I was wondering if anyone here would actually participate in the Free State Project. I originally thought that simply moving out of the country would be a better idea, but I think if we had a state with a bunch of like-minded people, then something like secession and what not would be too far-fetched (and New Hampshire’s constitution doesn’t specifically prohibit secession).
Just tell me what you think about it.
I think F4M made everyone here to hate Free State Project, which is really shame. FSP has huge potential.
Oh, didn’t know anything about that. What’s F4M?
A caveman with a computer.
I think the FSP has great potential.
Hoppe talked about how it would accelerate a secession movement if there was a hot-button issue that could unite the people in a given area against the larger government. The example he gave was Nevada (I think) and the issue of nuclear waste dumping.
In the absence of something like that, it’s going to be a slower process. I think a whole state is too large-scale to have any significant impact… I can’t see any whole state declaring independence from the U.S. any time soon. It would be better if secessionists would concentrate themselves even more, say into a town like Keene. I wonder what would happen if a town of 23000 people were to declare independence and just stop sending tax money in and start ignoring government edicts. How would the general public react?
F4M was a past forum user who was a survivalist and extensively wrote on the internet why he hated technology and how humans violated the Law of Life and how civilization is collectivist.
As to the FSP, well, they have only 10k people annnnnd no influence :\
Wow. That’s…disturbing.
Waco texas multiplied by 302.6315789473684.
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Probably that 76 people died during fire resulted from assault by federal agents in Waco, TX. Do the math…
Ah, clever.
So do you think a mere declaration of indepedence by a town would result in a similar siege and re-assimilation?
Almost certainly. A state MIGHT be able to secede if it did it carefully, and even then it would be tricky.
I see potential for New England, minus Boston, over all. I hear that Vermont has a good number of socialists over in Vermont who are attempting something similar, albeit in an attempt to make full blown Vermont socialist. The area is beautiful, has low taxes, and is a small enough population size for a small number of people to influence it.
Yeah, I’ve heard of that, I think it’s called the Second Vermont Republic movement.
Well even if secession is impossible, at least there has been a little bit of progress:
Jury nullification is probably the best (or only?) means of non-violent defence a libertarian populace has against the state.
I don’t think that the secession is most important aspect of FSP. By simply having libertarians in one place instead of scattered in different states, it would be huge. Freedomfest is good example.
First of all, the FSP itself has no opinion or policy on any particular issue. The entire purpose and goal is to get liberty-oriented people to come together, to concentrate individuals who pledge merely to work towards greater liberty. Once in New Hampshire, the FSP itself is out of the picture.
That said, the people who have come together thorugh the FSP have made the idea of simple liberty a front-page story over and over.
There are only some 12 FSP related people in the legislature here, of 435. That’s not a big number, but what it has done is engage with the liberty-minded people already here to accomplish things.
For example, state spending last year decreased by 11%. This is a massive accomplishment!
Medical marijuana was sent to the governor’s desk, and vetoed (by a democrat). There have been legislative hearings for such things as “No Victim No Crime”, which would have put any and all victimless crimes into question.
New Hampshire, with no known FSP person on the jury, had the first explicit JURY NULLIFICATION of marijuana cultivation charges just a week or two ago. Judges are now required to explain Jury Nullificaiton to jurors.
Not much more than 1,000 people have moved, 11,000 people have signed up. Even if it stopped right here, rather than trying for 20K, and the 10K that haven’t moved yet did, I think it would make a huge difference very quickly.
Seeing what 500 accomplished, and now 1,000, I would say that the FSP is already successful.
Hmm. Assuming I stay in the states, NH might be a place to look in to.
I was initially dismissive, but then I became the state chair of a Libertarian party and saw first-hand how hopeless it was. After one year of that I decided to move, and did move within a couple weeks after the end of my term. That was in 2005, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
Since moving here I’ve participated in a whole heck of a lot more liberty activity, probably by a couple orders of magnitude. There’s just so much more going on here. At first it was like “hey, there’s multiple things to do each week!” (which was way more than the one or two things per month I was used to), but these days its more like “well, there’s about a dozen things I could go do today but so many of them overlap that I can’t possibly do more than 3 or 4”.
There’s all kinds of things going on, so no matter your liberty focus or favorite strategy, there’s sure to be plenty going on to keep you busy and working with friendly freedom lovers.
Seriously, just move. Do it. Plan it right (i.e. don’t show up here penniless and without skills) but do it.
Lmao, you win the internet today, sir 
It’s true, he used to rail against technology, cities, and modern diets and gen-mod foods, often talking about plans to go live off grid and eat a paleo-diet. He was also strongly muslim and made a case for islam being more libertarian friendly than other religions.
I’m sure he’s off somewhere hibernating in a bear’s den 