Americans take religious liberty for granted. But four of five people around the world lack the freedom to worship and live faithfully.

The Pew Research Center, with Peter Henne as lead researcher, recently issued its latest study on religious liberty. The report makes for a sad read.

In some nations governments suppress the faithful. In other countries people make their societies unfriendly to minority beliefs, imposing a wide range of less formal sanctions, including murder.

The overall global environment to religious faith is hostile. Concluded the study: “restrictions on religion were high or very high in 39 percent of countries. Because some of these countries (like China and India) are very populous, about 5.5 billion people (77 percent of the world’s population) were living in countries with a high or very high overall level of restrictions on religion in 2013, up from 76 percent in 2012 and 68 percent as of 2007.”

Christians and Muslims, who make up the largest share of the world’s population, are the most widely harassed faiths (in 102 and 99 countries, respectively)—in both cases, ironically, far more grievously in Muslim than Christian nations.

But particularly worrisome has been the increase in anti-Semitism. Noted Pew: “there has been a marked increase in the number of countries where Jews were harassed,” to 77, a recent peak. The problem is more social than government, and is evident in 34 of 45 European nations.

In 2013 18 nations were found to have “very high” levels of government restrictions. A Baker’s Dozen of the chief miscreants were Muslim states: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Brunei, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan.

Four were classically authoritarian and/​or Communist/post-Communist (so were the three Central Asia nations listed previously): Burma, China, Eritrea, and Russia. The surprising outlier was Singapore, which bans particular sects, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses. (North Korea could not be ranked due to a lack of data.)

There is substantial overlap between persecuting states and those with significant social hostilities, but also some notable differences. Seventeen make the disreputable very high antagonism category.

Nine are majority Muslim: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestinian territories, Somalia, and Syria. Eight are other confessional states (Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish) and mixed (several with bitter sectarian conflict): Central African Republic, India, Israel, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania.

The worst nations combine intrusive state restrictions with widespread social intolerance. Among the most populous countries which score high or very high in both categories are: Bangladesh, Burma, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey.

As always, Islam’s role is significant: Six of the top 11 are Muslim and another (Nigeria) has a slight Muslim preponderance.

The Middle East, dominated by Muslim states, shows the greatest tendency toward persecution and intolerance. The median score globally was 2.4 for government restrictions and 1.6 for social antagonism. The Middle East scored 6.0 and 5.8, respectively.

Religious minorities obviously are the most vulnerable. Pew found that “government at some level used physical violence against minority or disfavored religious groups in 47 of the 198 countries (24 percent).” Social antagonism against minorities is evident in 88 countries, 44 percent.

Particularly disturbing for Americans is Pew’s rating for the U.S., second only to Brazil in the Americas. Americans committed to religious liberty should work to reverse the dangerous slide away from vigorous freedom of faith.

As I wrote in Forbes, “Religious liberty is the canary in the mine for civil and personal liberties. Lands filled with people willing to persecute, harass, discriminate, kill, denigrate, and more those with whom they disagree spiritually and even more people willing to overlook or excuse such crimes are potential hothouses for the most virulent forms of violence.”

Saving religious liberty, and the broader freedom of conscience, requires greater efforts in the U.S. and around the world. Only if we lose it are we likely to understand how very much we miss it.

America has been at war in Afghanistan for more than 13 years. U.S. troop levels peaked at 140,000 in 2010. More than 2200 Americans died in a conflict reflecting little more than purposeless inertia.

The U.S. is leaving, but not entirely and maybe not soon. Warned NATO commander Gen. Philip Breedlove in January, “we are going to continue to have casualties.” The formal combat mission might be over, but combat is not.

Roughly half of the 10,600 American troops are supposed to depart by the end of the year, with the rest scheduled to go in 2016. But the administration is considering slowing the withdrawal.

Washington intervened in Afghanistan with two overriding objectives: destroy al-Qaeda and oust its Taliban hosts. The U.S. quickly fulfilled both goals. But then the Bush administration lost interest in the country.

Instead of ending Washington’s half-hearted misadventure at nation-building, the Obama administration twice doubled down. Some progress was made, but when I visited I found only limited confidence in private.

Washington and its allies built a large government bureaucracy and security force in Kabul, but on a potential foundation of sand. The Afghan government is noted for venality, incompetence, and corruption.

The administration celebrated Ashraf Ghani’s election since he signed the (U.S.) Bilateral Security Agreement and (NATO) Status of Forces Agreement which Hamid Karzai had rejected. This allowed Washington to retain around 10,000 Americans (joined by roughly 3000 Europeans) in the Afghan muddle. 

These forces are not necessary to confront al-Qaeda, which largely has disappeared from Afghanistan. Little likely would change if the Taliban again dominated the country: the group learned that misbehaving foreign guests bring down the wrath of a superpower.

Some policymakers hope to leave a liberal, democratic outpost in Central Asia. Unfortunately, Afghanistan’s gains are fragile and failures are significant.

Tens of tens of thousands of troops, thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars, and thousands of aid projects from America failed to fix the country. A much smaller U.S. troop presence won’t remedy the system’s deep deficiencies.

Afghanistan still could eventually end up with a reasonably liberal society, but only on its own terms. Thankfully, what emerges won’t be matter much to America so long as Afghanistan does not host terrorists bent on striking the U.S. The conflict has regional impacts, but none of significant consequence to America.

Surrounding countries likely will play the Great Game as Washington’s force levels drop. But U.S. security is not dependent on Central Asian stability.

America’s most important task may be to use its remaining time to encourage resumption of talks between the Afghan government and Taliban. There should be no illusions about the prospect of success.

Of course, Washington hopes to forestall a Taliban victory. But last year was the costliest for the Afghan National Security Forces since the conflict began in 2001. The Diplomat’s Franz-Stefan Gady reported: “There are areas that are a no-go for the ANSF, others where they will only go with U.S. air support, and others where they will go on their own,” mostly major urban areas.

Kabul’s main hope is Taliban weakness. The movement’s brutality has cost support. The United Nations noted “divisions driven primarily by differences over political strategy” as well as factions behaving “with increasing autonomy.” The Taliban also faces violent competition from groups claiming allegiance to the Islamic State.

Afghanistan is most likely to end up with multiple “governments.” Which gives everyone an incentive to reach a modus vivendi to end the fighting. Even Pakistan, after long backing the Taliban, may be ready to encourage negotiations.

The administration should live up to its promise to leave Afghanistan. Thirteen years of war is more than enough. Washington also should abandon its attempts at global social engineering.

As I wrote on Forbes online: “Afghanistan is a tragedy. Unfortunately, that isn’t about to change. It is time for America to leave. Some day Afghanistan must stand on its own. That day should be today. Only Afghans can decide Afghanistan’s destiny.”

Common Core supporters love to accuse opponents of peddling misinformation, and sometimes opponents do. On the flip side, Core supporters are frequently guilty not only of peddling deceptive information of their own, but promising the world without sufficient evidence to justify it. A new report from Harvard’s Paul Peterson – generally a pretty sober analyst – comes a bit too close to making such a leap, strongly suggesting that the Common Core has caused appreciable improvement in the rigor of state standards.

Based on a rough trend of decreasing differences between the percentage of students scoring “proficient” on state tests and on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, Peterson and co-author Matthew Ackerman report that state standards are rising. In other words, “proficient” on state tests is looking more like presumably high-flying “proficient” on the “Nation’s Report Card.”

Between 2011 and 2013, “20 states strengthened their standards, while just 8 loosened them,” Peterson and Ackerman report. To what do they attribute this? “A key objective of the CCSS [Common Core] consortium – the raising of proficiency standards – has begun to happen.” In case the text of the report didn’t make the attribution of success to the Core clear, the report’s subhead intoned that, “commitments to the Common Core may be driving the proficiency bar upward.”

At the very least, there should be a huge emphasis on “may,” and the Core probably shouldn’t be mentioned at all. 

Indeed, Peterson and Ackerman’s results could suggest that the Common Core actually dampened rigor. According to the report, of the four states that never adopted the Core, Texas and Virginia raised their standards while Alaska and Nebraska stood pat. That means 50 percent of non-adopters lifted their standards and 50 percent stood their ground. None went backward. Among Core adopters, in contrast, eight states, or 18 percent, lowered their standards; 19, or 42 percent, stood still; and only 18, or 40 percent, raised their bars. (I exclude Minnesota, which adopted the English standards but not the math, and West Virginia, for which data were unavailable. Among adopters I include Indiana and Oklahoma, which eventually dropped out but were Core states as of 2013.)

That said, the bigger point is that you can’t reasonably reach any conclusion about the Core’s effect from Peterson and Ackerman’s analysis. For one thing, only Kentucky had fully implemented the Core as of the 2013 NAEP administration, which took place at the beginning of the year, and the vast majority of states weren’t even close. Indeed, most states are just now – 2015 – starting to give the tests associated with the Core, which also happen to define “proficiency.”

There is also a huge problem of controlling for the effects of numerous variables besides the Core, including other federal, state, and local policies; changes in socio-economic conditions; etc. Indeed, toward the end of the report Peterson and Ackerman note the possibility that waivers from No Child Left Behind encouraged some states to raise their standards. Unfortunately, they don’t mention that possibility without also crediting the Core: “Indeed, the waivers—as well as CCSS expectations—may help to account for the increasing rigor of state standards since 2011.”

There’s one last, interesting bit of information in the report: Between 2005 and 2013 – basically, the No Child Left Behind era – almost the same number of states appeared to lower their standards as raise them. Couple that with the possible effect of waivers and the superior performance of non-Core states, and this report could easily be used to say centralized policy interventions don’t work, be they No Child Left Behind or the Common Core. Of course, the report doesn’t justify that conclusion, either. 

Will America ever again be at peace? Pressure is building for the U.S. again to intervene in Libya.

Less than three years after Libya’s civil war the country has ceased to exist. This debacle offers a clear lesson for American policymakers. But denizens of Washington seem never to learn.

The administration presented the issue as one of humanitarian intervention, to save the people of Benghazi from slaughter at the hands of Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy.

Although he was a nasty character, he had slaughtered no one when his forces reclaimed other territory. In Benghazi he only threatened those who had taken up arms against him.

In fact, the allies never believed their rhetoric. They immediately shifted their objective from civilian protection to slow motion regime change. Thousands died in the low-tech civil war.

Alas, Libya was an artificial nation. When Khadafy died political structure vanished. The country split apart. Today multiple warring factions have divided into two broad coalitions.

“Operation Dignity” is a largely secular grouping including Gen. Khalifa Haftar’s “Libyan National Army” and the internationally recognized government. Last May Haftar launched a campaign against the Islamist militias with covert support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

“Libya Dawn” is a mix of Islamists, moderate to radical, and conservative merchants which now controls Tripoli. They are backed by Qatar, Sudan, and Turkey, and deny that the Islamic State poses much of a threat.

Now Libya has become an ISIL outpost. Three jihadist groups have formally claimed allegiance to the Islamic State. These forces have attacked oil installations, killed journalists, and conducted bombings. Some of these militants were responsible for the murder of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

ISIL’s slaughter of Egyptian Coptic workers triggered retaliatory airstrikes by Cairo, and then new Islamic State attacks. The national wreckage known as Libya is being pulled into the regional sectarian maelstrom.

Obviously, Khadafy’s continued rule would have been no picnic. Nevertheless, he offered an ugly stability which looks better than chaos, civil war, and terrorism. British envoy Jonathan Powell warned of the emergence of “Somalia by the Med.”

In Libya, as with most other failed interventions, war advocates say the problem was that America didn’t stick around. But as I point out on Forbes: “the allies only played a supporting role; the Libyans liberated themselves through their own boots on the ground. The militias fighting now would have resisted any foreign occupation.”

Alas, this disastrous history hasn’t precluded new proposals for Western involvement. Abdullah al-Thinni, Libya’s official prime minister, wants the West back. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi advocated that the UN run a “stronger mission.”

Unfortunately, there’s no reason to believe that the second (or third) time would be the charm. The Atlantic Council’s Karim Mezran observed: “There are no good guys or bad guys there—both sides have been acting in bad faith.”

The West naturally favors the internationally recognized government. But intervening against the Islamist-oriented government would make enemies of many Libyans not linked to the Islamic State.

The best outcome would be a national unity government as backed by the U.S. and European governments. But months of mediation have led nowhere.

More practical would be to acquiesce in the partition of what never was an organic nation. In the meantime the West should consider selectively lifting the arms embargo to aid groups likely to combat jihadist forces.

Moreover, Libya’s neighbors should act rather than wait helplessly for Washington to do something. The region’s stability is these nations’ business.

Libya’s collapse has been almost total. But so far no one has been held to account.

As problems metastasize with the rise of ISIL in Libya, however, the American people may be more inclined to critically assess the judgment and competence of Washington policymakers. Voters should hold officials accountable for the disaster they created in Libya.

On February 26, 2015, marijuana becomes legal (again) under the laws of Washington, D.C. The key rules are:

• It will be legal to possess up to two ounces of pot.
• It will be legal to smoke said pot on private property.
• It will be legal to transfer (give) an ounce or less of pot to someone else.
• It will be legal to grow and cultivate up to six pot plants—no more than three mature ones—in your home.
• You must be 21 years old to possess, consume, or grow pot.
• Selling pot will still be illegal.
• As will be smoking pot in any public space, which includes restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.
• And, of course, none of this applies to any federal land (which accounts for 22 percent of the District), which considers marijuana illegal.

Overall, this is progress. But note that:

1. Federal marijuana prohibition still applies.

2. The age limit of 21 is misguided (just as with alcohol). That limit guarantees that much marijuana use will remain outside the law.

3. The limit on possession amounts is silly; the ban on sale is idiotic.

4. Perhaps restaurants, bars, and coffee shops will circumvent the ban on smoking in public by offering free edibles.

5. The federal government owns 22 percent of the land in D.C.? Geez.

In the State of the Union address on January 20, President Obama said, “those at the top have never done better… Inequality has deepened.” The following day, Fox News anchor Brett Baier said, “According to the work of Emmanuel Saez, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, during the post-recession years of 2009–2012, top earners snagged a greater share of total income growth than during the boom years of 2002–2007. In other words, income inequality has become more pronounced since the Bush administration, not less.” 

Senator Bernie Sanders agrees that “in recent years, over 99 percent of all new income generated in the economy has gone to the top 1 percent.” And Senator Ted Cruz likewise confirmed that, “The top 1 percent under President Obama, the millionaires and billionaires that he constantly demagogued earned a higher share for our income than any year since 1928.” 

When any statistic is so politically useful and wildly popular among left-wing Democrats and right-wing Republicans you can be pretty sure it’s baloney. Bipartisan baloney.

In November 2013, I wrote that, “Because reported capital gains and bonuses were…shifted forward from 2013 to 2012 [to avoid higher tax rates], we can expect a sizable drop in the top 1 percent’s reported income when the 2013 estimates come out a year from now. The befuddled media will doubtless figure out some way to depict that drop as an increase.” As predicted, the New York Times took one look at a 14.9% drop in top 1% incomes and concluded that “The Gains from the Recovery are Still Limited to the Top One Percent” That involved slicing the same old baloney very badly.

Three weeks later, on until February 17, The New York Times finally made a modest gesture of repentance. In “Inequality Has Actually Not Risen Since the Financial Crisis,” David Leonhardt professed amazement at his own title. “How could that be?” This supposedly shocking revelation came from Stephen Rose, one of several liberal/​progressive economists who do not let a policy agenda cloud their judgment about data. 

“Fascinatingly,” writes Leonhardt, “Mr. Rose’s case is not based on a new or previously undiscovered data set. It’s based on the same statistics most commentators have been using to discuss inequality.” No kidding. On January 6, Gary Burtless of Brookings Institution wrote, “Since 2000 pre-tax and after-tax incomes have improved among Americans in the bottom 90% of the income distribution. Among Americans in the top 1% of the distribution, real incomes sank.” I had earlier displayed the same Piketty and Saez data shown in the nearby graph to make the same point.

All anyone ever had to do was look at the data shown in the graph, which shows average real income of the top 1% from Table A‑6 in Piketty and Saez. Top income spiked in 2012 to avoid the Obama tax increases, as I predicted, then fell 14.9% in 2013. I have averaged 2012 and 2013 as Saez requests, to gloss over any embarrassment. Even so, the 2012–2013 incomes of the top 1% were clearly much lower than in 2005–2007, and had not even climbed back to the previous peak of 1999–2000. 

Leonhardt just can’t bring himself to admit that top incomes have not only “not increased” but declined. Top 1% income in 2012–13 was down 20.6% since 2007 and down 11.2% since 2000. Anyone who claims to see a continuous upward trend in top 1% incomes isn’t looking at the right data. 

Having trouble finding the perfect V‑Day greeting for your freedom-fighting honey? Cato’s got you covered.

This collection of liberty-friendly valentines puts a fun twist on some recent Cato research. Perfect for your like-minded love … and all your friends. 

If your crush cares more about free markets than flowers, these valentines are sure to sweep them off their feet!