To make your own freedom rankings based on what's important to you, go to
http://freedom.robocourt.com/ and adjust the sliders to what's important to you to find out where you might live comfortably. Here's the display of mine:
Showing some basic math, we will find that Minnesota, while right in the middle of the pack, is showing numbers approximately only 14% from the leading state of Alaska, while it's showing an unprecedented 1,200% better than Illinois. Notice this chart states Illinois is the worst place for me to be. Anything -0.100 or lower I would assume to be a state I should not move to. There are some things that just aren't important to me, which I left at 0 rating. Whether there are or aren't campaign finance regulations? That doesn't concern me. What percentage of the population is prosecuted for victimless crimes is EXTREMELY important to me. Gun control laws, those are important to me, less is better. How the state spends its money? If that were important to me, I would run for state representative. Gay marriage? While I think it's wrong to discriminate a legal binding in that way, it really doesn't affect me at all, so I have a 0 weight on that subsection of marriage laws.
In short, I am expecting a double improvement here, I am moving from arguable the worst place in Illinois to live, to one of the best places in Minnesota, and this chart leads me to believe I will have at least a 1,200% improvement in my experience, which will make me extraordinarily happy. If any readers are near MN, let me know, I plan to set up a pretty nice shooting range on the new property.
See the report issued by George Mason Univ in Feb of 2009 entitled Freedom in the 50 States. A copy can be downloaded here: http://www.statepolicyindex.com/?page_id=143. It measures based on four criteria, the states by "freedom index". Measuring Fiscal, Regulatory, Economic and Personal freedoms. States are ranked in each category then combined ranking. Also brief narrative is given for each state and how the rank was established. FYI Minnesota ranked 35 out of 50 states.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I have posted that link in the past, this link is to a nice site where you can weight variables based on what's most important to the individual. The ranking isn't as important to me as the quotient. The official weightings of the study list Illinois at -.213 for personal freedom, while MN is -.036. This is almost a 600% increase in personal freedom just by moving to Minnesota, according to the official rank. According to my weightings of what matters to me, it is almost double that.
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