When I was a kid, I went to a Christian school for three years.  I still remember one of the songs they taught us in chapel.  It was based on Galatians 5, and it was written around 1975.  I can’t find copyright data for it anywhere, but here it is to the best of my memory. 

          Stand fast in the liberty, wherewith Christ has made us free… And be not again entangled in the bonds of the enemy

I especially like how this verse was translated by the New American Standard Bible.  Galatians 5:1: “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”

But how, as Americans, do we stand fast in that freedom?  Rather than bore you with details, I’m going to let some pictures do the talking.  Click the links to see the data source. 

Map 1 Title: Socialist States By Duration

Licensing: public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Notes: 1. This map does not include Venezuela, which Wikipedia lists under “Multi-party states with governing Socialist Parties.”  The governing Socialist Party of Venezuela has been in power since 1999. 2. None of the Scandinavian countries are marked as socialist, because by their own testimony they are not. (See Love Thy Neighbor #2.) 3. While Portugal has a ‘democratic socialist’ designation in its party structure, it is listed on Wikipedia as supporting a market economy. 

Map 2 Title: EIU Democracy Index 2017

Author: Canuckguy, DEGA8, Wikimedia Commons

Licensing: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Notes: 1. Published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.  2.  Notice that Socialism and Democracy generally don’t exist in the same places.  That makes me wonder how the Democratic Socialists will make it work.

Map 3 Title: Countries by median wealth per adult in 2018

Author: JackintheBox, created at MapChart.net, posted at Wikimedia Commons.

Licensing: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Notes: 1. A map showing countries and territories by median wealth per adult in thousands of US dollars, based on Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Report 2018.  2. Median is a more accurate report of individual wealth, because mean averages can be skewed by extreme data (either the extremely wealthy or the extremely poor).  3.  China shows up in the green here.  That has a lot to do with the capitalist reforms they have made in recent years.  They are predicted to overtake the U.S. as the #1 economic power in the world in the next decade or two.

Map 4 Title: Freedom in the World 2018

Author: Canuckguy, DEGA8, Wikimedia Commons

Licensing: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Notes: 1. Country ratings from Freedom House’s survey.  Notice that freedom tends to come with democracy.

Map 5 Title: Index of Economic Freedom 2018

Author: Aqw96, Wikimedia Commons

Licensing: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Notes: Data Source: Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal.  Notice that the U.S. is among the freest.

Map 6 Title: Press Freedom 2018

Author: NordNordWest, Wikimedia Commons

Licensing: Creative Commons by-sa-3.0 de

Notes: The map details the global situation of press freedom in 2018 according to Reporters Without Borders.

Map 7 Title: Government Restrictions on Religion, 2016

This map was recreated from data from the Pew Research Center.  The original is c. 2018 Pew Research Center. Extremely small countries may be mismarked because the original was blurry.

Socialism Is Not Freedom

There’s a lot more to freedom than just ‘democracy’ or ‘wealth’ or the rights of religion or the press.  Socialists in America would maintain that they have no interest in curtailing your freedoms.  But as you scroll through these maps, I want you to notice a trend: Freedom is not a hallmark of Socialism. 

Where do you find the most freedom of religion?  Western, capitalist nations. 

Where do you find the most freedom of the press?  Western, capitalist nations. 

Where do you find the greatest income for the average guy?  Western, capitalist nations. 

Yes, you might find some surprises in these maps.  For instance, the U.S. ranks worse on the freedom of religion scale than Canada.  Perhaps that’s because our government is already succumbing to socialist tendencies.  Some nations, like India, are doing well by some measures and poorly by others.  There are exceptions to every rule, but we generally don’t make decisions based on the exceptions. 

Suppose you go in for surgery, and you’re told that only 20% of patients were able to get back on their feet the next day.  You wouldn’t buy a plane ticket to Hawaii for the day after surgery, would you?  We should treat socialism with equal caution.  If only a few nations don’t have terrible outcomes from it, perhaps socialism isn’t the best way to make sure everyone is taken care of, after all.  Perhaps freedom is. 

Header image credit: pixabay.com.

Links to the entire series can be found online in this index.