This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “What does the left mean by freedom? When ever I see lefties passing around rankings of the “freeist” countries, inevitably the countries at the top are the type with heavy regulation, heavy taxation, low economic freedom.”

One of the hallmarks of a lack of freedom is ideological thinking that colours one’s perceptions in ways that interfere with one’s apprehension of reality to impede one’s critical thinking skills.

For example, the flawed presumption in this question presumes higher taxation equals less economic freedom when the obvious comparison between the U.S.’s health exploitation system is far more destructive to one’s financial freedom than the taxed version of universal health care offered by every other nation that has succeeded in providing higher quality care at a lower price.

There is no economic freedom when medical bankruptcies destroy lives.

There is no economic freedom for people who pay over one thousand dollars per month for insulin when the rest of the world pays only tens of dollars.

There is no freedom when one is murdered for profit.

There is no cognitive freedom for anyone who divides the world into ideological camps, just as there is no freedom from the mind-destroying forms of bigotry polluting this world.

Within the context of this question, the definition of freedom that addresses it is clarity of thinking, in which the querent proves their mind is so trapped within a toxic paradigm they can’t understand freedom when it’s presented to them in the most unambiguous of terms.

I fully expect this answer to whoosh past the querent’s mind and trigger them into an ideological quandary where they will dismiss these words as an ideological irrelevancy in much the same way that the people who think Donald Trump is an intelligent man are utter idiots.