In drafting the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson expressed a sophisticated, radical vision of liberty with awesome grace and eloquence. He affirmed that all people are entitled to liberty, regardless what laws might say. If laws don’t protect liberty, he declared, then the laws are illegitimate, and people should rebel. While Jefferson didn’t originate this idea, he put it in a way that set afire the imagination of people around the world. Moreover, he articulated a doctrine for strictly limiting the power of government, the most dangerous threat to liberty everywhere.
It would be great if the Trump administration would realize that trade threats and trade wars will only do both sides harm, and put the U.S.-China relationship on a positive path. If they do not, and the current model of tension, litigation, and threats continues, the task of negotiating with China will simply be passed on to some future administration.
Fidelity to our founding principles of respect for civil liberties and limited government may be easy when times are easy. The true test of our faith in those principles comes when we are beset by assaults from without and economic turmoil within, when public anxiety may temporarily make it seem expedient to put those principles aside.
96 years ago today, on August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.
The amendment—which marked the culmination of the U.S. women’s suffrage movement—prohibited any United States citizen from being denied the right to vote on the basis of sex.
“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
“A libertarian must necessarily be a feminist, in the sense of being an advocate of equality under the law for all men and women, though unfortunately many contemporary feminists are far from being libertarians.”
“Mary Wollstonecraft…is increasingly acknowledged as one of the most influential thinkers on women’s rights…Although not consistently libertarian, she was consistently in favor of equal legal rights for men and women, and she operated within a generally classical liberal framework.”
“When human beings are regarded as moral beings, sex, instead of being enthroned upon the summit, administering upon rights and responsibilities, sinks into insignificance and nothingness.”
“A self-taught escaped slave, statesman, and leader of the American abolitionist movement, Frederick Douglass is best known for his speeches and autobiographies, in which he stressed the universal equality of all humans. While Douglass is well-known for his support for the abolition of slavery, he is less known for his outspoken support of the women’s liberation movement.”
“Some libertarians are not aware of the differences between libertarian feminism and other kinds of feminism. They even criticize libertarian feminists just for being feminist without any knowledge of what libertarian feminism or even feminism itself stands for…Those libertarians…have not done their homework. When libertarian feminists say they want liberty for all women and men, they really mean it.”
“What does libertarian feminism look like? How does libertarianism appeal to women?…How can issues that affect women be approached from a libertarian perspective? It seems that there are more women among younger generations of libertarians. Is there an explanation for this?”
Freedom in the 50 States, published by the Cato Institute, finds New Hampshire is the freest state, while New York ranks by far the least free in the nation.
Which state is the freest? Which state is the least? Which one has the most lightly taxed and regulated economy? Which states protect personal freedoms the best? The worst? How free is your state?
The newly published 2016 edition of Freedom in the 50 States is one of the most comprehensive and definitive sources on how public polices in each American state impact an individual’s economic, social, and personal freedoms. Study authors William P. Ruger and Jason Sorens have gathered data on more than 230 variables to measure freedom now and in the past.
“While the federal government has become more intrusive and inefficient over the last two decades, individual states are providing Americans with a little-recognized renaissance of policy innovation,” argue Ruger and Sorens. “If we want to save our freedom and restore good government, it is to the states that we must look and not to the federal government.”
Freedom in the 50 States examines state and local government intervention across a wide range of policy categories—from taxation to debt, from eminent domain laws to occupational licensing, and from drug policy to educational choice.
Between 2006 and year-end 2014, the latest available data, Ruger and Sorens find the average state has seen dramatic increases in economic freedom, after the effects of the federally mandated Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are parsed out. This has largely been the result of states cutting spending during the financial crisis, with some states going even further and cutting taxes simultaneously.
Conservative states tend to do better on economic freedom overall, although not always by a huge margin. On personal freedom, the results are less clear cut. Progressive states have done better on marriage freedom, cannabis laws, and incarceration. But conservative states gain points on personal freedom too when it comes to gun rights, educational freedom, and smoking on private property.
States that have lower freedom rankings tend to be less economically prosperous. They tend to have higher rates of corruption and more lobbyists seeking government rents. Lower labor-market and regulatory freedom typically discourages business investment and raises the cost of living, which then can scare off Americans from other states looking to relocate for work.
There is strong evidence that states with more freedom attract more residents. The authors find a solid relationship between a lighter fiscal impact of government and net immigration, though evidence also suggests that regulatory and personal freedom play a role in attracting residents. For example, New York, the least free state, suffered the second-worst net out-migration of any state, 7.5 percent of its 2001 population. Conversely, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina, who rank among the top 20 in overall fiscal policy, have drawn nearly four million residents from the rest of the country from 2001-2014.
The study grades all fifty U.S. states on three dimensions—fiscal policy, regulatory policy, and personal freedom.
The regulatory policy dimension includes categories for
land-use freedom and environmental policy, health insurance
freedom, labor-market freedom,
occupational freedom, lawsuit freedom, cable and telecommunications
freedom, and miscellaneous regulations that do not fit under another
category.
Just minutes ago, President Obama officially nominated Merrick Garland, chief judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to the Supreme Court.
While Chief Judge Garland is assuredly a liberal vote on the most controversial, culture-war issues, he’s just as surely the most moderate Democratic-leaning jurist under consideration on cases that fly under the radar.
“Merrick Garland is the safest, least ideological nominee President Obama could have made, which means that the president wants to put pressure on Senate Republicans more than he wants to energize his base,” writes Ilya Shapiro, Editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. "But in this hazy, crazy, bizarre election year, this Supreme Court seat should remain vacant until the American people can decide whether they want to swing the balance of the Supreme Court, possibly for decades.”
Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed away earlier this year, was one of four conservatives on the Court. When joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy, Scalia formed a majority crucial for enforcing the First and Second Amendments, federalism, the separation of powers, and other constitutional protections for individual liberty.
If he’s replaced by a progressive or “moderate” jurist, there will likely be no further check on the sorts of executive abuses that have only increased under a president who thinks that when Congress doesn’t act on his priorities, he somehow gets the authority to enact them regardless.
That’s a legacy that will last a long time…and span many presidencies.
Donald Trump shot to the top of Republican presidential polls on the strength of his celebrity and his hard-edged talk, and with his early primary victories, now appears firmly entrenched as the Republican frontrunner. The businessman has been long on rhetorical soundbites, but short on actual policy plans. Cato scholars try to sort it out.
A D.C.-based public policy research organization (or "think tank") dedicated to the values of individual liberty, limited government, free markets, and peace.
