The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, in releasing its annual rankings of freedom around the world, has recently lowered the United States of America's ranking from "free" to "mostly free."
The reason? The bank bailouts and the recent passage of health insurance reform have caused our economic freedom, in Heritage's mind, to become diminished.
The Heritage Foundation has a definite conservative bias, and it doesn't try to hide it. While their rankings of freedom have, in the past, been fairly accurate readings of how the countries of the world behave, the new rankings just released are a clear push to advance their political agenda through fear and manipulation.
Why rank America as "mostly free" based upon the health bill passed? Heritage ranked several other countries as being more "free" than us despite those countries having more "socialist-like" health care programs. For instance, Canada was ranked seventh freest in the world, just above the United States. But Canada's health care system and economy were derided several times in the past year as examples of what our nation could become if we passed reform!
So which is it? Should we become more like Canada in order to become more "free?" Or is it because we're shifting towards Canadian-like "socialist" programs that we're losing our freedom?
Will conservatives start flocking to Canada now because it's much freer? Or perhaps they'll fly to Hong Kong, which received the top honors as the freest place on Earth. I won't be holding my breath waiting for an answer.
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