This is a Koch-funded libertarian think tank’s take on freedom in the US (via EDK). South Dakota is #2 because its residents are free from the enslavement of mandated family leave and bans on trans-fats. Never mind that you can’t get married there if you’re gay, the cops can stick a q-tip up your dick to get a piss sample if they suspect you’re smoking weed, the state legislature has almost succeeded in outlawing abortion and the incarceration rate is 1/3 more than oppressed hellhole (#50) New York. As long as your french fries are fried in tallow, there’s no state income tax, and you can buy a gun at every Wal-Mart, you’re free.
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dr. bloor
You forgot to mention that all those least-free states are being forced into generating the vast majority of the nation’s wealth and sending their kids on to college.
These people really are too stupid to breathe.
Mark D
Missouri makes the top five — w00t!!
Must be all that freedom from federal disaster relief funds after one-third of a town is wiped off the map … or maybe the freedom from having home-schooled kids be able to pass basic tests concerning actual reality, rather than their knowledge of religious, rightwing idiocy … and the freedom from expensive cigarette taxes (relatively speaking).
(bangs head on keyboard)
(I do have to agree, however, that reform of the state’s pot laws would be a very, very good thing. So they do have that going for them …)
It’d also be interesting to see overlays of election maps on this thing.
rob!
Wow, I live in the one of the “least free” states in the whole country! USA! USA! USA!
gnomedad
Actually, I find the lack of a pattern (except for the Northeast?) rather interesting. Also, how could Caribou Barbie abandon Alaska in their hour of need?
Bostondreams
Yes, I am sure that my home state of Massachusetts is a living hellhole of horror and hate.
No, wait that is my current state of Florida.
Bostondreams
@gnomedad:
I noticed the northeast too. Is that where the gulag is?
Snark aside, aren’t living standards generally higher in the northeast, or am I just remembering things wrong?
Poopyman
@rob!: Me too, but sadly my Maryland county wants to make us all a bit more free. But we’re fighting!
jeffreyw
Interesting use of blue.
dmsilev
Woohoo! I currently live in Hellhole 41! Having grown up in Hellhole 46, and gone to school in 43, it’s clear that in another couple of centuries I’ll be FREE!
Wag
RealAmericans value the freedoms that really matter. Gay rights? Reproductive “freedom”? “Right” to vote? You might as well claim a right to pursue “happiness”.
Corner Stone
According to the color scale, that skinny state between Wisconsin and Michigan has the most freedom possible in the US. It’s so free it doesn’t even have to suffer by having a name.
I say we encourage all freedom loving Americans to move there.
PeakVT
Great, a couple of well-off white dweebs working at state-funded universities whining about taxes.
Vermont’s fiscal policy is among the worst in the country. Overall tax collections are by one measure the fifth highest in the country (11.8 percent of adjusted revenues as a percentage of personal income). Property taxes are a particular problem, and selective sales taxes, largely aimed at tourists, bring in more as a percentage of the economy than in any other state except Nevada.
Of course, Vermont manages to balance its budget (almost) every year without a balanced budget amendment or law, so arguably its fiscal policies are the among the very best.
PreservedKillick
I’m having a lot of trouble with any definition of freedom in which you are basically enslaved to an employer if you have a pre-existing condition and would like health insurance (which, in my mind, amounts to the “Life” bit in “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”)
But maybe that’s just me.
Bex
Maybe the authors of these studies should take on the question of what countries in the world offer the most freedom. I’m thinking Somalia would top the list. No pesky laws or taxes. Shouldn’t the Koch brothers move there?
MattF
Hadn’t realized that I should stay away from Missouri. Live and learn.
evinfuilt
I had to read the details on why my state (Colorado) and it looks like we’re possibly going to turn into a hellhole by pushing foe health in it’s citizens.
Thankfully we’re free from having to pay for an educated populace (48th in forcing people to spend money on edumacation.)
nancydarling
This is OT, but I’m wondering how is Amanda of the SouthBay doing? If you are out there, please check in as I haven’t been following threads close enough to know if you have been commenting.
moonbat
Maybe they should add a subtitle to Freedom as in freedom to live like a redneck stereotype.
Hunter Gathers
I’ll take living in the 41st least free state over South Dakota (a giant credit card company masquerading as a ‘state’) and New Hampshire (home of the Crazy Cracker) any day of the week. I’m still waiting for all the businesses and rich people to leave the state over the tax increase passed earlier this year. Hasn’t happened yet. But I’m told by Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie that it will happen sooner or later.
RalfW
What a pile of rubbish. I lived in Texas fr 14 years, and now in Minnesota for 16 years. Very different on whatever Koch scale they dreamed up.
But in terms of personal freedom? Very similar, seing as how they’re both part of the same damn U S of A.
I did feel freer to get shot dead when I lived in TX. As an out gay man, I really did worry that some drunk gun nut would take a potshot at me some Saturday night as I walked to my car from the bar district. That’s, uhhh, freedom, ain’t it!?
I felt free to have some of the worst school teachers among the four states we lived in growing up, while in Texas (and we were in a rich, mostly white, “good” suburban district).
I felt free, in suburban (unincorporated) Houston, to drink the nastiest tap water of any, and I mean any, city I’ve not just lived (10), but probably any city I’ve visited.
We felt free to have volunteer ambulance service, since paying a tax and having a professional service would be tantamount to Lenin rising from the grave and driving the meat wagon himself.
I could go on, but I’m feeling free to have my blood pressure surge.
Suffern ACE
@Corner Stone: I actually own land there and could build a subdivision for freedom seekers. Unfortunately, there are strict wetlands regulations and I’m not allowed to use a lot of the property. It’s been prone to flooding the past 10,000 years and the Army Corps of Engineers hasn’t come in and built me a levy.
wonkie
I hate people who vote for Republicans.
The freedom-loving Republicans of Wisconsin are liberating their citizens from Medicaid, clean driking water, microbreweries, support for adult people with developmetal disabilities, voting rights and living wage jobs.
Only a selfish asshole would vote for a Republican.
pablo
There are, of course, TWO versions to this story!
Brian R.
We need to compare this map with the map of how much states pay into the federal government and how much they get back in return.
South Dakota, that paragon of freedom, receives the eighth largest amount of federal spending back for federal taxes sent in.
New York, that bastion of slavery, is dead last in terms of how much federal spending it gets for how much federal taxes it pays.
Ergo, freedom comes from federal spending.
jinxtigr
I’m annoyed Vermont isn’t worse in these clowns’ book.
I can look out my window and see FREEDOM as I’m that near New Hampshire, but I can’t go there because they’re too free to fix the damn Vilas Bridge, which they’re responsible for, and which has fallen apart to the point that it’s unsafe :)
I see they’re still pushing for that libertarian paradise notion, the Free State Project, where libertarians invade New Hampshire and take over politically, so they can log all the trees and dump sewage in the river. I can only conclude they haven’t quite succeeded yet.
Jamie
Where does David Koch live? NYC. Where does he party? Bohemian Grove, in California.
R. Porrofatto
@Brian R.:
Exactly. For the last 30 years, South Dakota has consistently received about 30-50% more in federal spending than federal taxes paid. According to the conservative Tax Foundation, in 2005, they received $1.53 in federal spending per tax dollar paid, ranking them 8th in the nation in that little discrepancy. It’s nice to be ‘free’ when someone else is picking up the tab, ain’t it?
Judge Crater
Why’d they leave out the District of Columbia? As the nation’s capital I guess it’s not part of the USA.
I’m waiting for liberation in Cleveland Park.
Brian R.
@R. Porrofatto:
Apparently the residents of South Dakota aren’t so much “free men” as “kept men.”
Joe Bauers
Indiana’s #3. As if I needed more evidence that this place is a shithole. [sigh]
ChrisNYC
The authors of the study are academics at state schools. One of them at SUNY (Buffalo). Of course.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
Sadly, this has been our political sphere’s working definition of ‘Free’ for decades, and it looks to be the ONLY allowable definition of ‘free’ for at least the next three decades, just like how the only allowable economic theory is the wondrous Supply-Side, Trickle-Down Jesus theory.
I can’t take this shit anymore.
Brian R.
Alaska is way down on the list at #44.
We need to get Caribou Barbie’s reaction to this.
eliot
What’s baffling to me is they explicitly cite the existence of a public transit system that takes me anywhere I want to go, anytime I want, at a very low cost as a leading factor in New Yorkers’ lack of freedom.
Notice too that abortion rights are not a factor.
But low taxes on cigarettes are. Because if there’s one thing pack-a-day smokers feel, it’s free.
Southern Beale
Wow I’m not sure why Tennessee got the ranking it did. You can take your guns everywhere, there’s no gay marriage, we just defunded Planned Parenthood, I mean by phony “Libertarian” standards we’re pretty free … if you’re a patriarchal white conservative man, of course.
Not if you’re a woman, poor, brown, gay, Muslim, pagan, or anything other than this really narrow constituency of privileged white men.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m not sure how Oregon is so relatively free, given that the local teabag/loonytarian types bitch constantly about our oppressive income tax (but say nothing of the lack of a sales tax) while Washington, to our north, has no income tax (but has a heavy sales tax).
Also, we pioneered the utterly oppressive “bottle bill” and a bunch of other eco-friendly measures that surely oppress Galtian overlord types like the Kochs.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Southern Beale:
It’s only middle of the road because they still allow Muslims to have Mosques and stuff. Thank god some decent god-fearing Tennesseans are working their hardest to stop that and burn down those pagan houses of moon-god worship.
Steaming Pile
Damn, the Empire State drags up the rear at #50. However do I manage to keep my sanity with all those jack-booted secret police…er…state troopers running around watching my every move. I’m sure my house is bugged as well, and I’ll surely be arrested as soon as I click “Submit.”
This guy should really watch out…
I’m surprised he hasn’t been arrested and sent to the gulag (Fort Drum, adjacent to the artillery impact area).
MikeBoyScout
Lake Michigan looks to be exceptionally free.
If I were a teabagging Koch brother loving Murikan, I would move me and all my friends immediately in to Lake Michigan.
Alex S.
Canada is surprisingly free.
Alan
A quote from their policy recommendations for New Jersey (only #49, and beaten by NY—I blame Christie).
“Cut state funding to local school districts and use the savings to cut income, property, and cigarette taxes.”
New Jersey property taxes are municipal and county taxes, not state taxes. This isn’t about different definitions of freedom, it’s about people who can’t get their facts straight.
With all due respect, the Kochs should ask for their money back.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Alan:
Feature, not bug, etc., etc.
jwb
@RalfW: As someone who lived 20 years in Minnesota and still has family there, my sense is Minnesota is becoming more like Texas every day.
Villago Delenda Est
@Alan:
Likewise, these clowns imagine that Oregon’s freedom is based on lower tax revenues, and that Oregon’s debt is too high.
Amazingly, Oregon like most states has a mandatory balanced budget system, but also runs separate operations and infrastructure budgets, which means you can’t borrow to fund state operations, only things like infrastructure expansion, upgrade and repair, so I don’t know wtf these dumbshits are talking about.
MikeBoyScout
New York, New York is the capital city of Murikan Capitalism.
Why have the Banksters not moved to that most free and Murikan named cities in the nation; Pierre, SD?
PeakVT
@Alan: I think the Kochs got something worth their while: another serious-looking and -sounding report full of bullshit that liberals will have to debunk.
WereBear
I feel for you. A speck not on most maps is my hometown for several generations, but when I was six my mother insisted we get out of there.
That is in my Top Three of what my mother has done for me.
Ghanima Atreides
Feeling that libertarian reacharound, mistermix?
EDK diddles you from the front on family leave and reams from you behind on the “freed” market.
You should post at the LoOG vomitorium too, because you make me wanna puke.
Suffern ACE
@RalfW: If you aren’t angry, afraid, and endangered, you aren’t free.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Villago Delenda Est:
They don’t either, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to fake out the easily led.
Stefan
@jwb:
Yeah, seriously, what’s going on with Minnesota and Wisconsin? Y’all used to be proud stalwarts of Midwestern progressive liberalism, but are trending ever rightwards. What’s the cause — is it all the Scandinavians and Germans dying off?
Davis X. Machina
@PeakVT:Think you have a freedom shortage now? Wait till state single-payer. Y’all will plummet to the bottom if you’re not already there.
Villago Delenda Est
@Davis X. Machina:
You’re not supposed to be free of the fear of crushing medical debt. You’re supposed to be free of medical care, period.
Davis X. Machina
Fixed
(Free™, and Freedom™, are registered trademarks of the Republican National Committee. All rights reserved. Used with permission.)
I would hate to see you get sued….
Brian R.
If the libertarians get their wet dream, we’ll all one day live in a world in which we’re completely free — free to eat food contaminated with rat waste and toxic chemicals, free to catch a bullet fired by a sovereign citizen, free to strike a one-on-one contract with a multinational corporation, free to pay for all our medical bills ourselves, free to fend for ourselves in retirement, free to beg for money on the streets, free to be discriminated against at the whim of the majority, etc.
We’ll all be free to be shit upon over and over again by the corporate overlords who get these libertarian scholars to be their paid whores. Hooray, freedom.
BDeevDad
I love the recs for my state CA. They include repeal some health-insurance mandated coverages like home health care and repeal labor laws dealing with short-term disability and paid family leave mandates.
Screw the sick and injured. Institutionalize them and forget them.
slag
My favorite part is how EDK earnestly engages on the issues with this map rather than simply giving it the full court mockery it so obviously deserves. Oh, EDK, have we taught you nothing?
bemused
@Stefan:
Too many Minnesotans didn’t have any freaking idea what the people they voted for were really all about. They tend to believe what their neighbors say, tv and print “news” not realizing how much information is left out, and don’t bother to research for themselves. I am seeing more buyer’s remorse but I don’t know how much they are catching on that they need to comparison shop the candidates as seriously as they do when choosing a kitchen range.
Davis X. Machina
@BDeevDad:
You’re dealing with people whose political theory admits only one legitimate use of and end for the power of the state, to wit, providing their friends’ getaway cars with a police escort en route to the Caymans.
PeakVT
@PeakVT: Reminds me of the now infamous McKinsey report on healthcare.
@Davis X. Machina: That can’t happen soon enough. Seriously.
Bruce S
Hey – it’s all about freedom.
For the ubermencsh…
Ayn Rand like totally got it at a very tender age:
http://www.michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm
jwb
@Stefan: I haven’t lived there in 20 years, so I can’t say for sure, but the asshole quotient is much higher than it used to be and that famed Minnesota nice has made a lot of the middle fairly gullible since they don’t seem to take the assholes at their word. On the other hand, Wisconsin has a tradition of periodically giving assholes opportunities (see, especially, Joseph McCarthy).
Ghanima Atreides
@Davis X. Machina:
No, trademarks of libertarian reacharound artists like EDK and the LoOGies.
liber, the root of libertarian, means free.
jwb
@Bruce S: And I didn’t think it was possible for my opinion of Ayn Rand to sink any lower.
amk
Looks like a fucking demographic map to me and it sure ain’t looking good for the whiteys.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s how C.S. Forester had Horatio Hornblower exulting in his freedom as a Captain of a ship on detached duty in His Royal Majesty’s Navy: the ultimate in freedom.
Too bad hundreds of other men had to be enslaved, living quite literally at the captain’s whim, to afford the captain that freedom.
These people are neo-feudalists. All of them. They imagine that they will be the feudal lords. Only the Kochs will get that…the rest are wretched slaves.
Ghanima Atreides
@Villago Delenda Est: all libertarians are neo-feudalists, EDK, Yglesias and Greenwald included.
Freedom for me but not for thee.
dr. bloor
@MikeBoyScout:
Have you ever had Walleye and Small Mouth Bass sushi?
Bruce S
jwb – yeah. I’d write it off to “youthful indiscretion” BUT her appalling expression of “admiration” for the pure sociopathy of a serial killer is totally recognizable as the essence of her “mature” philosophy.
Ghanima Atreides
@slag:
in a word, No.
I for one am bloody sick of EDK meandering all over the political landscape trying to find himself. Give these first principles libertarian fucktards what they deserve and IGNORE them.
FFS put the LoOG in the mock column and stop linking glibertarian reacharound artists/bulshytt talkers like EDK.
jeff
The Koch brothers live here in NYC. They must hate their own definition of freedom.
Judas Escargot
Freedom isn’t free, as the saying goes.
Fortunately for the Red States, there are ways to force others to pay for your freedom.
Cassidy
@Ghanima Atreides: Someone has a handjob fetish today. Try porn?
llama
Why does David Koch live in freedom-hating New York City?
Cain
@Villago Delenda Est:
Blissfully I’m completely unaware of the tea bagging types. Yes they exist.. hell they exist at work.. most of them are not religious types, just I want to pay less in taxes.. I think they just dream of the old days or something. Sigh. I can’t really complain about them other than their voting record. Those guys would do anything for me :P
cain
RSA
According a rightwing group called the Tax Foundation, South Dakota takes in $1.53 of federal money for every dollar it produces in federal taxes. I guess freedom is easier when someone else is paying the bills.
jwb
@Ghanima Atreides: Oh, come on. Give EDK break. He’s just trying to find that sweet ideological place where he can find a reliable patron for assembling word salads. Given that he actually has no consistent political philosophy, I find it interesting that he has gravitated vaguely to the left. He strikes me as a good barometer of where the money is flowing for this sort of opinion these days. A second order question and one that immediately gave me pause would be: why did Forbes seemingly become interested in him when he started to cast his warmed-over libertarianism in a slightly left-leaning pose.
ruemara
@MikeBoyScout:
I could support the Koch Brothers and all their pals moving to Lake Michigan. deep in the center of the lake with some very heavy anchors.
Brian S
Tennessee is 16th but just passed a law making it illegal to post pictures that might distress people, and wants to circumvent the law that requires a search warrant to invade your inbox on social networking sites.
Duncan Watson
Notice how no mention of abortion, contraception or treatment of rape makes it into the Koch brothers report? Apparently being forced to pay for a Sonagram (sic) and counseling before getting an abortion is “free”. Likewise forced parental notification even if the parent is the one who raped the woman who is pregnant. Yada yada yada (also not a free expression).
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Brian S:
With the explicit notice that it doesn’t matter who the intended recipient was, or if the initial recipient was ok with it. Just sending something which someone incidental, who might be looking over someone’s shoulder, is enough. I mean, I get it for some kinda media, like kiddie porn, since that shit’s illegal all around, but this is more like if someone sent a tame porn pic and someone overlooking got the vapors over it.
On the upside…I’m sure Breitbart could be prosecutable for showing people dick pics on his phone under this.
The Ancient Randonneur
Why would Al Qaeda strike the least free part of the USA? Weren’t they doing the “real Americans” a favor? BTW it is a bit rich that NH is the “most free” state when you consider they still have state run liquor stores. Also, too, the “freedom haters” in VT have more lenient firearm laws than NH. But when it comes to the Koch boys, money is the only real issue. As long as you keep women in there place, taxes low, and non-white and poor folks in check, it’s all good.
Joel
This CATO study is so hamfisted it’s not even a good attempt at trollery.
BGinCHI
How does that map correlate with education and standard of living/quality of life?
I bet negatively.
Davis X. Machina
More freedom on the march:
Maine ends same-day voter registration on party-line vote:
…
I’ve worked as a poll warden, and the newly-turned-18 high school kids walking up and registering was always the best part of the job.
Davis X. Machina
@The Ancient Randonneur:
The two largest ones each have their own on-ramps on I-95.
No drive-through windows….yer.
Gus diZerega
In a way this map is a map of the intellectual collapse of what calls itself “libertarianism” these days. The “least free” states disproportionately include those with the biggest populations (people want to live there and businesses want to locate there). What a pathetic excuse for a philosophy of freedom (and at one time I was a libertarian, but facts finally got in the way).
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Corner Stone:
As someone who was born and raised on Michigan’s border with that state, I wouldn’t set toe in it’s chilly environment but for two months in the middle of the summer.
gbear
Eight years ago Minnesota would have been a much less free state. This bothers me (Dang you TPaw!). I wish we were much closer to the bottom.
bemused
@Brian S:
Seeing photos of Limbaugh, Gov Krispy Kreme and Ann Coulter is very disturbing to me. Passing this “eye of the beholder” law is completely nuts and unworkable. Wingnuts don’t care what kind of havoc they create or how much money it costs to create their ideal feudalistic, puritan country.
Yutsano
@gbear: Your leg is trying to get you more FREEDUMB!! at this very moment, up to and including ensuring those damn kweerz can never get married. The whole stupid report is all about the oppression of taxes anyway. How DARE blue state gubmints support those damn young bucks and their T-bone steaks!
Kyle
@RalfW:
When I lived in TX in the mid-90s the big local issue was demands to teach creationism in the high school. My suburban area also had horrifically inadequate roads and the most pathetic library and public facilities of any place I’ve lived. And as a corporate employee, the TX labor laws were closer to serfdom. I moved back to California.
JohnR
Arbeit macht Frei. We all just need to work harder.
BD of MN
@Brian R.:
Oh, I’d guess that the same people trumpeting “freedom” have a problem with panhandling…
buckyblue
Free to be Fucked by the corporations ie: pay for your health insurance, drive on dirt roads, work 52 weeks a year, pay for your shovel and pick, get the kiddies working at seven years of age.
Liberty60
@Corner Stone: Its called Gitchegoomee.
Its free, but the legend lives on from the Chippewa on down…
Amanda in the South Bay
@nancydarling:
I’ve been doing a lot better physically. My scrotal hematoma has practically disappeared, and I’m going
back to work today. It’s nice to be able to stand for more than 5 minutes and not be in agonizing pain.
asiangrrlMN
Wow. Minnesota is 34. We’re working our way up, though. At the rate we’re going, I’ll bet we’ll be in the top twenty in a couple of years. U-to-the-mutha S of A.
@Amanda in the South Bay: Glad you’re feeling better. Continue to take it easy–well, as easy as you can.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Liberty60:
Uh…No. That would be the state that’s north of Michigan’s U.P..
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: FREEDUMB BITCHEZ!!
Although their definition of FREEDUMB!! is the lowest tax rate possible. All else seems like commentary.
jeffreyw
I’m free to build my sammich just the way I like it. I’m very libertarian that way. At least in my kitchen. Except for the gummit bastards tossing all the really fragrant lunch meats. Salmonella is dog’s way of weeding out true free marketers.
Davis X. Machina
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Right next to the wigwam of Nokomis, if memory serves.
Ghanima Atreides
@jwb:
its the same reason Douthat got on at the NYT, the futile search for a sane voice on the right.
I’m more interested in why mistermix keeps linking Kain’s crapology.
payola or just intransigent stupidity?
And FFS why isnt the LoOG in the blogs we mock column?
The LoOG is a far worse vomitorium of libertarian bulshytt than either the Dish (Sully) or the Atlantic (McMegan).
Cacti
I live in the very free state of Arizona…
Where if you’re a brown-skinned US citizen and like ranchero music, you’re free to be handcuffed and detained for 3 hours in front of your parents’ business
And if you’re on the organ transplant list…you’re free to die in the name of austerity cuts
If you’re a public school student…you’re free to have your budget cut by 148 million dollars
And if you find yourself in a Maricopa County jail…you’re free to be beaten to death on camera by the Aryan Brotherhood while “security” takes a personal phone call.
Yea Freedom!
Bullsmith
Don’t forget that high wages for workers totally destroy the freedom to live in poverty. Homeless drifters have true freedom.
Ghanima Atreides
@Cassidy: retard, a reacharound involves more than a handjob– it means getting diddled from the front while getting reamed anally.
For the lexicon.
The League of Ordinary Gentlemen
1. A standard chatroulette style masturbatory c1rcle jerk.
2. A vomitorium for libertarian bulshytt talkers.
Valdivia
so according to this study and map–freedom=no taxation.
Got it. Who knew they would debase the meaning of Tyranny so much.
Ghanima Atreides
ratz moderation. like mistermix is going to fix that.
@Cassidy: retard, a reacharound involves more than a handjob—it means getting diddled from the front while getting reamed anally.
nancydarling
@Amanda in the South Bay: Good to hear from you, Amanda, and Godspeed!
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@Davis X. Machina:
With a shady grove of trees in the back yard.
Fred
Funny the choice of blue and the more blue (as in Liberal) the state the darker blue it becomes on this map.
But Koch’s take is hey, lets paint it in terms of freeDUMB! That outta rile up the Kochsuckers LOL!
Fred
@Bex: Canada would definitely be way up there on the most toxic non-free hell hole scale by their standards. We have all kinds of reasonable laws, gov’t run health care, and a sympathetic social safety net. It’s worse than Stalins Russia I tells ya!
jwb
@Ghanima Atreides: Forbes has no reason to be looking for a sane voice from the right—that’s a special mission that only a culturally clueless organization like the NY Times could engage in. But Forbes does have a reason to dress-over glibertarian reasoning in leftish garb if it believes that the pendulum has begun to swing left and hard right opinion has ceased being convincing even to its readers (think about who the readers of Forbes.com are). It may just be hedging, but then you have to ask yourself what does the strategy hedge against and why are they engaging in it now.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cain:
So the fact that their income is higher, their lifestyle is more affluent, those things are nullified by an increase in taxes that apparently does not affect their greater affluence.
Makes a ton of sense to me.
These clowns are driving Accuras, instead of plain old Hondas, so they’re obviously doing better, but their taxes are slightly higher, so they’re being oppressed. Even though they’re taking home a much greater overall income.
They don’t seem to get that the fact that their income is higher means they’re getting more out of the machine that makes that higher income possible, so they need to make a greater contribution to keeping that machine running. Because, proportionally, they’re still ahead.
The twits are locked into a zero-sum mindset that is contradicted by everything around them.
WereBear
I am happy to live in the state (Empire State – woot!) with the least freeDUMB.
This is no accident. I’ve lived in Indiana, Missouri, and Florida. I’m done.
Bill Murray
While SD is certainly not a panacea, especially if you aren’t a white man, the $1.53 more per person more in federal funding is a little misleading because of the presence of reservations — heavily federally funded and very poor so little tax revenue.
quannlace
Me too. Yay, New Jersey! I guess our first step in striking back is to dump Chris Christie.
Ghanima Atreides
@jwb: idc, i just want to know WHY MISTERMIX KEEPS LINKING HIM.
Just look at this disgraceful cock-sukking of Hayek’s withered member.
I fucking told you so, mistermix you intransigent retard.
Free market education reform.
/spit
Now teacher’s unions, like all unions, are B.A.D.
You see, Hayek WAS WRONG, empirically, factually, incontrovertably.
And EDK and the rest of the market-fapping first principles libertarian circle jerk can’t bear to admit it.
Luthe
I am reminded of Janis Joplin. “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
In this case, it means having no rights and not social safety net left to lose.
GregB
@Davis X. Machina:
It’s called freedom juice and they are available at liberty stops.
jimbob
@Bill Murray: Jeez, 116 comments before somebody pointed that out. Also missile silos and Missouri River dams. Oops, and farm subsidies.
Sometimes the Crip/Bloods dichotomy we’ve fallen into distorts the picture.
jwb
@Ghanima Atreides: EDK is just a not-so-bright pawn in this whole game, and I’m not quite sure why you are so obsessed by him. He is worth commenting upon only insofar as his actions reveal the stakes of the game. If you want to go after someone who is actually an active corrosive influence, go after EDK’s source here: Yglesias. He’s far more dangerous than EDK ever will be.
Davis X. Machina
@GregB: The set-up somewhat under-cuts the “New Hampshire has a tough drunk-driving law for your safety” signs, however.
Ghanima Atreides
@jwb: do you know why libertarians dig Hayek?
The real reason? Libertarianism is localized mob-rule. That is why that Cato map is the way it is…the Paradox of Libertarianism aka Distributed Jesusland™.
When EDK and the other libertarian fucktards say “bottom-up” they mean the localized heartland swamps where jesushummping anti-science WHITE people can impose their bulshytt on brown, black, women, minorities, etc. Its what GOP redistricting is ALL ABOUT.
Building Distributed Jesusland™ one district at a time.
Jonny Scrum-half
@Alan: I think that the NJ income tax is explicitly reserved for “property tax relief.” So, if you cut some of the State funding for education, you can reduce property taxes, which will allow for reduced income taxes. In short, whether or not you agree with the ideas expressed, perhaps you should get your facts straight before mocking someone else’s statement.
Ghanima Atreides
@jwb:
BECAUSE EDK WAS A FUCKING FRONT PAGER HERE. BECAUSE MISTERMIX LINKS HIM HERE. BECAUSE THE LoOOG IS STILL NOT IN THE MOCK COLUMN.
see above.
Yglesias, Manzi, Greenwald, etc….ALL those fuckers are just the same.
And sadly, I got fooled by Manzi for a while.
But most of you ‘tards got spoofed by EDK.
Including Cole and mistermix and even the MasterTroll DougJ.
wallah, even Levenson lapped up the EDK bulshytt drench.
Comrade Kevin
@Ghanima Atreides: Someone needs to cut off your supply of the spice.
Yutsano
@Comrade Kevin: Since I’m already fully aware of how this conversation is going to go (she’ll blame her obsession on her Asperger’s and continue to act as if she is beyond any and all criticism) I suggest saving the electrons.
Comrade Kevin
@Yutsano: oh, I have no intention of having a conversation with her.
Yutsano
@Comrade Kevin: Fair enough. She’ll try to pull you into her little obsession now though. In fact I’m already wasting too much time on this.
MikeJ
No state income tax in Washington and yet we’re listed as unfree?
Oh, yeah. We have a Democrat for a Governor and consistently vote for Democrats in national offices. I think I understand the methodology.
BDR
@Ghanima Atreides:
Try decaf.
jwb
@Ghanima Atreides: The point is that you are wasting your energy on schmuck like EDK. He’s nothing and no one cares what he has to say about Hayek or anything else, because really he’s so malleable and desperate to find a position to write from that can bring him a reliable income that he’s all over the place, and even the very opposite of interesting. He’s actually not even a very good example of a glibertarian except for the fact that he’s shown himself willing to sell his soul for a steady paycheck. I just say that you can find a more useful target than EDK to channel your anger at.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: You should read their findings for the state. It practically drips with disdain for us DARING to enact liberal policies that also tend to work quite well for us. In other words, the two fartknockers can snog off. We’re just fine, for the most part.
b-psycho
Why isn’t Arizona the darkest fucking blue possible to render on a screen?
BDR
@b-psycho:
Too many dark-skinned people. That’s an impediment to True Freedom™.
Ghanima Atreides
@jwb: why does mistermix link him then?
And why is Sully in the mock column, but not the LoOGies?
Yutsano was one of the people EDK spooned. He and Morzer wanted Asiangirlman to become a LoOGie. Wanna see the links? I bookmarked the spank-me-nursie thread.
He doesnt like being reminded.
;)
@Comrade Kevin: only some days is it melange. Most days its just bitter dirt.
Ghanima Atreides
@BDR:
thats what puts the liber in libertarian. The freedom of the local white christian americans to have localized mob rule. That why libertarians like Yglesias, Manzi, Greenwald, EDK, etc love Hayek– the bottom up, grassroots organization. Its just that their definition of grassroots only extends to the anglosaxon protestants that were here first.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i know why the caged coastal elite, and the industrial midwesterner beats his wing.
of course, its nice, in an odd tingly way to see kockheads embrace jello biafra and the dead kennedys, but i think they missed the point, probably starting at the name of the band.
i fought the law and i won
The law don’t mean shit if you’ve got the right friends
That’s how the country’s run
Twinkies are the best friend I’ve ever had
I fought the law And I won
I fought the law and I won
I blew George & Harvey’s brains out with my six-gun
I fought the law and I won
I fought the law and I won
Gonna write my book and make a million
I fought the law and I won
I fought the law and I won
Villago Delenda Est
Another reason why Oregon is very overrated for freeDUMB is that we’ve got statewide landuse policies, which constrain developers from paving over farmland and clearcutting forests to toss up overpriced McMansions.
Surely that’s a form of vile soshulist oppression that should make those two assclowns go full tilt dark blue…
Ghanima Atreides
@jwb: And I’m not obsessed with EDK. Its Cole and DougJ and mistermix that are obsessed with EDK.
Its mistermix that keeps linking the dishonest little fucker, and Cole and DougJ that won’t put the LoOG in the mock column where it belongs.
Calouste
@Luthe:
Janis Joplin was pretty much the first thing that came to my mind as well.
It looks like there is a pretty strong negative corrolation between average income per state and Freedom(R)
(Freedom is a registered trademark of the National Republican Committee. Used without permission.)
Dream On
@Corner Stone: Brilliant.
Villago Delenda Est
@PeakVT:
Note that the problem is that Vermont, shudder, collects taxes.
This seems to be the greatest possible sin that a state government can commit. Oregon moved up in freeDUMB because the state tax collection rate declined.
No one asks what those taxes are used to finance. The very fact that they’re collected is a measure of freeDUMB.
This is one, among many reasons, why this whole exercise is such a pathetic joke.
Brain Hertz
I just looked up Oregon, since I live there, and found this recommendation for enhancing our freedom:
(emphasis mine).
What planet do these people occupy?
SWS
I think one reason Oregon is ranked #8 is because of something we like to call “The Kicker.” You can read about it at Wikipedia:
My last rebate was about $200 a few years ago. For that, our education system at all levels is going into the tank, our state police no longer patrol the freeways, and there is a heavily traveled bridge in Portland that ranks a 2 on a scale of 1 to 100 for safety.
Ah, freedom.
EAP
My 6 year old’s favorite game…”Opposite Day”, where you spend all day saying the exact opposite of what you mean. Someone forgot to tell them the game was over?
Ghanima Atreides
@SWS: Well you see….that is the paradox of libertarianism. You would think that libertarians, both civil and uncivil, would want more human rights for all citizens. And that is what bulshytt-talkers like Freddie, EDK, Yglesias, etc would like us to believe.
But that is false.
Libertarians only really support human rights for their cohort….the Overclass, the anglosaxon protestant christians that founded America and their genetic and memetic descendents , and for the rights of the fabulous “freed” market to soulessly rapaciously exploit the middle class into the poor class.
Profit!
That is why our schools and our farms are now factories.