Category: reason

Our liberties have taken a beating in recent years, accelerated by governments’ enthusiasm for leveraging COVID-19 as an excuse for further tightening control over society. We long ago arrived at the point where newly published assessments of the health of personal and economic freedom elicit winces before we even read the gloomy summaries. So the arrival of the latest edition of the Cato Institute’s Freedom in the 50 States is welcome both for its somewhat optimistic take on the future of pandemic-fueled restrictions as well as for the handy guide it offers for people looking to relocate within the United States to places where valued freedoms enjoy protection.

First, let’s get the inevitable pain out of the way: “[A]lthough the rights of some have increased significantly in certain areas, for the average American, freedom has declined generally because of federal policy that includes encroachment on policies that states controlled 20 years ago,” concede authors William Ruger and Jason Sorens in the introduction to the print edition (PDF).

Dispiriting caveats are a feature of these assessments, from warnings in The Economist‘s Democracy Index 2020 that “democracy has not been in robust health for some time” and “[a]cross the world in 2020, citizens experienced the biggest rollback of individual freedoms ever undertaken by governments during peacetime (and perhaps even in wartime)” to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance’s caution that “[t]he world is becoming more authoritarian as non-democratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many democratic governments suffer from backsliding by adopting their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law, exacerbated by what threatens to become a ‘new normal’ of Covid-19 restrictions.” It’s wise to have a stiff drink when reading these reports. And remember that their rankings are relative to the moment.

That’s especially true of Freedom in the 50 States since it grades the states in so many categories involving both personal and economic freedom. It then ranks them based on weights that necessarily are prone to vary depending on individual preferences and priorities.

“[O]ur index of freedom should be understood to represent each state’s relative respect for freedom, as reflected in the value enjoyed by the ‘average’ person who would otherwise be deprived of the freedoms we measure,” Ruger and Sorens emphasize. “However, each individual will value different policies differently, and for that reason, again, we encourage readers to apply their own weights and personalize the freedom index at http://www.freedominthe50states.org.”

A good example of the value of applying your own weights is found in the profile for Arizona, where I live. The Grand Canyon State ranks ninth overall from an average across multiple categories. If you have kids, it’s worth knowing that Arizona actually gets top ranking because of the availability of choice, including school vouchers, charters, homeschooling, and tax credits. But, if you’re in a regulated trade, you need to be aware that the state ranks at 17, in part because “occupational licensing has ratcheted up substantially over time.” At 43 in terms of incarceration, Arizona is certainly no haven for anybody who emphasizes criminal justice reform.

Overall, New Hampshire, Florida, and Nevada hold the first three positions as the freest states on average. California, Hawaii, and New York trail the pack, at 48, 49, and 50. If that suggests a pattern to you governance-wise, Ruger and Sorens agree—at least, in matters of dollars and cents.

“[C]onservative states do better than left-liberal states on economic freedom, and rural/western/New England states do better than urban/southern/mid-Atlantic states on personal freedom,” the authors note. “We see a strong negative relationship between leftward lean in the electorate and economic freedom,” they add.

On the other hand, “[p]artisan politics is not always consistent with freedom (e.g., states with more marijuana freedom offer less tobacco freedom),” the authors point out. “Personal freedom is all over the map. It doesn’t seem to have any relationship with more or less conservative or progressive states.”

Personal freedom is harder than economic freedom to link to either of the major political groupings because Republicans and Democrats have staked out strong support for some freedoms while expressing hostility for others. If you want gun rights and marijuana legalization, you’re better off looking at regional variance and the specific qualities of states than at which party dominates.

That said, overall, “statistically significant results suggest that when public opinion in a state moves left, freedom falls somewhat,” the report notes.

But what about that nasty mark that two years of pandemic policy have left on our liberty? Can we expect that to fade? The report is optimistic that we’ll recover much of what we lost.

“The lockdowns were mostly short-lived, and it seems unlikely that states will return to them,” Ruger and Sorens conclude. “Thus, despite the initial overreaction of most states to the pandemic, the American states can generally be credited with reasonable, freedom-respectful responses to the pandemic in the long run, especially compared with international governments.”

They also point out that several legislatures have hobbled governors’ emergency powers, reducing the likelihood of future unilateral dictates. We’ve also gained a legacy of loosened rules “in the areas of education, health care licensing, and alcohol takeout and delivery” that is likely to linger in places.

Importantly, freedom seems to matter to Americans. Whether they consciously assess liberty as a factor or it simply affects the opportunity and quality of life they seek, people are moving to states that offer more leeway. Tracking migration patterns “shows a strong relationship between the starting level of freedom and subsequent net migration, suggesting that people are moving to freer states.”

That holds up in a casual check. If you look at data from North American Moving Services, the states with the most outbound migrants are Illinois (#37 in Freedom in the 50 States), New York (#50), California (#48), New Jersey (#47), and Maryland (#45). The biggest gainers are Idaho (#10), Arizona (#9), South Carolina (#28), Tennessee (#4), and North Carolina (#16). Obviously, other factors such as climate, cost, and job openings play a role. But people do seem to be moving where freedom beckons.

“For many Americans, living under laws of which they approve is a constituent element of the good life,” the authors write. “As a result, we should expect more ideological ‘sorting.'”

Authors Jason Sorens practices what he preaches, by the way. Founder of the Free State Project, he lives among fellow migrants in New Hampshire, which ranks at first place in this report.

The post Which States Are the Freest? appeared first on Reason.com.

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Across dozens of blockbuster movies, sequels, and spinoff TV series, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is fundamentally about a team of superheroes who can be relied upon to save the day when humanity needs them.

Eternals, the latest entry in Disney’s MCU and the franchise’s first unmitigated train wreck, introduces another team of remarkable people—the titular Eternals—and implausibly suggests that they were there all along, serving as Earth’s silent protectors for thousands of years.

Frustratingly, the film’s ham-fisted attempts to explain why the Eternals—guided by official den mother Ajak (Salma Hayek) and including an all-star roster of underdeveloped leads—interfered in some human events but not others fall flat. Indeed, according to the stated goals of Arishem, the group’s alien puppet master, preventing the events of Avengers: Infinity War should have been the Eternals’ highest purpose. But no.

The film lacks big ideas, and its smaller ideas are bad. After learning more about their mission, the Eternals come to understand they aren’t supposed to prevent wars as part of their effort to protect mankind, because, you see, war spurs technological innovation, and innovation eventually increases the population.

But couldn’t Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry, the MCU’s first gay superhero) simply have given humanity the steel plow a few centuries earlier than scheduled and sped things up without all the death and destruction? The film is suffused with the patronizing notion that good superheroes are benign despots who know what’s best for the rest of us, and the too-predictable revelation that the mission is all a sham only partly undermines it.

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In October, Donna Tartt’s lawyer sent a threatening letter to the creator of the podcast Once Upon a Time at Bennington College, perversely stimulating interest in the 14-part series. What could the author of the scandalously confessional novel The Secret History have left to hide about her undergraduate career?

Lili Anolik has indeed gotten the goods about not just Tartt but two of her 1986 classmates: Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero, American Psycho) and Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn). She weaves decades-old hot gossip into an insightful generational portrait of how upheaval in media and academia enabled fresh ways of telling stories.

Anolik’s story began life as an assignment for Esquire, but podcast listeners hear the project evolve in real time—early interviews are marred with café noise and interruptions, later tapes are polished—making the podcast itself a chronicle of our own chaotic media moment and an example of the sprawling, compelling storytelling that is newly possible.

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A new French law will require car ads to tell viewers to consider carpooling, taking public transportation, or walking or bicycling to their destination instead of driving the car. The law is part of the government’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions and is based on previous laws requiring food and drink ads to encourage people to eat healthy foods. Advertisers will be fined €50,000 ($56,000 U.S.) for each ad that does not contain such a message.

The post Brickbat: Take a Hike appeared first on Reason.com.

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During oral arguments in NFIB v. OSHA, several Justices seemed to have Judge Sutton’s new book on their minds. Justice Kagan asked, “who decides?” Justice Breyer asked, “Should it be that we decide?” Justice Kavanaugh “follow[ed] up on Justice Kagan’s who decides question.” Justice Gorsuch “return[ed] to the question of who decides.” Who should decide the COVID mandate cases?

Justice Gorsuch’s concurrence in NFIB v. OSHA poses this question in the very first sentence:

The central question we face today is: Who decides?

Gorsuch says OSHA does not get to decide. That decision belongs to the states, or perhaps Congress–but really the states.

The only question is whether an administrative agency in Washington, one charged with overseeing workplace safety, may mandate the vaccination or regular testing of 84 million people. Or whether, as 27 States before us submit, that work belongs to state and local governments across the country and the people’s elected representatives in Congress.

But in a way, the Court must decide–decide that OSHA lacks the power to impose this regulation.

This Court is not a public health authority. But it is charged with resolving disputes about which authorities possess the power to make the laws that govern us under the Constitution and the laws of the land.

The joint dissent by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan returns to the “who decides” theme:

Underlying everything else in this dispute is a single, simple question: Who decides how much protection, and of what kind, American workers need from COVID–19? An agency with expertise in workplace health and safety, acting as Congress and the President authorized? Or a court, lacking any knowledge of how to safeguard workplaces, and insulated from responsibility for any damage it causes?

And, in a passage that was almost certainly written by Justice Kagan, the dissent stresses that the agency, and not the Court is accountable:

The Standard also has the virtue of political accountability, for OSHA is responsible to the President, and the President is responsible to—and can be held to account by—the American public.And then, there is this Court. Its Members are elected by, and accountable to, no one. And we “lack[] the background, competence, and expertise to assess” workplace health and safety issues. South Bay United Pentecostal Church, 590 U. S., at ___ (opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.) (slip op., at 2). . . . Without legal basis, the Court usurps a decision that rightfully belongs to others. It undercuts the capacity of the responsible federal officials, acting well within the scope of their authority, to protect American workers from grave danger.

The dissent closes with one of the most effective pieces of judicial rhetoric I have seen in some time:

When we are wise, we know enough to defer on matters like this one. When we are wise, we know not to displace the judgments of experts, acting within the sphere Congress marked out and under Presidential control, to deal with emergency conditions. Today, we are not wise.

Well done. Out of curiosity, I Googled “When we are wise,” and the best I could find was a tweet by John C. Maxwell, a pastor and author.

When we are foolish, we want to conquer the world. When we are wise, we want to conquer ourselves.

— John C Maxwell (@JohnCMaxwell) September 18, 2017

I suspect this theme of “Who Decides?” will recur throughout the term. Maybe even in Dobbs. This line may come back to bite Justice Kagan very soon: “When we are wise, we know enough to defer on matters like this one. “

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