Trailblazing to the Outside of the Asylum

Last year's documentary on New Zealand, hosted by Johan Norberg, is now available online. It's a great story, featuring the likes of Roger Beattie. We don't know how lucky we are in New Zealand.



Here's Dan Mitchell on New Zealand, and the documentary.

Full disclosure: the Initiative helped out a bit in putting the documentary makers in touch with some of their interviewees and providing a bit of background detail. I show up briefly towards the end.

As America gets ever-crazier, remember to check back on that list I told you to make back in 2013.

A couple of months ago, when Alex Tabarrok complained of his son's school being turned into a police camp, I noted some of the differences between American schools and the ones here, concluding:

You can choose to live like this too. Sure, New Zealand is getting worse, and it's definitely worse than some parts of the US if marijuana freedom is an important part of your bundle of liberties. But NZ is starting from a much better spot than the US, and it seems to be getting worse slowerthan other places.

Things aren't bad enough to leave yet? Fine. Freedom's a value, but so too are other things like distance from family and wealth differentials and access to Ethiopean restaurants. But write down today some bright-line rules that you think should trigger your future exit; it's easy to acclimatize to gradual changes for the worse.

If you really want to live free, write down your list of things that would actually be sufficient to trigger your emigration, then think about the places you might go that offer the best deal on the bundle of freedoms that matters most to you.

If you're instead happy getting consumption benefits from ranting about the deterioration of freedom in America, or from imagining that you'll be able to change things there, carry on.

Have any of the "Yeah, I'd emigrate if any of these bad things happened" things on your list happened yet?