US Freedom ranking #17 (of course) by the "Cato Institute" (who cares what they think lol)
Q-incidence!
So this was published on Dec. 17th (^_^) and I'm not sure if it already made the rounds here. I heard it on X22 today... (yes I listen to him SUE ME! haha)
Just, you know, the thing. 17. Such a pesky number. :P
https://www.cato.org/blog/personal-freedom-decline-worldwide-new-human-freedom-index
Hong Kong? They are about to be overrun by the Chicoms. NZ? Gimme a break. How many of these countries can you own a semi-auto pistol/rifle besides Switzerland? And then it's heavily regulated.
It's pretty BS. Nothing more to say. Just total BS that someone paid them to write up. And someone told them to make the US 17... heehee.
I'm replying to you directly, because I've seen you post pretty well thought out and insightful content here before, and I think you're misreading this article
I posted other replies in the thread that give my thoughts on CATO if you're interested.
?
Perhaps I’m just fed up with these kinds of “institutes” and “international organizations.”
It just all seems like commodities to be bought and sold. Or influenced.
So that’s why their “ranking” is all the more amusing- it’s not a culmination of facts processed through a mathematical formula resulting in that rank number. IE a coincidence. On that particular date either.
Doesn’t make sense, loss of credibility.
I agree with you on this in general. A lot of these think tanks are gross. Hello Poynter Institute! Again, I do NOT think Cato falls into this camp. In fact, I think the opposite, so made it a point to stand up for them. I can probably count the number of insitutions I feel this way about on one hand...
And agree, there's barely any meat on this particular blog post. If I was unfamiliar with the organization and their work in the past I'd be very skeptical as well. They literally basically said nothing except the results of the study. You're absolutely right in questioning it as it's presented.
No disrespect to the OP, but it would have been better to link to the actual study with data and methodology than this recap.
But it happens!
Tldr: don't throw Cato out with the bathwater. :)
Literally in the article:
"My coauthor Fred McMahon of the Fraser Institute and I note that the territory has been losing freedom during the past 10 years and we expect future editions of the index to show notable declines in Hong Kong’s ratings and rankings, especially given Beijing’s aggressive interventions there in 2019 and 2020."
Well... you know, I have heard of the Cato institute but I actually don’t know that much about it. I just presumed they are another bs globalist front organization. I don’t know how sincere they are in their opposition of the CCP. Pretty much anything is suspect of being controlled op these days. I don’t know why exactly you’d take out that particular quote to show me, however, aside from my affiliation with Taiwan?
As a side note, I find their ranking of Taiwan perplexing in relation to Japan. I honestly think our government has FAR more transparency, we have MUCH fewer restrictions on freedom of speech, much better human rights, fair judicial system, much more honesty in elections compared to Japan. You know our presidential election saw our current president re-elected in a massive landslide with record turn out. It was totally legit with paper only ballots, only hand counting, tons of witnesses. Super high confidence in her and our government at the moment. I really think we are an anomaly in the world. But just seeing us compared to Japan, a somewhat similar country geographically, culturally, etc, is confusing. So, maybe that affected my bias and opinion.
If my post is too out there, perhaps I should delete it. It was just those 17s that made me feel silly I guess. :p Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I appreciate it and I’ll read more about them.
No, don't delete your post. It's not too out there, and I don't necessarily agree with them either.
I chose that quote to reply to u/blacksmith21 (the threading on here can read confusingly so no worries) since he explicitly stated HK?!? I just wanted to say: "TBF, the article DID say they expect HK to drop demonstrably the next time they do this, and they made a point to do so."
Now that you mention it, I have seen you say you're in .TW, but I didn't think about that at the time at all. :)
You have more insight into your own politics than I will likely ever have; it wasn't my intent to call it into question at all.
And to be fair to all your points, this blog post is not a great post. They don't show their work, just recap it. I do, however, believe that they probably did show their work in a longer article somewhere on their main page. Just saying, from their track record previously, I'd wager it's fairly rigorous, even handed, and based on ideals of economic and political liberty that I'd agree with. Maybe you'd like to read it to see what exactly they say about TW and JP in a broader analysis.
So, no hard feelings. I tend to like CATO. :)
Again, thank you for your thoughtful reply. I really appreciate you taking the time to educate me. I was just in a sarcastic mood I guess haha. I have been noticing a lot of 17s and here is yet another one, so it caused me to feel a lack of credibility. I’m very wary of coincidences right now.
I think I have read reports from Cato before. I won’t deny that they put a lot of work into what they do but I think they are still capable of being compromised. Just my opinion. As for their ranking of Taiwan, I didn’t read why exactly they gave us that rank, so to be fair I should dig more. I really think we deserve a better one especially in light of the fact that in 2020 we didn’t have a single lockdown and never closed schools! But I’ll look at what they say. I’ve been distracted reading the Q drops. I’ve started reading all of them from the start, like a novel. It’s crazy stuff.
Lol this all sounds good. I won't harass you to dig into the cato study yourself, Lord knows I don't have the time in the day to do it. And yes, anyone can be compromised, and anyone can not be compromised and still have data one can disagree with, or completely erroneous data.
Been a pleasure. Enjoy the "novel". Got my hands full, but it's on the reading list. ?
Let em’ know, WE’RE WORKING ON IT!
Fwiw, I've always found the Cato Institute reasonable from a conservative / libertarian standpoint. The work they did in conjecture with the Econtalk podcast was always very intelligent and always centered on liberty first in economics.
Granted, it's been a decade since I follow either with any rigor, but seeing the "who cares what they think lol" in the title compelled me to post.
Things very well may have changed in 10 years, but I see nothing in this (very short) blog that indicates it has. If anything, it points out the alarming truth of how U.S. personal freedoms are being eroded.
Confused as to the intent of the OP.