the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, “Liberals” claim to be all in favor of democracy and civil liberties. But they have largely been unperturbed by the steep worldwide decline in both caused by their lockdowns.
The latest edition of the Democracy Index from The Economist Intelligence Unit rates the state of freedom, pluralism, democratic culture, and civil liberties in 167 countries. At the end of 2020, it found that only eight percent of the world’s population live in a full democracy while more than a third live under authoritarianism. Those are the worst results since the survey began in 2006.
“Government-imposed lockdowns and other pandemic-control measures led to a huge rollback of civil liberties in 2020, causing downgrades across the majority of countries,” The Economist reports. Country after country “withdrew civil liberties, failed to allow proper scrutiny of emergency powers or denied freedom of expression – regardless of whether there was public support for government measures.”
A few nations stood out by swimming against the tide. Taiwan was upgraded to “full democracy” status by not imposing crippling lockdowns and conducting a free and fair election.
Power Trumps Liberty… The Democrat Party Credo.