![]() ![]() To be proposed and discussed in the comments. Perhaps? This would be difficult to demonstrate.Ī variety of other explanations. Those countries are taking an unnecessary risk with their security by maintaining high levels of freedom. Another interesting explanation that quite possibly plays a role. Those countries have not undertaken to limit freedom because, for whatever unrelated reason, they don't have a personal security problem. There are some interesting correlations here and this could very well figure into the equation. Those countries don't have a culture of violence. If you disagree with this point, please just let it slide and address the larger question.) (Neutrons, let's not turn this into a debate about gun control. Reducing the number of guns hasn't been shown to increase security. Gun violence tracks overall violence in the US. ![]() Those countries don't have the prevalence of guns that the US does. Although that may be true, even if you eliminated US deaths attributable to terrorism (foreign and domestic) over the last 20 years, you'd still be left with over 99.9 percent of the murders. Those countries don't face the threat of terrorism. The problem with this argument is that the countries with the highest murder rates in the world are also homogeneous. Here are some explanations I've heard proposed: So, I'm wondering what it is about these societies that allows them to have both. This seems to imply that, in absolute terms, there is not necessarily a tradeoff between freedom and security. Here are the top ten with their personal freedom index (PFI) numbers: Countryįrom that list, Japan, Norway, New Zealand, Netherlands, Ireland and Portugal have some of the lowest murder rates in the world What it shows is that the most free countries are actually quite safe. But as it turns out, there are.Īn Index of Freedom in the World by the Frasier Institute splits out Economic Freedom from Personal Freedom and integrates security and safety concerns. security model were universally true, there should be no societies that have both high levels of freedom and relatively few problems with security. We actually have examples of this extreme, as there have been regions with complete lawlessness and high violence, such as the jungles of Colombia during the height of their civil war and Somalia for most of the last two decades.Ĭonsidering those two extremes, it seems logical to conclude that freedom and security are operating from opposite ends of the same sliding scale, and that balancing the two is the challenge for modern societies. Since the consequences for wrongdoing are low, overall security is compromised in that structure. From there, you can swing the pendulum in the complete opposite direction and imagine a society that has zero law enforcement, wherein everyone is free to do as he wants. Theoretically, this would be the safest society in the world, and presumably also the least free. ![]() ![]() In the US, it is widely accepted that more restrictive laws and vigilant enforcement leads to more security for the law-abiding public in the form of less crime.įor the purpose of illustration, let's carry that thinking out to a logical extreme by imagining a society with the most restrictive laws and enforcement procedures possible. A person who is legitimately under threat might decide to build a fence around his property, restrict his movements or not show his face in public as much, thereby limiting his own freedom for the sake of increased security.īut on a societal scale, the measures taken are usually different. Such a relationship makes intuitive sense to us. This implies the two are negatively correlated: the more freedom, the less security, and vice-versa. Policy-makers often talk about the need to balance freedom and security. ![]()
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