As we go into a new Congressional session where Republicans have returned to the majority in the House of Representatives, the Republican Liberty Caucus' newly released Liberty Index ratings for 2009 provide an important reminder of the positive effect which being out of power and in the minority had on Republican legislators. With a clear anti-liberty, big-government agenda coming from the White House and the Democrat leadership, Republicans embraced their role as the "party of no" in 2009 and were more true to basic principles of limited government and individual liberty than they have been in many years. The Liberty Index reflects this environment with more high ratings on both the Personal and Economic Liberty scales than ever before, particularly in the House of Representatives.
A surprise standout in the House of Representatives rankings is Jeff Flake (R-AZ) who is the first member of Congress in the 22 year history of the Liberty Index to score a perfect 100/100 in the Economic and Personal Liberty components of the index. Flake was not alone at the top, with perennial top scorers Ron Paul (R-TX) and Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) not far behind. They both scored 100 on Personal Liberty and came up with a 96 on Economic Liberty because of problematic votes on earmarks and a technology bill. Other than that they were outstanding champions of liberty.
With Democrat spending completely out of control a lot of Republicans were given an opportunity to oppose their policies and as a result score very well on Economic Liberty. Forty-eight House members scored perfect 100s on Economic Liberty. Personal Liberty scores were less consistent, though 115 House Republicans scored in the Libetarian range on their combined scores.
Senate Republicans were somewhat less impressive than their House allies, but five did manage to score perfect 100s on the Economic Liberty scale. Because of the kinds of votes which came up in the Senate it was more difficult to score well on Personal Liberty, but 31 Senate Republicans did have combined ratings in the Libertarian category.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Doug Hunter
"problematic votes on earmarks and a technology bill."
That technology bill wouldn't have been covering net neutrality would it? There's a good chance liberty minded folds would get this wrong. Internet providers are utilities, the electric company would love to control what brand of appliances you use and charge you extra if you were using their competitors or running a profitable business using 'their' electricity, but it's common sense that electricity should cost the same regardless of how it's used (with obvious exceptions for peak demand, etc. which are already allowed for) The same rules should apply to internet access.
Service providers claim Google and Facebook (and probably blogcritics) are making money using 'their' bandwidth (which they pay for at market rates I might add) without paying their fair share, it looks like to me Google and Facebook and Blogcritics are the only reason people are paying for the providers precious bandwidth in the first place. Perhaps they should be paying Google for providing a reason to buy their service.
Anyway, hate to get off topic as that might not be the technology bill in question.
2 - John Lake
The “liberty index” is neither a government supported evaluation, nor is it presented as an objective look into legislation and legislators. In fact the “Index” is the end product of the labors of Bob Guzzardi, of the Conservative Reform Network. Guzzardi makes clear from the onset that “The Liberty Index rating is our assessment of whether a piece of legislation advances or restrains individual liberty, particularly, economic freedom to spend your money the way you think best.”
3 - Baronius
John, you're rejecting the Liberty Index because it wasn't endorsed by the government? You're cannonballing into the deep end of self-parody with that one.
4 - Dave Nalle
John, I have no idea what you're talking about or who Bob Guzzardi is. The Liberty Index has, since 1989 been a project of Professor Clifford Thies and has been associated with the Republican Liberty Caucus since it was founded in 1991.
Wait, I looked up Guzzardi. What you're talking about is a rating system for Pennsylvania state legislators. Not the same thing as the subject of this article.
Dave
5 - handyguy
Equating your [narrow] definition of liberty with votes that are 'in the interests of the people' is just more propaganda.
The monopoly that extremist conservatives have tried to exert on perfectly fine words and concepts like liberty and freedom is repellent.
The concomitant sliming of anyone who disagrees with them concerning their propagandistic linguistics, and the labeling of millions of us as "anti-liberty" or "destroyers of freedom," is just plain disgusting.
I love freedom and liberty, and I object the definitions of them propagated by the Index and by Dave Nalle.
6 - Doug Hunter
"I love freedom and liberty, and I object the definitions of them.."
Boo Hoo, you can't have your cake and eat it too. I'm sure you have your little pet liberty issue to make yourself feel good probably something like gay marriage that effects a tiny percentage of the population in some minor way (if they make between 200-250K in taxes or if they can't get in to see their partner at a hospital with a nazi staff), but in general you seek an expansion of government which is the antithesis of freedom and liberty.
If you don't like being called a destroyer of freedom, perhaps it's best if you quit supporting policies that do just that.
7 - handyguy
Doug simply proves my point. His ideologically charged definition of liberty is the only one he can comprehend, or the only one he will admit exists.
How about the freedom not to go bankrupt just because you get sick? The freedom to gain and retain employment when there are 5 applicants for every available job? Elections that are free of the taint of corporate influence-buying?
8 - Doug Hunter
Proves your point? It's you who don't have a clue what liberty means. The definition is what it is, it only seems ideologically charged because it doesn't jive with yours.
You're confusing security with freedom (I guess it makes the whole trading freedom for security thing easier to swallow). It's a nice security arrangement that if I'm starving you're required to give me something to eat, but it ain't liberty. Liberty doesn't require you to do anything, that's the point. I know that in order to coopt the word and concept the meaning has been stretched, but not everyone is so easily fooled.
9 - Glenn Contrarian
Doug -
If you have no security, you have no real freedom.
10 - Baronius
I have different objections than Handy does, I'm sure. But I don't know why the House procedural amendment to "commit to a select committee, to not remove 6-year term limits for committee chairs" is considered pro-liberty. Maybe it is; maybe it isn't. It just doesn't seem obvious to me. Maybe where standing House Rule X, clause 4(f)(1), is changed from 'President submits his budget' to 'submission of the budget by the President'. Maybe that's where liberty is being protected.
Another one that struck me was the condemnation of DC voting rights. I guess that it's unconstitutional, so it's a governmental overreach, which infringes on our liberty, but I wouldn't have thought to describe DC voting rights as anti-liberty.
11 - Doug Hunter
Nice False-ism there Glenn. Freedom is most certainly not security, but as Handy might say that just proves my point; on your side you haven't a clue what it means.
12 - Baronius
I've heard comments like Glenn's before. I remember reading an analysis by a conservative author about what he said was the main difference between the left and right. When liberals say "liberty", they're talking about freedom from consequences: security. A child's definition of liberty. When conservatives use the term, they mean freedom to experience the consequences of one's actions, for good or bad. An adult's definition.
13 - Glenn Contrarian
Tell me, Doug - exactly how can you have real freedom without a measure of security? I'd really like to hear your answer on that?
How can you have freedom to vote for the candidate you support? To buy or sell what you want to buy or sell? To live where you want to live? To love whom you want to love? To happily do what makes you happy?
You can do NONE of these things without a measure of security...and if you and Baronius think that this is somehow confusion, then neither of you have a clue as to what freedom really is.
14 - handyguy
To take a slightly different approach, Europeans in countries such as France or Norway or Germany or the UK have a lot more 'statism' in their lives than any American, yet few of them would bray that they are not 'free.'
The policies that liberals in this country support rarely or never come close to European-style democratic socialism, but even if they did, they are not incompatible with freedom of speech and a free press and free elections. Those are the main definers of what makes us free.
It's the apocalyptic rhetoric I despise -- yes, you and I have differing philosophies. Referring to me as a 'destroyer of freedom' is hyperbolic bullshit that accomplishes nothing.
Proposing either a smaller or a larger social safety net need not cause such hysterical heavy breathing.
15 - Baronius
Glenn, this is an opportunity for you to impress me. Think about the idea in comment #12. I realize that the original author put a bias into his analysis with the labels of "children" and "adults", but if you look past it I think you'll see that there's some truth in the analysis. If it helps, you can use the labels "caring" and "cruel" instead. Anyway, it reflects how we sometimes use the same words but with different shades of meaning.
16 - Doug Hunter
#13
My question to you would be exactly how you could establish any type of security without extinquishing freedoms. Even the most basic security, not to be murdered, means others don't have the freedom to kill. I think even the most extreme libertarians have accepted the compromise on freedom that it does not extend to the point of curtailing the next person's freedom. We have private property to establish what material things we have free reign over. Freedom as it stands after the compromise is the ability to do whatever you please with yourself and your stuff and with any consenting person or group and their stuff. See, very simple.
#14
Europeans trade more freedom for security and they're happy with it. People can learn to be happy under the Taliban, or in a cult, or in a primitive tribe, or anywhere else but it doesn't mean that's how I want to live. There really is nothing wrong with your choice, it's just not mine. Unfortunately, the nature of government means that I'm bound to whatever whim it's supporters fancy. I'd rather limit it's power, live how I want to live, and let you do the same.
*As for the word game, if you want to trade away freedom for security own up to it, you don't get to make the trade on my behalf because the likeminded control 51% of the government and then tell me that security is freedom. Not all freedom is good and not all security is bad, make your case but you're not going to simply change the definitions of the words on me.
17 - Dave Nalle
Go Doug go.
To some of the earlier comments, let me first point out that I played almost no role in the assembly of this data and its analysis. I'm largely just reporting on it.
That said, there are some choices which also seem strange to me, but sadly the Congress rarely considers clear cut issues that we'd all like to see them vote on and which we could then easily point to and use them to identify who is pro and anti liberty. Next time around we might get to look at a DADT vote and that would be an unprecedented opportunity, but when it comes to the social issues I understand how difficult it has to be to find anything meanngful to use as a bellwether.
dave
18 - handyguy
I think the freedom/security dichotomy and 'trade-off' is a vast oversimplification of a very complicated world.
I've said it before: there's never been anything close to an idealist libertarian country in the real world -- nor a 'pure' socialist state. Not among large democratic countries in the industrial age and after. So all of the various combinations are compromises. So what?
But you can take your 'destroyers of freedom' nonsense verbiage and stick where the sun don't shine -- the only place it belongs.
19 - Glenn Contrarian
Doug -
I didn't try to change the meanings of the words at all...and you know it. Freedom cannot be had without security - otherwise, America wouldn't need a military.
As with all else, too much freedom is not a good thing. Moderation in all things...and anyone who thinks otherwise when it comes to politics is by default an extremist.
20 - zingzing
baronius: "When liberals say "liberty", they're talking about freedom from consequences: security. A child's definition of liberty. When conservatives use the term, they mean freedom to experience the consequences of one's actions, for good or bad. An adult's definition."
come on. that's a childish oversimplification. hell... "oversimplification" would suggest that it was even a bit true on either end.
"liberty" is do what you will but harm no other. with the added stipulation that if someone does come to harm because of your actions, they have to deserve it through some action or decision of their own. (as in competitive capitalism, self-defense laws, non-libelous criticism, etc, etc.)
if you think that liberals view liberty as freedom from consequences, you do not know your enemy. you're just fooling yourself. and putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage. best of luck with it.
21 - handyguy
Yes, the child/adult 'analysis' of definitions of liberty is ignorant, ludicrous and offensive. Sigh.
22 - Doug Hunter
#19
The military falls under the same principle that police would, the "murder compromise" as I would term it.
#18
I didn't come up with that, I just used it from your post. You're just a guy with a (slightly) different opinion probably a hairsbreadth away from me on the grand spectrum of opinions. We apples don't fall far from the American cultural tree.
When someone tells me the world is 'way more complicated' I immediately grab onto my seat because I know I'm about to be taken for a ride. The world is not complicated, it operates on simple principles that often interact in chaotic ways. Just as the most powerful computers on the planet can't accurately model exactly what will happen the moment oil is poured into water, the fantastically complicated fluid dynamics effected by coriolisis and surface effects, etc., etc. even an idiot can tell you that at the end of the day the oil is going to found floating on top! Stick to my simple defitinion of liberty with easily identifiable boundaries and you'll never go wrong, use the 'fuzzy' definition where your freedom extends to requiring me to do something for you and you're in a grey area from whence you can never return.... or define it how you like, it's a free country.
Have a great evening guys.
23 - Baronius
Note that I asked Glenn to open his mind. I didn't ask Zing/Handy.
24 - Dave Nalle
When liberals say "liberty", they're talking about freedom from consequences: security. A child's definition of liberty. When conservatives use the term, they mean freedom to experience the consequences of one's actions, for good or bad. An adult's definition.
Did you come up with that yourself, Baronius? It's brilliant and I may have to steal it.
Dave
25 - Baronius
I don't remember who I stole it from. Maybe someone on the American Thinker, which is a high-risk zone but sometimes has good articles. Feel free to use it.