It was reported today that a study done by Mercatus Institute, a libertarian think-tank, concluded that New Hampshire had the least amount of restrictions on both economic and personal freedoms. Quite a few conservatives have been making hay about the fact that the least freest state on the list is New York, an obviously liberal state. There is so much wrong with the logic of this that it is difficult to even begin analyzing the flawed reasoning behind it, but I decided to try and take a stab at it.
First and foremost is the fact that New Hampshire, the freest state on the list, is a decidedly blue state, having gone for the Democratic presidential candidate in three out of the last four presidential elections. Aside from that is the obvious fact that defining exactly what freedom means, can be a bit of a puzzle itself. For instance, conservatives (especially of the Tea Party variety) love to hold themselves up as the arbiters of freedom, yet they turn around and deny full marriage equality to LGBT citizens, criminalize personal drug use, deny reproductive rights to women, particularly abortion, attempt to censor movies, books, and internet material that doesn't fit within their "moral" purview, want to force everyone to pray to the concept of God that is their own personal favorite, and gleefully support the most extreme curtailing of personal freedoms in the name of "national security" or "law enforcement." Mikhail Bakhunin once stated that "The freedom of all is essential to my freedom." Sorry, you can't run around warning people about the dangers to their freedoms from those "socialist, liberal fascists" (whatever that is), and then fight to take away people's personal freedoms in all of the above areas. If you do, then don't be surprised when people see your displays of defending freedom as pure, bullshit hypocrisy.
But then on the other hand, an argument can be made that libertarian conservatives don't suffer from this sort of blatant hypocrisy and tend to be more consistent in allowing people to have the freedom to make their own choices, even if they don't agree with those choices. While this may be true to some extent (they at least don't exhibit the level of inconsistency of the Tea Party crowd), I think then that the argument should be, how far should freedom extend? Conservatives, especially of the libertarian/Randian variety are constantly arguing for a minimal amount of government and the maximum ability to live one's life as one pleases. It's not very hard to grasp how such a concept can be extremely selfish and uncaring to one's fellow members of society. Indeed, Ayn Rand, the founder of Objectivism, which provides the philosophical foundation for what now constitutes contemporary, right-wing libertarianism, was adamant that selfishly looking out for numero uno was the highest ideal any person should be striving to attain. As Rand argued:
"Now there is one word, a single word, which can blast the morality of altruism out of existence and which it cannot withstand, the word: Why? Why must man live for the sake of others? Why must he be a sacrificial animal? Why is that the good? There is no earthly reason for it, and, ladies and gentlemen, in the whole history of philosophy no earthly reason has ever been given....What most moralists, and few of their victims, realize is that reason and altruism are incompatible."
Altruism, in Rand's worldview, is not only not a moral act, but is, in fact, downright evil. The culturally common belief--a belief that has held universally among all human societies--that taking care of those who are weaker, or more vulnerable (think of the elderly, children, the widowed, the poor) is something that is considered noble and honorable has finally been revealed by Rand for the evil farce that it is. This idea that has been the glue of social cohesion for the roughly 200,000 years of human history is now revealed to be the basis of human evil. This idea would be laughable, philosophically, if it weren't for the fact that Rand is considered a hero to many on the Right. That is because the greed and lust for material wealth that infests the upper levels of corporate capitalism in the U.S. today finds a comfortable home among those who believe that accumulating massive amounts of wealth for oneself without having to be responsible in any way to the society that provided the framework for them to be successful is only fair. But let's not kid ourselves for what this is. It's pure unadulterated, spoiled-brattiness and bears no resemblance to the ideals that this nation was truly founded upon. The great successes that this country has achieved and the obstacles that it has overcome were only accomplished when the country came together as responsible adults who understood that everyone needed to sacrifice a bit of their individuality to obtain a national goal. "Join, or Die!" was Benjamin Franklin's rallying cry for the colonies to unite to overcome the abuses of British rule. "A house divided against itself cannot stand," was Lincoln's call to unite the nation during the Civil War. The "rugged individualist" notion that in a modern, civilized society someone can live completely beholden only to themselves and owe no responsibility to either the government that administrates their society or their fellow citizens is an idea whose time should have run its course, if it ever even really existed at all. If this is how a person wants to live their life, then by all means, find a deserted island and live your Grizzly Adams existence. Or better yet, move to Somalia, where there is no formal government or legal regulation of any kind.
The fact of the matter is that achieving the maximum amount of individual freedom while simultaneously shrinking government to its bare minimum has no real place in modern, civilized societies. Even in prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies, it was never "every man for himself." In fact, altruism and collective support evolved very early in the human species as a way of ensuring the survival of the species. One of the many misunderstandings about biological evolution is that it is operating at the individual level. But that's not the case. Evolution occurs at the species level and modifications to the gene pool occur to keep the species alive, not the individual. Libertarians and conservatives have a gross misunderstanding of our inherent biological nature when they put forth the preposterous idea of the "rugged individualist." Our species has survived for 200,000 years because it evolved the ability to unite as a collective to keep the society and, by extension, the human race alive, not because every individual fended for him or herself.
This leads me back to the original point of the article, which is the idea of measuring the success of conservative vs. liberal policies by measuring how much more or less "free" some states are over others is an exercise in futility. Freedom is very relative to the political observer. To the libertarian, federal food safety regulations are an imposition of government into the freedom of the individual to eat whatever they please, whereas, I would view this as government providing me with the ability to be free from eating shit that is destructive to my physical health. Contrasting states in this manner provides us with no data points to determine whether conservative or liberal governing policies are successful at making us "free" since neither side can even agree on what that means.
There is, however, very solid data for measuring the relative health of societies that can provide us with meaningful conclusions about which side governs better. As a sociologist, my training has conditioned me to look not at difficult-to-quantify, subjective measurements like "freedom" to ascertain the relative success of a society, but rather to analyze objective, substantial indicators that give us an overall view of a society's viability. Just think of your own experiences visiting the doctor. The first thing the doctor does is to take a reading of your "vital signs," things like temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, etc. These vital readings can give a quick picture of whether a person is in good general health, or if there is something out of kilter. In the same manner, sociologists are trained to look at a host of societal indicators, "vital signs" if you will, that give a general picture of how well a society is functioning, things like infant mortality rate, average life expectancy, crime rate, drug use rate, illiteracy rates, education levels, illegitimate birth rates, wealth distribution, income inequality, healthcare coverage rates, etc. These provide us with a much clearer picture of how well a society is functioning than some "freedom" ranking.
When we analyze these statistics, contrasting red vs. blue states in the U.S., we discover the dirty little secret among conservatism that you won't ever hear about on Fox News. Red states have atrocious statistics in the areas of these vital signs. Red states on average have much higher infant mortality rates, lower average life expectancy, higher drug use, higher rates of poverty, lower educational levels, higher divorce rates, higher rates of pornography use, higher traffic fatalities, and on and on.... Citing these statistics is not done to bash red states per se, but to merely point out that you get what you pay for. Conservatives want, and get, governments that are small and provide very little assistance to its citizens, and, as a result, they reap the whirlwind of negative, societal repurcussions that go along with not providing a social safety net for those who need it the most. To top it off, a recent report from the Tax Foundation shows that red states take in far more federal subsidies than they pay to the federal government. On the flip side, liberal states pay out far more revenue to the federal government than they take back in federal subsidies. In other words, liberal states are footing most of the bill for subsidies that are being consumed mostly by the red states. Conservatives, for all of their talk about not needing to rely on government for anything, sure seem to be feeding at the public trough an awful lot.
So the next time some conservative tries to tout how conservative states are "freer" than liberal states, cite some real statistics and let them know that if that's what conservatives call "freedom," they can have it.