Which is the most free society?

In My Humble Opinion
21

…did they? What is a “mass compliance check?” They were checking for registration? And insurance? Why would the police check for insurance? Car insurance isn’t even mandatory here. I’ve never had insurance documents in my car in my life, and I’ve been driving for over 30 years.

The thing is: the US is hardly the bastion of freedom. Abortion is banned in many states. Sex work is illegal almost everywhere except one place, and illegal sex workers are treated like dogshit. You lock up more people per capita than anywhere else in the world. Some states are banning books, banning gender-affirming care. It ranks 45 on the world-press-freedom index. The 13th amendment allows slavery to continue in prisons.

So “these two things wouldn’t have happened in the states” isn’t the benchmark for what freedom looks like. I would argue that most Americans have a warped perspective on this. You look at any of the freedom indexes New Zealand will have a fairly high ranking while the United States is somewhere in the middle.

The World Press Index has NZ at number 13, the United States at 45.

The economic freedom index (by the notoriously conservative Heritage Foundation) has NZ at number 5, the United States at 25.

The Freedom House index that rates people’s access to political rights and civil liberties has New Zealand at number 4 and the United States at number 58.

Does this mean that New Zealand is the “most free society?” No, I don’t think that we are. But that isn’t because of an anecdote that (probably incorrectly) remembers an incident from 10 years ago. It’s just that this is a complex topic that really doesn’t have a “correct” answer.

22

The OP said, “Society”, so we can consider locales such as Nye County, Nevada which has both prostitution and the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Furthermore, in Nevada adults 21 and older may lawfully possess 1 oz. or less of marijuana; or up to 2.5 oz with a current Nevada medical marijuana card. Disappointingly, public consumption of marijuana is a misdemeanor carrying a $600 fine: something to work on. Nevada is a right to work state: employment can’t be conditioned on the employer joining a union. Even better, Nevada is an at will employment state: you can fire an employee just because he looked at you funny, provided that isn’t prohibited in the original employment contract. You can consume liquor in public. And of course you can empty your pockets in a full range of gambling casinos. Freedom!

Then again, Nevada reportedly has tough drug laws (other than weed). But open carry is legal with few restrictions on gun sales.

What about New Hampshire? Prostitution is illegal, though they have a number of casinos. They have at-will employment, but right-to-work legislation was soundly rejected in 2021. The Free State Project - Wikipedia is active in New Hampshire, so I wouldn’t rule out an Ayn Rand utopia spontaneously generating itself: recently they put forward a proposal to cut the Croydon school budget in half, a brainwave that was ultimately overridden by voters 377 to 2. So I say Nye County Nevada is by far the most free place on earth.