Free State Project - Home For Libertarians

Unarmed Gunman

Unarmed Gunman

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May 2, 2007
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The Free State Project is halfway to their goal. For those of you that don't know, the basic concept is similar to how the Mormons took over Utah and now control all forms of government and public discourse in the state of Utah, except replace Utah with New Hampshire, and Mormons with Libertarians.

Since a lot of people on here profess to be Libertarians, AnCaps etc. I was curious to see if anyone else is even aware of the movement or what you guys think about it. If you can't convince an entire country to go Libertarian, at least having one state as a safe-haven seems like a decent consolation prize.

Key points on New Hampshire:


  • No general income tax
  • No general sales tax
  • Lowest taxes as a percentage of gross income in continental US
  • Eminent Domain laws can not be used to take private property
  • Least restrictive gun laws and open carry laws in the nation
  • Very low unemployment rates and 3rd in nation for high tech jobs
  • Ranked 2nd in nation as most tax friendly to business
  • No tax on inventory, machinery or equipment
  • State Legislators have a salary of only $100
  • Public School system not mandated
  • Budgets are voted line-by-line to eliminate pork
  • New Hampshire has a history of Libertarian ideals
  • No seat belt or helmet laws
  • Passed laws precluding its citizens from any national ID systems

Interesting concept and it seems like the small population and low levels of spending by the major parties would make it easy pickings for a Libertarian government to take hold.
 


How about immigration? Would I, as a Brit, be able to live and work there freely?
 
I love the idea of government experiments but unfortunately this one won't be able to tell us anything about anything.

As long as it's within the borders of the US it receives the protection of the US from all foreign threats. Also, I'm sure they'll still benefit from our roads and other infrastructure that's already in place. This stuff took tax money to build and takes tax money to maintain.

That's one of the huge reasons why many of these anarchic or extremely small government ideas probably will never be a reality. These days larger governments are needed to ward off other large governments from taking you over. This requires tax money. It's a simple thought that many people here just don't seem to get.
 
WickedJoe said:
I love the idea of government experiments but unfortunately this one won't be able to tell us anything about anything.

As long as it's within the borders of the US it receives the protection of the US from all foreign threats. Also, I'm sure they'll still benefit from our roads and other infrastructure that's already in place. This stuff took tax money to build and takes tax money to maintain.

That's one of the huge reasons why many of these anarchic or extremely small government ideas probably will never be a reality. These days larger governments are needed to ward off other large governments from taking you over. This requires tax money. It's a simple thought that many people here just don't seem to get.
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It's not really a secessionist idea though. The intent isn't to break free from the US, so much as it is to have a libertarian lifestyle and local government, while at least having a voice in national politics because the reps would actually be beholden to libertarian ideals and have to answer to the people, rather than the national parties or lobbyists. From there, it could easily be replicated in states like Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, Idaho, Dakota's etc, and at that point you have a real voice on the national stage.

Once you have one or two states voting in 3rd party candidates to national office, the media is forced to give them coverage, which can lead people in other states to investigate further out of curiosity, gaining some more converts along the way, etc.
 
new_hampshire_state_quarter_sm.jpg


Unarmed Gunman said:
Very low unemployment rates
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Well not right now and where many NH residents find employment is in Massachusetts.

3rd in nation for high tech jobs
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This is as a percentage of jobs and NH was 3rd years ago, but has dropped down in recent years.
 
a lot of people lost their lives trying to do this throughout the years. when things got too close... neighboring governments declared war, declared the land unconstitutional, or the founders were liquidated by CIA before it even got that far.
 
I really like the Utah analogy.

Unarmed Gunman said:
Once you have one or two states voting in 3rd party candidates to national office, the media is forced to give them coverage, which can lead people in other states to investigate further out of curiosity, gaining some more converts along the way, etc.
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My counter here would be that there are already 2 3rd party members that have seats in the senate that get little nation attention for their parties. Joe Lieberman is a member of the "Connecticut for Lieberman" party. Then there's Berny Sanders of Vermont who's a member of the Socialist party. Because both of these guys caucus with the Democrats anyway, they're seen as pretty much the same thing, and counted that way too in almost all respects.
 
honestbrett said:
I really like the Utah analogy.



My counter here would be that there are already 2 3rd party members that have seats in the senate that get little nation attention for their parties. Joe Lieberman is a member of the "Connecticut for Lieberman" party. Then there's Berny Sanders of Vermont who's a member of the Socialist party. Because both of these guys caucus with the Democrats anyway, they're seen as pretty much the same thing, and counted that way too in almost all respects.
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You answered your own objection. Obviously, the Libertarians voted in would be held to a higher standard by the people of New Hampshire to ensure they do not caucus with either party.
 
Texas used to lead in the Libertarian movement. I'm not sure when they caved to Republicans but it makes me a little sad that they moved away from their Lone Star roots.
 
There was something similar to this for Christian fundamentalists - I think the state they picked was either South Carolina or Missouri....this was 4 or 5 years ago when Bush was in office and fundamentalists were in the news all the time.

The problem with sending third party candidates to national office though is that they either have to join an existing caucus, create their own, or opt out.

The first one naturally causes integrity issues.

The second two options make the legislators completely ineffective. They can't DO anything other than vote, speak on the floor, and introduce bills (which will go no where because there is not enough votes to back them).
 
Not to cast stones, but for how many more years is the FSP going to be just about to go big time? I mean, I followed this from its early discussion days, before they even got the voting for the destination state underway. Didn't they choose New Hampshire in 2002? Been a while in any event. Just fucking move to NH and don't worry about the rest of the freepers; it's one of the best bastions of old-school-small-l-libertarianism in the US and has been for years, and will keep being so as long as the occasional person of said mentality moves there. I would myself -- in fact, years ago PJ O'Rourke had pretty well sold me on the state, and in the late 1990s I took a survey on GeoCities which informed me that Manchester was the ideal city for me; however, a) it fucking snows in New Hampshire and b) see a)


Frank
 
Wait,not "Freepers;" that's those daft wingnuts at Free Republic. Whatever cutesy thing it is the FSP guys call themselves -- don't worry about them. Just move to NH if you want to.


Frank
 
Unarmed Gunman said:
As of last month New Hampshire unemployment rate is 7.1% to Massachusetts 9.5%. Source
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I wouldn't call 7.1 "very low" and the point was that it would be worse for NH if they all had to find work in NH. A similar thing might be taking the unemployment rate of a Boston suburb at face value and not considering how many of them actually work in Boston. Of course you'd also have to factor how many who live in the city commute out to the suburbs, but the trend is usually in the other direction.

There are about 460,000 NH residents age 18-64 and about 20% of them (87,000) get taxed for income in Mass.

Romney raised taxes on NH commuters - Thursday, Jan. 3, 2008
 
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