"Land of the free, home of the brave," that's what the Star-Spangled Banner spouts describing the wonderful way of living that is being in the United States. And you would think that Texans are living the most-free lifestyle of anyone else in the nation.
Boy, how wrong you'd be.
In fact, a new study from the Cato Institute called "Freedom in the 50 States" examined economic, social, and personal freedoms across every state in the nation, and Texas ranked dead last in personal freedom.
William Ruger, who co-authored the study, told WFAA, "We define freedom in a very traditional American way, right? It's the right to use your life, liberty and property as you see fit, consistent with the equal rights of others, and then we look at these policies and we, again, we call balls and strikes and this is where it ends up."
According to Ruger, the "personal freedom" category that Texas failed so miserably in can range from gambling and educational freedom to marijuana and alcohol freedom and can even look at incarcerations and arrests.
However, it isn't all bad news for the Lone Star State.
Texas ranked seventh in the nation in overall economic freedom, coming in seventh in fiscal freedom, such as taxation and debt, and 20th in regulatory freedom, such as land-use, eminent domain and health insurance.
Ruger said, "For some people who may not love freedom as much as I do, you might say, well, we'll trade off other values, equality, equity, you know, preventing people from doing bad things to themselves even if they were free.
"Look, that's fine. But the fact is, if you love freedom, you have to let people and individuals make the choices that they make for themselves, again as long as they're not directly harming other people."
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