House of Eratosthenes

Global freedom declined for a fifth straight year in 2010 as authoritarian regimes dug in worldwide and crime and unrest plagued democracies like Mexico, a US watchdog said Thursday.

In “Freedom in the World 2011” the Washington-based Freedom House said it had documented the longest continuous period of decline since it began compiling the annual index nearly 40 years ago.

“A total of 25 countries showed significant declines in 2010, more than double the 11 countries exhibiting noteworthy gains,” the group said.

“Authoritarian regimes like those in China, Egypt, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela continued to step up repressive measures with little significant resistance from the democratic world,” it said.

The recent decline “threatens gains dating to the post-Cold War era in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the former Soviet bloc.”

The nations are evaluated in whole, one at a time, the national score being one of three possible values. It seems America is & was evaluated as “free.”

I’m not sure this is reasonable, and it certainly isn’t a suitable method for showing freedom slippage within a nation on a micro-, as opposed to a macro-, level. Were I to design such a system it would almost certainly use percentages and it would carry a palpable red-state bias. Can I go to Hooters. Can I take my kid to a Hooters. Can I go to a Hooters on swimsuit contest night. Can I eat fatty foods with salt at Hooters. Can I drink a pitcher of beer all by myself at Hooters. Can I carry a gun into Hooters. Can I work at Hooters. Can Hooters, since I’m a dude, tell me “no way in hell are you working here.” Can I build a mosque near a Hooters. Can I build a Hooters near a mosque. Can I open a Hooters near a school. Can I open a Hooters near a bunch of busybody parents who happen to sit on the PTA.

My point is, yes human rights are important. But just because you had ’em last year and still have ’em this year, doesn’t mean freedom hasn’t slipped a notch or two. The tyrants don’t start there anyway. They finish there.

Hmm, maybe if there’s time left this weekend I’ll fire up my Microsoft Word and put together this survey the way it should’ve been done. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin would approve, I’m sure.

I like it. The Hooters Freedom Test.

Handy.
- philmon | 01/14/2011 @ 14:29
Yeah, you really do need to safeguard the silly stuff first.
- mkfreeberg | 01/14/2011 @ 14:41
The vid was cool, if a bit of a ripoff of that Nativity thing that made the rounds at Christmas.
- bpenni | 01/14/2011 @ 14:43
I wish the article had at least listed the 11 countries which are considered to have made gains. It would have been nice to have a helping of good news to go along with that.

I don’t think three shades of free-ness is really enough. I would call for more like seven or at least five.”Partly free” really doesn’t tell me a whole lot. Ireland doesn’t let you choose your own doctor. Japan doesn’t allow you to own a gun. Spain frowns on anti-government speech. Are those countries still considered “free” by this list? My guess is yes. In fact, I suspect the overwhelming majority of “free” countries are in fact quite socialist; they’re on the free list by default, simply because they lack such obvious features as concentration camps or rampant, paralyzing corruption.

For that matter, I doubt the citizens in many of the “partially free” or “not free” countries are as repressed as we think they are. For one, a lot of them are probably used to it, as things have been the way they are for generations – for example, it’s simply taken for granted in a lot of places that you have to bribe the police or other government officials.

I also sort of resent having genuinely unfree and restrictive governments (Iran, North Korea) thrown into the same lot with those that are simply too weak to properly control their own territory (Afghanistan, Pakistan). Or those that are simply corrupt and disorganized. I noticed that Freedom House’s own website goes out of its way to mention this – that some nations get put in the partially- or un-free category simply because their leaders can’t seem to get anything done or are “on the take.” I even once heard someone say that China – a repressive communist country if there ever was one – has people are freer than America’s, simply because China’s government is too disorganized, corrupt, and incompetent to properly enforce all of its laws, especially out in the rural areas. Contrast that with America, where the municipal or county Department of Whatever always seems to have the staff available to come by and hassle you about some kind of “code violation.”

My list of free countries probably comes in around five. Us (yeah yeah, I know), Switzerland, Israel, and perhaps Denmark and Finland. Maybe Singapore because it allows foreign investment, I don’t know. That’s pretty much it.

No country that prohibits its citizens from arming and defending themselves is “free,” as far as I’m concerned.
- cylarz | 01/14/2011 @ 21:12
Considering the degree of PC and speech control everywhere in Europe, I would not list any European country as free. Their socialist economies are also severe restrictions on liberty. Singapore is infamously authoritarian. As to Israel, I have mixed feelings. It plainly has a large second class population in its Arabs (both Christian and Muslim), and its ultra-Orthodox have a great deal of power over nonbelievers.

On the other hand, having entered my dotage, its seems clear to me that overall there is been a steady decline in individual liberty in the US since the 1950s. The decline might even precede then. The freest period may have been the pre-Civil War Republic. I am not sure that the US counts as a free state. At least, it is nowhere near as free as Americans think it is.

Anyway, I expect the decline to continue. All democracies evolve necessarily into some form of totalitarian socialism.
- Bob Sykes | 01/15/2011 @ 07:23
The freest period may have been the pre-Civil War Republic.

A bit ironic, being that we still had slavery then.
- cylarz | 01/15/2011 @ 11:06

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For All Your Revolutionary IdeasFriday, January 14th, 2011

For All Your Revolutionary Ideas
Friday, January 14th, 2011