I currently reside in the People’s Republic of New York, and with the election of a full slate of democrats to every office that matters, things have only started getting worse. Every day brings a new anti-freedom initiative which all usually sail through for the governor’s signature (779 new laws in 2019-20 so far, admittedly not all are terrible). As a result I’ve been exploring ways to rank various other states by freedom to get a short list of where to move to.
Freedom in the 50 States is a collaboration by William Ruger and Jason Sorens by way of the CATO institute to rank states by freedom. They use their own, often intricate weighting system to give each category a weight relative to the other categories, denominated in dollars. Most data is current up to 2016, so many recent changes to law have not been captured by these measures. There are several categories they used (Personal, Fiscal, Regulatory and Abortion1) and took a composite of the weighted scores to come up with the final rankings. Each category is broken down into various components, for example, Fiscal freedom rankings include measures for Government Consumption, State taxation, Local taxation, Government debt, Cash and Security Assets, Effective number of Jurisdictions, and Government Employment. There are far too many categories to go into each category in detail, but I’d like to examine just a few of the Fiscal variables and weighting methodology.
It is somewhat obvious how taxes can affect one’s personal freedom, but why do does government spending have any effect? And by what method do the authors decide on a weight for these variables?
According to the information provided by Ruger and Sorens, government spending affects liberty thus:
Non-tax-funded government spending is still a freedom issue because rents-fueled government growth (via federal grants, mineral revenues) can still crowd out the private sector. There’s a large literature on size of government and economic growth. Bergh & Henrekson (2011) survey the literature and find a robust association of government spending with subsequent growth in rich countries: for every additional 1% of GDP in government spending, annual average growth declines by at least 0.05 percentage points. This is in addition to the effects of taxation. We look at the effects of a standard-deviation increase in government consumption and investment as a share of personal income over 10 years, assuming the 0.05-percentage-point relationship. We calculate the discounted foregone growth over 10 years assuming a social discount rate of 5%. (Using a finite time horizon is necessary to impose finiteness on the number, but endogenous growth theory also suggests that the growth rate benefit of any exogenous variable dissipates eventually when per capita income reaches a new steady state — this is likely to happen over the course of a business cycle.) Then we divide by two because government employment presumably captures some of the same effects that other studies find via government spending
The loss of freedom makes sense to me knowing that government spending can crowd out private investment and that government spending tends to be less efficient. I’m not doing a deep dive on each variable, so I will assume the 0.05% given by Ruger and Sorens accurately represents the research. The authors also note, that this effect is an additional cost, beyond taxation- so no adjustment to this variable is made for taxation. The use of a 5% social discount rate (SDR – considered the opportunity cost of money) is a bit arbitrary, but every number going into these calculations could be a field of study on its own. Small changes in this number will have a big effect on the ‘victim cost’ of the spending. Maybe a survey of what the SDR was used in the past ~10 years for various projects would have been helpful. A ten-year horizon is also pretty arbitrary for the business cycle. It isn’t clear why this was chosen. Counter intuitively, the higher the authors set the SDR and the time horizon, the lower the victim cost of this variable goes.
Victim cost is essentially a dollar value put on the loss of freedom. These are relatively straight forward to calculate for things already in dollar amounts (e.g. spending), but probably get increasingly arbitrary for say, gun rights or abortion rights. The victim cost of one Standard deviation change in spending was calculated as follows:
=(15209136976823-15133300000000)*(0.95^10)*D5*100/2
The difference of the first two numbers appear to be something like the 0.5% of total personal income of the USA. I wish the authors had coded a variable for this or other variables, because it is used many times throughout their calculations, and would have made their sheet much easier to update. That is how I would have set it up, but that is why I’m and engineer and they’re researchers2. The 0.95 in this calculation is presumably (1-SDR), and raised to the power of ten, to account for the ten-year horizon the authors chose. D5 is the cell in excel which held the standard deviation for the spending (a weighting factor for how much variation between the states). The division by 2 is explained in their note as a fudge factor to account for double counting in the government employment effect.
This seems to be in error. While it is admirable to avoid double counting, the government employment factor comes out to be 2% of the total score, while state spending is 8% of the total score. They also apply the same factor of 2 to the government employment score. This is incorrect in 2 ways. Because the effects have a large difference in magnitude, the government employment score cannot account for 50% of the government spending score. It would have been more accurate to leave off the government employment score entirely and count only the government spending score. Secondly, if you’ve already discounted one variable to avoid double counting, you shouldn’t subtract something from the confounding variable as well, unless you take that into account when reducing the first score.
I would have proceeded as follows: Calculate government spending score (~16%3), calculate government employment score (~4%3). Assume somewhere between 0-100% of the government employment score is already counted in the government spending score (would need to do a literature review to determine the value), lets be lazy and assume 50%. Subtract that from the government spending score, result is that the total sum of these two variables is 16+4-4/2 or 18%, rather than the 10% assumed by the authors. Even if we assumed 100% of the effect of government employment is captured in the spending variable, in no way should the sum of these two variables be less than 16+4-4, or 16%. In Ruger and Sorens’ analysis the sum of these variables is only 16/2+4/2 = 10%. Roughly 60% of what it should be (assuming their calculations are otherwise correct).
This seems like a large error, especially when many of the variables they consider have very small effects, on the order of 0.1%. Lastly, I think the factor of 100 in this calculation maybe incorrect. If an additional 1% of government spending effects only 0.05% of GDP growth that means the whole of government spending (~38% of GDP) accounts for a total decline in growth of 1.9% annually. Surely that is no small thing, but the state and local portion of that is ‘only’ about 0.8%. I find it hard to believe that a change in 0.8% of growth accounts for 8% of the total freedom lost to state and local government. Surely taking ~10% of my income is significantly worse than that- though I suppose it depends on the time horizon one uses and the relative deviations between the states.
Speaking of taxes, let us dive into the rationale of that variable. Should be straight forward, right?
The original index’s weight for tax burden assumed that all taxes take away freedom. But in fact some taxpayers consent to at least some of the taxes that they pay, as long as the taxes are legal and generally paid by others. Therefore, taxation is not wholly a violation of their freedom.
In this version, we take account of this fact of consent to some taxes. Let’s assume that the current tax burden in each state represents the ideal point of the median voter. Positive theories of democracy would suggest that this is as good a guess about where public opinion lies as any. Then 50% of voters would prefer a higher tax burden (and the services it would finance), and 50% would prefer a lower tax burden. Right away, we can slash the tax burden weight in half, because 50% of voters nationally would not see the taxes they currently pay as any diminution of their freedom at all. Now, this move assumes that the median-dollar taxpayer is the same as the median voter. That is unlikely to be the case. In fact, the median-dollar taxpayer is likely to be somewhat wealthier than the median voter and thus more ideologically conservative and more hostile to taxation. Thus, if anything, slashing tax burden in half on these grounds is somewhat too aggressive.
But we’re not done yet. Of the 50% of voters/taxpayers who would prefer a lower tax burden, most of them would not see all of the taxes they pay as a diminution of their freedom. That is, they would be fully willing to pay a lower tax burden that is greater than zero. To illustrate the logic, assume a normal probability density function over possible tax burdens. Fifty percent of the curve lies to the left or right of the mean of the tax burden distribution.
Now, what are the losses experienced by those who prefer a lower tax burden than what currently exists in their state? The loss curve will look like a mirror image of the left side of the normal density function. Those who want zero taxation will see all of income taxed away as a loss of freedom. Those who want taxation of 2.5% of income will see 3.1% of income taxed away (mean of actual taxation minus 2.5%) as a loss of freedom. And so on. Because the loss function is a mirror image of the probability density function, the area under the loss curve is also 0.5. So only 5.6%/2=2.8% of personal income, in total, is a loss to those who prefer lower taxation. We can divide tax burden’s weight by two again, or by four in total.
This should slightly understate the actual victim cost of taxation for 2 reasons. First, the median taxpayer is richer than the median voter and probably a little more anti-tax. Second, it assumes that taxes pay only for desired public services, not rents. To make up for these omissions, we multiply the weight by 1.1.
However, about 6% of state and local taxes were returned to taxpayers due to federal deductibility. So long as federal deductibility remains in place, the weight needs to be multiplied by 0.94.
Got it?
I have two problems with the arguments presented here for the rationale of dividing this variable by a factor of 4. First, ceding the theory about relative distributions of people wanting more or less taxes (I would think the distributions are far from being a normal distribution with exactly 50% wanting higher and 50% wanting lower taxes, and then that of those wanting lower taxes, the weighted average of their desires is 50% of the current level of taxation) – they are still losing freedom regardless of whether they want to lose that freedom or not. I also have a problem with the 1.1 factor here- you already accounting for the payment of rents when calculating loss of freedom to interest payments, which was its own variable! Now you *are* double counting something for sure. I assume the federal deductibility of state and local taxes has changed somewhat from when the authors wrote this, but some value less than one would still be applicable today, and I have no reason to doubt the 6% figure given.
For me, 100% of the taxes taken out of my paycheck are a loss of freedom, the benefits, if any, are actually in the government spending pile, not the taxation pile, and would be accounted for by what I receive, not by what I pay for. If what I paid for was at all equivalent to the benefit I got from government, the schools in my state would be top tier instead of bottom tier. Thus, if I was changing this sheet to match my preferences (0% government spending), I would remove this factor of four, the 1.1 as well as the 0.96 factors because none of those things apply to me. Obviously Ruger and Sorens want this to be applicable on a wide basis, so they felt they needed to account for the general population’s preferences somehow, but personally, there is just no basis for reducing the effect of taxation at all. For those that like 75% of their tax burden, I would say leave things as it is, I’m guessing most libertarians at least would prefer something much closer to zero. For those progressives out there, if you find that you really wish the state taxed you more, then you could even make this variable negative, since you’re losing your freedom to be taxed more. This would result in the higher taxing states being ranked ‘better’ than the low tax states.
There are tens of variables left to consider but I think I will leave things here for this discussion. Each variable is highly complex and can be the subject of multiple research papers, it is unfortunate that such haphazard scaling has been used on some variables. I still give credit to the authors for making everything so transparent and the reasoning explained, it makes it much easier to apply my own biases when coming up with my own rankings.
When I went through all the variables and adjusted as I found necessary, it didn’t make a huge impact on the relative rankings at either the top or the bottom of the list. Sorens and Ruger’s rankings of the top and bottom 5:
- Florida
- New Hampshire
- Indiana
- Colorado
- Nevada
[…]
- Vermont
- New Jersey
- California
- Hawaii
- New York
My rankings for top and bottom 5 (without abortion):
- Florida
- New Hampshire
- North Dakota
- Tennessee
- South Dakota
[…]
- New Jersey
- California
- Vermont
- Hawaii
- New York
Adding in the rankings for abortion (prolife) changes things quite a bit, because the freedom cost of abortion is huge for the prolife position (around 20% of the total weight for my analysis). This makes sense if you consider the value of a life to be fairly high. The result for me is:
- North Dakota
- Oklahoma
- Indiana
- Missouri
- Michigan
The bottom 5 didn’t change at all, which isn’t surprising exactly, but interesting to consider that progressivism seems to be an all-or-nothing deal, but social conservatism can be included with economic conservatism and deregulation, or not.
I’m sure at least a few Glibs will tinker with the data themselves- the excel spreadsheet for the data can be downloaded here. If you’re not keen on the calculations behind all this, but know that you value, say, gun rights more than anything else, you can go to the personalize page and tinker with the weightings there without messing around in excel. I’ll be interested to see everyone else’s ratings and critique of the methodology.
Will I be moving to Florida or North Dakota? Maybe. There are potential job opportunities in both states for me, but I’m not sure I could stand having only MikeS around to talk to or having to deal with Florida Man on a regular basis. Like any analysis tool, this can’t tell you the right answer, only give you more information.
- I believe this was not included in the final product presented online, because they have options for whether one finds abortion to be an abrogation of rights or a right in itself. Perceptive of the authors.
- It is quite good for a researcher to even share this much detail on their calculations, so I congratulate them on sharing so much so freely, even if I think the spreadsheet could have been setup more logically.
- The actual amounts for these variables are closer to 14.8% and 3.7% because they are in both the denominator and numerator, but I didn’t want to confuse the main dialogue by accounting for this.
Excelsior translates to ever downward, if I’m remembering my Latin correctly.
Illinois should adopt that as its new motto (other best suggestion – “Illinois…will the defendant please rise?”)
*thinks of a town nearby called Excelsior Springs and what it has become*
Checks out.
I was up there the other day to buy a filing cabinet from Craigslist.
The actual address wasn’t anywhere near correct according to Google maps and the asshole didn’t have the courtesy to tell me what it really was. I wasn’t only marginally pissy until he said, “Yeah, it’s hard to find.”
YA THINK?!?!?!
I must have spent an hour looking for it. I should’ve just gone home after 15 minutes and said, “You know, if you know your place is unfindable, maybe you should give people directions.”
Thank you for not putting Idaho on another top five list.
“Top five states that look like the space left over after other states picked their boundaries.”
Damn Rocky Mountains.
Too many people coming over?
Fastest growing state in the country.
That is just to get the crops in before the season ends.
You Idahoans need to do things actively that deter people from coming. Like Shitty Alcohol laws.
Hmmm. I’m a lot more comfortable with our shitty alcohol laws if they are what keeps the New York and New Jersey people away.
Norf Dakota. [shudders in memory of living there]
MikeS is a tougher sum-bitch than I.
The oldest Altar Boy is attending NDSU and complains about the constant wind. And the snirt (combo of snow and dirt that blows up in drifts due to constant wind).
It keeps (most of) the riff-raff out.
Seriously, that wind is something. It can really grate on your nerves. I’ve read of early prairie settlers being driven insane by the non. stop. wind. (And I’m sure the utter loneliness didn’t help)
Always a topic of conversation when we drive out west to hunt in western NoDak.
Think of spending six months living in a sod house with the wife and kids. No TV, no radio, limited books (if any). What is amazing that any family survived through the winter.
Lillian Gish agrees
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Kansas City is quite nice, but I am its biggest fan so I might be biased.
Which one? Kansas? Missouri? Oregon?
Missouri.
Kansas City, Kansas is a shithole. Cross the state line and instant ghetto.
I’ve only ever passed through. the Missouri side didn’t look especially nice, but it shines in comparison to the Kansas side.
Passing through any big city, you’re not going to get a decent picture of it. The good stuff’s inside the loops.
Anyway, lots of culture, lots of good food, lots of things to do, good employment/wages, low cost of living. That said, do NOT move into the Kansas City school district if you have kids. It’s not accredited.
I lived in Lansing KS for three years in the ’90s. The best parts of the KC Metro on the Kansas side was Overland Park/Lenexa.
When I went back a few years ago, Overland Park had seemed to have back-slid some.
Moving west and south to Lenexa and Olathe.
Pretty soon, people will be commuting from LeCygne and Pittsburg.
Elitist. You just hate those rubes in Flyover Country.
Yeup. Because you totally don’t fly over the state smack-dab in the middle of the country. Just the one next to it.
I’ve never flow over ‘flyover country’.
I have flown over NYC, Boston, and DC.
Some years ago, a friend and I were driving around on the Kansas side and after a bit he turned to me and said, “Is it me or is the sunlight a little dimmer over here?
I had to agree with him.
Quite so.
Heh – I used to fly into KC and drive to Lenexa, KS for meetings. I always thought the exact opposite (no offense).
Lenexa is a whole ‘nother world away from KCK. I don’t know if you were going south on I-29 to I-635 or if you took I-29 to the Broadway Extension down to I-70 west, but in either case, you did not go through KCK.
I didn’t think to specify because he has Kansas nowhere on his rankings and he does have Missouri on it.
My eyes glazed over when he got to math.
I’m dealing with the ISO panicking and doing stupid stuff which means I have to clean up behind them. Not enough brainpower left.
The BBQ is quite good.
Nice to see Indiana near the top. I used to live in Lake County, which felt like East Illinois. But I’m pretty happy now that I’m in a rural county.
Not Newton, I hope.
Porter now I assume base on precious comments.?
Former Illinois gun-runner?
If you can’t carry and drink, are you actually free?
I had to add a category for drive thru beers.
Seriously, you’re not, but these rankings are all relative so it’s really a list of the least unfree.
On topic:
https://www.salon.com/2020/02/22/why-bernie-sanders-is-just-the-beginning-of-an-american-turn-to-the-left/
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this article.
It’s salon, point and laugh.
Nah bruh. This stuff is insidious. Ridicule-worth one day, 20 years later it’s reality.
“American turn to the Left”
Meh. I’m skeptical. Most of peoples perception of the impeding inevitability of the left is driven by emotion.
I notice they never interview immigrants from commie/socialist hellholes. The ones I know have seen some ugly shit and have zero interest in the sequel.
The proggies may find out that the silent majority has teeth.
This. I have a Cuban friend – dad got his family out when my friend was an 8yo via Spain. His father was a Christian minister with a traget on his back. He hates socialism in any form, still has family suffering over there who can’t get out. His kids’ attitudes about govt post-college is driving him crazy.
My belief that the left takes over someday, and (very) likely in our lifetimes (with a few exceptions), is driven by demographics – decades of leftist indoctrination has taken its toll amongst the younger cohorts. Too many are enthusiastically, if stupidly, leftists, and I’m not getting the impression there is much pushback from within their cohort.
I’d say education is an issue, though even on that end… I’ve seen plenty of people who just bear it to get the degree but look down on the Ivory Tower intellectuals. This could be biased because i live in a very conservative state.
I don’t buy the “the immigrants are going to vote us into socialism” schtik. In fact i think it is counter productive, and self fulfilling because it automatically primes immigrants to run to the Democrats. If the GOP wasn’t the stupid party so much they would realize that.
I don’t buy the “the immigrants are going to vote us into socialism” schtik.
Without a lot of effort, which is not being expended, I think they will, myself.
Ex. A: Colorado.
Admittedly, there are some counterexamples (states with high immigrant (domestic and foreign) populations that haven’t been taken over by the left, yet. But no state has gotten less leftist as immigrants have increased, that I can think of, so I think its a matter of rate, not direction.
It’s been around since Tammany Hall.
So what I’m trying to say is “Fuck the Irish.”
Were the people saying the Irish immigrants would fundamentally change America wrong? Were the changes toward more or less socialism, more or less Statism? Yeah Fuck the Irish!
The changes were towards more drunken brawls.
So, freedom?
The Irish were the police as well as the cause of the need for police.
That needs to be the opening line in a chapter of a book on the history of NYC or Boston soooo badly!
Why no hate for the second wave of Germans?
I like good butchers.
Here in Cincinnati we largely got the first wave. The ones fleeing socialism.
“I don’t buy the “the immigrants are going to vote us into socialism” schtik. ”
You should. Immigrants are the ones who put Wilson and FDR into office.
It aint the Immigrants that are propelling Bernie Sanders.
I would have considered my self “left” what I was young too. The majority of young people eventually grow out of that shit.
Generally — If you’re a conservative at 20, you have no heart. If you’re a liberal at 30, you have no brain.
When I was in college, every single fucking person was left wing. I’m social media friends with most of them still and there are few Sanders supporters.
Get a job. Erodes the left wing values a bit.
Get a promotion. Erodes it a bit more.
Experience life. Erodes some more.
Get married. Still eroding.
Have a kid. Eroding.
Move to the suburbs. Congrats, you’re a Republican now.
Darn tootin’.
“The price of freedom is constant vigilance.”
Got it?
*looks at ground, kicks pebble*
Interesting. When I played around with the personalization (emphasizing personal freedom) , Minne jumped from 37 to 15. Which seems about right. So far, the gunz legislation has been slapped down pretty good.
CO is still on my radar.
Thanks for doing this, Lack!
Interesting.
Did you change specific metrics or the overall category?
I didn’t look closely at the middle of the pack, so I don’t have a good idea about what happens with middle of the road states.
Overall category. I was too lazy and go through and adjust all the metrics.
Join us Tundra, you know you want to.
Well, it looks like both Spawn will be out there this fall! We probably won’t split until we see where they land, but who knows?
Everyone know US is completely unregulated savage capitalist hellhole / / standard European.
Well, compared to the Standard European Totalitarian Bureaucracy, yeah.
At least I can go to the supermarket at 3 AM and buy whiskey. Try that in probably a quarter of US states and see what happens
Well, yeah, isn’t your whole country nocturnal?
They do not drink… vine.
No market is really super unless it’s got booze in it, that’s what I say.
Well, at least I can attend a sporting event without a race riot breaking out.
Soccer is the opposite of Hockey. All the fighting is in the stands.
I’m looking forward to playing with this. I need to get out of Oregon. Original plan was to do so in the next 3-5 years. But I think I want to accelerate it. Maybe a year or less. And I need to figure out where the hell I’m going.
Do it! We’re doing the same exact thing in Virginia. We were on a 3 year schedule to get out, but realtor gave us good news about the house’s value, so we hope to be out by June.
I have the problem of reading the auguries as to when new york stops being able to pay my pension.
If the legislature ever manages to raid the fund, that’s the day I have to bail. It’s the only asset that can’t be disposed of or ported to beat a hasty retreat.
will it really matter when you leave I that case? or that’s just your bellwether for when it’s getting real?
also, seems unlikely to happen. pensions are sacred, or something.
As long as the pension is still funded (currently NYSERS is one of the few pensions that is), I have a chance of getting paid the amount contracted to me. So it still makes economic sense to continue with the unfirable job and accumulate the benefits. If I get to 60% of final average salary (where I’d be at 55/56 years old), given what I make, that’s nothing to sneeze at when moved to a lower cost of living jurisdiction.
When this stops being the case, it makes more sense to take whats in my deferred comp (different account) and flee. If I get a pittance in the second situation, that would end up in the same column as if there’s any social security money left, ie something nice but can’t be counted on.
All of these are the “What is my best interest” calculations, and are not tied to some overweaning principle beyond that.
Though the bag ban and the surge to even more tiny totalitarianism is making the calculus more complicated.
I need to figure out if I need to move back near NC. My parents have hit their 70s and I’m worried about their health. They’ve had a few issues with broken bones and such lately.
I need to find a different job I can do remotely. That’s the first step.
Right now, Florida, Colorado, Nevada and the Carolinas are on my potential list.
Huh. I’ll have to tinker with this more when I can use something other than my phone. When I went through and customized the rankings I kept everything the same with the exception of removing alcohol laws, and Pennsylvania dropped a ranking from 20 to 21. Considering the only state with stricter laws on alcohol is Utah, I thought that might boost us up a bit. Utah shot up 4 places from 22 to 18, maybe that was what bumped PA down.
Alcohol laws are stupid in Utah.
But you can drink and carry at the same time.
PA is ok with that too.
Balls.
“Balls” said the Queen. “If I had balls, I’d be King.”
And the king laughed, because he had two.
Same with Minne, technically. The challenge is that the BAC threshold is so damn low, you are better off choosing one or the other.
Alcohol laws in Pennsylvania are largely the result of a singularly reprehensible cretin by the name of Gifford Pinchot, a staunch prohibitionist that was governor at the time of repeal. It was his personal goal to make buying alcohol as evidence and inconvenient as possible, a shining example of malicious compliance from a government as we’ll ever see. We went from having the largest number of distilleries and being the birthplace of American whiskey, to having none at all for almost 80 years.
Father of the USFS.
They use some really specific laws, so the ranking can definitely miss some of the things you may think of as obvious reductions in freedom.
Where would Romania rank in all this? That is the tough question.
Other than that, not being Americanese, I got nothing.
“Americanese” LOL
Hey EU, we rule you long time. A number one economy and army!
If 1/2 the people support slavery and 1/2 oppose it, then a slave is only 50% non-free? Did I get their logic right?
Almost. If half the slaves don’t want to be free, and just wished master would beat them harder, then only half the slaves are slaves.
Or 1/4th? I don’t get the divide by 4 thing at all.
Where does the 3/5ths come in?
Rob,
They assume that the half of people who want lower taxes also only want them soemwhat lower, with the average desire being near 50% lower (I am very skeptical of this math). It also doesn’t scale right. e.g. moving your taxes one standard deviation lower will make almost everyone happier who wants lower taxes, so dividing by 4 is really nonsense.
My take is they just wanted to reduce the importance of the economic metrics.
Interesting that Texas is #21. Sounds about right to me, maybe a little low. Texas may not have a personal income tax, but my total tax burden didn’t go down much when I moved there from WI, although that’s been awhile – high sales and property taxes will do that. Texas also has a very significant statutory and regulatory code – lots of business regulation, more than you might expect.
Cato seems to mostly beat it up for having a “strict” criminal code and high incarceration rates. Without breaking that down more for victimless v victimy crimes, its hard to say. Texas has some major metropolitan centers that have the kind of crime rates you would expect of major metro centers.
AZ at number 9 is probably also not out of line. Much less business regulation here, and my overall tax burden is probably down a little compared to Texas (complicated by having a much more expensive house and concomitant property taxes here. You get a similar “law and order” v “wild west individualism” vibe here, with “law and order” perhaps winning the argument more in Texas.
Texas is tolerably good. I moved here from Hawaii, which has climate going for it but its a statist hellhole, and the cost of living is way lower here. Maybe I could do better, but I just bought a great house and enjoy it here, so until it flips hard blue I’ll probably stick around. You don’t need perfection, just a place that is good for the things you value.
Most of my family live in Phoenix and love it there, so I’d say that was a good call.
Hawaii is the closest thing the US has to an Ethno-State.
It’s actually the opposite of an ethno-state, since interracial marriage is super common and no ethnic group that is the majority. People are generally pretty easygoing about ethnicity there. It’s the other stuff they’re repressive about.
Huh. everything i have heard was that the racism there was palpable.
If you mean they have no racial hierarchy, I do not believe that is true.
I believe the totem pole goes like this.
1. Japanese
2. Haole
3. Hawaiians
4. Samoans and Tongans
Texas has some extremely populist laws. They are not as pro liberty as they consider themselves.
No argument there. That whole Wild West cowboy perception goes away pretty quick if you live here. But there are a shit ton of Californians moving here, and for a damn good reason. Unfortunately, I suspect said Californians will eventually fuck this place up enough that I’ll want to move again.
Haha! Suck it, Texas, you got beaten by Pennsylvania! Now go to the corner and reevaluate your policies.
If only they would.
They sorta unofficially legalized weed here by accident when they legalized hemp growing, and then a judge ruled that you can’t convict a person for having marijuana without first testing it to prove it’s not hemp. And there’s only one such testing lab in the state.
A lot to be said for the right kind of government ineptitude.
You might be overthinking this a bit. Take the dealbreakers out (that would be cold winters for me, and being stuck out in the middle of nowhere), remove the bottom half of the 50 states ranking, and then look at net migration rate as a proxy indicator of how desirable a place is. A negative net migration rate is a huge warning sign.
Also, the statewide rankings can be a bit deceptive. If you like being in the general proximity of a biggish city, then a desirability ranking by city might be more useful. The rest of Georgia might suck for you, but if you like Atlanta, the other stuff doesn’t matter.
I like Blue state culture, but Red state fiscal conservatism, and so living near Deep Blue Austin in Texas is currently a good combo. Phoenix would be a great choice if you don’t mind the brutal summers.
Charleston is light blue in a deep red state. Working for me so far ( almost 5 months).
What is it about blue state culture that’s positive?
My perspective is certainly skewed, so I’m asking honestly.
What is it about blue state culture that’s positive?
Their concept of Rights
Plenty of fun and interesting stuff to do on the weekends. Just yesterday saw a play called “The Mountaintop” at a crunchy granola UU church. It was amazing.
Good food and drinks.
Live music — if you’ve never been to ACL Fest, you oughta.
Arts in general.
I’m married to a prog. They’re generally good people until they get in a polling booth.
Blue = homosexual culture.
prole, I think that’s more urban v rural than statewide. The sweet spot, as noted if that’s important to you, is a decent-sized city in a red state.
I live way out in the exurbs of a major city — close enough to drive in on the weekends and have fun, but far enough away to avoid that proliferation of rules and regulations and petty tyranny that overcrowding seems to attract, and for the housing to be affordable. I’ve got close to half an acre, and the sheriff deputies rarely bother driving into our housing development to bother us.
Draw a series of concentric circles around the cities, and then pick how far out is the sweet spot.
Can you shoot your gun off in the back yard?
Do you have to pay city property taxes?
Yes and No. Sweet spot.
They’re generally good people until they get in a polling booth.
My experience says otherwise.
/NoVa glib
Seriously, I’ve found that regional culture matters more than an individual’s personal proclivities. An east coast asshole is going to be shunned in Texas, no matter if they’re in Austin or in Lubbock. The regional culture doesn’t suffer assholery.
*Looks up at link posted upthread.*
Could have fooled me.
Some of us celebrate assholery.
Get the fuck out of my yard.
This seems like sound advice. Maybe use the Cato analysis if you need a tie-breaker.
Phoenix would be a great choice if you don’t mind the brutal summers.
Tucson has marginally less brutal summers – conventional wisdom is the temps run about 5 degrees cooler in Tucson, and on the eastern edge of town I consistently clock 2 – 3 degrees cooler than the “official” Tucson temp. The diff between 110 and 102 is real. Its a cliche, but its a cliche for a reason – the drier climate makes a difference, and Tucson is also noticeably drier than Phoenix. Phoenix’s big advantage, and it is not small, is simply job/economic opportunity – there’s more of it there.
The hottest I have ever been is in Wisconsin. If you can stay out of the sun in AZ, I rate the summers as easier than in most of Texas.
I’d put Phoenix roughly equal to Houston in terms of hellish climate. 100 with 100% humidity vs 115 with 0%. Phoenix, you walk outside and it feels like you are an ant under a magnifying glass, Houston, you walk outside and it feels like you are being waterboarded. I’d move to Minot first.
100 with 100% humidity vs 115 with
0%25%.I’d still take Phoenix, by a little.
Phoenix seems to have enough water present that 115 is ungodly.
At Ft Irwin, 120 was not too uncommon in the summers and I saw 130 more than once. But the humidity was 5%.
Above 120, it don’t matter if it’s wet or dry. It’s like December in Minnesoda, don’t go outside without special preparation.
I’ve heard anecdotally that Phoenix didn’t used to be as humid as it is now (its still not really very humid), but that development (pools and landscaping) have actually changed the local climate. I would expect development (asphalt and concrete) to raise the temp, but hadn’t thought of the humidity.
It is definitely the case that you see a lot more lawns, and a lot less desert/xeriscaping, in Phoenix than in Tucson.
You’ll generally get a long string of dry summer days in Austin with highs of 100F, +/- 2F. AC is your friend then.
But, I prefer a 100F day to a 30F day. You can still do stuff outdoors on a 100F day if you get up around dawn, before it gets brutally hot.
Huh? Sunny and 37 yesterday. I was down to my t-shirt while out on my walk.
Nope, cold for me is way easier. Heat saps my will to live.
I’m with you Tundra. Throw on another layer if you are too cold.
Don’t miss the hot humid summers in Memphis at all.
We have heard stories about you taking layers off in public, Jimbo. {shudders, then 1,000 yard stare}
You shudder, but the layees all tremble thinking of the fun we had.
Minnesoda Summer is the worst. Take off layer for the heat and the mosquitoes take of a couple more layers.
Good thing the actual summer only lasts about two weeks.
Why do cold weather people always throw out the throw another layer on line? It’s not comfortable to be wearing 5 layers.
Screw that noise. If it’s 30, I can put on layers to get warm. When it’s damned hot outside, there are limits as to how much I can take off before the phone calls start.
I’ll take cold over heat. If it’s 100° out I’ll avoid leaving the saving grace of AC as long as possible, if it’s 30° out I put on a jacket and appreciate the lack of insects. De gustibus,I suppose.
Dude, 30F? 30 isn’t even cold, you throw on a sweatshirt and you’re fine doing anything outdoors.
Srsly. 30F? Pansy.
To each their own. I lived for about four months near SLC, and really liked it, but then we got 8F and 80 MPH wind gusts and said fuck it, I’m heading south.
My boss at the Mathnasium I worked at there described 45F as “balmy, shirt sleeves weather”. Course, he always had on a layer of Magic Underwear to keep him warmer.
Am currently wearing Magic Underwear.
TMI?
You decide.
We adapt. Growing up, anything under 45 was COLD. Now I’ll go for a walk if it’s around freezing.
You’ll generally get a long string of dry summer days in Austin
Not Arizona dry. We’re deep into the subjectivities here. My preference is strongly toward the dry end. Bro Dean, a veteran of Houston and now Dallas, doesn’t mind the humidity nearly as much.
Saturday it was 35 and sunny. We spent a couple hours sitting on the patio enjoying the nice day.
Try Louisiana.
It didn’t bother me so much when I was younger but now….it does. Super high humidity, very low altitude, brutal sun. Oh, and the relentless bugs. The only place I have found worse was Key West. Az didnt bother me at all.
Same for cold. I have been in dry climates at sub-zero temps and it didnt bother me much. Here a humid, rainy 35 degree day will suck all of the heat out of you before you can say “What the fuck?”.
Yup. I hate it in the fall when you try to hunt when it is cold and wet. Would way rather have it drop from 35 to 20 and hunt in dry snow than that wet sleet crap.
I remember someone in the service tell me that the reason that the Seals are always getting sprayed with cold water during their training is because cold and wet is the condition that breaks more people than any others.
Yep, I’d rather it be in the 20’s and snowing then 30’s and raining.
50 F and raining is perfect hypothermia weather.
I had to go to Biloxi for work once. I’ve never been so weather-miserable in my life. I ended up changing clothes a couple times a day and taking a ridiculous number of showers.
And the guys working the jobsite were in long sleeves!
Not my scene.
Most of the gulf coast is like that and that shit creeps up the Mississippi River valley at least up to Arkansas
“Man, it’s hot. It’s like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn’t take this kind of hot.”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094746/quotes?item=qt0287740
Yessir. Lived in Pensacola for six years and Orange Beach AL for two. The Gulf Coast has many things to offer. Good weather is not one of them.
At least South Florida doesn’t really get winter as compensation for the hot humid summers. The Panhandle gets just as hot, almost as humid, yet still has a fair number of winter days in the 30s.
First positive thing I’ve heard about the place.
Yeah, I’ve only spent any real time in New Orleans, and that hellhole has more going against it than the weather, but I consider Louisiana a piece of South America that somehow got stuck in the US.
I can take cold any day over hot and humid. I spent years living on the Texas Gulf coast. 98deg at 98% humidity was miserable. Doing anything outside during the day lead to sunburn and constant sweating.
Austin has it’s hot days, but they are usually no where near as stifling as a hot and humid Texas coast day.
I tell my wife that the secret to surviving winter is to find a fun hobby to do outdoors. When you are out skiing, fishing or whatever you don’t notice the cold as much.
Of course things like goretex, polar fleece and other miracle fabrics help out a lot. I remember as a kid buying rubber boots 4 sizes too big so you could wear 6 pairs of socks and get your feet in them. That was the only realistic way to keep your feet dry and warm. Now I can buy Sorrels with goretex and they are light, dry and warm.
“blue state culture”……”stuck ini the middle of nowhere”
I will take door number two. I dont like to get out much. When I have to it usually reminds me why I dont like to get out much.
*gets up, tips up slat in blind to peer outside. Drops slat, sits down, checks pistol*
This here, for me. There’s not much that I find worth the 45 minute drive to downtown. And its not lack of stuff going on, either.
I used to like going out when I was in my 20s, but for the past ten years or so it’s worse every time. It doesn’t take much more than ten minutes of exposure to the public before someone’s driven like an asshole, or done something intentionally rude or inconsiderate, or generally made a nuisance of themselves, and then I’m done. It’s not that most or even many people are that way, it’s just that, these days, it only takes one to put me in a bad mood.
I’ve always been a bit of a homebody, but I do enjoy getting out and doing things on occasion. The things I like doing are well supplied in the exurbs with rare trip to the city center.
Different strokes, I guess.
“The rest of Georgia might suck for you, but if you like Atlanta, the other stuff doesn’t matter.”
if you like Atlanta, you have a lot of problems and moving isn’t going to cure them.
Atlanta has some positives. If you live and work in midtown, you can avoid the major problems too. Except for living and working in midtown.
At least I can go to the supermarket at 3 AM and buy whiskey. Try that in probably a quarter of US states and see what happens
“Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
Whiskey? At the supermarket?!?! such a thing is unheard of.
Here in Zion it’s totes cool.
Ohio tricks out of staters, or those who aren’t familiar with our liquor laws. By law, any alcohol above 42 proof must be sold at a state liquor store. However, quite a few brands release a 41 proof version of their brand which is sold in the grocery stores. So you could go to the store, grab some Captain Morgan, and wonder where the fuck the alcohol is.
Or, you could capture the business opportunity for the late night sales… if you weren’t forbidden by law.
I mean, why do I have to wait until noon on sunday to buy beer? The store is open, they have beer, why should anyone tell them they can’t sell it to me.
That one is here in Ohio as well, and it screwed me over not that long ago. I was at Jungle Jim’s (Imagine if Whole Foods was a local grocery run by, foodies that were also good natured rednecks instead of pretentious lefties) which is 45 minutes from my home (both stores are the same distance from me because nothing is ever simple) on a Sunday morning buying, among other things, ingredients for a Marsalla sauce. I had to either sit there for an hour so I could buy the Marsalla, or skip it.
Thanks for the article Lack. This is a very interesting topic that I have thought a lot about as I live in a low freedom state and eventually will move out of it for that reason. Even in such a state there are certain areas that are good or not bad. Drugs are decriminalized here, especially weed is bought legally and more importantly grown legally with no taxes. Booze laws are on the good side for the US.
Booze and raw milk!
The Dude abides!
I hear you. lots of the categories don’t really affect you, if you look into them. But being able to get a sixer on Sunday at 9am can make your whole day.
When I lived in Memphis there was a Walgreens near campus. If there was one particular guy working Sunday morning, you could buy your beer for cash with a bit of a premium any time in the morning. He’d wait until noon and then ring up all the “sales” he had made and pocket the difference.
He was the only employee that did that. And you had to be cool about it. No bringing beer up to the checkout line if a responsible citizen was in the area.
I bet the guy cleared an extra $50 every Sunday doing that. (I think you could buy beer at 7am on the other days, so I doubt there was a market for his services on those days).
I was told there would be no math.
Yeah but Obama lied.
Did you weight anything on bans on sunday beer sales or state run liquor stores? Those are the important metrics!
Absolutely huge really.
yes, that’s actually one of the metrics, iirc.
Looks like VA is going to drop a bit lower in the rankings.
there will be some small amount of push back but leviathan’s expansion in the northern counties will continue.
STAY AWAY FROM VIRGINIA
we’re looking around and my wife mentioned Vermont b/c skiing. i showed her their tax rates and we had a good laugh. i’m pushing for Wyoming, maybe a couple others.
Soon to be in free fall over the next few years
Maryland is absolute ass unless you limit it to the “Personal Freedom” basket–I didn’t do the deep-dive into individual variables. That’s a great example of how a few factors that have personal relevance subjectively outweigh whatever other factors the researchers weigh in. I’m a gun owner who misses smoking in bars (although I don’t smoke very often these days) so it feels pretty damn unfree to me. Were I a libertarian I guess I’d be excited that people without SSN’s can get a Maryland driver’s license, but since I have both and think you shouldn’t need a license to drive I don’t care. The recommendation to increase the Personal score by selling booze in grocery stores is, to me, missing the point dramatically when you consider that Maryland has more restrictive gun laws than NY. Don’t get me wrong, my hackles raise when I have to buy liquor in an ABC when we’re at Virginia Beach, but if I’ve got to choose between that and being able to buy a magazine with more than 10 rounds, it’s no contest.
If I could get my wife to sign off on Florida, I’d probably do it. I like the weather and if I moved to the panhandle I’d be at least in the same general area my people are from (Gadsden, AL); plus, my great aunt has a beach house in Panama City Beach she might be willing to part with. The missus would never go for it, though. Tennessee has popped up on my list often, too. Realistically, though, I’m stuck in MD for at least another ten years, likely more.
You hit upon a big point, a big part of freedom are the things that personally matter to you. I smoke weed so there is no way I’m living in a state that treats it as a crime. Nevada for me hits the right buttons, no income tax and low property tax, good on gun laws, ower regulations, legal weed, legal gambling and excellent booze laws (for the US). Due to family I won’t be moving there soon and I really hope by the time I do that it hasn’t been fucked over by leftism. I’ve also toyed with the idea of Mexico for retirement as I’ve spent plenty of time there, speak the language and love the property taxes and cost of living and the fishing. That would be far from a city though.
I’m a gun owner who misses smoking in bars
I thought I did too (I don’t smoke, but kinda like the ambiance it can give. But I don’t know now, going into a smoker’s house is pretty disgusting. There should still be the option, but I don’t miss it.
The recommendation to increase the Personal score by selling booze in grocery stores
Which you can anyway, depending on what county you are in.
Will no one speak for Iowa?
The caucuses spoke clearly.
Iowa outlaws smoking in rest areas. Since you can’t smoke in a rental car that made the Iowa stage of any driving trip for me annoying as hell.
Just go really fast and get through as fast as you can.
what are they gonna do if you do smoke? Corn you to death?
Where do you think they put the cob?
Uhmmmm…. Urethra?
That’s where they put the niblets.
I assume it involves being pulled apart by pickup trucks with enough chrome and fancy wheel hardware to gag a pimp. Seriously, the worst result of the corn subsidies are driven by teenage Iowayans.
Yes.
Mostly harmless.
42?
Well, it does get mistaken for heaven, after all.
The wife and I discussed where we would want to live if we decided to make a move regardless of family or work obligations. We both chose to stay in Pennsylvania. It’s not the worst or the best in anything. It’s superior in many ways to our surrounding states for the things important to us.
I like being far enough from big cities so I don’t get the high housing costs, but close enough to go to a concert or show conveniently. Mountains and country living within close proximity to urban and suburban life.
On paper I would love Pennsylvania, but for some reason I can’t quite deal with it. There’s a cultural thing I can’t get comfortable with. Nice people every time I’ve been–not Philly, of course–just…different in some way I can’t explain but that makes me ill at ease.
There is definitely still a cultural difference north and south of the Mason Dixon line. Cincinnati is really more on the Southern side of that divide culturally, although it partakes of both cultures. (yeah yeah I have heard it all before Nephilium, and I’ll take rednecks over the socialist leaning ethnic types you guys up North seem to have, even if they do make good food)
Completely different groups. The Polish grandmothers would whup your hide for even thinking of calling them socialists.
It’s the last grasps and gasps from the unions that get really annoying. Such as the “RIGHT TO WORK IS A LIE” billboard put up by some of the unions.
Don’t be silly. I’ve never heard of a socialist redneck. Such an animal could never exist.
Touche!
That’s where “Hands of my Medicare” basically came from.
My grandparents and most of my extended family are from the South–my grandmother is from Memphis and my grandfather and a ton of my family are from Birmingham. They moved up here when my grandfather started working for the then-Department of Health, Education, and Welfare after a brief stint in Arizona, and back then central and southern Maryland was still culturally more Southern than not. So, as my grandmother always puts it, we may live in Maryland but we are a Southern family. I think that’s why I prefer the eastern shore and southern Maryland, because culturally those places are still more like what I grew up with in subtle ways, and I think that’s probably what doesn’t quite fit with PA for me.
Maryland is red, except for the circle you draw around Towson, Rockville, and Annapolis.
The South begins at the South End of Boston.
I see that the south has risen again
My southern region rises every day.
It’s a defense mechanism. Our weirdness keeps the people from thr surrounding states out.
More seriously, Pennsylvania doesn’t really fit into any regional group of states. We’re similar enough to every state that borders us, but different enough that we end up as a sort of uncanny valley of culture. People from further away tend to find us just as odd as Maryland or New York, but people from Maryland or New York find us similar enough that the differences are jarring.
It’s like those fish that have faces that look sort of human.
But I will say that if I move from the area I’ll miss Scrapple the most. PA will always have a place in my heart for the closest thing to haggis most Americans can buy in a regular grocery store.
I found that stuff in a few states.
I have a brick of it in my freezer because I forget it’s there.
We do have interesting ideas on what counts as edible, I’ll give you that.
+1 scrapple
Everything, but the oink!
“We tried to find a way to utilize the oink and the squeal, but the logistics never worked out.”
St. Louis
Brain sandwiches
That is all.
There are some parts of the animal which were not meant to be eaten.
+ 1 prion.
If you look, you can find reasonable substitutes in some locations. Predominantly where lots of Germans moved to. As a bonus, there will usually be a strong brewery culture there as well.
I’m pretty sure most of the grocery stores round here carry it. I know I see it in Kroger and Food Lion.
If we want to truly quantify freedom, here’s my take: you are free (mathematically) to exactly the extent you get to keep the proceeds of your labor. Slavery = 100% tax rate (insert all the usual disclaimers about the horrors of people owning people, etc, etc.) If you only get to keep 50% of what you earn, you’re 50% free. Period.
In this modern society of plenty, I see only slightly more than a non-zero benefit to taxes, and a fuckload of downside that comes with it. If I got to keep more of my labor, in this society, I can buy almost anything that govt could provide, and do so more cheaply, with less externalities.
POLICE PROTECTION? I can buy my own guns; it’s why we have the 2A in the first place and I won’t kick in my own door, nor shoot my dogs. I could hire private security to amplify/supplement what I can do.
MUH ROADZ! I lived in Afghanistan, where there were no roads, modern technology allows me to buy a vehicle that can go virtually anywhere off-road. Plus, I’m in the desert, so it’s really not that bad. Roads existed before government; if I had more of my own money, I’d consider pooling it with my neighbors if we really needed to.
FIRE!? That’s what insurance and proper planning are for.
The Progs – especially the “secular humanists” – always laugh at religious people, particularly Christians, for their belief in ‘Sky Daddy,’ but look at how Progs treat government and tell me who really is the class relying upon some mythical ‘daddy’ conception to solve all of their problems.
100% tax rate =/= Slavery.
At 100% tax rate, you are free to not produce.
As a slave, you are not free to not produce.
Hobson’s Choice. It’s a form of slavery.
“You are free not to produce.” And starve to death.
As a slave you are also free to not produce – you really can make that choice. It just results in a quicker death (likely). You’re also getting room and board, but I didn’t want to go down this road, but you thought perhaps you were saying something clever, so here we are.
“You are free not to produce.” And starve to death.
Free to Starve?
I always knew you were a socialist 😉
“They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work”
And there are a lot of homeless people who scavenge enough to survive.
Opting out of the official economy does not mean starvation.
I know super-thrifty people who go dumpster diving. They aren’t poor by any stretch.
I admire them.
It’s not that I have too much pride to go dumpster diving. I have too much fear I’ll get caught and sent to the principal’s office (yes, that’s still a thing with me) (I immediately jump to fight or flight every time I see my kid’s school on my caller ID).
I thought dumpsters were fair game. Once something has been dumped in there, they have no real claim on the property.
Doesn’t mean some random cop (rent-a- or otherwise) can’t come along and flex his power.
Wickard and Obergfell say there is no opting out. As long as I can be put into some “risk pool” for insurance purposes, the govt (Roberts) says I can’t simply grow food on my property and be left alone.
Because FYTW.
But please tell me what point you think you’re making that contradicts what I’ve said? Because all I see you doing is passive-aggressive nitpicking because you seem not to like something in there, but you won’t just come out directly and address it.
What land? Slaves aren’t allowed to own property.
What I’m getting at is the analogy is incorrect, and hitting that 100% confiscation rate is insufficient to have ticked over to actual slavery.
You mean “ticked over” to your person pet definition of slavery, which (yet again) ignores the original disclaimers I made, solely to continue your claim that I’m incorrect by your exceedingly narrow definition of slavery.
Okay, you win. I could totally not work if the govt taxed me at 100% and live like a homeless person. You’re so totally right and I was so totally wrong.
If your disclaimers are required to try to avoid the normal definition, then you are working from a personal definition, not I.
Not at all – as KSuellington notes below, there are different forms of slavery and have been throughout history. You know this, however, so I can only conclude you’re being intentionally obtuse because…. well, I don’t know actually.
You’re trying to claim that someone keeping 100% of my labor is not slavery, even though I’ve now (repeatedly, ad nauseum) said that we’re talking about slavery as a mathematical construct. Because that was the whole point of the article – to quantify freedom by a dollar amount. So I specifically said to exempt all of the other aspects of chattel slavery, which you refuse to do and keep picking at your own version of slavery that specifically ignores what I said – and you keep doing it – so this is the last time I’ll address the point that you refuse to acknowledge because you simply can’t admit that you were wrong and are now going to bring in unrelated things like immigration policy, etc.
It’s bad faith as a mother fucker, so I’m done playing.
I’m torn on this. UCS is making a trollish but not invalid point, and there is a parallel one to be made in the other direction as well. If I am compelled to work at a job that someone else selects, I am a slave even if there are no taxes whatsoever. If I work myself to death as a volunteer by my own choice I am free. I don’t know that money is the crux of the matter, although it is an element of it because Ozy is also correct that being denied the ability to keep any of the products of your labor obviously takes your liberty to a tremendous degree.
Chattel slavery is but one (the worst) type.
John Marshall: The power to tax is the power to destroy.
UCS – NUH UH! You can live like a homeless person!!! QED
Yes, it destroys what you have built. Are we assuming migration controls are in place to prevent people fleeing? Because that’s an added element to the equation neither of us have touched on.
This should go into a series entitled “Asshole or Aspeberger’s? You decide!”
I’m thinking that should be the motto for the site.
+1.
Except for those of us not on the spectrum.
Progressivism started as a Christian revival movement.
I know, HM. I have an article in draft on the original Progressivism (WCTU) in the US and when it split: why Team Red’s statism is religious and Team Blue’s is… also religious.
The only way Progressivism makes sense is if you view it as a doomsday cult.
Damn straight. And slavery takes many forms, it’s not chattel slavery, but the closer you get to that 100% the closer you get to slavery. I estimate I am close to 50% and that includes federal SSI, state, property, gas, sales and booze. Leftists like Bernie would like to see that closer to 75 percent.
… I’d consider pooling it with my neighbors if we really needed to.
This is what we did at the lake. Worked great and our roadz were excellent (and private!).
The Sky Daddy provides strength for some individuals to confront the challenges of life. The government weakens all individuals by pretending to help overcome the challenges of life.
Humanists are loud, though. I’ll give you that.
See my Parable of Microslavery originally* published on TOS (in the comments). The idea was in no way unique to me, as your first paragraph is the same idea.
*Actual, originally “published” in a google hangout conversation with a proggy friend.
From 8/23/2009, me is me, Al is my friend. Bits of other conversations left in for temporal context. Things have changed in the last 10.5 years.
8:17 PM
me: If you keep posting health care articles, I will have to see how many of your different social circles I can piss off. 🙂
Al: it’s an interesting proposition
8:18 PM
me: I have a “Parable of Micro-slavery” that I need to write sometime.
Al: sounds interesting
8:19 PM
so, in general you think my plan is ok
but the specifics – not so much?
me: the devil is in the details
Al: well, of course
but if the big picture is already wrong
no need to work on the details
8:20 PM
me: someone suggested a methodology for considering these things – imagine the worst possible “reasonable” government you can running it.
exactly, and the proposal in congress is clearly wrong on many levels
Al: yeah – I read that somewhere
I think it was you
8:21 PM
that we must assume the worst possible enactment of the law
me: yeah, I got it from someone else though
historically, it is a safe bet
Al: yeah
8:23 PM
me: Are you familiar with the idea that was “proposed” pre civil-war to end slaves by freeing them for 1 day per week and allowing them to earn money to buy other days of freedom?
end slavery
Al: lol
that’s crazy
8:24 PM
me: I dont disagree, but it was a way to end slavery while respecting the [bogus] “property” rights.
I think the price per day would have been fixed and anyone could have bought the freedom for a slave.
Al: interesting
me: it ends slavery within a generation just not all at once.
8:25 PM
I think new borns were free.
8:26 PM
Anyway, for some reason I was thinking about it the other day, and I thought of the situation where a guy was free 4 days a week. So, he picked cotton as a slave M-W and then worked as a blacksmith or something Th-Sa (Su was a day of rest).
8:28 PM
Anyway, his owner gives him a proposal “You could make much more if you lived in the city, instead of commuting into our small town, how about we make a deal, I own 43% of you, you move to Atlanta and work for yourself 7 days per week, but send me 43% of your annual income, for as long as I continue to own 3 days of you. deal!” And the slave agrees because he will make more with 57% of his blacksmith work than he did as a part time blacksmith.
8:29 PM
Moral of the parable – microslavery is still wrong.
Al: indeed
and therefore we are slaves to anyone to whom we pay a tax?
8:30 PM
me: anyone who claims a demand on our life. But that is just your conclusion from the parable.
It has many layers. 🙂
8:34 PM
Jesus was better at the parable thing than I am…he didnt need to the long lead-ins explaining silly proposals that never were seriously considered.
Al: lol
good point
5 minutes
8:39 PM
me: I bought myself a flat screen for my birthday, this hi-def thing is addictive, I dont think I can watch standard def anymore
8:41 PM
Al: that’s what I’ve heard
ugh, I am in copy-paste way too much today.
I think that’s part of it, sure, but I can imagine–with some difficulty, mind you–a scenario where I’m keeping all of the proceeds of my labor but am subject to regulations that limit what I can do with my property. But I think a society where there is no tax whatsoever on income is likely to also be one that has a fundamental respect for individual liberty, almost incidentally. Also, I doubt such a society could support the bureaucratic apparatus necessary to infringe on rights to any great extent.
you are free (mathematically) to exactly the extent you get to keep the proceeds of your labor.
What you are actually allowed to do, with or without the proceeds of your labor, is a non-zero component of freedom.
Agreed, but I’d say the upper bound is still based in how much of your labor you keep.
Its a little more multi-dimensional to me.
If you are looking for a single proxy for overall freedom, though, I think the total tax burden is hard to beat.
okay, so just use the state tax measures and ignore anything else that goes into the rankings.
I wouldn’t say economics is the only thing that matters, but it is a damn sight more important to me than others it seems.
I’m definitely sympathetic to this woman, but this sort of nonsense is frustrating:
“This tool, which we had given the intelligence community—which is a good thing for them to have if they’re tracking down mass murderers and terrorists—they were using it for political purposes to go after political enemies,” McFarland lamented.
They’re political actors. Of course they’re going to use those powers for political purposes. It doesn’t work to try to make sure only “the right” people have the power to destroy people’s lives. You’ll always wind up with the wrong people having that power.
https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/19/k-t-mcfarland-says-mueller-interrogators-put-her-through-hell-and-left-her-trauamatized/
which is a good thing for them to have if they’re tracking down mass murderers and terrorists
Does the fact that i vehemently disagree with this, make me a leftists terrorist lover?
Not unless I am one as well.
Whats up my fellow Terrorist lovers?
One country’s terrorist is another country’s freedom fighter.
See: Boston tea party.
Even if what they’re fighting for is the ideological enslavement of the nonbeliever?
Dude, what?
It was a remark on the precepts of Islam and the things the terrorists are fighting for there.
Oh, and I’m starting to remember some communist terror groups that popped up during the cold war.
Not all terrorists are fighting for freedom.
*Explodes at Mojeaux’s comment*
All right. I’ll play that semantical game.
SOMEONE
SOMEWHERE
believes that their terrorists are not terrorists but are in the right and fighting against The Man.
Okay?
We good?
Okay, we can agree on there being some group that subjectively believes in their tribe’s explody bits.
I was watching a program on CNN last night (shut up, the screen said WINDSOR so I stopped scanning).
They were talking about Edward and Wallis and it so happened that the subject of Tsar Nicholas II came up because the Bolsheviks were coming and George denied him sanctuary (even though they were cousins).
Now, Nicholas was a terrible, awful, very bad tsar. Everyone agrees.
But I was wondering how much harder/less hard life would have been for the Russians without the Bolshevik Revolution. I was wondering what a Bolshevik-less Russia would look like today.
Okay, we can agree on there being some group that subjectively believes in their tribe’s explody bits.
Not even trying to hide that euphemism
Nick II was actually making some concessions and reforms. If not for the added stress of the war, Russia might have continued it’s gradual crawl in the direction of freer markets and less boot-stomping. I don’t kid myself into thinking they’d have broken their strongman habit even by today, but they might have approached something resembling Putin’s metastable state with the Tsars sooner had they not gone Red.
“I was wondering what a Bolshevik-less Russia would look like today.”
Remember that the Bolsheviks did not overthrow the czar. The czarist government fell in February, and for the following eight months Russia was ruled by a coalition that was broadly under the control of moderate republicans/constitutional monarchs/social democrats. They probably would have groped toward something like either the French Republic or the British constitutional monarchy. But while they debated and argued, the Bolsheviks were arming and organizing. If the Bolsheviks had risen in revolt against the Czar, it would not have gone well for them. They overthrow the Russian Republic, which was a soft target.
The tragedy of European liberalism in both Germany and Russia in those years of totalitarian regimes rising to power was that it wasn’t the muscular, energetic liberalism that is required for an enduring liberal society. If you bring lawyers, academics, and journalists to a street fight, you lose. You need people who both have liberal values and are willing and able to do violence in defense of those. Mao got that right: power flows from the barrel of the gun. The ideology of the most effectively violent group in society is the way the society will be organized.
Ingrates, mutineers, perpetrators of high treason, betrayers, scoundrels, self-interested businessmen!
I demand an apology for the insult to His Majesty King George III! Heads will roll!
https://youtu.be/pQlPjUSj7no
TPTB, would you kindly nuke my details from the stretching thread now that they’ve served their purpose? TYVM.
Done.
You have been charged one dick pic.
Please see your email for details.
Merci buckets. How much to delete the cryptic post as well?
Re-repost: Anyone seen Spittoon? It sounded the other day as if he’d been better, IYKWIM.
And while I’m on the subject of life stressors, my very belated condolences to Athena and Gbob.
Ok. I got that one too.
I’ll put the bobs and vagana pics on your tab.
Ferris Bueller, you’re my hero.
OT question for the glibs:
In Utah there are only two places that a ‘No Guns’ policy bears legal weight are private homes, and houses of worship that have registered with the state as places not to carry weapons. (and of course Federal buildings) Everywhere else businesses may ask you to leave (and get you for trespassing if you refuse to leave) but it isn’t illegal to walk into a Wal-Mart with a concealed carry gun if they have a “No Guns” sign posted.
What are your thoughts on that? Would this be basically the setup in glibertopia? It strikes me as rather Fair, though there is a part of me that could see that it is rather disrespectful to flout a businesses policy, at the same time most businesses do nothing meaningful to ensure the security of patrons, and so i find this to be a fair compromise. They can kick you out, but they can’t seek legal repercussions for it.
I have zero issue with any private property owner restricting guns on their property. But fuck no for public buildings. I don’t care if it’s state or feds.
The State Courthouse and Airport are the only two state buildings allowed to have a “Permanent Secure” zone, which is basically a zone that you have to go through very specific metal detectors. You won’t accidentally end up on the wrong side armed. All other state buildings you are allowed to carry in.
Agree. Reluctantly on the side of no liability for the property owner, as staying there disarmed is assuming the risk.
I have no problem with setting the rights. I have a problem with them being able to enforce it legally other than a form of tresspassing when asking the guy to leave. If i say “Hey No Swearing in my establishment” i have every right to kick out someone for doing so, but not to bring additional charges of “Swearing where prohibited”.
Same here.
We have AZ “no guns” signs at the hospital. And I have never been in a non-government building with more guns. Because of all the cops.
I remember the Yuma public library had little lockers for guns by the front door because it had a no guns policy.
KY law is similar. I have had arguments over it before, whether the sign should have legal bearing or not. I like the KY/UT approach, if you don’t leave you are trespassing, which means the sign has no bearing at all, as they can ask you to leave even without the sign.
VA is the same way. And it makes sense… private businesses do not get to codify their business policies into law. If the store’s policy is no firearms, then they can ask you to leave and then hit with trespass if you don’t. Same as a night club with no white t-shirts or a dining establishment that requires ties.
A major issue has been the recent blurring of businesses with the state. Especially in the airline industry where on-duty law enforcement has essentially and very disturbingly become security guards for the airlines, including the enforcement of airline policies that are not laws (moonlighting off-duty is okay, but not on-duty when they presumably work for the public).
I am out of sauerkraut and my current Reuben sandwich is short on the savory stuff.
I have enough of everything except sauerkraut for one last Reuben sandwich before my binge wears off, but I don’t want to go out.
Not going out wins, hands down.
I can’t get over how awful ze kraut smells.
What’s your dill pickle status? In a pinch, that might do the same thing.
I second this motion.
My dill pickle status haz the sadz.
Any way I cut it, I’mma have to go out which is not happening. That would require pants and a bra.
That would require pants and a bra.
No, It wouldn’t.
Actually somewhat on topic:
Maryland Classic Car Drivers Could Soon Face Emissions Tests Again
NJ actually shocked me about 10 years ago when they eliminated safety inspections and now only check emissions. And classic cars are exempt.
Fuck off, slavers.
*revs*
I spent hundreds of dollars to get my ’75 Spitfire to (just barely) pass Minneapolis emissions tests.
I was very happy when Gov. Ventura did away with that BS
I have all the smog shit for my 78. In a box in the garage attic.
Where it belongs.
They figure the shitty roads will eliminate them all soon enough anyhow.
First picture – a 427 Cobra – want.
Add to state freedom index: No inspections on vehicles in Indiana (except those counties near Chicago, sorry TOK)
“Noooo! Don’t kick the tires!”
“Why not?”
“The rust will fall off.”
“So?”
“The rust is the only thing holding the drive train in place.”
I’m big on land use, how easy it is to modify one’s own property, build outbuildings, determine your own uses for your own damn buildings etc.
That is one measure they used, but I think by default only accounts for 1 or 2% of the total score.
Couldn’t get through all the comments, need to head back to work. will try to comb through them if I grey a break, so check back here later and I may address a few more things.
Michigan number 5???
Jeez, how bad *is* it out there?
B1G might have 14 teams in the top 20 if they werent beating each other up. And I hate admitting to them being good.
Its all dependent upon which factors you weight and how heavily. Apparently you guys really hate women, so you ranked highly on one of my lists.
You mean indoctrinating children from birth to revere socialism results in them supporting a socialist?
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/23/bernie-sanders-is-the-front-runner-because-of-how-we-raised-our-kids.html
UNPOSSIBLE
Boomerlash.
Thank goodness the young don’t vote.
Goddamn, I wish those little shitheads got the Marxism good and hard…..so long as I didn’t have it inflicted on me, as well.
The one good thing about this push for socialism in schools (I’m an optimist by nature) is that they are making the socialism into what the powers that be say is the right way. They are going to turn a whole lot of rebellious teens away from it with that approach. Socialism loses some of its cool when all the teachers tell you it’s the hip thing.
XX’s high school might be going the way of gender identity politics, but every one of her history and English teachers have extolled the evils of socialism and are correctly teaching fascism as a different flavor.
One of the history teachers has a Gadsden flag in his classroom.
Weirdly, those teachers are all my age.
Wow, at least that. I went to a combo of public and Catholic schools and while they weren’t preaching the joys of socialism, they just kind of ignored the terrible parts for the most. It wasn’t until I did my own reading that I really found out the scale of destruction that socialism caused.
Do kids like school now, or do they still hate it?
If they still hate it, maybe they can make the connection.
Ohio is 25 out of 50. That’s just perfect, lol. Always the ultimate bellwether state.
Got to maintain that “Swing State” status.
/waves tiny state of Ohio flag
I’d like to see Ohio someday. Drew Carey, Harvey Pekar, A Christmas Story, WKRP, the Keatons: what’s not to like?
From what i hear? Toledo, Cincinati, Columbus…
Cancel reply
Dayton produced one of my favorite bands of all time.
So there’s that.
Not my fave band but I rather this song.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=thu8DWsirJo
rather LIKE, that is–
How about these guys?
*boogies*
Play that funky music, white boy!
On topic!
For EDG.
My first run through, I was rather disappointed by cleveland. I got redirected to the outskirts of the city by the locals on the second drive through, and that was less of an issue.
I’m still irritated at the valets who lost my car key (and glad I had a spare with me)
There is a double letter somewhere in CCinnccinnatti, but your guess is as good as mine.
Oh you zany Luvlans
The Browns, for starters
Hey! If you need an excuse to sit around on a Sunday drinking beer and eating wings, while bitching about idiot coaches, the Browns have you covered!
I get to do that with the Giants anyway.
Don’t have any opinion about Cleveland one way or the other, but when I was a kid my dad quit his job rather than move there when his company relocated. This was around 1988.
The bar they used for the external shots of the Drew Carey show is still there. And one of the local breweries made a white stout named Buzz Beer.
The Christmas Story house (and gift shop) is a tourist trap draw.
I probably wouldn’t know the difference re Xmas Story house. Guy who bought it was from my county.
Did I mention I miss Drew Carey reruns on LAFF?
Amusing ad with Ryan Stiles at about 30 seconds in: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8vNnH78odsk
They did a decent job rehabbing it to look the same as the movie. But the leg lamps are in damn near every bar in the area. If you really want, you can stay in the house, or the Bumpus’ house next door.
But we’ve got lots of good food and breweries, come and visit.
Aw, you’re sweet.
I was one of the few people who saw Xmas Story in first run. Must have been on the strength of a trailer, but which film?
All of my family could have extended conversations solely in Xmas Story quotes.
Forget that “Birthplace of Aviation” or “Heart of America” stuff.
“Ohio: Perfectly Average” should be the new state slogan.
The Ohio Motto should be: “Ohio, somehow we’re not the worst state bordering Indiana.”
I’m big on land use, how easy it is to modify one’s own property, build outbuildings, determine your own uses for your own damn buildings etc.
Bingo. How easy is it for a group of people to steal your “property rights”* with some bullshit excuse about how you are causing them some imaginary harm?
*I hate to even use that term, it has become so bastardized and fraught with out-of-context misuse.
Funny Story my in-laws neighbors were trying to get in on some adverse possession on their neighboring land.
Then the owner of the land sold it to a developer and the developer came in and tore up all the fence that they had put up not on their property.
Adverse possession is basically theft for which the statute of limitations has expired.
Pater Dean and a neighbor of his were, for some reason, checking property lines and fences on the back end of their ranches, which were already in the back end of beyond. One fence was askew the property line. The looked it over and agreed the fence made sense where it was, and each deeded the other the land needed to put the property line on the fence line. Vague recollection that it was around 10 – 15 acres each (the ranches were at least a couple of sections each). Close enough to an even exchange.
I have neighbor issues, arising from a group of people who have apparently decided they “own” the road and consequently may do as they please on my property.
It’s really really pissing me off; to the point where I just don’t care if they think I’m a monumental asshole
I hear you. I’m having an issue with poachers. They tore down my fence and put a bullet hole in my metal “Posted” sign before tearing it down.
I’m reinforcing the area with wood posts, cattle panels reinforcing the field fence, and then wrapping the posts with barbed wire in addition to the across the fence. My next step will be to mount a game camera and talk to the neighbors. Unfortunately, the spot is right in between two trailers so it’s not immediately clear who’s responsible (if either owner). Also, the trailer owners are probably meth heads who aren’t even the ones poaching so a neighborly talk will not do much.
They had to be dickish on top of tresspassing and shooting the animals on your land?
I start to wonder if they’re the sort to have shot you should you have stumbled onto them.
Yes, they are. Before we moved in and put up the fence, my neighbor told me his friendly house dogs got loose and went to the pond on my property. They surprised the poachers who shot 2 (labs I think) dead.
My wife and I are armed when we hike and always have at least 2 GSDs off leash with us. The precautions are for 2-legged rats just as much as for bear and coyote. In fact, I’ve been thinking about getting K-9 armored vests for the dogs.
Not that my property is like Mogadishu. The people around are generally friendly and there’s rarely issues. Always have to be one or two dickheads though that cause trouble.
Shoot, shovel, shut up?
When did we (the royal we) start referring to German Shepherds as German Shepherd Dogs and why? I just noticed it a while back, Is it just pretentiousness or is their some differnce?
Deutscher Schäferhund.
It’s the literal translation.
So pretentiousness, got it.
And I’ve never heard someone use the actual name, just the acronym. Our current dog is a Polish Lowland Sheepdog, Polski Owczarek Nizinny in Polish and widely known as a PON.
Fair enough, GSD is easier to type than German Shepherd and it’s online that I’ve noticed it.
Every time I see GSD (even if the topic is dogs), I see Getting Shit Done.
Here.
Hah! I thought about hammering rebar into the ground along the fence with an inch or two sticking out to blow ATV tires out.
Tough one, SSD. Very tough. I wouldn’t want to confront them in person, even with armed backup, but I suspect they aren’t going to stop until somebody goes nose-to-nose with them. Game warden is famously the most risky law enforcement job.
Best case scenario – your trail camera gets some decent shots that are usable by law enforcement.
I like the rebar idea.
Yea, it’s a tough one. I’m hesitating on the rebar because I don’t want to go to war with someone I don’t know but who knows me. I can all too easily imagine that their retribution for blown out tires will be throwing poisoned meat over my fence.
If the camera doesn’t work, I may have to go back to allowing a friendly local to use my woods for hunting. This person definitely isn’t involved in the poaching, but would make it known to other locals that my woods are off-limits in return for his use. Rural country politics are interesting… they all know everything everyone else is doing. As an outsider though, I’m of course outside that.
Crime dog gets what’s coming to him.
Who’s surprised?
Welcome to 2014!
16 years in prison stemming from a 2011 arrest in which police seized 1,000 marijuana plants, 27 weapons – including a grenade launcher – and 9,000 rounds of ammunition from his home
not guilty
are those 9,000 rounds for the grenade launcher?
Someone is having a ruff time.
ruh-roh
I’ll introduce you to the rest of the NoDaks. It’ll be a fun few hours!
Most of it will consist of driving to where they are?
I keep promising not to kill people, but nobody believes me.
*knife drops from sleeve*
Pretend you didn’t see that.
I look forward to it.
Bubble? What bubble?
Democrats shouldn’t worry, though: Bernie has a strong organization and a lot of money, and can mobilize millions of people to support him in November. He’s exactly the kind of candidate you should want your party to have. And for all the fear of his “radicalism,” he’s really a moderate: his signature policies are a national health insurance program, a living wage, free public higher education, and a serious green energy investment plan. It’s shocking that there is such opposition to such sensible plans. On what planet are these things so politically toxic that Democrats are afraid to run on them? Voters like these ideas, and so long as Democrats unify behind Bernie rather than continuing to try to tear him down, they will have a very good shot at defeating a radical and unhinged president like Donald Trump. The polling looks good for Bernie in November, so now we just need to get this primary over with and focus on the real fight. The other candidates had their shot: they lost. They need to accept it.
——-
All in all, Nevada was an inspiring moment for American democracy, proof that ordinary working people of all races and incomes and genders can come together around a robust progressive agenda. Democrats need not worry: this is a good thing. It’s a night to be celebrated. The primary is not completely over, but hopefully it is now clear to every sensible observer that Bernie is cruising toward the nomination and needs to be supported rather than torn down.
And an aged white crypto-communist shall lead them. Onward, to diversity!
And for all the fear of his “radicalism,” he’s really a moderate: his signature policies are a national health insurance program, a living wage, free public higher education, and a serious green energy investment plan.
That’s “moderate” compared to what?
proof that ordinary working people of all races and incomes and genders can come together around a robust progressive agenda.
Nobody has ever really doubted that a big enough pile of free stuff will attract supporters. The question is, will it attract a majority of voters?
Moderate compared to the person who follows, tightening the migration controls and forcing people to work so that the free stuff can be delivered within the five year plan.
Trump wants a wall to keep people out. If Sanders gets what he wants, we’ll need it to keep Americans in.
Compared to Trump, obviously.
“such sensible plans”….baaaahahahahahaha
*gales of laughter*
moderate?!? Pull the other one!
Making your private insurance illegal is a moderate position
It is commonsense, really, just like banning the private possession and use of firearms tech that is half(+) a century old.
It’s shocking that there is such opposition to such sensible plans.
I, for one, am shocked that someone might object to the endless expansion of state control over our lives.
It’s the Grauniad. Of course they’re unhinged.
Nobody has ever really doubted that a big enough pile of
free stuffshit will attractsupportersflies. The question is, will it attract a majority ofvotersflies?Tennessee beat Kentucky?
Everyone’s favorite failed novelist weighs in about Bernie’s love for Castro:
Ben Rhodes
✔
@brhodes
Since everyone suddenly wants to talk Cuba, what works as a matter of policy and politics is to support approaches that actually help the Cuban people and Cuban families living on the island and in Florida – you can simultaneously see the failures of Fidel and U.S. policy.
379
12:47 PM – Feb 24, 2020
What does that even mean?
I imagine he’s attempting to say we’re equally to blame as Castro is for Cuba being a Communist hellhole.
To be sure
Ah. So just the usual “wrong person in charge”, “wreckers and kulaks” argument. Obviously it will work this time, with dear old Bernie in charge, who only wants what’s best for us all.
Cuba fucking sucks. (A video which will surprise exactly no one here, but it is well done).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BS2IvQWjzRY
You’re not in a cuba state of mind?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfYCsyIMeMQ
damnit
Heh, heh. Always great Remy.
Terrific video. Thanks.
Do tell us, Ben, what Cuban and US policies should change to help Cubans living in Florida. We’re all ears. No points will be awarded for proposals that actually help the Cuban regime, BTW.
Katie Hill is a naughty girl who needs a spanking,
https://freebeacon.com/politics/here-comes-throuple-hacker-tied-to-katie-hill-arrested-for-cyber-attack-on-her-opponent/
The FBI traced the hacking to an anonymous Amazon Web Services account that was paid for by Dam’s credit card.
You’re a dumb fuck.
“Hah-hah! They’ll never suspect who did it – I didn’t use my name on the account!”
It looks like CNN is being reamed over on the Twatter for referring to Africanized bees as Africanized bees. Y’all get three guesses why.
Err, how dare CNN assume what species they identify as?
people are being niggardly?
The bees, like naggers, are annoying?
Good Lord. Ask a useful idiot about the weather and they go on a spittle flecked rant about racism. This shit gets very tiresome.
The bees are very much africanized, but Africa isn’t the only place that happens. Environmental factors strongly influence bee behavior. change those factors and they can easily be un-africanized.
I have to appologise to Ozy. I realized on the drive home that I was not debating what you said. I was commenting distracted and only skimmed what was written and only gave half formed replies to even that.
I believe you’re still wrong, but because of the univariate approach and ignoring other controls on behaviour. Being free to keep all you produce but being told what to make is just as much a form of slavery. *side eyes China*
And even how I phrased that poorly.
What does that even mean?
Cuban expatriates, snatched from the bosom of their true home and forcibly relocated to Florida, are suffering the tortures of the damned. Why does America continue to hold them against their will?
Remember when Janet Reno heroically liberated Elian Gonzales?
Wait, she fit in that tacticool getup?
Netanyahu last night on the Mark Levin show: “The leftists are lying. They are not going to do any of the things they say they will.”
Does anyone really think Bernie is going to open the floodgates of free shit? His tax increases wont put a dent ini the cost of the things he is promising. He, like all leftists, only intend on grabbing more power while everyone else sinks.
Does anyone really think Bernie is going to open the floodgates of free shit?
*raises hand*
If he gets a Dem Senate and House, damn right he will. Deficit be damned. National minimum wage, student loan forgiveness, massive increase in higher ed subsidies, and undoubtedly some kind of expanded national health insurance (not sure if the Dems will be willing to bet their House and Senate majorities on Medicare for All, after what happened with ObamaCare).
When you are counting on a Dem House and Senate to restrain a Dem President, you are in a very dark place, indeed.
If scenario comes true, one easily predicts the rise, for 2022, of a much more pissed off and aggressive Tea Party Movement.
**HEAVY SIGH**
We don’t have a government in Ottawa; we have an Instagram page with executive authority.
Rex Murphy for PM!