody a felon and take away ones rights to bear arms..when the citizen no longer can defend themselves they are deemed easy prey..and the cycle repeats itself..when you watch cops on tv whats the first thing a cop ask a person when questioning them?chances are it usually pertains to when is the last time you were arrested or what are you on parole for..! we are automatically guilty before innocent and it usually is not the officers fault they are just doing what they are told to do by a senior authority.the more freedoms we loose the more police recieve for an annual budget although the tax dollars which they recieve usually do not trickle down they are reserved in a general fund and where that fund is spent?? youre guess is probably as good as the next guys ..

What ‘social liberals’ don’t realize is that once the government assumes responsibility for their lives it, not they, will be deciding how they live and what they can and cannot do.

The 4 years America fought WWII was over four times as expensive in American lives as the 64 years since, RedLeader. Your foreign policy philosophy was laid to rest by WWII, and trying to revive it is like trying to put the mushroom cloud back in the bomb casing. In case you haven’t noticed, almost every enemy going against the countries you listed, were or are our enemies as well. 9/11 should have adequately demonstrated what a bad idea it is to wait until even a relatively small group out to destroy us gets here. If stopping them there means some democrat voters have to get off their cans and work for a living to help pay for it, oh well.

Tshirt-doc, If 20% of our population are crooks, having 20% incarcerated is a good thing. That said, those guilty of victimless crimes (other than public endangerment crimes like DUI), shouldn’t be prosecuted, and violent criminals shouldn’t be released early.

why does the us lead the world in prison population? in 2007 the us had 738 per 100,000 people in jail.
cuba had 487
russia had 611
rwanda had 691

that's because prisons are a business. and if they have empty cells, they aren't making enough money.

you don't want to learn but i will try anyway. there was a saying:
The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws. ~Tacitus, Annals

but you don't want to here that. anymore than you want to watch this video of judges sending minors to a jail that that they had built, and were receiving kickbacks because of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qMnbZ7BKCU


http://hdrstats.undp.org/indicators/265.html

you need to take off your blinders

That Should be:

This REALLY shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who paid attention..

Sorry folks.....

T-Shirt, you gotta get off of this. And I suppose that those in jail have nothing to do with committing crimes, huh? I live in one of the smallest states(in area) in the country and we have 14 state prisons and want to know something? Every single inmate deserves to be where they're at. Nothing is scarier than to have an inmate talk to you about their crime like you were talking baseball.

If only this story wasn't linked to Newsmax. My leftist friends won't even blink at it.

A pro-gun-rights group here in VA noted something of this a while back...most of the folks fighting the hardest for VA gun rights are from places like NY. They know what it's like to have freedoms taken away, and they don't want to see it happen again in this state.

One could extrapolate that the states with less freedom and more taxation tend to vote Democrat while the states with more freedom and less taxes tend not to vote Democrat.

It makes one wonder.... or does it?
With that said, why not just have two Americas out there.... just like that letter Neal had on his site awhile back.

i read this the other day. its about the prison, jail, probation and parole populations in each of the 50 states. who is worst on their list? my home state of georgia, where one out of 13 is in prison, jail, probation and parole. in 1982, the figure was 1 in 37
adults. do you think georgians, have in the past 25 years, have gone criminally insane? don't answer that!

why is that? i know why. its called control.

http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/report_detail.aspx?id=49382

....wouldn't you want to see America treat other countries with less paternalism if you believe less paternalism is a good thing? In other words not giving 10 billion dollars to Pakistan and not shelling out billions to Israel? Expecting places like Japan, Korea and Germany to take responsibility for their own security(military) rather than relying on the paychecks of Americans who can no longer afford this kind of garrison welfare anymore?