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Freedom is living in a Red State :)
We find that the freest states in the country are New Hampshire, Colorado, and South Dakota, which together achieve a virtual tie for first place. All three states feature low taxes and government spending and middling levels of regulation and paternalism. New York is the least free by a considerable margin, followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland. On personal freedom alone, Alaska is the clear winner, while Maryland brings up the rear.Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom
Comments
1. To make your children not only socially retarded, but stupid to boot. And to shoot them accidentally with your M-16 in your home arsenal. And to tell police to fuck off as often as possible because, you know, they're the enemy and are only after your arsenal.
I guess people are free to be stupid.
Those freedoms don't MAKE people stupid...they allow stupidity to be more damaging. They ALSO allow smart people to make more progress. Unfortunately, stupid people damage tends to be more prominent and widely reported than smart people progress. No one writes news articles about the kid who learns how to treat firearms responsibly and with respect. They DO write articles about the kids who blow someone's brains out because they weren't educated properly. There may be a 1:1 ratio of well-educated people to ignorant dumbasses, but you don't hear nearly as much about the people who don't fuck up. Of the people that own firearms, how many are actually irresponsible with them? Dangerous cleaning chemicals are not illegal, even though parents may "accidentally" poison their children. Same concept.
I would be pissed off if they told me I couldn't buy a cordless drill anymore because I might accidentally drill a hole though my child and kill him/her. I am intelligent enough to use tools responsibly and store them properly when not in use. I would not be too upset if they required an educational course on its safe use before allowing a person to purchase one, as long as there was still a way for me to get one. A gun is a tool as well. Yes, it can be more deadly than a drill because of the projectile, but it is the same basic principle. Let's compare extreme gun control to abstinence-only education. Not talking about safety doesn't work...the uneducated person may at some point have sex/access to weapons and will not know how to act safely. The most effective way to prevent these accidents is proper education and community support of responsibility, not theoretically removing the items that could lead to the accidents. (I say theoretically because there is a difference between not letting someone legally buy a gun and ensuring that they cannot get their hands on one. Likewise with teaching kids that abstinence is the only option and expecting them to stick to it.)
The school system here in NC is pretty lacking. One of my little brothers is currently homeschooled after attending public school up until 5th grade. The reason is that our public school system is absolute shit. He's getting a much better education now because he's encouraged to excel and pursue interesting research in addition to being required to get by without failing. Both of his parents have advance degrees (Medicine), and two of his older siblings hold Bachelors degrees: one in science and one in engineering. There are also plenty of social groups for homeschool children/parents formed specifically to address the socialization issue. If we didn't have a choice, then he would be going to a shit school where they don't meet his needs and he'd probably be failing (like he was in danger of doing before the switch) because he was bored out of his skull. (Sound familiar, anyone?)
Freedom in any form allows both better and worse conditions to exist than restriction. Some things are worth giving up the better to prevent the worse. Some things are not. I don't want to live in a system where smart kids can't meet their educational needs because we are worried about stupid kids failing life. To give a chance to excel, there must be a risk of failure.
EDIT: Also, exactly what Mrs. MacRoss said. However, sometimes moving is not a practical solution to a problem when you have another viable choice that costs far less.
A fundamental difference, but one that many don't get. The lack of inhibition to a goal does not guarantee meeting the goal.
Thanks Nuri ^^
- require auto liability insurance
- enforce compulsory schooling
- require accreditation of teachers and schools
- maintain a Smart Growth Plan (More commonly referred to as urban planning?)
- protect endangered plants and animals
- require your referrals to health care specialists to stand when changing insurance providers (pre-existing condition anyone?)
- restrict marriages to men and women alone (strikingly progressive, considering)
It's pretty safe to say that while a lot of this is subjective (schooling?), some of it is pretty obvious. For example: auto liability insurance only works if everyone has it, otherwise there's no incentive at all to get it. Following that: urban planning? Really? I don't think there's much wiggle room in there. A lack of planning obliterates populated areas, turning them into, well, the west coast. Or Huston.They then try to break it down with LSR's on scatter plots (that look like buckshot) to show that the more Democrats there are in your state, the more you "hate freedom" or some such nonsense. Yawn. Oh, and Tick? According to their map there are only like 6 blue states anyways. Guess we freedom haters have a lot of people in our 6 states (around 70 million!).
It's interesting that the states that the "study" complains about not being as free as the others have a much higher personal income and GDP than the "free" states. Maybe if you want to be free, you have to be poor as well.