The Freest Country?

[Kevin S. Van Horn]

R. A. Hettinga wrote:

>the US is, to date, the freest country, and thus the freest market, in the world.
>
Do you have some hard data to back up this assertion, or are you just 
repeating the brainwashing we Americans are fed from at least 
kindergarten forward?  I don't know of any serious study of economic 
freedom that puts the U.S. in the number one spot. Every rating I've 
seen for the past ten years has put the U.S. at number four or worse.

I haven't seen any serious attempt to quantify overall freedom, but even 
there I still have my doubts that the U.S. would rank number one by any 
reasonable measure. Yes, the U.S. looks great on paper, with that nice 
Constitution and Bill of Rights; too bad all those protections have been 
interpreted out of existence by the Supremes.  Furthermore, the U.S. is 
the most powerful government in the world right now, which allows them 
to intrude much more severely into the lives of their subjects than many 
nominally less-free nations with (on paper) worse laws and fewer legal 
protections for the rights of individuals.