Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
Posted on 03/04/2009 5:55:26 PM PST by Larry - Moe and Curly
From the Executive Summary: "This paper presents the first-ever comprehensive ranking of the American states on their public policies affecting individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. (snip) ...defining individual freedom as the ability to dispose of one’s own life, liberty, and justly acquired property however one sees fit, so long as one does not coercively infringe on another individual’s ability to do the same."
(Excerpt) Read more at statepolicyindex.com ...
I do disagree with the report counting "state attempts to enhance the ability of same-sex partners to make voluntary contracts" as individual liberty. But, all in all, this is an interesting report. Thanks for the ping!
I have a great many friends who homeschool their children here, and they agree that NJ is one of the better states as far as it treats homeschoolers. However, they also add that there are continual and incessant attempts to bring homeschooling families under the heel of the state.
I’m a homeschool parent myself here in our state. What your friends say is true. The last attempt by a couple of Democrats (just last year) would’ve turned our state from the least regulated to the most regulated. The bill they introduced was insane. A great number of us hit the phone lines and, thankfully, it was dropped. It was a close call, though.
and maybe that is what brought NJ up a notch above CA NY.
The dirty little secret is that the (emperor has no clothes) because if the Federal government took in $0.0 federal taxes it would still continue to function (at least for a while until people caught on): It would borrow the money by selling bonds to other nations, and ultimately the FED, which would collapse your life savings!
FYI Virginia is high on all rankings (this is good).
Glad to see my state, Missouri, ranked in the top ten in all but one of the lists. Of course all that will change soon as we put a lib in as governor. Republicans still own the House and Senate, so it might be status quo if they can keep the dem gov in check.
SoDak is looking pretty darned good, we just need a taller fence on our eastern border.
This is a ridiculous study. It was created by Jason Sorens, founder of the Free State Project, which had a weird vote (complete with various irregularities as I dimily recall) among memebers to select a state which they would all move to.
The criteria were manipulated in such a way that New Hampshire finished #1. I’ve spent plenty of time in New Hampshire, and while it is a nice state in no way is it as free as many states finishing further down the list.
Washington, which finishes far down the list near the bottom has “shall carry” gun laws, no income tax and $40 car registration which you can complete at the local hardware store. To even imagine that it is less free that, say, Connecticut is absurd.
I lived in the Peoples Republic of Minnesota for 5 years. I agree you need the fence.
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