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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 18, 2023

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If they leave, where do they go? Try to join the US? Create the Dominion of Based Canada?

A smarter US would be trying to get them to join the US.

Why?

Alberta is cold Texas. Who doesn't want more Texas in the US?

It actually is quite free, that source just dings it for stuff like a high incarceration rate which is irrelevant.

If you download the full spreadsheet and reduce the weight of incarceration rate to zero in the calculations, Texas still ends up at a pitiful #46 on personal freedom.

Gambling: #39
Marriage: #44
Education: #35
Marijuana: #50
Asset forfeiture: #42
Travel: #50

The entire thing is full of really dumb metrics that are unrelated to any reasonable definition of freedom. I don't care what percentage of slot machines are in casinos or whether illegal immigrants can get drivers licenses or what percentage of marriages are gay.

what percentage of slot machines are in casinos

The actual metric is "Slot/video games legal outside casinos & tracks? (=1 if yes, =0.25 if in strictly limited locations with half of revenue going to charity, =0 if no)".

what percentage of marriages are gay

The actual metric is "Same-sex civil union, marriage, or extensive domestic partnership=1, limited domestic partnership=0.5, no same-sex unions=0, super-doma=-1". (And all the states score the same on that metric anyway due to the federal Supreme Court's decision.)

The entire thing is full of really dumb metrics that are unrelated to any reasonable definition of freedom.

If you disagree with the authors' weights, you can modify them yourself.