United States Falls in ‘Human Freedom Index’ Rankings

Accuracy in Academia ^ | April 10, 2017 | Spencer Irvine

[Academiadotorg]

America’s bureaucratic largesse as well as its erosion of property rights and rule of law are affecting the country's Human Freedom Index, while Hong Kong remains the top-ranked country with even Communist China looming overhead. The U.S. dropped to twenty-third in the world from nineteenth, while Switzerland, New Zealand, Ireland and Denmark round out the top six countries in the index. Canada, America's northern neighbor, ranks sixth in the world and Mexico ranks seventy-seventh.

The Cato Institute released its jointly-produced 'Human Freedom Index' with other think tanks from across the world, ranging from Canada's Fraser Institute to Switzerland's Liberales Institut for the second consecutive year.

[Academiadotorg]

If there was ever a case in which you wanted to say, "We're number 1!," this is it.

[GoldenPup]

United States Falls in ‘Human Freedom Index’ Rankings

Who gives a rats ass? Not me. Pissonthemall!

[Enchante]

Freedom is precarious just about everywhere, but I’d much rather live here than in Hong Kong!

For sure, we need a renewal of appreciation of freedom and a huge push to secure our freedoms more fully in many areas, especially free thought and expression, property rights, and so much more.

Leftards are always assaulting our freedoms.

[heshtesh]

And the more scum we let in the lower we will go!

[Psalm 144]

Domestic freedom is an area where Trump will improve things in all likelihood.

[Rocky Mountain Wild Turkey]

Tell this to Über drivers in Italy ....

[BenLurkin]

Not if Red China stands ahead of us in the rankings now.

It’s bogus.

[Huskrrrr]

Trump voters certainly are seeing their first amendment rights eroding. s/

[Neoliberalnot]

Ranking based on what? This is complete BS.

[Raymann]

So Hong Kong where can’t buy a gun, be elected to office unless you’re approved by Beijing and can’t vote for governor anyway is freer then us? Give me a break.

[dsrtsage]

What happened? Did Trump reduce the number of things LBGQT people are allowed to ram their wangs into?

[Rusty0604]

Hopefully President Trump will get us back there.

[Sasparilla]

...United States Falls in ‘Human Freedom Index’ Rankings...

If that’s true, it’s based on loss of individual freedoms lost during the Obama years.

[SandRat]

Just the sourcename tells the reports worth; another FALSE NEWS site it is.

[Verginius Rufus]

They aren’t saying that Red China is ahead of the US. They are saying Hong Kong is #1 despite having Red China right next door.

[csivils]

So many knee-jerk reactions.

It is a real index, has been around for a long time and measures individual and economic freedoms. The US started off very high and has been falling each year during the Obama administration. Hopefully Trump can reverse this.

A slightly different index from Heritage (also mentioned in the article) has the US at #17. Read the first two paragraphs from the assessment and tell me just how fake this sounds:

http://www.heritage.org/index/country/unitedstates

---

Large budget deficits and a high level of public debt, both now reflected in the Index methodology, have contributed to the continuing decline in America’s economic freedom. Having registered its lowest economic freedom score ever, the United States is no longer among the world’s 15 freest economies.

The anemic economic recovery since the great recession has been characterized by a lack of labor market dynamism and depressed levels of investment. The substantial expansion of government’s size and scope, increased regulatory and tax burdens, and the loss of confidence that has accompanied a growing perception of cronyism, elite privilege, and corruption have severely undermined America’s global competitiveness.

---

I was not going to wade through the PDFs, but the index from CATO (and others) looks at the following areas:

Rule of Law
Security and Safety
Movement
Religion
Association, Assembly, and Civil Society
Expression
Relationships
Size of Government
Legal System and Property Rights
Access to Sound Money
Freedom to Trade Internationally
Regulation of Credit, Labor, and Business

Again... it is not a bad list to use.

[yoe]

Could the radical left's allegiance is to an ideology other than democracy, have anything to do with our lack of freedom?

"Democrats have become radicalized by the left. This doesn’t just mean that they pursue all sorts of bad policies. It means that their first and foremost allegiance is to an ideology, not the Constitution, not our country or our system of government. All of those are only to be used as vehicles for their ideology."

Is Chuck Schumer and his vitriolic review of Judge Gorsuch, is Schumer radicalized by the far Left? Is Hillary Clinton or Cory Booker...they have joined Democratic lawmakers who don’t commit to full obstruction of President Trump’s agenda with threats...is that the American way of government? No, it is the way of radical ideology of the far Left.

[GoldenPup]

True. It will take at least a generation for the country to recover from the harm that dumb bastard caused.

[BroJoeK]

from the article: "The Cato Institute released its jointly-produced 'Human Freedom Index' with other think tanks from across the world"

Cato is usually pretty reliable & honest, so these ranking likely do reflect something real, though the article itself doesn't tell us where, exactly, the US falls down.

I'm guessing it's in such categories as "rule of law" and "size of government", both of which fell (or rose) depressingly during the previous, ahem, Democrat administration.

So it would be interesting to know precisely what the US needs to do, according to Cato, to return to our long history of #1 in freedom.

[csivils]

I went to the Cato website and got the categories... the two you listed were included (word for word).