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The Show Me State

Missouri is a state in the Midwestern United States. With over six million residents, it is the 18th-most populous state of the 50 states. The largest urban areas are St. Louis, Kansas City, Springfield and Columbia; the capital is Jefferson City, near the center of the state on the Missouri River. The state is the 21st-most extensive in area. In the south are the Ozarks, a forested highland, providing timber, minerals, and recreation. The Mississippi River forms the eastern border of the state.

Geographical type: Territory

Latitude: 38.5° N — Longitude: 92.5° W

Area: 180,533 km²

ISO 3166-2 code: US-MO

Birthplace of

Benjamin M. Anderson, in Columbia, on 1 May 1886
Robert A. Heinlein, Robert Anson Heinlein, in Butler, on 7 Jul 1907

Home To

Missouri Libertarian Party, Cape Girardeau

Measures of Freedom

Freedom in the 50 States 2015-2016 | Missouri | Cato Institute, Freedom in the 50 States
2014: Overall rank: 18, fiscal policy rank: 9, regulatory policy rank: 24, personal freedom rank: 28, economic freedom rank: 14
LP State-by-State Membership Numbers [PDF], Libertarian Party News, Apr 2006
31 Dec 2005: Number of Members: 280

Articles

"Free-Speech Zone", by James Bovard, The American Conservative, 15 Dec 2003
Provides various examples of "free speech zone" incidents as well as reactions in the U.S. and overseas
Police have repressed protesters during several Bush visits to the St. Louis area as well. When Bush visited on Jan. 22, 2003, 150 people carrying signs were shunted far away from the main action and effectively quarantined. Denise Lieberman of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri commented, "No one could see them from the street. In addition, the media were not allowed to talk to them ..." When Bush stopped by a Boeing plant ... Christine Mains and her five-year-old daughter disobeyed orders to move to a small protest area far from the action. Police arrested Mains and took her and her crying daughter away in separate squad cars.
"The Police Force Is Watching the People", by Sheldon Richman, The Goal Is Freedom, 22 Aug 2014
Argues that the facts are crucial when identifying "the agressor and victim in particular cases" such as occurred in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and separately, that the role of police forces must be re-examined
[If] we observed an unarmed person shot dead in the street and another person nearby holding a smoking gun. To morally judge the situation, we would need more information ... even if the man with the gun is a white member of a police force ... and the dead person is a young black man who had no weapon ... if legitimate self-defense might have taken place that day in Ferguson, it is also possible that Wilson initiated the altercation by giving arbitrary orders to Brown (as police officers often do to black youth) and fired his gun unnecessarily multiple times, and that Brown justifiably rushed him in self-defense.

The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Missouri" as of 31 Oct 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.