Less than 20% of the world's population now live in a “free” country
freedomhouse.org
freedomhouse.org
It's not the ONLY cause of down-ranking India, but it is definitely another piece of evidence on the pile in addition to adoption of fairly authoritarian tactics for suppressing dissent. The corruption and patronage, sending out party goons to rough up detractors, and the corrupt and unprofessional standards in policing have always been black marks on Indian democracy. But once it expands to cutting off communication to regions, laws that are clearly intended to target religious minorities, applying those same goon-squad pressure tactics towards journalists and academics, etc. it all indicates a society that is at risk of crossing a threshold that will be difficult to come back from.
You can read more about the methodology here [1].
[1] https://freedomhouse.org/reports/freedom-world/freedom-world...
1: https://freedomhouse.org/country/india/freedom-world/2021
So far everything I’ve seen regarding Modi’s politics has this same authoritarian flavor.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/11/india-to-bring...
How would a criteria of "Is an external territory still under occupation?" do? Or perhaps "Is there freedom for women to get parental planning services?" Or "Are policies on immigration?"
These are just random questions, but I think the questions imply a certain definition of freedom which is where arbitrariness might creep in.
There is lot of fud spread without understanding
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federally_Administered_Tribal_...
"Since the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001, the tribal areas are a major theatre of militancy and terrorism. Pakistan Army launched 10 operations against the Taliban since 2001, most recently Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan. The operations have displaced about two million people from the tribal areas, as schools, hospitals, and homes have been destroyed in the war.[1]"
[edit]
A quick internet search also suggest a number of other articles in other areas:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22autonomous+region%22+violent+ex...
Any such territory would become a failed state almost immediately. The eventual outcome will be for it to be re-absorbed by the state it split from (see East and West Germany), or become a puppet state of a larger neighbour that supports it financially for its own geopolitical ends (North Korea).
If the basis of any territory is opposition to centralized government, it's safe to assume that the people it attracts are also ideologically opposed to state-provided services like roads, streetlights, police.
Of course these are ideological objections, and they tend to disappear once it becomes clear what the reality of living in an 'every man for himself' society is like.
The settler's options then are to either rebuild these services from scratch, or partner up with a neighbour state to leverage their infrastructure.
You are free to practice whatever religion, or no religion, without being burned at the stake, locked up or put through a re-education camp.
You are free to express an opinion without being stoned to death, imprisoned or disappear.
You're free from entities taking your stuff because they have a lineage name or are part of the correct political party of the time. This is what possession is nine-tenths of the law generally refers to. Protects your ownership of stuff. And yes, this is also very contested.
You're free to associate with people without being guilty of something they did.
Freedom to gather and/or converse with whom you choose even if the gov or society doesn't like them.
You have the freedom of legal recourse against someone of a higher class. We take this for granted. This isnt a thing in quite a few societies, especially in history, and western countries are still plagued with the in reality practice, but it is in the legal letter at least.
There's obviously lots more. Obviously a lot of these are infringed often. But that's the thing, they are "infringed" and that's not considered okay, normally. Life is messier than debate and rhetoric circles. The recent freedom of expression issues is a good example of not knowing the slippery slope implications (I'm a Polish-Jew. censoring anyone, including Nazis solves nothing. Only makes it worse. Open debate is the only real cure for stupid. Getting your book or album banned is the fastest way to top the sales charts. History is on my side regarding this one.)
While healthcare is important, free healthcare isn't a "freedom" nor should it be considered as one. We are free to discuss the value, want and vote to implement, as we should. But you dont call a vaccine a fruit just because they're both important. Dont confuse legal principles with necessities. Doing so dilutes the meaning and can cause further harm in the protection of freedoms from corrupt forms of gov and social authorities.
Well said. But what to do you? Cannot convincing those simians either. It's tragedy of the masses ... ( quote out of context but I guess it expresses how I feel)
9 Wolves and a sheep deciding whats for dinner...
But circling back to what you said, what can you do? Sheep follow. Someone is going to convince you of the best way to "security".
I am for universal healthcare. But, universal healthcare is not a "freedom" anymore than electricity or running water is.
Getting a service for free is not a freedom. It's a benefit. A vital, important, necessary benefit. Absolutely. But, the same goes for water and electricity. How many people recently IMMEDIATELY died due to lack of water and power from those winter storms? I would argue free water and electricity should come before healthcare. You cut off 3rd party provided water and 3rd party provided electricity to the country, more people would die faster in 1 year than cutting off 3rd party provided healthcare. Of course it's a compounding problem at that, but you get the point.
But just like taking your freedoms for granted, you take your standard of living for granted. Why not start making more services for free? It's not a bad idea at first, but where do you actually draw the line? Healthcare is important for life expectancy and general living for a population, but the exact same can be said about running water or electricity... or natural gas if used for heating. I'm not going to argue for natural gas services to be paid for 100% by the gov for obvious reasons. But you know what, if I argue that electricity is vital for heating/cooling and basic living standards to keep people alive, thus must be paid for 100% by the gov... well... why can't natural gas say the same? Arguing for free running water is even easier than electricity.
Case in point: I claim that the USA's 11 point decline in "freedom" from 2010 to 2020 is more of an indictment on Freedom House's methods than an actual shift in freedom. Of the three cited reasons in their "infographic" only one (immigration) has shown concrete movement in the past decade, and that only occurred in the past four years, which wouldn't explain a continued decline in the "freedom line" over the whole decade (DACA is from 2012, and certainly should be responsible for an uptick if immigration is a main contributor to freedom, and then a corresponding decrease as Trump unwound as much as he could). The corruption in politics and lack of transparency has always been there and has not seen any major movement (IMHO) in decades, certainly not enough to explain a 11 point decline. I cannot think of any continued slide in corruption or transparency that would have persisted for the last six year's of Obama's presidency through the Trump administration to make the freedom line decline monotonically as it does in their infographic. So then I have to think that either:
1) That line is totally bogus and is just meant to convey the concept of a decline, in which case why wasn't it just a straight line connecting the two points? Adding in a bunch of squigglyness if their data isn't that granular would make me suspect that they care more about aesthetics than conveying information in their infographic. I might as well disregard the rest of their report if that is the standard they work to, or...
2) Their assessment of freedom is wholly different from mine in the country that I live in, so if they can't even get that right then how am I supposed to trust their evaluation of all the other countries, so I might as well disregard the rest of their report.
I could not visit my friends and extended family abroad because "IT IS NOT ESSENTIAL TRAVEL".
It’s not about government controlling the people, it’s about avoiding even more catastrophic situations.
Free countries should take every possible ways first before they stomp our human rights.The law of proportionality should apply here.
This is basically an implementation of the CCP's social score system.I absolutely assure you that privileged people fly these days.Regularly.
And I am not taking about billionaires or millionaires here but about people that are able to convince the government that they are important businessmen.
And this is not talking about politicians that can fly whenever they want avoiding quarantines and what not.
Rules for thee but not for me.
Almost ever major crisis that has plagued Western democracies over the last two decades can largely be traced back to weakness, not strength of states, yet people seem to be constantly afraid of 'totalitarianism' rather than dysfunction.
I guess you use the same twisted CCP logic when it comes to building infrastructure.
Lets just totally ignore human rights because we can build trains and roads much faster than those fools in the West.
If you believe that you can herd people like cattle, weld them in their homes, spy on their every step then you dont deserve to live in the West.
Governments derive their legitimacy from their ability to function and deliver for their constituents, if you think lofty notions of human rights are a replacement for safety and prosperity, if you're actually creating a narrative where you imply the Western model is free but broke, rather than free and improves material conditions, you may not like how quickly people reject said values.
CCP logic right here.We cant suppress your human rights because of development and lifting people from poverty.
Oh yeah same thing that Park Chung Hee said and what lead to Gwangju Uprising.
The whole point of human rights is to not compromise on them.
I don't really feel free in the US because the laws don't represent me and the police have too much power
On the other hand, in a non-free country, you can give just the tiniest amount of freedom back to the people and it will be seen as a huge positive move.
Of cause anyone in the US or the EU is objectively much more free than someone in almost any random African country, but any attempt at tampering with those freedoms will be seen as a massive move in the wrong direction by the population.
-- tongue-in-cheek --
In all seriousness though, honestly the entire world is ran by oligarchs like Papa John Schnatter who took 20 months to purge the "N" word from his vocabulary...what exactly "counts" as a free country?
My "view" of a free country must include the following: A country with guaranteed healthcare, education (k-college), safety nets, and a decent plan for global warming induced famines and water shortages, parental leave, and maybe a UBI if we continue hemorrhaging jobs due to globalization, climate change, machines replacing workers,and of course a country that has fought (and won) against systemic racism (esp. in policing and workforce-equality).
By my count there's ...0 countries that fit my criteria for a "free" country. I mean maybe Finland comes close, not sure on the racism. I'm white so, I don't always "notice" myself, I'm only more aware because of the past year all the atrocities that occured by white supremacists in blue uniforms.
Depends where you live. In most European countries, as long as you are a resident with a legal address, past a certain amount of time lived here, you're expected to contribute a certain proportion of your earnings as taxes to fund all public and social services.
It could perhaps be offered as an emigration option to people who are opposed to paying into a system that everyone will benefit from.
If we can value one career over another then surely we can pay for those who choose to go into less pay-worthy but still necessary jobs like teachers.
As for healthcare single-payer would save lives and money and cut costs across the board, pretty sure that's a win-win for everybody without anything being "free" because you know we all pay for it out of taxes.
Free as in Beer would be my tax money going to pay for fancy toys for military and police that I'll never use, or the money that politicians get for siding against the people and for big business.
Or did you mean escape from labor?
Do you just want to force every company to be a cooperative? If so, have you thought about why business owners tend to opt to own what they worked on?
The election system basically hands power to the two big parties, and distorts the political process.
That doesn’t say anything about the level of corruption and still gives lot of powers to elected people, but in a way more distributed way than the alternatives.
Now, regarding the US, the political system seems to be completely broken. Just the fact that only two parties exist for such a large country is a clear sign there is a huge problem. And the president has a ridiculous amount of power compared to other democratic countries.
What laws (and it has to way more than one or two) would you like to change to feel represented? (whatever that means)
Sure you can open your mouth a bit wider in the usa when talking crap against senators or potus compared to the north Korean leader figure.
Did you bother clicking on the actual link?
You have corrupt oligarchs everywhere, even in free countries. That’s a problem of course but that’s not a reason to ignore that some countries guarantee way more individual freedoms than others.
For instance, your ad hominem fallacy along with an unrelated 19th century racist straw man makes your response sound like pro-China propaganda. I found China on that map just fine, but other readers might take you at your word.