Back in 2015, the Houston Press, an “alternative news source,” and not apparently part of mainstream media, published 10 Facts About America That Show We’re Not Really Free. It is an interesting list, but one that makes us wonder just whether the Houston Press is not just another arm of mainstream media. Why? It is full of misstatements and misunderstandings of what freedom and liberty are, and what constitutes a lack of freedom. At the same time, some of these points are dead-on, or at least very close to the truth. Now here we are, and after ten-plus years, it is fun and educational to take a look at the Houston paper’s ideas.

What we write below draws the inevitable conclusion. If we were not really free in 2015 (for their reasons or others), we are less free today in 2026.

Here are the TEN:

10. We Lock Up More People Than Any Other Democracy. The question is not how many people are locked up, of course, but whether there is a legitimate reason that these people need to be incarcerated. In the last decade, the situation as regards victimless malum prohibitum crimes has gotten better, particularly related to medicinal and recreational drugs. But at the same time, governments keep coming up with more and more reasons to lock people up.

9. We Keep Minorities Poor. Do we? It is often claimed to be the case, and there are definite disparities. But the question is, how many of these are the “unintended” results of actions taken by governments and non-government agencies to “help” these poverty-stricken people? How many are poor because it is in the vested interests of various groups to keep them poor? And although minorities seem to be heavily impacted, is it because they are minorities or for other factors? Things have improved, but is it enough?

8. We Take Home Less of the Wealth We Produce Than Other Countries. While this might be true for those of us who work for private employers (producing something) it is not true for all Americans. For several reasons: first, government employees and officials produce almost nothing, but take home a lot of wealth. Secondly, although we know that the government is robbing us, it takes away far less than the amount that governments in other countries steal. Often a whole lot less. This has definitely gotten worse, with new taxes, fees, and again, we blame government.

7. We Work Like Mad (more night and weekend hours: 29.2 percent say they work weekends and 26.6 percent work nights. Gallup claims the 40-hour work week is more like a 47-hour work week. We also get the fewest vacation days of major countries. However, we do not understand how this has a significant impact on our freedom as individuals. Especially given how easy it is to become a parasite and not have to work so much.

6. We Give All Our Money to Our Bosses. This is claimed to be the 1% as “bosses” but we have to point out the obvious absurdity in this: all our money? Shucks, what is that in our pocket – and our bank accounts? We know, it’s fake money. Federal Reserve Notes (FRN) are not real gold or silver. But we do not give all of our money. It just seems to be that way. And again, our bosses are not the ones who take the most money away: it is various government institutions and those in league with government.

5. And Our Bosses Control Our Health. Again, it isn’t actually our bosses. It is the governments that do so. Why do our bosses, our employers, have such control over health care? Because governments gave them that power. Replacing a hundred companies or a million employers with a single entity (the Fedgov and States acting as its agents) will just make matters worse.

4. We’re Less Able to Start Our Own Businesses. Certainly, this is a situation that has grown worse and worse in the past decade. It is again, squarely in the hands of governments and the fascist relationship between governments and established, powerful businesses that make this a certain problem for our liberty.

3. Our Social Mobility Rate Sucks. We need to ask if this is really a measure of how much liberty we have. Is this not as much a matter of desiring to be upwardly mobile and changing standards, as it is of opportunity? This is, at best, a secondary outcome of who and what controls our money and prevents us from being free enterprise entrepreneurs.

2. We Make Having a Baby a Ridiculous Risk. First off, having a baby has always been a risk: childbirth is both painful and dangerous. It appears that the Houston list was not so much about real health outcomes as it was pushing for the so-called freedom to kill (or have killed) our own children. We submit this is not a valid claim, then or now.

1. We Still Treat Women Terribly. And dare we say, that there will always be people who treat women terribly, whether in a free society or in a totalitarian system. We point out that many (but certainly not all) claims of mistreatment of women in the workforce, in payments, conditions, and other factors are pushed by efforts to feminize society and emmasculate men, not to elevate women. And all too often, it is governments that push these things, that tolerate these matters. The transgender activists are a perfect example of that.

Summary

In many ways, it is clear that Americans (and overall, people around the world) are less free than in 2015.

We find ourselves in disagreement with both the so-called left and the so-called right as to “Why?” And that includes many Libertarians. It is not a lack of government action that keeps us from being free. Rather, it is government actions, cumulative over decades, that continue to keep us in chains.

7242