The Left has always been very good at corrupting the language—changing the meaning of words or coming up with entirely new ones. It’s somewhat formulaic: one or more left-leaning academics coin a word or phrase so it sounds smart; promote it to left-leaning political and advocacy groups; have it metastasize to a compliant media starting with TV networks and the Associated Press, and POOF!—"abortion" becomes "reproductive health," by way of example.
Now, the Left is expanding its corruption machine to include criteria for defining what is good and what is bad. The cable news channel CNBC on Saturday announced the findings of its annual ranking of quality of life among the states, and it raised a lot of eyebrows. According to CNBC, Tennessee is the worst state to live in, and Texas is the second worst. These rankings must really confuse the millions of people who moved to these states, not to mention the corporations that have relocated to them.
The key to this confounding report lies in the criteria CNBC used to rank the states. Absent from the channel’s criteria is any mention of unemployment rates, home affordability, or taxes. If that sounds odd, it may be because a lot of people think getting a job, buying a home, and keeping more of what they earn are important to their quality of life. Instead of including financial factors in their rankings, the financial news channel included things like "inclusiveness of state laws, and reproductive rights."
That means states that let boys and men compete in sports against girls and women, and share locker rooms with them, rank higher than states that don’t. It also means states with more abortion rank higher than states with less abortion. CNBC doesn’t explain why or how aborting babies and forcing girls to share private spaces with boys improves the quality of life, so we’re left to wonder what makes these behaviors better than the alternative.
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CNBC also listed crime as a criterion, but that’s a hugely unreliable data point. The World Population Review notes that after the Joe Biden administration changed how the FBI collects crime data in 2021, "nearly 40% of local law enforcement agencies did not report data to the federal government." Statistically, it’s not a crime until an arrest is made and reported, so states that under-report crime, like California and New York, and states with lax enforcement, can appear to have lower crime rates. This data point cannot be empirically trusted.
Millions of Americans are organically realizing that the quality of life in states with onerous tax and regulatory demands, culture steeped in leftist ideology, and policies that impede law enforcement isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. They are leaving for places that promote prosperity, safety, and cultural normalcy. But that’s only one side of the coin. Conversely, some people are migrating to cities and states that accommodate that which most people are fleeing.
Proponents of transgender ideology are now moving to Seattle in such numbers that the city’s transgender oriented non-profits are seeking a state of emergency declaration to better manage this influx. Apparently, people on the LGBTQ+ spectrum find it easier to share bathrooms with the opposite sex, and obtain mastectomies, castrations, and hormone treatments for their kids in Seattle than in Tennessee or Texas, so that’s where they’re going.
Politics and culture aside, this state-to-state migration exemplifies a core tenet of the Declaration of Independence; people are exercising their God-given right to the pursuit of happiness. How we define happiness varies greatly, but that is fundamentally what drives people away from one place in search of what they perceive as a better life somewhere else.
CNBC wants us to believe that abortion and transgender ideology contribute to a better quality of life, and for some people that’s true. But most Americans have markedly different priorities. These are the people who prioritize prosperity over polarizing gender politics, liberty over government limitations, and promoting life over ending it. The freedom to choose one vision or the other is an essential human right, and to the extent people are exercising it, it’s a testament to the greatness of America.
Cable news channels can try to convince us that life is better under a left-wing social construct like that used by CNBC in its criteria for ranking the 50 states, but normal people aren’t buying it. U-Haul’s January report on one-way moving van rentals tells a diametrically different story. The states we’re told are the worst are seeing the greatest in-migration among do-it-yourself movers. Rather than changing American minds, all CNBC has done is undermine its own credibility by subscribing to and promoting an ideology people are fleeing.
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