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The following podcast contains a bit of explicit material, but much much more that is not explicit, just as a percentage.

It's Wednesday January 17th 2018 from Slated to the Gist-Dime Mike Pesca and the rankings from Freedom House are out. Freedom House turn it up, dude.

It's the house, not a house, more of an organization that tells you which countries of the frist the United States comes in at a solid 86.

That is a B, a B student. Last year was in 89, a B plus student trending down. We're the shining city on the hill.

Not at like 75 lumens, more like 55, but you know, it's pretty shining. Same amount of shine as Poland.

Norway's at 100. Uruguay is 98. Seems high for Uruguay. Here's my analysis there. They had that president, Ujhika. He's out now, legalized marijuana, totally hippie.

He was like having Ben and Jerry as the president. If Ben and Jerry did jail time for fighting against dictators and no naming your first ice cream, tricky, dicky crunch does not count though, you know, a solid dig Ben and Jerry.

Here's my theory about Uruguay and their great ranking. You really value your freedoms when you just live through a dictatorship.

So from 73 to 85, they were run by a dictatorship. People would disappear. A lot of killing of the opposition. So these days, you know, people are really reading the news hard, making sure the freedoms don't slip away.

Government could lift a finger kind of implying, you know, we could go there in the population, response and kind. The United States takes it more for granted.

But this isn't really about the United States slipping. This is more I want to, I've pointed this out before, but I really want to underline this one ranking.

It's not at the top. It's not Norway or the United States, which is doing good as it be near the bottom. Syria is a minus one. We all understand that North Korea is I think a three or four.

But Saudi Arabia is a seven. Saudi Arabia is our great, great ally. Iran has a rating of 17. 17 is more than double Saudi Arabia could double the freedom and it wouldn't even reach Iran.

Would you rather be middle class in Iran or Saudi Arabia? Kind of a stupid question. There is no middle class in Saudi Arabia. You'd much rather live in Iran. You really would.

Maybe you don't want to be upper class in Iran. That's pretty sweet in Saudi Arabia. You get to be a prince by a yacht on spec. What's being upper class in Iran, you probably have to, you know, kiss the ass of a mula or at least have ties to the revolutionary guard. You have to pretty much kill people.

Saudi prince can live a life of leisure. But there's only a couple thousand of them actually too many. It's one of the reasons the kingdom has a rating of seven. Seven is really bad.

We could beat ourselves up as Americans for being in league with some bad countries or some countries that are less than great Nigeria. A lot of problems. We got to do deals with them because of Boko Haram. There are 50. Even Pakistan.

Right? Terrible. Teresim supporting Pakistan. Trump administration. Wave in a finger of Pakistan. They're 43. It's light years ahead of Saudi Arabia.

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