How free are you really? That’s a question that we all ask ourselves sometimes, especially when we’re told we live in the freest country in the world. Cato ranks the United States as number 20 on their Human Freedom Index for 2015, and The Heritage Foundation ranks the United States as number 11 on their 2016 Index of Economic Freedom, so it is clear that the US is not the freest country in the world, but that’s not how most Americans see it.

One metric that you can look at to see how truly free you are is whether or not you can speak against the government and its leaders. By that metric, we do enjoy a lot of freedoms in this country. Here I am, on a podcast that gets plays all over the world, talking about such subjects are ending the government completely, shutting down public services, and secession. That is a good thing, and I’m grateful to live here instead of many other places in the world. However, we still have a long way to go before we have true freedom.