Freedom, or Nothing Left to Lose

Monty Pelerin points us to a map from the Mercatus Center which evaluates and ranks the states in three categories then assigns an overall ranking of the degree of freedom.

The top five states are North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, New Hampshire and Oklahoma.

My own state of Missouri ranks #7 overall, eighth in personal freedom and ninth in fiscal freedom but is pulled down by its middle-of-the-road regulatory freedom as twenty-sixth.  North and South Dakota derive their high overall rankings from regulatory freedom -- being #4 and #6 respectively.

If scripts are enabled in your browser, the map is interactive, and shows the breakdowns in the lower right as you move the cursor over a state.

I like personal freedom, but I have a hard time separating the idea of personal freedom from regulatory freedom.  South Dakota is #46 in personal freedom, but #1 in fiscal and, as noted, sixth in regulatory.

Here are the lists and links about what is considered for each category.  

Alaska is tops for personal freedom -- unsurprisingly -- followed by Nevada and Maine.

The red/blue correlation with the overall ranking is present but hardly perfect.  I believe four of the top five are reliable red states and New Hampshire used to be red.  The second tier are red except Virginia which has been polluted by federal government employees crossing the river and voting en bloc for big government and their paychecks. 

The bottom five states, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Jersey, California, and New York, are all dark blue. 

The ten states just off the bottom include the usual suspects of Illinois, Wisconsin, Maryland, Connecticut, and Vermont -- even Maine is not too surprising.  But we see the red state of Wyoming, along with Louisiana, Mississippi, and West Virginia.  Wyoming suffers most in the fiscal sector which includes government employment, while West Virginia, Louisiana and Mississippi are regulatory nightmares -- #49, #46, and #45, respectively.  Also, Louisiana and Mississippi are shockingly low on personal freedom while Wyoming is only moderately better. 

The top ten of the lower half -- ranking from 26th to 35th overall -- include the blue states of Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.  Ohio, the once swing-state, now swung blue, is also below average in fiscal and personal freedom and moderate in regulatory freedom.  Red states in this group are Arkansas, Kansas and Kentucky.  Kansas suffers from too much fiscal restriction -- probably too many government employees.  Arkansas and Kentucky are lower tier when it comes to regulations and their top-twenty ranking of personal freedom is not sufficient to pull them up. 

At the bottom of the next tier, 25th overall, is the blue state of Iowa which benefits from being ranked #3 in regulatory freedom.  The new blue states of Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico are 19th, 20th, and 21st.  All three benefit from high personal freedom rankings -- this would include laws on drugs and prostitution.  Colorado will certainly fall lower with their new firearms regulations.  Too-often blue Florida is also in this group, ranked 23rd, primarily due to its fiscal freedom.

Indiana is 16th, being #1 in regulatory freedom and an admirable #7 in personal freedom.  My great-grandfather moved to Missouri from Indiana in the 1800s.  Good to see that all the Scots haven't left.  Alabama comes in at 18th overall, buoyed by a fiscal ranking of fifth.  Nebraska is #22 and North Carolina is 24th.  Nebraska's strength is regulatory freedom (#5) and North Carolina is #14 in both personal and regulatory.

The problem is that these are relative rankings.  Yes, Oklahoma is better than New York, but New York is really, really bad.  More than half the country is a virtual police state and even the best would likely be deemed tyrannies by our Founders.  Still, the states are where we have to start.  The federal government is simply too big and too distant with too much power for individuals to effect much change.  Fight for freedom in the states and urge your state to stand up to the federal government. 

Just because the southern states were wrong about slavery and were overrun by Yankee conscripts 150 years ago does not mean that the states are not sovereign.  Shoot, Europe fought two big hot wars and one long, cold one in one 75 year period last century.  There's no reason to quit because of what happened at Appomattox in 1865 or what happened in 2012.