See <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/06/12/243047/a-followup-on-the-mercatus-freedom-study/" rel="nofollow">http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/06/12/243047/a-follow...</a> . "The Mercatus Institute’s freedom score was significantly linked to (by state)- lower educational attainment (measured by percent of Bachelor degrees or higher), lower population density, lower per capita GDP, increased infant mortality, increased accident mortality, increased incidence of suicide, increased firearm mortality, decreased industrial R&D, and increased income inequality."
If you don't want to read the whole thing, basically in the authors' viewpoints: smoking, motorist, mandatory health care, and gun laws lead to a state being less free. To make states more free, get rid of any such laws. If you don't agree with how the authors measure freedom, then you probably won't agree with the conclusions they came to (I certainly don't).
This is a very interesting report. I would add one anecdotal piece of information: having lived and visited all around the US, the places I would consider living permanently (California, Washington, New Mexico, Maryland, New York) all rank as significantly less free than their neighbors. I have no idea what this means.
Want 100% freedom? Move to an uninhabited area and live by yourself.<p>I think it goes without saying that when you have relationships with people, you give up a little bit of your own freedom. It's not surprising that areas with higher population density are scored as having "less freedom".
No thanks. CA is 48th. They can keep their definition of freedom. I appreciate the no smoking bans and the gun control laws and short term disability (which I had to use this year). They dinged the labor laws, but in CA you can move from job to job without being sued for a non-compete clause. If we are so unfree, how come we have Silicon Valley.<p>This is off topic in the worst way.
Thanks for posting this. I may be able to tie it into something I've been thinking about lately. Here's a link to my previous post. May seem like it's off-topic, but to me it's dead-on.
<a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2625009" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2625009</a>