Freedom in the 50 States: Index of Personal and Economic FreedomWilliam P. Ruger and Jason Sorens
Abstract
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. We develop and justify our ratings and aggregation procedure on explicitly normative criteria, 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 other individuals’ ability to do the same. [...]

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Do you see now why I never vote Democrat if I can help it? Democrats are about LESS personal freedom, not more. This data correlates perfectly with everything I see and read about Democrat policies and behavior. It is an excellent visual representation of all that I have been trying to bring to your attention.
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Wire taps? loss of the right to trial? profiling and security screening at the government whim? but at least i can carry a gun......
This chart is about STATE LEVEL liberties, not national.
If you want to talk about national level and how the Patriot Act is being abused by the present administration, then read this.
I am a Conservative. George H. W. Bush was not, and is not, a Conservative. Nor are many of the Republicans currently in office Conservatives. Republican used to be a platform for conservatism, now it, too, has become one of political self-interest and power grabs. This is why they lost so big.
If any of them were Conservatives, then the prescription drug coverage debacle would never have happened.
TARP would never have happened.
Two examples of MANY...
However, the Democrat platform has ALWAYS been one of tendency toward increased Socialism and more government control. More government control and dependency means less personal liberty. Period.
Edited at 2009-05-15 10:40 pm (UTC)
Now to save text i just say this, the democratic party can be used in substitution here and the same argument be made.
However... when used wisely and responsibly with the best interest of the governed in mind (key point there) i dont feel that social programs are bad or remove freedoms, in fact, they tend to equal the field to make everyone, not one group ( whites in the civil rights days, or the super rich corporate pricks in todays model) just as responsible for the direction of the nation. the problem is that the people have become so polarized that you cant take the best aspects of both sides and find a compromise anymore, its either demo version or repub version, and that is a failure we can no longer tolerate.
as far as tarp, good ideas implemented in a hurry, and executed poorly, not by the right, or left, but both, they both need too take responsibility, and the problem is they dont, they heap blame on the other side and scream that they and only they had it right. hate to say it but i see alot of that in your argument, no owning of the rights responsibility in any of the bad, even though there were as many signatures from that party as the demos. and if it was so bad then why didnt the president veto the bill? hell, he rushed it out as fast as he could to save some approval rating.
as to the last point, the largest per capita increases in government, from the top down, came under reagan, bush, nixon, and eisenhower. the biggest decline under carter, clinton, and teddy roosevelt (god bless that man) i dont count FDR due to the extraordinary demands of his terms in office... hard to fight a depression and a world war without expanding government... im not arguing your platform as to the nature of what the parties are after... just the facts of how it all came down in the end... look it up.. true story
(top down means increases in government spending in all categories, from defense, to social programs, to courts and infrastructure)
hows this for a theory, take ALL of the bullshit spending by BOTH parties, pork, welfare, "entitlements" and what not, and use it to 1, over fund education, and i do mean overfund thats the only really important thing other then defense and law enforcement/public safety. 2, bail out social security. 3, use the other hundreds of billions to balance the budget