Fred Schwarz explains at National Review Online why observers ought to exercise caution when they assess international ratings of “freedom.”
You can get an idea of what the experts are looking for by looking at Norway, one of the Freedom House teacher’s pets with its perfect 100 score (neighbors Finland and Sweden are also deemed flawless). Norway has a parliamentary system that yields awkward coalitions arrived at through byzantine and tortuous negotiations that make our Electoral College look straightforward; it bans political advertising on television and radio (this is somehow deemed to promote open debate); and until last year it had an established church. Yet Freedom House considers Scandinavian democracy to be its exemplar of perfection.
The two-touchdown gap between Norway and America results from penalties assessed against the latter for the Electoral College, the Senate’s two-members-per-state rule (OK, that’s a fair criticism), Russia’s farcical attempts at influencing our elections, President Trump’s impulsive management style, a judiciary that Freedom House seems to think is quivering with fear (“The courts regularly demonstrated their autonomy during 2017, for instance by repeatedly blocking or limiting executive orders issued by the Trump administration. However, Trump in some cases responded by verbally attacking the judges responsible . . .”), insufficient union rights (this rating will probably go down another notch next year after Janus), lack of free assembly (i.e., rioters are sometimes arrested), the catch-all “political dysfunction,” and assorted others. Our protection of gun rights, you’ll be shocked to learn, is considered a flaw rather than a virtue.
