Free State Update

David Weigel | January 23, 2007

The Free State Project is celebrating the commitment of 1000 liberty-lovers to move to New Hampshire even before the group meets its target.

The national movement to recruit pro-liberty, small government activists to move to New Hampshire to concentrate their political efforts declared success this week in recruiting its first 1000 early-moving “pioneers.”
The Free State Project (FSP) ran an almost yearlong campaign to sign up 1000 people to move early to the chosen state of New Hampshire while the Project continues to recruit for its ultimate goal of 20,000 participants. Those who sign up for the Project agree to move once all 20,000 have committed (currently, more than 7500 have signed up). But these “First 1000” have agreed to move within two years, regardless of when the others are recruited.

Three years ago, Jackson Kuhl paid tribute to the first Free State Project.

Comments

|1.23.07 @ 3:15PM|#

"Honey, pack the car, we're moving to a state nobody cares about to live with a bunch of nuts."

I'm guessing this movement will consist mostly of single men.

Ellie|1.23.07 @ 3:40PM|#

I'm guessing this movement will consist mostly of single men.

Hey, this solves my problem of how to afford the out-of-state tuition: libertarian escort service!

Okay, sign me up as #1001!

|1.23.07 @ 3:51PM|#

They should have picked Idaho. That's all.

|1.23.07 @ 3:56PM|#

Ellie: Will you give sensual massages while breathing into the client's ear pithy quotes from Hayek?

Or Rand for the kinkier sort?

|1.23.07 @ 4:12PM|#

Let's note that one of the very first things the founding Free State couple did upon entering their chosen state of New Hampshire was visit a McDonalds (http://www.freestateproject.org/about/essay_archive/varrin2/).

Independence? Yeah, right.

|1.23.07 @ 4:13PM|#

And their breakfast the next morning? Burger King.

Long live the self-made man!

|1.23.07 @ 4:13PM|#

Or Rand for the kinkier sort?

"Oh baby, it makes me so hot! The way you destroyed those copper mines!"

I. Self. Divine.|1.23.07 @ 4:17PM|#

Will you give sensual massages while breathing into the client's ear pithy quotes from Hayek?

Or Rand for the kinkier sort?


I've been trying to get girls to do this for years! Unfortunately, I have a habit of bedding liberals.

barneca|1.23.07 @ 4:24PM|#

kevin,

i think you misunderstand the free state project. please explain how eating at mcdonald's invalidates anything they're doing?

i live in new hampshire right now, but by the time the "first 1000" show up, i'll be living near boston. but massachusetts is a pretty liberty-friendly state too, right? right?

oh rats.

-cab

The Wine Commonsewer|1.23.07 @ 4:36PM|#

New Hampshire is cold. And that is a sterling example of why the Frog that is the American populace will perish in the pot of water on the stove that is no longer tepid but not hot enough to boil said froggy or stimulate him to jump out.

It's too damn cold in New Hampshire. I say let's all move to Pima County Arizona and take over Tucson.

BTW, it is NOT legal to openly carry a firearm in public in Tucson--except on the seat of your car.

|1.23.07 @ 4:37PM|#

Whoops, I've apparently conflated libertarian and Amish. My overly tight sphincter is apt to inhibit brain bound blood flow. Certainly doesn't help my already feeble cognition. Apologies.

|1.23.07 @ 4:45PM|#

The Kevin just above here is not me. I guess some people simply can't be original.
> i think you misunderstand the free
> state project. please explain how
> eating at mcdonald's invalidates
> anything they're doing?

How does a multi-national corporation--one who has a proven record of being bad for health, bad for animals, bad for farms, and bad for communities--go against the Free State Project? Funny you should ask.

FSP is about nothing if not community. McD is anti-community, putting local shops out of business in order to offer the exact same food in the exact same building in the exact same way everywhere and anywhere.

That clear?

|1.23.07 @ 4:47PM|#

And: I used to live in NH until about a year ago. The state is moving towards the middle far faster than a group of 1-20K people can move it to the libertarian right. Just look at the results of the '06 election -- Dems all the way around. Expect ever more liberalism as Mass residents continue to invade the Live Free or Die state.

AC|1.23.07 @ 4:48PM|#

As a resident of Arizona, I cannot second TWC's recommendation. Arizona is California Jr. when it comes to statist laws and impulses. At least NH has some libertarian tendencies so there is less inertia to overcome.

|1.23.07 @ 4:49PM|#

i live in new hampshire right now, but by the time the "first 1000" show up, i'll be living near boston. but massachusetts is a pretty liberty-friendly state too, right? right?

So you're saying that there's something about living near Boston that is more important to you than freedom?

|1.23.07 @ 4:50PM|#

From the FSP website:

Q: Who is welcome to participate?

A: Anyone who can agree to the clause in the Statement of Intent which says that you should support the creation of a society in which the maximum role of civil government is the protection of citizens' rights to life, liberty, and property. In essence, this includes everyone who wants to cut the size and scope of government by about two-thirds or more. Put in a positive way, most FSP members support policies such as abolition of all income taxes, elimination of regulatory bureaucracies, repeal of most gun control laws, repeal of most drug prohibition laws, complete free trade, decentralization of government, and widescale privatization. . . .

I don't see what this has to do with "community."

|1.23.07 @ 4:57PM|#

"Community" is frequently used as shorthand for "the coercive gang whose goals I support."

|1.23.07 @ 5:05PM|#

True dat, TWC. Too. Damn. Cold. I did actually noodle around NH real estate listings for fun, though. Wow - you can actually buy a house that was built in the 1700's????

I second the motion for Idaho. Rafting, kayaking, fishing, hiking, skiiing...living on a family property miles from the nearest neighbors.....bliss overload!

|1.23.07 @ 5:06PM|#

Number 6 wrote:
> "Community" is frequently used as
> shorthand for "the coercive gang
> whose goals I support."

No doubt, my dear fellow. But then, that's life, isn't it?

|1.23.07 @ 5:08PM|#

Quite so! So enough of the dogpile on poor ol' Micky D's!

Mike Laursen|1.23.07 @ 5:09PM|#

And "community" is more frequently used as shorthand for civility, tolerance, mutual aid, and all kinds of other nice, non-coercive human behaviors that would be foundational to a libertarian society.

|1.23.07 @ 5:43PM|#

Mike -- I don't know if I'd call those things foundational, but setting that aside, assuming Kevin meant "community" the way you put it, how does McDonald's undermine civility, tolerance, etc., as Kevin says it does?

lunchstealer|1.23.07 @ 5:47PM|#

The Exodus project, which is currently trying to invade my home state to do take it from redneck conservative hellhole to theocratic redneck conservative hellhole. And while I currently don't fear their success any more than I expect the FSP to succeed, it nonetheless brings home the point that this is a shitty thing to do to the locals in both cases.

|1.23.07 @ 5:55PM|#

I mostly agree with Kevin. When I think of the free state project I think of communities, and when I think of communities I think of a nice board-floored general store with a wood stove in the middle. I certainly don't think of mcDonalds.

barneca|1.23.07 @ 6:02PM|#

So you're saying that there's something about living near Boston that is more important to you than freedom?

close. i'm saying that there is something about living near boston that is more important to me than the partial giving up of some freedoms that i wish i didn't have to give up.

sounds bad when you say it out loud, but unless anyone here (including you, haywood's proxy) is living in libertopia, we're all making the same compromise.

-cab

|1.23.07 @ 6:08PM|#

I love it when people act like sheep in the name of liberty!

Mike Laursen|1.23.07 @ 6:10PM|#

Sorry, I didn't realize that Number 6's comment was in reply to something Kevin had said.

I suppose I understand Kevin's point, but I don't agree with it. He seems to think that McDonald's squeezes out local diversity. I don't see why a neighborhood can't have both chain restaurants and restaurants with local color.

And you have to give credit to all the community activities local fast food franchises engage in, like sponsoring Little League teams.

The Wine Commonsewer|1.23.07 @ 6:33PM|#

AC, Az is Ca Lite because all those Californios fleeing the bad life on the coast brought their values with them and are now intent upon making Az just like the place they ran screaming from.

And you're right, Az is no panacea. It is better than Ca but everything is relative. Like incest.

Bee, lots of my neighbors and cousins have headed off to Idaho. The babysitter's family bought a beautiful place in a small town by a river with trees. They cashed out here, paid cash, banked the rest...........

|1.23.07 @ 6:38PM|#

Fundies invading South Carolina in imitation of FSP? They may outman/outbreed libertopia, and have gawd on their side, but we are overwhelmingly endowed with engineeers and gun enthusiasts.

I predict they will be our serfs by 2050.

|1.23.07 @ 6:43PM|#

but unless anyone here ... is living in libertopia, we're all making the same compromise.

I gave up a very cush postdoctoral fellowship with the Army Research Labs because it was in D.C. Likewise a nice industry job in Vancouver. I still don't have any long term prospects so there is really no telling what kind of sacrifice I'll ultimately make. But if I'm forced into an academic postdoc it will work out to be $30K a year less than ARL was offering. The deal breaker for D.C. was moving to a high crime area without my pistol. I think it's worth it. On the other end; when I was a kid I thought I'd never work for an employer that did drug testing. That didn't last long.

|1.23.07 @ 6:45PM|#

That is my plan, TWC! Hop on that SoCal real estate merry-go-round, then cash out someday and buy my own damn county somewhere. Like Idaho. Or West Virginia. Or Alaska. (Which is warmer than New Hampshire, btw)

And grow weed. Lots and lots of weed.

|1.23.07 @ 7:13PM|#

I was in New Hampshire for a job interview a few months ago and attended a Free-Stater meeting in Manchester.

It is a community! I immediately felt at home with these folks - lots of couples and kids (about 60 people), laughing and talking about Liberty and how to increase it.

When it comes to the future of this country, I am sorry to say that I am a pessimist. When things get bad, I hope to be in New Hampshire, standing as part of a community instead of trying to weather things alone.

|1.23.07 @ 9:27PM|#

TWC,

I'm curious about this can't open carry except on the seat of your car. I know people who open carry down here. AZ is an open carry state. As long as it's in a holster your cool, you obviously can't be waving it around. I don't have a holster yet, so I don't open or conceal carry. Arizonashooting.com actually has a thread about good experiences open carrying in AZ, and people from Tucson have been responding.

Nick

Andrew Ian Dodge|1.24.07 @ 7:40AM|#

Free staters are not a bunch of single white-male nuts. They are all types of people many of whom are starting or plan to start business in NH. NH is not an odd choice considering the socialist states that surround it. Good to see the support for the project from the readers of Hit & Run.

Seth|1.24.07 @ 8:28AM|#

Rather sad to see the number of folks in this crowd who have no clue what the FSP is really like: couples, families, and singles all of whom are working together for liberty.

Instead, they focusing on the fact that Varrin and his family ate at McDonalds once while visiting years ago... Or how it's 'too cold' - Thanks to Global Warming, the weather has been better (and warmer) than most of the rest of the US, and when it does snow, they clear the roads ASAP and life goes on normally...

If you want to lie to yourselves as you decide to remain in the People's Republic of whereever, feel free, but those who know the facts (as witnessed by those who visited NH and met people and toured the places) know that NH is the place to be, if you care about Liberty.

It's not going to be a easy battle, but it's where the stand is taking place. If NH, with its libertarian leanings already in place, doesn't work, there isn't anyplace left on Earth that will..., so since spacetravel isn't here, I'll take NH.

|1.24.07 @ 10:16AM|#

The deal breaker for D.C. was moving to a high crime area without my pistol. I think it's worth it.

You couldn't find a place in suburban Virginia? DC is a relatively compact town. People commute from VA all the time, even as far out as Warrenton.

Brian Defferding|1.24.07 @ 11:13AM|#

I am tempted to sign up for this myself, but I like where I live (not because of the politics though).

I wish the Free Staters success and hope they have a positive effect in the state.

|1.24.07 @ 5:51PM|#

Does Kevin's post make anyone else want to choke down a #6 Value Meal just out of pure spite?