My cerebral answer is that freedom is what drives the human spirit. We psychologists talk of self-actualizing, they're talking about freedom. Freedom is the precursor to human growth, it is the essence of what it means to be human.
That's the grand, one-over-the-world answer. Here's a more practical one:
The Heritage Foundation calculates an Economic Freedom Index annually for countries around the world based on ten factors: business freedom, trade freedom, fiscal freedom, government spending, monetary freedom, investment freedom, financial freedom, property rights, freedom from corruption, and labor freedom. With the index, one can compare the impact of economic freedom to quality of life measures.Practical evidence of my ethereal belief. Libs can believe whatever they want, but reality is conservative.
The Heritage Foundation uses the index to break down the nations into five subgroups ranging from free economies to repressed economies. Based on the data, it is possible to compare the subgroups for factors such as average life expectancy, income and happiness. Table 1 shows the subgroups based on the 2010 index compared to the average life expectancy, per capita Gross Domestic Product (Purchasing Power Parity), and the Gallup Happiness Index in the year the economic freedom index was calculated.
Agreed!
ReplyDeleteAustralia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland..
ReplyDeleteAll more "free" (not sure what the standards used are) than the USA, and yet they are all way to the left in terms of public services, healthcare, education and the like than anything the "liberals" in the USA could dream of.
More gun control, too.
ReplyDeleteJust shows how fast the US is going down the drain, that we're rated as less free than places with overreaching socialist governments. What does that say about us?