Freedom: is it any surprise…
…that the large and liberal states of New York and California rank low on the scale of individual freedom?
And what do New Hampshire and Indiana have in common? Not only do they rank very high, but they both are islands of individual freedom surrounded by states that rank very low.
New Hampshire seems quite aware of this—after all, its state motto is the famous “Live Free or Die” (I wrote about that here). What’s Indiana’s secret?
Indiana was never really totally industrialized like Illinois or Ohio (Gary is really part of Chicago). You had family farms until very recently and a more conservative religious background of Methodists and German Baptists. There was none of the Scandinavian Lutheran socialism seen in Minnesota or Iowa.
So your average Hoosier was self reliant, had a generally conservative moral upbringing and a good view of the industrial chaos next door.
With respect to New Hampshire, I think it applies more to northern NH than southern NH. With all the Bostonians fleeing the high taxes (gee I thought liberals LIKED taxes) for Nashua, etc, the southern part of the state now has a much different character than the classic image of NH.
We have friends in northern NH (Lancaster). There are farms/properties in Coos county that even the local police don’t like to visit 🙂 Talk about independent.
“”What’s Indiana’s secret?””
In the words of comedian Steve Harvey..”Country ass people appreciate s***”
The Indiana Supreme Court recently ruled that citizens have no right to resist illegal home entry by police.
At the governor’s office: crickets chirping. At the legislature: crickets chirping.
Remember, folks: when seconds count, judicial intervention is only months away (if you can afford a lawyer).
gs Says:
June 16th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
The Indiana Supreme Court recently ruled that citizens have no right to resist illegal home entry by police.
At the governor’s office: crickets chirping. At the legislature: crickets chirping.
Remember, folks: when seconds count, judicial intervention is only months away (if you can afford a lawyer)”
Can you name the states where you still have a legal right to resist false arrest?
It seems that “Dad’s” old law books really do describe a different social world and set of assumptions.
That common law presumption of a right has progressively disappeared through statutory abolition for years.
No claim that this is up-to-date:
http://www.boalt.org/bjcl/v2/v2hemmens.pdf
And the courts too.
” There is no fundamental constitutional right to resist an unlawful arrest or seizure…. The right to use self-defense to resist unlawful arrest has only been afforded protection at the common law and is not a constitutional right. … there is no fundamental constitutional right to resist unlawful arrest or seizure …”
http://coa.courts.mi.gov/documents/OPINIONS/FINAL/COA/20100126_C286528_45_286528.OPN.PDF
Here’s the link to the study~
http://mercatus.org/freedom-50-states-2011
New Hampshire is #1, Indiana is #3.
California, New Jersey and New York are 48, 49 and 50. Imagine that.
Drug dealers, illegal immigrants, welfare bums, and those partaking in Planned Parenthood services find California pretty darned free.
Drug dealers, illegal immigrants, welfare bums, and those partaking in Planned Parenthood services find California pretty darned free.
Lefties love to talk about society “oppressing” someone or other as part of their Marxist-Leninist “oppressor-oppressed” article of the faith. They fail (or refuse) to grasp that “oppressing” some people is the whole idea of society.
The shoe has to pinch somewhere; it either pinches on (i.e., constrains the behavior of) criminals and other anti-social types, whose activities undermine civilized life, or if the lefties have their way it pinches on the industrious, hard-working, responsible, tax-paying types who lack connections. But someone is going to feel the pinch.
DNW:
I guess that’s a right that is going to have to be asserted. Vigorously, and in many different places.
The government won’t back down until the cost gets too high. If you know what I mean.
It’s not *all* chirping in the Indiana legislature, here’s my state senator at work:
link
Also, I haven’t seen many, well, any, German Baptists around here, maybe they’re all up north. Down here in the southern part of the state we’ve got lots of German Lutherans and some Catholics, and the odd Jew, but not Baptists so as you’d notice… If that combination is here they’re pretty quiet.
“The government won’t back down until the cost gets too high. If you know what I mean.”
In the 1930s my father and uncles helped granddaddy produce & run (sell) moonshine to pay the real estate taxes on the family farm about 30 miles miles from Middlesboro, Kentucky (owned for generations since 1781). They knew, as did their neighbors, know how to deal with government revenuers who poked their noses into family business.
We moved to Iowa when I was 3, but over the years I was taught that government is rarely the friend and usually the enemy. Nothing I have witnessed in 63+ years has proven otherwise.
Althouse notes that: New Hampshire – ranked #1 in freedom – ranks 50th in the level of education of its legislators.
It seems that “real people” in office, (less lawyers?) might make a difference…
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-hampshire-ranked-1-in-freedom-ranks.html
Live Free or Die may be a loaded slogan. My slacker useless former brother in law had that in mind while he mooched off my dad.
What’s sad is listening to all the lefties moan about this study, asking why factors like “the freedom to change employers without the fear of losing your healthcare coverage” aren’t included, and doing it with a straight face. (http://salon.com/a/sKzofAA)
Is it that hard to understand the difference between freedom from coercion and freedom from consequences? Or is their worldview so twisted that words are turned upside down and lose their meaning? (hint: those were rhetorical questions)
Indiana resident here.
We’re free because we keep all the moonbats locked up in a small northwest corner of the state.
We’re free because we keep all the union thugs locked up in a small northwest corner of the state.
We’re free because we keep all the druggies and gangbangers locked up in a small northwest corner of the state.
We’re free because I am licensed to carry a concealed loaded weapon whenever I need to visit that small northwest corner of the state.
“Drug dealers, illegal immigrants, welfare bums, and those partaking in Planned Parenthood services find California pretty darned free.”
You’re right, freedom in California depends on who you are.
Victor Davis Hanson has been blogging about the two California’s: the regular folk who are being taxed and regulated to death, and then the recent immigrants who have been allowed to set up their third world lifestyle right here in the US. Dumping trash wherever they please, selling items on the street corner (w/no sales tax, no vendor’s license), eateries on wheels (without health inspection oversight), cobbled together shacks (no zoning approval, building code followed), etc. Utterly depressing.
ninjafetus Says:
June 17th, 2011 at 8:16 am
What’s sad is listening to all the lefties moan about this study, asking why factors like “the freedom to change employers without the fear of losing your healthcare coverage”…
Is it that hard to understand the difference between freedom from coercion and freedom from consequences? Or is their worldview so twisted that words are turned upside down and lose their meaning? (hint: those were rhetorical questions)”
I was about to respond with a comment about John Dewey and his marxian style redefinition of freedom, until I read your last line and saw you were already there.
It is of course “people like you” with your retrogressive and emotionally immature attachment to guns, God, and that blasted charter of negative (-ly formulated) liberties, that are the real problem.
Get with the program. There is nothing to protect against unwelcome change. The self is an illusion, merely matter in motion; and, real freedom is the freedom to fulfill your social obligations and exercise your potentials as a responsible element of a properly directed collective.
Where will it all lead you ask, and for what end?
Don’t worry. Answering those questions isn’t your responsibility. There are those with expertise and credentials who are better suited to that. They work in government supported institutions and are paid good money for their trouble.
Happiness is for you, in knowing your place.
So, what’s on American Idol tonight?
john Says: It’s not *all* chirping in the Indiana legislature, here’s my state senator at work:
Thanks for the link. Good luck to your Senator Nugent.
Indiana’s secret is the same as New Hampshire’s: a substantial proportion its population being of Scots-Irish descent. One of the reasons the Confederacy did not succeed in winning independence was that the tough-as-nails Scots-Irish were fighting on both sides. New Hampshire’s Ulstermen immigrated directly there in the early 18th century. Pennsylvania’s moved from just west of Philadelphia to the mountainous regions of western PA. Southern Indiana’s Scots-Irish arrived there from Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina. Folks in this ethnic group really don’t accept being told what to do with good grace.
Apparently one New Hampshire man took the “live free or die” slogan literally:
Link
Ted Nugent is an Indiana State Senator?
🙂
It’s surprising, given how things are going with the country, that more people aren’t amok. Father’s Day makes Marc’s post especially poignant.
Thomas Ball remained self-possessed enough to turn his rage on himself and not against others. RIP.