The People’s Republik of New Jersey.
Jason Sorens of the University of Buffalo and William P. Ruger of Texas State conducted a study to determine how the fifty states ranked in terms of their overall respect for individual freedom:
We rank all fifty states on overall respect for individual freedom and on components of freedom: “Fiscal Policy,†“Regulatory Policy,†and “Paternalism.†Our approach in this report is to weight policies according to the number of people affected by the policy, the intensity of preferences on the issue, and the importance of state policy variation.
I felt for absolutely farookin’ sure that New Jersey would be ranked number 50. After seeing the rankings, I feel much, much better now.