Various indexes don't rank the USA as the most free nation, the economic freedom index produced by the cato institute has the US at number 10, [[http://www.cato.org/pubs/efw/efw2011/EFW-2011-chapter1.pdf]] and The Heritage foundation [[http://www.heritage.org/index/]] also has the US at 10. The democratic index produced by The Economist Intelligence Unit places the US at 17th place, based on the catagories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. [[http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf]] | Various indexes don't rank the USA as the most free nation, the economic freedom index produced by the cato institute has the US at number 10, [[http://www.cato.org/pubs/efw/efw2011/EFW-2011-chapter1.pdf]] and The Heritage foundation [[http://www.heritage.org/index/]] also has the US at 10. The democratic index produced by The Economist Intelligence Unit places the US at 17th place, based on the catagories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. [[http://graphics.eiu.com/PDF/Democracy_Index_2010_web.pdf]] |