Best and Worst of 50

Freedom in the 50 states New Hampshire, South Dakota, Colorado, Idaho, and Texas rank best

“ We rank all fifty states on overall respect for individual freedom and on components of freedom: “Fiscal Policy,” “Regulatory Policy,” and “Paternalism.” Our approach in this report is to weight policies according to the number of people affected by the policy, the intensity of preferences on the issue, and the importance of state policy variation. However, we happily concede that different people value aspects of freedom differently. Hence, we provide the raw data and weightings on our website so that interested readers can construct their own personal freedom rankings; the spreadsheet is available at www.statepolicyindex.com. ” The study was conducted by Jason Sorens of the University of Buffalo and William P. Ruger of Texas State and release through the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.   I don't think there'll be any surprises at the extremes.  Michigan's much higher ranking than South Carolina wasn't expected/  The study notes that extremely conservative governments do not appear to afford any more freedom overall than do moderate, centrist governments. Again, the Michigan conundrum?  We need a sleuth  ... the data are here. Aside from the five freest states, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Colorado, Idaho, and Texas, we want to know which five states are the closest to being internment camps, right?    Tell me if you're surprised at all. “ New York is the least free by a considerable margin. This will surprise few residents of the Empire state. In order from the bottom, New York is followed by New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, and Maryland. Unfortunately, these states make up a substantial portion of the total American population. Moreover, these bottom five states have considerable ground to make up even to move off this ignoble list, let alone into a creditable position in the rankings. ” The B-52's  missiles are programmed accordingly.