{"id":8461,"date":"2005-11-10T11:42:18","date_gmt":"2005-11-10T18:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2005\/11\/10\/meanwhile-off-in-applethorne.html"},"modified":"2005-11-10T11:42:18","modified_gmt":"2005-11-10T18:42:18","slug":"meanwhile_off_i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/11\/10\/meanwhile_off_i.html","title":{"rendered":"Meanwhile, off in Applethorne …"},"content":{"rendered":"

My little island kingdom<\/a> has been declared a “world benchmark” for political freedoms. Yay.<\/p>\n

UN Category: New York Times Democracy
\nCivil Rights: Excellent
\nEconomy: Good
\nPolitical Freedoms: World Benchmark<\/p>\n

The Constitutional Monarchy of Applethorne is a huge, socially progressive nation, renowned for its burgeoning polar bear population. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 446 million enjoy a sensible mix of personal and economic freedoms, while the political process is open and the people’s right to vote held sacrosanct.<\/p>\n

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, corrupt morass — is mainly concerned with Education, although the Environment and Healthcare are on the agenda. The average income tax rate is 41%. A powerhouse of a private sector is led by the Information Technology, Cheese Exports, and Book Publishing industries.<\/p>\n

A National Academy regulates grammar and usage, abortions are routinely performed in Applethorne’s hospitals, all tariffs have been abolished, and truth is often impossible to tell from fiction on the evening news. Crime — especially youth-related — is moderate. Applethorne’s national animal is the polar bear, which frolics freely in the nation’s many lush forests, and its currency is the pound.<\/p>\n

Not perfect, by any means, but …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My little island kingdom has been declared a “world benchmark” for political freedoms. Yay. UN Category: New York Times Democracy Civil Rights: Excellent Economy: Good Political Freedoms: World Benchmark The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-potpourri"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8675,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/09\/09\/man_with_a_coun.html","url_meta":{"origin":8461,"position":0},"title":"Man with a Country","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Sep-05 1:10am","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome to the Constitutional Monarchy of Applethorne -- a very strong economy, excellent civil rights, and excellent political freedoms. The Constitutional Monarchy of Applethorne is a very large, economically powerful...","rel":"","context":"In "Personality Tests"","block_context":{"text":"Personality Tests","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/personal\/personality-tests"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8567,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/10\/10\/applethorne_upd.html","url_meta":{"origin":8461,"position":1},"title":"Applethorne update","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 10-Oct-05 3:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Constitutional Monarchy of Applethorne may not be perfect, but it ranks #2 on political freedoms in its region, and #7000-odd of over 111,000 nations in the NationStates game. Yay....","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10929,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/05\/15\/rip_rev_jerry_falwell.html","url_meta":{"origin":8461,"position":2},"title":"RIP, Rev. Jerry Falwell","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 15-May-07 2:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I will not mourn Rev. Falwell's passing from the American political scene, where I feel he did tremendous damage to our freedoms and common vision as a\u00a0united people, nor...","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/falwell.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":29065,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/06\/why-yes-there-is-an-attack-on-religious-freedoms-going-on-here.html","url_meta":{"origin":8461,"position":3},"title":"Why, yes, there is an attack on religious freedoms going on here","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 6-Aug-12 10:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"But not quite the ones that folks like Bryan Fischer bleat about. \u00a0Indeed, given Fischer's assertions (http:\/\/goo.gl\/GcD0f) that Muslims don't have First Amendment rights in this country, calling their religion a \"treasonous ideology\" and a \"totalitarian ideology dedicated to the destruction of the United States,\" I'd say he's more of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":128914,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/21\/the-pervasive-temptations-and-freedoms-of-the-internet.html","url_meta":{"origin":8461,"position":4},"title":"The Pervasive Temptations (and Freedoms) of the Internet","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 21-Nov-15 6:59am","format":false,"excerpt":"A fascinating look here at Hasidic Jews and their increasingly futile attempts to tightly control Internet usage amongst their community. Balancing the need to do business with the desire to keep outside influences and corruption and the like away from their people is proving to be impossible.How are you going\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9972,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/03\/its_not_the_law_as_much_a.html","url_meta":{"origin":8461,"position":5},"title":"It’s not the law as much as the lawmaking","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 3-Oct-06 10:59am","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm generally disinclined to support the recent legislation banning Internet gambling, both on philosophical grounds (don't restrict freedoms that aren't essential to restrict; protecting people from themselves is generally not...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}