Garrett Quinn on How the Free State Project Is Transforming New Hampshire

|

In 2001 a Yale doctoral student named Jason Sorens published an essay in the small webzine The Libertarian Enterprise, lamenting the failure of libertarian efforts at the ballot box. "Nothing's working," he wrote, because libertarians are scattered. The only way to have a real impact, he argued, would be to concentrate thousands of libertarian activists in a state with a small population and an easily accessible government. Sorens settled on an ideal target of 20,000 people, an imaginary cluster of libertarians he christened the Free State Project. Twelve years later, against all odds, reports Garrett Quinn, Sorens' peculiar dream is coming true in New Hampshire.