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New Study By George Mason University

Grapeshot

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The leadership if George Mason would do well to heed their own words regarding our personal freedoms. What greater freedoms do we have than those found in the Bill of Rights. Restricting the RKBA of their employees and students should be an embarrassment to the administration - one easily corrected.
Have to wonder whether the people making this study and publishing their conclusions will come under fire from the powers that be.

"According to a new study released by the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, some of the most liberal U.S. states rank lowest when it comes to personal freedom.

The study, which calls itself the “first-ever comprehensive ranking of the American states on their public policies affecting individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres,” made a host of findings."
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/free_states_study/2009/05/06/211385.html

Yata hey
 

jm04

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Thanks, interesting find!

This link has the downloadable PDF, as well as some map charts:

http://www.statepolicyindex.com/?page_id=143
Freedom in the 50 States: Index of Personal and Economic Freedom

Top 10 overall Freedom Ranking:

1 New Hampshire
2 Colorado
3 South Dakota
4 Idaho
5 Texas
6 Missouri
7 Tennessee
8 Arizona
9 Virginia
10 North Dakota


Bottom 5:

46 Maryland
47 California
48 Rhode Island
49 New Jersey
50 New York


map.png




 

Flintlock

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Neplusultra wrote:
Alaska is in the bottom quintile? That's surprising! Sarah Palin needs to get cracking....
I am also a little surprised and confused - the posted article had this to say about Alaska...

"Sarah Palin’s Alaska does extremely well on personal freedom, conclude study authors. Reasons for its high personal freedom alone score include: fully legalized possession of small amounts of marijuana (accomplished through a court ruling), the best (least restrictive) gun laws in the country, recognition of same-sex domestic partnerships, and possibly the best homeschooling laws in the country."

I am not sure where we ranked on the list either.
 

Michigander

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I call BS on that map. New Mexico should easily be in the top states, and it's one of the green ones. That is simply wrong.
 

jm04

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arentol wrote:
Neplusultra wrote:
Alaska is in the bottom quintile? That's surprising! Sarah Palin needs to get cracking....
Alaska is 19th overall, putting it in the second quintile. That map is all messed up.
Where did you get the 19 from; are you reading the same study?

Check the PDF that's linked from the page I located above.

Here it is directly:

http://www.statepolicyindex.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/freedom-in-the-50-states-an-index-of-personal-and-economic-freedom-by-ruger-and-sorens.pdf

Alaska's Overall ranking is 31. Which puts it in the 4th quintile as pictured in the map.

The study itself goes into more detail on each state. For Alaska, it says:

"Alaska’s big problem is fiscal policy. Over a quarter
of the state’s workforce is employed by state or
local government, and that figure does not include
federal employees. Alaska has the third highest debt
ratio in the country and the second highest state and
local government spending ratio."

Note that Alaska is ranked #1 in the "Personal Freedoms" category.

It looks like it's these that bring it down a bit:
24th in Regulatory Policy
47th in Economic Freedom
49th in Fiscal Policy
 

jm04

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Michigander wrote:
I call BS on that map. New Mexico should easily be in the top states, and it's one of the green ones. That is simply wrong.
According to the study, New Mexico has the same problems as Alaska. It ranks well in Personal Freedoms (#3 after Alaska and Maine), but pretty low in the others.


"New Mexico (#43 economic, #3 personal, #36 overall)
is the laggard of the Mountain West. Spending
and taxes are high, and a quarter of the state’s workforce
is on state or local government payrolls (federal
workers add even more to that percentage).
The state does well on personal freedoms because
gun control is light, several kinds of gambling are
allowed, private school regulation is light (but home
school regulation is tougher), asset forfeiture has
been reformed, there are no smoking bans on private
property, and only 12 percent of arrests are for
victimless crimes. However, marijuana laws could
definitely be improved. In economic regulation, New
Mexico could improve most by rolling back health
insurance mandates and improving the liability system.
Eminent domain was reformed in 2007, so the
state should improve in our next ranking."
 

Grapeshot

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Slow down and read all of the data. This study does not just relate to our personal freedoms i.e. RKBA.

Many other things are inter- related.

Yata hey
 
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