New Hampshire Begins Open-Data Efforts

Plugh writes "The Free State Project was created to move 20,000 small-government activists to New Hampshire (here's the Slashdot story from 2002). IT people, with our ability to work anywhere, were some of the first to move. Now, with over a dozen Free Staters elected to the NH legislature, these geeks are starting to affect government data-sharing policy."

Comments

Free Staters?

[no known priors]

I remember a quote about them, something like "they confuse freedom for corporations with freedom for people". Corporations aren't people, and so the tax rate for corporations (one of the reasons to pick New Hampshire I think) should be either irrelevant, or, a place with high taxes for corporations should be better (if it translates to lower taxes for real people).

Ahem, back on topic:
I think it is wonderful that at least one government is providing information in open formats (ahem, 'nerd-friendly, "pipe-separated" files'). I can't see the connection though between the "New Hampshire Liberty Alliance" (the group that seems to promoted the change according to the article), and the Free Staters.

Indeed, The Free State website says:

We are not a political action organization. We are not tied to any political party or organization; we do not run candidates for election, we do not financially support or endorse candidates, and we do not oppose or endorse legislation. All these things will be done by local activist organizations with which many Free Staters are involved.

Re:Free Staters?

[Maxo-Texas]

Less true with each passing day.

In fact, it is possible and plausible that we'll have many billion dollar corporation with less than a dozen employees within the next 10 years.

It's called "capital intensive". Lots of machines and automated processes. A few short term jobs setting it up. Some slave wage offshore labor.

But otherwise a nearly pure pump of wealth from the mass market into the hands of a few people. Even out of that dozen, probably half of them will just make "good" salaries while almost all the benefit of the corporation is gained by a few people.

That's really the pattern now. Multi billion dollar corporations where most of the profits go to a few employees-- not even to the shareholders.

Re:Free Staters?

[Microlith]

Corporations are simply groups of individuals who freely enter into an agreement.

But a corporation acts in its own interest, for the sole goal of producing wealth. It may actively undermine the peripheral interests of its shareholders or employees, so long as it generates a return on their investment.

A marriage is a corporation of sorts

Between two individuals who have inherent rights. Arguably, marriage and its recognition is a human right and thus not a valid comparison.

Any corporation consists of an explicit list of members, and acts on the basis of their rights as individuals.

The individual having rights does not necessarily imply that a legal fiction has or deserves rights, nor that it inherits them from the people it is composed of.

Re:Free Staters?

[no known priors]

Yes, and?

Corporations are used to hide people from both liability for actions (deliberate, negligent, and otherwise) that cause harm to real people. They are used to hide the income of real people. They aren't real people, and they should be done away with in their current form.

I am a "sole trader", I pay income tax. I can claim certain costs as deductions on that tax. I can work with others to do things, and share any costs or profit with them. I can employ others (not that I would) if I wish. What I can't do is hide from responsibility.

I could also go on about how corporations benefit the few, at the expense of the many, how they are basically psychopaths (and/or sociopaths, I can never remember), etc. I won't, as it would be pointless I imagine. Basically, fuck corporations.

Re:Free Staters?

[no known priors]

A corporation should have no more rights than the constituent members. It's income should be treated as income for the members. If it does something that damages others, then the members should be liable.

A corporation should not be used as a shield.

If you were truly about freedom for all, then you would recognize that corporations are used almost exclusively by the rich to shield said rich from the acts (such as pollution) that affects everyone, but only serve to, well enrich the rich!
If an individual killed someone, they would be punished by the state. If a corporation kills someone, it gets told not to do it again, or at most a slap on the wrist. Fuck corporations!

On a different note, I'll also note that a truly free market would not have corporations, nor would it have capital accumulation. A truly free market cannot be capitalist. (Capital distorts markets, e.g. buying power affects the price of goods.)

Re:Free Staters?

[brit74]

> "Corporations are made up of people... just thought you might like to know."
Yes, and nations ruled by dictators are made up of people, too, but that doesn't mean the "decisions" of the nation reflect what the common people want.

Corporations are not organizations of equal members. Their decisions are made by upper management. This means they reflect the business interests of the rich and serve to perpetuate the corporation. In fact, the whole reason unions exist is so that the common employee can protect itself against the corporation that they work for. Which is another way of saying that the interests of the corporation and upper management are often at odds with the interests of the common employee. Acting like corporations are "just people" ends up turning our democracy into a plutocracy.

Re:Free Staters?

[superdude72]

Corporations are simply groups of individuals who freely enter into an agreement. A marriage is a corporation of sorts,...

Um, no. "Corporation" is explicitly defined in law. If you have been registered with the government as a corporation, you are a corporation. Otherwise, you're not. There is no informal sense of the word. Is your marriage a legally recognized third person that shields you and your spouse from any debts incurred by the "marriage" person? Then it is nothing like a corporation.

New Hampshire actually still has the highest business tax rate in the nation [watchdog.org], which is what's keeping it from being the wealthiest place in the world,

It's also cold, mountainous, landlocked, largely inaccessible, and a host of other things that make it not the place where people would establish a trading center or do anything requiring a lot of manpower or inexpensive access to resources.

Re:Free Staters?

[brit74]

"Corporations are simply groups of individuals who freely enter into an agreement."
What nonsense. That's like saying everyone who lives under a dictatorship approves of the leadership because they could've emmigrated elsewhere. Corporations reflect the attitudes and desires of the upper management and the stockholders. If corporations were merely an agreement between equals then there should be no such thing as unions. Unions exist to protect the 'common employee' against the upper management, which is another way of saying that they know their interests are not always aligned.

"New Hampshire actually still has the highest business tax rate in the nation [watchdog.org], which is what's keeping it from being the wealthiest place in the world"
So, what you're saying is that New Hampshire has the highest business tax in the US, and the fact that it's the 6th richest state in the US is a complete mystery to you because it "should be" the 50th richest state based on having the highest corporate tax?
* Source: http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/28/real_estate/wealthiest_states/index.htm

Re:Free Staters?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Corporations are made up of people... just thought you might like to know.

People who, when acting under the aegis of the corporation, have certain powers and privileges which they do not have when acting as individuals. We, the people, grant these powers and privileges conditional on good behavior, and have both the right and the duty to revoke them when the people exercising them break the rules. The rights of the individuals who make up the corporations are in no way affected by this.

Short version: corporations aren't people, and it's damn well time we stopped acting as though they were.

Re:Free Staters?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Corporations are simply groups of individuals who freely enter into an agreement.

If you truly believe that's all corporations are, you are too ignorant to have a meaningful opinion on the subject. People acting as agents of a corporation do not act solely "on the basis of their rights as individuals," and anyone who pays any attention at all is well aware of this fact. Now, if the people of New Hampshire decide to stand up for themselves and start granting corporate charters which grant only the same powers and privileges as those possessed by any married couple or "charity, club, community Web-site, etc.", I'll cheer them on ... but I'm reasonably sure that weak-minded propagandists like you won't be the ones to do it.

Re:Free Staters?

[no known priors]

Yeah, I gathered. I'm sure you realize that your "real choice" is just racist bullshit, and probably fascistic at that.

The American Third Position exists to represent the political interests of White Americans.

Oh look, Wikipedia has an article on your racist, fascist party.

Real freedom includes the freedom to cross artificial lines, and to intermingle with anyone, regardless of such things as the color of a person's skin.

But, whatever.

(Yes I do know what fascism is. Opposing labor unions and being against "globalization", along with the racist claptrap promoted by the bullshit party mentioned above (though racism isn't required for fascism) are all signs of fascism. Being "third positionist" is a really big sign of fascism.)

Re:Free Staters?

[chrb]

Corporations are made up of people... just thought you might like to know.

Not true. In a legal sense, corporations are independent entities; in most jurisdictions the only "person" requirement is that the company have a Director and Secretary, and often these can be the same person. That person is often a lawyer acting on behalf of other corporations, and he is contractually obligated to not have any free will to make any decisions on behalf of the corporation. These corporations may employ no one, and exist physically only as "brass plates" at the lawyer's place of work or post office:

In June 2008, the high street chemist, Boots, which has a 150-year history in Nottingham, moved the registered head office of its parent company, Alliance Boots, to Zug. On its website the company gives its address as Baarerstrasse, a central street in Zug. But a visit to the address, an office block, opposite a pizza takeaway and a hotel, revealed that there is no physical office location in the town. Instead, the registered office is housed in a Swiss post office - in an anonymous post office box alongside dozens of others.

Of course, offshore tax avoidance is completely legal.

Re:Free Staters?

[schnell]

That's really the pattern now. Multi billion dollar corporations where most of the profits go to a few employees-- not even to the shareholders.

[Citation needed]

No, seriously, if this is not just an occasional occurrence but in fact "the pattern" now, can you cite multiple examples of this, where the majority of profits - not equity but profits as you say - goes to a few employees and not the shareholders?

Re:Free Staters?

[tprox]

It's not landlocked, and it's connected just like any other state. It's close to the 128 corridor in MA, and hosts a whole bunch of companies (Velcro and Brookstone to name two). What's your beef with them?

Re:Free Staters?

[cas2000]

corporations might be just like soylent green, but they're also a real-world artificial life that operates on algorithms that are at times profoundly indifferent to human welfare (at best) and even actively inimical to our welfare. they are not our friends, or our pets, or even our servants, they are a competing (artificial) life form. they use loopholes in our legal and financial "operating systems" to serve their own interests, not ours (and those interests include entrenching those loopholes and creating new ones to strengthen themselves).

the legal fiction of corporate personhood makes them a kind of cellular automata that treats humans as both a) just another resource to be exploited, and b) as competitors for other resources.

btw, before you (possibly deliberately) misinterpret what i'm saying: this is not intended to be some mystical nonsense about supernaturally self-aware corporations. it's just an inevitable emergent behaviour from the complex legal rules that we have constructed around corporations.

Re:Free Staters?

[Smallpond]

Oprah, Tiger Woods, JK Rowling, Tom Cruise

Re:Free Staters?

[Plugh]

In fact, some Free Staters are working to explicitly rule that corporations are not people:
HCR1 - establishing that human beings, not corporations, are entitled to constitutional rights

I say "some" because while all Free-Staters agree with the general goal of reducing the size and scope of government, the specifics and tactics differ widely.

Re:Free Staters?

[khallow]

Nice try, but these people depend on a vast infrastructure to make their money. A lot of people have jobs because these people produced entertainment.

Re:Free Staters?

[Americano]

A corporation should have no more rights than the constituent members

I can agree to this, there are certainly abuses in the current setup for corporations that could be resolved by closing loopholes in the tax and legal code that allow the abuses to continue.

It's income should be treated as income for the members.

Impractical and misguided, without sweeping tax overhauls. You have a janitor who makes $18 an hour, and a CEO who makes $5 million a year. What's your corporate tax rate?

If it does something that damages others, then the members should be liable.

A pretty notion, but in practice, completely impossible to enforce fairly, if at all - any idea how massive every legal document would be if you had to sue every employee of Toyota individually for the damage to life & property caused by your stuck gas pedal? How would you ever reach a resolution, with THOUSANDS of defendants? Who truly bears the blame? The engineer? The CEO? The factory workers? Can you really level a 5 million dollar judgement and expect to recoup any of your damages against the line worker who screwed up assembling a couple parts, who makes 35k a year? The mechanical engineer who miscalculated a tolerance but makes $110k a year? And how do you sue some engineers in Japan, some factory workers in Canada, and some executives in the UK, when you live in Ohio? Got deep pockets for legal fees, and navigating the endless complexities of other countries' legal system in addition to your own?

A truly free market cannot be capitalist. (Capital distorts markets, e.g. buying power affects the price of goods.)

Sorry but this just sounds like Newspeak. "Free markets must be tightly controlled by the government in order to force them to be free! Black is white! Bad is good!"

From Wikipedia:

Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for a private profit; decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are made by private actors in the free market; profit is sent to owners who invest in businesses, and wages are paid to workers employed by businesses and companies.

How is any of that at odds with your assertion that "capital distorts markets"? If I own a factory, and somebody with a lot of money offers to buy in bulk at a huge discount from my normal retail price, I am not obligated to enter into that agreement if it would come at a loss to me; if my factory normally runs at a lower volume, but has a much higher capacity, giving a large purchaser a discount on the normal price to keep my factory running and my workers employed in return for a lower per-unit cost to the purchaser might actually be a very good thing.

Capitalism describes a system where "decisions regarding supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are made by private actors" - it says nothing about achieving a single set price for goods irrespective of the purchasing power of the buyer and the willingness to negotiate price on the part of the seller.

But yeah, "fuck corporations," I know.

Re:Free Staters?

[khallow]

I hear a bunch of whining, but I don't hear a reason for getting rid of corporations. Used as a shield to protect passive investors from risk? It's a feature not a bug.

Limited liability doesn't shield you from bad decisions you make personally. If you know Evil Inc was doing something criminal, then you're guilty of being an accessory to the crime even if you're just a shareholder.

Limited liability is to shield you from bad decisions by the people who you gave the money to and which you have no knowledge of nor control over. You'll still lose some portion, perhaps all, of your investment.

I could also go on about how corporations benefit the few, at the expense of the many, how they are basically psychopaths (and/or sociopaths, I can never remember), etc. I won't, as it would be pointless I imagine.

It's pointless because it would be very wrong. The structure of corporations allows the business to have access to capital and hence, the means to hire more people, buy and sell more goods and services, and in general spread the wealth around. That means far more people benefit than the timid situation where any investment comes with unlimited liability and hence, most current investment would not happen.

Re:Free Staters?

[khallow]

So what? They're also voluntary organizations which means that a) they have to pay you in order to keep you, and b) you can leave at any time, if you don't like what's going on.

Which is another way of saying that the interests of the corporation and upper management are often at odds with the interests of the common employee.

This is the kind of stupid stuff that keeps getting said over and over again in these threads. Almost all businesses. incorporated or not, have this structure. There's nothing magical about corporations in this respect. Nor does the structure of corporations encourage "organizations of unequal members". You can incorporate co-ops and non-profits as well and it's common for such organizations to be incorporated.

The hierarchical "unequal" organization keeps appearing because it works to make a successful business that is profitable for the owner(s), not because it is a feature of corporations.

Re:Free Staters?

[Americano]

It's also cold

In the southern areas (Manchester, Nashua, Portsmouth), where a vast majority of the population actually lives, it's no more cold than any other New England state. In fact, in the Nashua area, winters tend to be slightly milder than our neighbors in central Massachusetts to the south, largely due to the way the weather systems flows through & around the mountains here.

mountainous

OH NOES. TEH MOUNTAINS, THEY DESTROY BUSINESSES. I guess California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and the entire eastern seabord, through which most of the Appalachian mountains run didn't get the memo that nobody wants to establish businesses in states with mountains!

landlocked

Um. No, no it's not. Somebody failed 4th grade geography. Portsmouth, NH, sits on the ocean. It's a small coastline, but a fairly active port all the same.

largely inaccessible

I live in NH, in one of the towns between Manchester and Nashua. I can be in downtown Boston in 45 minutes from my home. I can be parked and in the terminal of an airport served by Southwest in 20 minutes, less when the finish a new highway interchange that will bring you almost directly into the airport from Route 3. I can be at an MBTA train station (boston's public transit) in about 25 minutes, and on my way into Boston, with access to the entire Amtrak system from there. This area has an active FedEx and UPS distribution center. The highways in New Hampsire are *markedly* better than the roads in our neighbor to the south, Massachusetts. Some areas are relatively inaccessible, but the areas where there is any business of note are quite accessible by highway and/or air travel and freight.

and a host of other things that make it not the place where people would establish a trading center or do anything requiring a lot of manpower or inexpensive access to resources.

You speak as somebody who has never even visited, much less lived here. Your image of New Hampshire as "bearded mountain men living off the land in hand-built log cabins on the border of Canada" is laughable.

Fidelity Investments, BAE Systems, HP, Dell, UPS, FedEx are all very large corporations with significant presence here doing business. You can easily find more examples if you actually wanted to dispel your idiot notions.

Re:Free Staters?

[overlordofmu]

Don't click on the sig link of "Third Position". That shit is worse that goatse . . .

There is only one race. We call that race "Earthlings".

Grasshoppers, tigers, you and I, all of us, share a common fate, a common home. All of our survivals are intertwined.

When you start looking at yourself as seperate and express a will to put your group above the rest, you have become the enemy of the rest of the world.

My money is on the rest of us and I beg you to reconsider your position on this issue of "race".

Re:Free Staters?

[corbettw]

Corporations don't pay taxes, their customers do. And with corporate tax rates at 0%, consumers end up spending much less for the things they need and businesses find it easier to expand and hire more employees.

Re:Free Staters?

[Enry]

Bankers?

Re:Free Staters?

[khallow]

But a corporation acts in its own interest, for the sole goal of producing wealth. It may actively undermine the peripheral interests of its shareholders or employees, so long as it generates a return on their investment.

So what? It's not like conflicts of interest are a new or mysterious thing. The shareholders and employees are responsible for defending their interests.

Re:Free Staters?

[odigity]

The official organization known as the Free State Project is simply the bus. It's job is to get people to New Hampshire, not to tell them how to pursue liberty after they get here. (Really, the FSP's only real job is to host the website with the "statement of intent" and the signup and move counters.) Hence, there is no official connection between the FSP and the NHLA, or any other pro-liberty organization started by Free Staters.

However, the NHLA is primarily founded and run by Free Staters.

Re:Free Staters?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Corporations are simply groups of individuals who freely enter into an agreement.

Well, sort of. Corporations are legal agreements whereby a group of people are given exemptions from legal responsibility for their actions as a group, in order to promote business ventures. But, since anyone who passed Ethics 101 knows that responsibilities and rights are linked, the removal of one should naturally lead to the removal of the other. When a group of people form a corporation and that corporation does something negligent and people die, we don't throw all the shareholders into prison. Since they are not held responsible as individuals, neither does it make sense that they should have the rights of an individual when acting in the capacity of a corporation.

Perhaps you might want to look at it another way. Corporations are created by the government as a matter of law. As such, the government is responsible only for promoting the common good. If corporations are not serving the common good, the government should butt out of it and stop writing laws that form corporations and let individuals form whatever groups they want, but not be exempted from their responsibilities as individuals.

Re:Free Staters?

[ChrisMaple]

Labor unions have a history of extortion, bribery, arson, murder, and a host of other nasty behaviors.

Real freedom includes the freedom to cross artificial lines

Such as picket lines.

Opposing labor unions is a sign of bravery, civility and free thinking.

Re:Free Staters?

[gfreeman]

Opposing labor unions is a sign of bravery, civility and free thinking.

So is being a member of a union, but I see your point.

Re:Free Staters?

[phantomcircuit]

A Corporation is not capable of spending money for consumption purposes, only the individuals who make up the corporation are, so why tax the entity at all?

Re:Free Staters?

[s73v3r]

And yet, it is as the GP poster said: The majority of profits going to a few on top.

Re:Free Staters?

[s73v3r]

And businesses had as big of a history of violent, extortionist behaviors as well. Its why unions were formed in the first place.

Re:Free Staters?

[khallow]

And yet, it is as the GP poster said: The majority of profits going to a few on top.

No, he said that that the corporation would only consist of a few people, not that there would be an unequal distribution of profit.

Re:Free Staters?

[moeinvt]

"I'm sure you realize that your "real choice" is just racist bullshit ..."

"American Third Position Party ... defines its principal mission as representing the political interests of White Americans."

OMG! RACISM!!!!!! :-0

We have the NAACP which represents the interests of African Americans. The National Council of La Raza (The Race) represents the interests of Hispanic Americans. You can find a thousand other organizations large and small specifically representing other races and ethnicities. We call all of those groups "Civil Rights Organizations" however.

Why is it only "racism" when someone thinks that White people should have equal rights and an equal opportunity to organize for their collective best interests?

Re:Free Staters?

[Maxo-Texas]

CHK
$953M net income.
$113M Compensation to CEO (salary $975k, base compensation 18M)
$?50M Compensation to COO (Salary, ???, base compensation 9M so 50M total?)
$?50M Compensation to roughly a dozen more executives (Base compensation about $4 million each for those with a visible base compensation).

1% Dividend to shareholders ($0.075 share)
-20% to -50% Return to Shareholders over the last 5 years
(There is a return from 6 years ago.. but no net return from 1996-1997 when it was at the same price).

Most of the rest of the employees make normal salaries.
Lot of them (5,000+)

But this is where we are headed...
http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/01/17/internet-companies-with-few-employees-but-millions-of-users/

And CHK is more of an old school company...

The trend is here
SEMGROUP
$20.17 bil 60.4 $3.56 bil $239 mil $388 mil 1,622 Dec

That's a huge amount of money for a tiny number of employees. Privately held. And most of the beneit almost certainly goes to a few executives the same as CHK above.

---
Our tax structure creates a huge incentive to reduce the number of workers.
And to move the employees you do have to staffing companies instead of keeping them as employees.
And to move jobs to other countries.

yet the executives still want to live here where you don't get shot for breaking environmental laws.

Re:Free Staters?

[Maxo-Texas]

The rest are private companies... hard to dig out .. but from the recent census..
There were 17M companies with no employees which produced 770B income.

Limiting it to companies with 10-19 employees or less was 1.8 trillion dollars.

companies with 500 or more employees only totaled 2.3 trillion.

and then this...
http://sierravoices.com/2011/02/terrifying-truth-american-business-no-longer-needs-american-workers/

But even that article misses the basic premise.

Diapers.com, instead of having 400 workers has 89 workers and 300 robotic warehouse workers. That's where we are headed. Lots of automation. Fewer jobs for humans.

Re:Free Staters?

[Myopic]

Wrong. Corporations pay taxes (on profits). I know, it's a cute (and completely false) thing to claim that corporate taxes are passed on to customers, and therefore consumers actually pay the corporation taxes. That is nonsense circumloqution, though: we could just as easily say that my employer pays my income tax, or that all taxes are paid by miners, lumberjacks, and others who take resources directly out of the ground. All of those arguments would be nonsense.

If corporate taxes were zero, then other taxes would increase in proportion -- a zero net gain. We insert taxes into the economy in places where we think they will do the least economic damage. Corporate profits are one place; personal income is another; tariffs are a third.

It is perfectly fine and reasonable to suggest that corporate profits are a bad place to insert a tax into the economy. Fine; I'm willing to hear that out. It is not, however, to wave hands and make up false equivalence between one thing (corporate taxes) and another (personal taxes); I'm not willing to hear that out.

Re:Free Staters?

[daem0n1x]

So what? They're also voluntary organizations which means that a) they have to pay you in order to keep you, and b) you can leave at any time, if you don't like what's going on.

No, because they control the access to a scarce resource. Jobs.

Re:Free Staters?

[khallow]

No, because they control the access to a scarce resource. Jobs.

And the employee controls access to the scarce resource, work. So, yes, I stand by my original statement.

Re:Free Staters?

[Maxo-Texas]

I said both.

Re:Free Staters?

[khallow]

Thanks for the clarification. And you've actually backed your claim. It is rare that one can surprise me while making that sort of claim.

Re:Free Staters?

[Maxo-Texas]

thanks.

Wish I could have found those private companies

FYI, right now robots that can do simple human labor 24 hours a day currently run $15,000 a year. That's pretty low.

Diapers.com is using "hundreds" of warehouse robots. I've read articles where other companies have bought a couple dozen.

My billion dollar company has not had a human receptionist for 8 years.

I think somehow this is a tax issue. I'm just not sure where or how to phrase the taxes.

I mean, it would be great to have a billion dollar profit company with lots of robots paying 800 million in taxes which provide all kinds of benefits to people who mostly get to do fun stuff-- the owner still gets 200 million in profits to split between themselves and the investors.

The fundamental problem is-- without workers, the mass market itself collapses. Who do you sell your product to?

People have to have income to spend. So they have to have jobs.
If all the manual jobs go away... not everyone can do brain or creative work.

Re:Free Staters?

[Seth Cohn]

Actually, I think relative to the makeup of NH, the makeup of FSP movers is roughly the same. We have plenty of 'minority' participants. In fact, compared to pretty much any Libertarian convention or gathering, we have FAR more women involved in the FSP. If you are a geek woman with libertarian tendencies, you will still have your choice of menfolk here, and yet have a large group of like-minded women to hang out and be friends with - you won't be a rare 1% (the usual mix in libertarian circles), more like 25-30% of the total.

Re:Free Staters?

[backdoc]

I was modded down for agreeing with you. Ha. I should have known better than to post something conservative (or agree with something conservative) on Slashdot.

Oh well, I still agree with you. And, I stand by that.

Re:Free Staters?

[falconwolf]

I think it is wonderful that at least one government is providing information in open formats (ahem, 'nerd-friendly, "pipe-separated" files'). I can't see the connection though between the "New Hampshire Liberty Alliance" (the group that seems to promoted the change according to the article), and the Free Staters.

The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance is about preserving and expanding liberty. The Free State Project is about getting enough people who care about liberty to move to New Hampshire and run as a candidate or vote for a candidate who will cast votes to hold up liberty. The initial hope was that enough people would move there to impact politics there. While there may not be any official connection between the two organizations they may share members. I'd be surprised of they didn't.

I thought of moving there myself but NH has a small area close to the coast and I love saltwater and scuba diving. If they had picked Maine, one of the Carolinas, or Florida it would have been better. Then again those states don't have Live Free or Die as a state motto.

Falcon

Re:Free Staters?

[falconwolf]

In fact, some Free Staters are working to explicitly rule that corporations are not people:
HCR1 - establishing that human beings, not corporations, are entitled to constitutional rights

I have a big problem with that bill, "In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eleven". Now that may sound like a trivial objection but I still recall having a ruler forcefully applied to one of my hands for not reciting the pledge of allegiance with "Under God" in a public elementary school.

Falcon

Re:Free Staters?

[Plugh]

That's boilerplate, of course, and not related to the bill itself or any particular bill. I suppose if you wanted to take that up as a personal crusade, you could.

Re:Free Staters?

[falconwolf]

Corporations don't pay taxes, their customers do. And with corporate tax rates at 0%, consumers end up spending much less for the things they need and businesses find it easier to expand and hire more employees.

If corporations pay no income tax but people do corporations get a free ride. Sole Proprietorships and Partnerships also hire employees yet their owners still have to pay income tax. Not only do owners have to pay tax they are also financially liable, for instance in case of an accident, whereas stock holders are not. The first corporations granted charters were given charters just because of this. The British East India Company was granted a charter in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company was granted a charter in 1602. Both were shipping companies running ships between Europe and India/South Asia and shipping was a risky business. Ships owners were financially liable for losses. If a ship sank, ran aground, was attacked by pirates or otherwise lost cargo, passengers, or workers the owner had to settle. That meant the owner could lose everything they owned. So corporations were granted charters and limited liability. The most a stockholder could ever lose is the amount they paid for the stocks. Proposals like yours and corporate libertarians would give corporations an unfair advantage over other forms of businesses.

Much better would be to abolish personal income tax. And yes that would help corporations too, part of any business's tax burden is payroll taxes, abolish personal income tax and you also abolish payroll tax. Of course I hear the howling from corporatists, socialists, big government types, and others who support high taxes.

Falcon

Re:Free Staters?

[falconwolf]

A Corporation is not capable of spending money for consumption purposes, only the individuals who make up the corporation are, so why tax the entity at all?

Because corporations have an unfair advantage over other forms of business ownership. Say two businesses have their roofs collapse because of the weight of the snow on the roof, which has happened a number of tymes recently, and employees are injured. Say some are even killed. One was owned by a corporation and the other was owned by you, as a Sole proprietorship. The most a stockholder can lose is how much they paid for the stocks. You on the other hand can lose your business, your home, and everything you own.

Now are you going to say corporations should not pay taxes and enjoy such an advantage but you have to pay those taxes, and be held liable?

Falcon

Re:Free Staters?

[falconwolf]

That's boilerplate, of course, and not related to the bill itself or any particular bill.

"In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eleven" does not need to be there, the only reason it would be there today is because someone wants to force their religion on others.

Falcon

Re:Free Staters?

[khallow]

FYI, right now robots that can do simple human labor 24 hours a day currently run $15,000 a year. That's pretty low.

I was thinking that sounded ludicrous, but given that things like forklifts or leafblowers greatly reduce the need for labor and these often cost far less than $15,000, it's not that unrealistic.

I think somehow this is a tax issue. I'm just not sure where or how to phrase the taxes.

How about this? Eliminate all taxes on income, individual or corporate. Place taxes on assets and capital appropriate to cover the costs of the government (we aren't looking for behavior modification). Eliminate the rules and fees that make hiring people such a chore, like Social Security, Medicare taxes, and minimum wage. Simplify excessively bureaucratic or complex regulation. This removes the perverse incentive to invest in capital rather than hire more people.

Re:Free Staters?

[daem0n1x]

Since when work is a scarce resource? Let alone now, in a financerised economy where actual production doesn't really matter anymore?

Re:Free Staters?

[khallow]

Since when work is a scarce resource?

Always has been a scarce resource.

Let alone now, in a financerised economy where actual production doesn't really matter anymore?

Not true because your basic premises are wrong. The economy is not "financerised", it still depends on human work to function at the fundamental level. Second, human work is not "production". It's much more than that.

Re:Free Staters?

[corbettw]

Reading comprehension FAIL on your part. Corporations simply pass the cost of taxes on to their customers. You could set the tax rate on corporations at 100%, all it would do is push the costs for goods and services up by a comparable amount, forcing consumers to spend more.

Re:Free Staters?

[Maxo-Texas]

How about this? Eliminate all taxes on income, individual or corporate. Place taxes on assets and capital appropriate to cover the costs of the government (we aren't looking for behavior modification). Eliminate the rules and fees that make hiring people such a chore, like Social Security, Medicare taxes, and minimum wage. Simplify excessively bureaucratic or complex regulation. This removes the perverse incentive to invest in capital rather than hire more people.

Well the claim is that people would then take their capital and go elsewhere. "We'll all leave your country and set up shop in "no taxcountry" ".
So I think (as bad as it was with smoot hawley) that we may need to start considering shortcuts taken in manufacturing. If you want to make your products in a country with no taxes, workers, environmental laws, then you pay a penalty tariff on every product.

But even thinking about that- I see it spirals down to nothing- because even with a tariff the people here have no money without a job.

You may find these interesting...

http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/06/incredible-tug-robots-automate-delivery-in-hospitals-video/

According to Aethon, one TUG robot working two shifts a day, seven days a week, does the equivalent labor of 2.8 full time employees, but costs less than one full time employee. Their case studies seem to back up their claims. Variations on the TUG system have been in hospitals for several years now as you can see in the following segments:

http://singularityhub.com/2010/09/02/hospital-to-lay-off-workers-hiring-new-robots/
Hospital To Lay Off Workers, Hires Robots Instead
According to a hospital administrator quoted in the Businessweek article the 19 TUGs perform $1 million of human labor per year, but only cost $350,000. A 65% reduction in labor costs? Thatâ(TM)s very appealing.

http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/10/whats-the-secret-behind-diapers-com-success-a-kiva-robot-warehouse-video/
Whatâ(TM)s The Secret Behind Diapers.com Success? A Kiva Robot Warehouse

On the subject of Forklifts...not yet on the market.. but just a question of how long.
http://singularityhub.com/2009/05/14/the-autonomous-forklift/
The Autonomous Forklift
This forklift, however, is being designed to move pallets for the military in a variable environment where humans work and interact with the machine as coworkers.

---

Small government?

[drsquare]

In New Hampshire they'll still be living under the large federal government. If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether. Although they won't find many first-world countries where the government isn't significantly involved in the regulating society and running public services.

Re:Small government?

[Third Position]

Well, there's always the option of secession. Remember, New Hampshire shares a border with Canada, and has coastal access to the Atlantic ocean. It could do very nicely for itself as a small nation in it's own right. I believe those were some of the reasons the Free State Project chose it.

Re:Small government?

[PotatoFiend]

Secession is an adolescent fantasy, not a realistic option in the United States of America post-Civil War. Sure, your legislature can vote unanimously in favor of it. But the Federal Government will, in the end, take your state back by force and make you pay reparations for the next few decades.

Re:Small government?

[iserlohn]

He said -

Although they won't find many first-world countries where the government isn't significantly involved in the regulating society and running public services.

You said -

Well, there's always the option of secession.

I say -
~~~Woosh~~~

Re:Small government?

[Third Position]

He also said

If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether.

Which was the point I was responding to.

Whoosh, yourself.

Re:Small government?

[Third Position]

No, it's not currently a realistic option in the United States of America. OTOH, nothing last forever, including large powerful nations. See "Soviet Union" for example. Six months earlier, not much of anyone expected their breakup, either.

Re:Small government?

[droidsURlooking4]

Forget revolution, The States real power is nullification. They can remind the federal government what their limits are without throwing out the entire union. The States still have the power, they just have to exercise it. The union serves the states, and the states serve The People.

Re:Small government?

[spanky the monk]

This is true and more people need to talk about it. The states nullified the Real ID act which shows that it works if the people are politically active enough in their states.

One of the best ways to beat the federal government is to ignore it.

Check the progress of current nullification efforts here:
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/the-10th-amendment-movement/

Re:Small government?

[TheRaven64]

I'm not sure invading a seceding state would be politically viable for the federal government. Its entire legitimacy comes from the fact that it governs with the consent of the governed. You describe it as a fantasy, but it's a very common fantasy. Even among people who have no desire to secede from the USA, they like the comforting belief that they could, if they wanted to, and that they are only staying part of the USA because they choose to. Can you imagine the uproar if Fox News and CNN are showing pictures of the US Army invading a US state? The only way of legitimately invading would be not to recognise the secession so, from a legal standpoint, this would be the Federal Government using the army against a state, which seems more likely to prompt more attempts to secede than anything else.

More likely, they would just impose trade sanctions. I doubt the economy of NH could survive without any trade with the USA, while the US economy would suffer a lot less.

Re:Small government?

[UnCivil Liberty]

NH has two large airports (Manchester and Portsmouth [and several smaller ones]), a power plant (Seabrook), and is not likely to be attacked on it's on if it adopts a foreign policy of non-interventionism and free trade (you know, like America was INTENDED to) - in addition we see $0.71 worth of services for every dollar we ship to DC, 47th out of 50 in the country (source: Federal Spending Received Per Dollar of Taxes Paid by State, 2005 - http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html) - we no longer need the federal government and would do better on our own.

Re:Small government?

[iamcadaver]

The states nullified the Real ID act which shows that it works if the people are politically active enough in their states

In point of fact - Free State Project early movers were largely behind NH nullifying Real ID. The other states followed NH's lead.

Nullifying RealID is a point of pride in the NH legislator and you hear them refer to it over and over again in committee hearings.

Now pardon me, I've got to get back to work writing Drupal Feeds plugins to parse that nerd friendly data dump so citizens can get cell phone alerts for every move their Representatives make. With their reps email and cell phone number, of course.

Re:Small government?

[sjwaste]

Yeah, let's think about this. New Hampshire secedes, having infrastructure of its own. You know what happens next? Quebec. Now you have the lovable Habitants all riled up, seceding from the rest of Canada, and occupying a not insignificant stretch of land between Ontario and New Brunswick... and a border with New Hampshire. You see where this is going, right? Quebec, full of angry French (that the actual French don't actually like)? Now, I'm not talking about their inconvenient shipping lanes. They don't care about that, so they have no use for the stretch of land from Portsmouth to Seabrook. Get your head in the game.

The GAME. Those assholes have been looking for something, anything, to bring back to Quebec City for years. And you know what? If New Hampshire secedes, the Quebecois are coming. They're marching straight down the I-93, trashing Concord, and laying over in Manchester. The airport? Nope. The Manchester Monarchs. Bingo. Is the Republic of New Hampshire prepared to defend the Monarchs franchise? I think not, and now you have the best AHL action this side of Glens Falls going up North to the Democratic People's Republic of Quebec. Now you've fucking done it.

So the Monarchs are gone, and we've been driven back into Northeast Delta Dental Stadium - if it's even called that, since a fine organization like Delta Dental might not want to do business with a brand new foreign country. After all, we'd have no credit rating. Anyway, the Monarchs are gone and our problems are just beginning. After all, the LA Kings franchise trusted us to develop and guard that team. Implicitly, we agreed that their AHL affiliate would not just up and go to Quebec. And LA has a lot of firepower, as well as the ability to overwhelm us in other ways - Anze Kopitar, Paris Hilton, gangs whose names with which I am not familiar.

So New Hampshire wants to secede, huh? Are you willing to risk Quebec becoming independent, stealing the Manchester Monarchs, and triggering war with LA over that? I thought not. The Fisher Cats just aren't that good.

Re:Small government?

[ChrisMaple]

The problem with emigration is that it is less practical than freeing a single state. There are two choices, move to an established country or establish a new one. Most established countries are less free, have near-impossible entry conditions, or have other significant disadvantages. Starting a new country is difficult because there are too many existing nasty countries that would be all too happy to steal everything from a new country not yet able to defend itself.

Re:Small government?

[UnCivil Liberty]

They can have the Monarchs (who play in the Verizon Wireless Arena), the University of New Hampshire Wildcats are better anyways.

Re:Small government?

[iserlohn]

The point he made is that you could, if you want to live in Somalia, for example, which is apparently a libertarian paradise.

Selective cognition is selective.

Re:Small government?

[drsquare]

How much of New Hampshire's economy relies on it being part of the United States?

Re:Small government?

[Simplulo]

>If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether.

We've thought about a lot of things. ;)
The FSP is based on a very simple concept: zionism. Any group will have more influence if its members live concentrated rather than dispersed. On most dimensions this doesn't matter, but in the case of politics it often does. Migration for the sake of human rights is nothing new in US history, e.g. blacks migrated north and Mormons migrated west. In an increasingly politicized and centralized USA, the stakes are getting higher, so people are flocking increasingly with their own kind. The book "The Big Sort" laments this:
http://www.thebigsort.com/

Re:Small government?

[UnCivil Liberty]

Do the satellites still trade with Russia?

Re:Small government?

[falconwolf]

In New Hampshire they'll still be living under the large federal government. If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether.

Why should those who believe what the USA's Founding Fathers believed be forced to leave because others have mangled the Constitution Of the USA? Because socialists and other big government types say they have to?

Falcon

Re:Small government?

[falconwolf]

The point he made is that you could, if you want to live in Somalia, for example, which is apparently a libertarian paradise.

1. Is Somalia A Libertarian Paradise?
2. Solamia "was an experiment in anarchy, not libertarianism. Libertarianism is dependant on a small government providing for the protection of rights and enforcement of contracts."
3. "Somalia as libertarian paradise? "That response would, of course, be the one John Locke offered four centuries ago:"

   liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others, which cannot be where there is no law; and is not, as we are told, “a liberty for every man to do what he lists.” For who could be free, when every other man’s humour might domineer over him? But a liberty to dispose and order freely as he lists his person, actions, possessions, and his whole property within the allowance of those laws under which he is, and therein not to be subject to the arbitrary will of another, but freely follow his own.

Selective cognition is selective.

It most certainly is.

Falcon

Scraper

[tprox]

What I found most interesting was the link in the article to opengovernment.org, which I followed on to this project: https://github.com/sunlightlabs/openstates They provide the screen scrapers which feed the data to the main project. I"m sure that even with the gov't providing data freely there will still need to be formatting transformation required, and some screen scraping needed to get the full picture into some database somewhere. I'm sure there are other frameworks around that build up scraping/database/analysis applications. Does anyone have any experience with these?

Re:Scraper

[Seth Cohn]

The scraper used by the NHLA (referred to in the original article) is homebrewed for NH's website. It's actually in it's 3rd generation of code, and powers a complete bill review system, used by the pro-liberty activists to track all 800+ bills each year. See nhliberty.org

There are other scrapers out there... I just came across a site the other day that attempts to scrape and track all 50 states worth of legislation (I won't plug them though), and had a few nice features (like facebook and twitter linkage) that I recommended to the NHLA coders to clone and improve on...

The goal of getting the db dump the state of NH is now providing is to _end_ the need for scraping, and allow anyone who wishes to build a tracking system for far less time and effort and resources. With the current db dump, half of the folks on Slashdot could build a tracking system now. And the other half would then complain about them.

The goal of my open data bill is to have every single NH agency providing various data in a similar manner: it's YOUR data (if you are a NH citizen).
I'd like folks interested in Transportation issues to be able to get better DOT info... for example. The best way to improve things is more eyeballs, that's the philosophy here: if you open it, someone will build apps to use the data, and good things will happen as a result of increased exposure to the information.

Re:Enough with the "corporations" canard

[bit01]

with the express purpose of shielding these people from losing everything they own in event of their business failure.

Which is unfair to others.

Corporations are no more evil and dehumanizing than any human organizations, including governments, political parties, ideology activist groups, etc.

Actually because of the law, which treats them specially, they are. In particular, they insulate many people from risk that they should be responsible for and distorts the market. Risk doesn't just simply disappear, it is unfairly transferred to those who deal with the corporation - buyers, sellers and junior employees.

---

It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.

Re:Enough with the "corporations" canard

[shutdown -p now]

Corporations are neither created nor run by robots or space aliens or zombies. They are created and run by people, with the express purpose of shielding these people from losing everything they own in event of their business failure. Corporations are merely a legal device for lowering risk of entrepreneurial activities by people.

Corporate shield suffers from the same problem as anonymity on the Net, and for the same reasons - it brings out the jerk, or worse, the sociopath in the person, as they do not suffer consequences for their decisions.

Re:Enough with the "corporations" canard

[Qzukk]

They are created and run by people, with the express purpose of shielding these people from losing everything they own in event of their business failure.

Which makes them free to cause as much destruction as they please. After all, your tax dollars will clean up after them.

An outcome of the Free State Project?

[binarstu]

If you RTFA, it doesn't claim anywhere that "Free Staters" are behind this initiative. Nor does it even mention the Free State Project. The assertion on the Slashdot summary that this is a result of the Free State Project might be correct, but it would be nice to see some evidence backing this up.

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[Ada_Rules]

The slashdot summary is not particularly well written and leads with a statement that is neither relevant to the bill nor present in the full article. I love the free state project. I like the bill. I just don't think this submission is particularly good.

In an case, the Free State Project does not officially support or propose legislation. Representative Seth Cohn is the primary sponsor of the bill. He is a Free State Project participant. (See here http://freestatenow.com/).

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[dkleinsc]

As someone born and raised in NH, this probably has very little to do with the Free State Project. There a bunch of other reasons NH would implement this kind of thing:
  * The Republican base in NH are generally very libertarian-leaning. That's a major reason why the Free Staters picked NH as the place to go in the first place.
  * The NH Democrats agree with the Republicans on personal liberty issues and ensuring that the citizens control the government rather than the other way around.
  * The state takes great pride in its citizen legislature, and there's very few professional politicians. To give you an idea, the Speaker of the NH house spends a lot of her time running a day care center, and another state rep works as an elevator operator. Each rep only represents about 3000 constituents. That means they really need to listen to even small groups of citizens.
  * The longtime secretary of the state of NH, Bill Gardner, is probably one of the most non-partisan public officials in the country. He has a well-deserved reputation for fairness and competence, and as a result has been kept in office despite several changes in both the legislative majority and the governor's party affiliation. He knows a good idea when he sees one, and has a lot of trust from both Republicans and Democrats, so if he supports a good common-sense proposal it's likely to get implemented.

The state has its flaws, but its state government is very responsive to good ideas.

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[Plugh]

As someone who was at the meeting that created this "open government data initiative", I can tell you that it was 1 Free-Stater State Rep and one NH native State Rep that made this happen.

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[necro81]

If you RTFA, it doesn't claim anywhere that "Free Staters" are behind this initiative. Nor does it even mention the Free State Project.

Even within New Hampshire, you hardly ever hear about the Free State project. They were completely inconsequential in the recent election, even though the statehouse ended up packed with small-government Republicans. About the only thing anyone's heard from them lately were some ornery demonstrations to legalize marijuana.

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[Seth Cohn]

What he said. Of course, what do I know, I'm only the guy he's talked about, and sponsor of the legislation?

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[corbettw]

An elected Representative posts on Slashdot (with a five-digit UID, no less!) Maybe New Hampshire is calling my name, after all.

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[dkleinsc]

As mentioned in my sorta-sibling post, the wonderful thing about NH's state government is that the legislature in particular is made up of motivated ordinary people rather than professional politicians. The entire professional political class in NH generally consists of:
1. The governor.
2. 2 US senators and 2 US representatives.
3. 5 executive council members (a check on the power of the governor).
4. 24 state senators, who generally also hold other jobs.
5. A few mayors in major cities like Manchester and Nashua.

That's it. Judges are appointed, rather than elected, so they're generally insulated from the political fray. The rest of the state and municipal government is run by amateurs, and they do at least as good a job as the professionals do in other states. It's a system that among other things is extremely resistant to the sorts of common bribery that's going on in state capitals almost everywhere else in the country (not to mention Washington DC).

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[dkleinsc]

In a lot of state legislatures, 2 reps with a good idea go nowhere. For comparison's sake, in Texas they're too busy playing chicken with the state budget to get anything done. In Rhode Island, most state official's primary concern is ensuring that there's a high-paying job for their no-good brother-in-law. In California, the ballot initiatives mean that there's absolutely no way to balance the budget within the bounds of the state constitution.

Kudos to you (assuming you were one of the two reps), I'm just saying also kudos to the guys who wrote the NH constitution, and the many many people who've worked hard to keep the system working as well as it does.

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[Plugh]

I was not one of the reps in question -- though one of the two (Seth) has posted on this thread.

And the NH Constitution is pretty amazing. Among other things, they hard-coded the elected legislators' salary at $200/biennium. So it would take a constitutional amendment to raise the politician's salary. Ain't gonna happen. I love it!!

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[bored]

Texas they're too busy playing chicken with the state budget to get anything done.

As an ex-NH resident, and now a resident of Texass, I would like to point out they are also passing emergency bills having to do with requiring photo ID to vote, "santuary cities", and requiring women who need abortions to see/hear the fetus before the abortion.

Nothing will actually get done on the budget until a special session is called after the normal legislative session expires. That is the way it is in Texass, the politicians know they don't actually have to get anything done during the normal session. So they spend their time passing bullshit political bills that are opposed by 48% of the state (cause while Texass seems red, its a lot of gerrymandering, like everywhere else, a small majority can be leveraged into a large political ratio). Anything that might actually be an emergency gets its own special session. So, what if Texas has one of the largest state deficits (by percentage of budget).

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[Simplulo]

>As someone born and raised in NH, this probably has very little to do with the Free State Project.

Free-staters were mentioned in the article, and they are among the bill's sponsors, but being an NH native wouldn't help you know that. Other than that, you are absolutely right: the FSP chose NH for all those reasons. It would be foolish, futile, and perhaps immoral, for a small movement to migrate to an unwelcoming location.

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[Simplulo]

The vast majority of the 800+ free-staters who have moved to New Hampshire are normal, law-abiding folk, and you wouldn't necessarily hear about them, any more than you would hear if your legislators are Mormon or Catholic. The Keeniacs are an exception, but there are no more than a dozen of them, plus a larger number of similarly rambunctious locals. Most free-staters (I am an exception) do not introduce themselves as free-staters.

Free-staters led the effort to legalize medical marijuana in 2009, getting a bill passed, but Democratic Governor Lynch vetoed it:
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=41a9feee-02b4-4304-b1b7-7a44217412bf&headline=Lynch+vetoes+medical+marijuana+bill
http://nhcommonsense.org/

>They were completely inconsequential in the recent election

That was quite an amusingly false statement. To prove such a negative you would have to exert a bit effort. Anyway, it illustrates the degree to which free-staters fit in with the NH culture, which is why we chose NH in the first place.

Re:An outcome of the Free State Project?

[Seth Cohn]

Yes, I have a 5 digit UID, and remember a time before the endless September. I was (in part) responsible for the SPISPOPD cheat code in Doom. Ich bin ein Nerd.

Made of people

[Errol backfiring]

Just like the meat in the supermarket is made of dead animals. The problem is that a lot of people don't want to know that and wilfully ignore that fact. Also, there are complete systems that help the ignoring, like the stock exchange.

Re:Enough with the "corporations" canard

[clang_jangle]

Corporations are neither created nor run by robots or space aliens or zombies. They are created and run by people, with the express purpose of shielding these people from losing everything they own in event of their business failure. Corporations are merely a legal device for lowering risk of entrepreneurial activities by people.

You remind me of Al Franken as the chemical company spokesman on an old SNL skit. "Here you are, enjoy this nice, refreshing glass of H2SO4!"

Re:IT People != US Libertarian Nutters

[clang_jangle]

Even here in the US they're merely an extremely vocal minority. Unfortunately they do tend to end up in influential positions, since they are the ultimate rich wannabe/asskisser types, and we end up with a lot of righttards mouthing off and a lot of people who don't feel free to respond due to the minority of asshats who are in a position to make others miserable. It sucks big time and I can't fucking wait for the poli-fashion to swing the other way. Maybe the 8-year-olds of today will have a '60s-style party in 2020, 'cause right now it's like the new '50s.

Re:IT People != US Libertarian Nutters

[spanky the monk]

I'm in IT and I'm a libertarian nutter. Government "solutions" are the problem. Get the government out of the economy!

Secession?

[Plugh]

Some Free-Staters (again, not all) actually have been working hard on the notion of State Sovereignty; see the FSP page on this topic.

Also, a new bill has been introduced this session:
HCR19 - Affirming States' powers based on the Constitution for the United States and the Constitution of New Hampshire.
There are also a few bills in play this session asserting the NH manufacturing shall not be regulated by the federal government. Longshots? Well, with over a dozen Free-Staters elected to the NH House of Representatives, maybe less long-shot than in other states....

Re:Secession?

[iamcadaver]

Some Free-Staters (again, not all) actually have been working hard on the notion of State Sovereignty; see the FSP page on this topic.

Also, a new bill has been introduced this session:
  HCR19 - Affirming States' powers based on the Constitution for the United States and the Constitution of New Hampshire.
There are also a few bills in play this session asserting the NH manufacturing shall not be regulated by the federal government. Longshots? Well, with over a dozen Free-Staters elected to the NH House of Representatives, maybe less long-shot than in other states....

Or even http://www.nhliberty.org/bills/view/2011/HB324 which is having a hearing today.

AN ACT relative to lawful commerce in goods and services sold, made, and retained in the state of New Hampshire.

Re:Enough with the "corporations" canard

[cas2000]

"Here you are, enjoy this nice, refreshing glass of H2SO4!"

where's the harm in that? it's got H2 and O in it!

Re:Free Staters? Separation of State and Dogma....

[OldHawk777]

‘Separation of State and Dogma...’ was (I believe) the intention of the USA Founding Fathers and Authors of The USA Constitution.

Political, religion, corporate dogma (script-beliefs) must be kept separated from ever becoming governance of The People by the leading plutocrat/oligarch of a special-interest dogma (Tokemata, Falwell, Jim Jones, Pope, Hitler, Stalin, Ms Mao, C*Os, Democrats, Republicans).

‘Organizations of unequal membership are carelessly dogmatic. Professionally trained dogma regurgitive elite superiors make their decisions. This means they reflect the dogmatic interests of their lords and masters, and serve to perpetuate dogmatism.’

So you're saying law is not government?

[Kupfernigk]

Good luck with your economy when there is no civil or criminal law relating to it. You may think it is easy to draft a civil law that does not involve some kind of regulation, but the experience of the developed world over the last hundred years or so is that you are wrong. Countries with no tradition of Government-made and enforced civil law - China, Iran - are pretty much shit holes for the great majority of the population. But of course as a "libertarian" you're identifying yourself with the 1-5% whom you think worthy of having liberty.

Re:So you're saying law is not government?

[khallow]

Good luck with your economy when there is no civil or criminal law relating to it.

Because reducing the extent of government power in society can mean only one thing: complete elimination of all government presence and the dissolution of the society into anarchy. I hope you do realize there is a huge false dilemma here?

Just because the US has a regulation banning the sale of incandescent lightbulbs past the year 2014 or so, IIRC, doesn't mean that if we got rid of that regulation, then there'd be no civil or criminal law left.

Countries with no tradition of Government-made and enforced civil law - China, Iran

That's nonsense. They have a long history, going back at least two millennia each, of civil law. They are shit holes because that law is selectively enforced and government bureaucracies have the power to invent new, selectively applied law on the spot, not because they don't have it in the first place.

The Sponsor speaks...

[Seth Cohn]

Glad to see Slashdot pick this up...

The actual bills:

Open Data: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2011/HB0310.html
Open Source: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2011/HB0418.html

I'd love to see this legislation copied in every state... patches are welcomed, btw. I can't grant commit access, but bug reports are always welcomed.

I'd also be glad to answer questions, if anyone has any.

Re:The Sponsor speaks...

[chill]

On the Open Data bill:

Section 3-I-g: Non-proprietary -- This one gives me some issues.

First, a data format that is an ANSI, ISO or IEEE standard technically is under the control of a single entity. The standards body is a single entity, even though the body may have members from other organizations. You might want to clarify to explicitly mention national (ANSI) or international (ISO, IEEE) published standards.

Section 3-I-h: License-free -- it says the DATA must be license-free, not the format. An example is MP3. While I may be able to play the audio without a license under FOSS software, I can't legally ENCODE data in MP3 format without obtaining a license. Ditto for MPEG video. You might want to specify the format itself be available license-free, such as PDF, JPEG, Vorbis, RTF, etc.

Re:The Sponsor speaks...

[chill]

While focusing mostly on Federal Government, you might want to get in touch with Open Source for America.

Re:The Sponsor speaks...

[Seth Cohn]

Good points, I'll try and clarify those better.

Re:The Sponsor speaks...

[Simplulo]

The US has 50 separate states for a reason. Let all the gun-banning socialists move to California, the gun-toting socialists move to Vermont, and the libertarians move to New Hampshire, the "Live free or die" state. This is political, with no racial, religious, or other such irrelevant components.

On the issue of borders and immigration libertarians are divided, but they typically do not base their opinion on country of origin. I have been with the FSP since its inception, and I am not the only black libertarian in New Hampshire.

Re:The Sponsor speaks...

[raymcgill]

WooHoo! A few sharp people CAN make a difference!

Re:So basically... texas?

[ChrisMaple]

Texas has a sales tax over 6%. Looking at your article, it seems that a large part of Texas's problem is social welfare programs. It is ironic that you chose the word "working", it's precisely those who don't work that are "society"'s problem.

In the 1950's, Connecticut had no income tax and a sales tax of only 3%, and had no budget problem. High taxes aren't needed to keep a place pleasant and civil, high taxes encourage people to try to grab some of the booty rather than work.

Re:Enough with the "corporations" canard

[s73v3r]

Corporations are neither created nor run by robots or space aliens or zombies. They are created and run by people

So are governments, but that doesn't stop people from complaining about the absolute evil that is government.

Also: approval voting

[MobyDisk]

A reminder that New Hampshire is also considering approval voting. Is this a result of the same geek culture?

Re:Also: approval voting

[falconwolf]

A reminder that New Hampshire is also considering approval voting

That is one of the Condorcet methods of voting.

Falcon

Re:IT People != US Libertarian Nutters

[s73v3r]

Yeah! Government shouldn't be in the economy! It should be left free, so people on Wall Street can do whatever they want! Bond issuers cherry-picking ratings organizations based on who would give them the best rating, regardless of the actual quality of the bond! Credit Default Swaps! Betting against your investors!

Re:So basically... texas?

[s73v3r]

Yeah. They just had to take a shitload of federal funding.

Re:Enough with the "corporations" canard

[radtea]

Corporations are merely a legal device for lowering risk of entrepreneurial activities by people.

And regulations are merely a legal device for lowing the risk to the rest of us from the agency issues created by corporate officers being shielded from the free market by the nanny state.

I have no beef with corporations--I own one myself. But I have a big problem with people who claim that corporations ought to be unregulated, when in a free market no corporations would exist.

their motto was prescient

[sneakyimp]

live_free() or die();

Transparency

[telomerase]

You'd think the pro-tax and pro-prohibition groups would have supported this before. Up to now if you wanted to know about pending bills etc. you had to go to the nhliberty.org website and suffer through all our anti-tax pro-capitalist propaganda ;) ...anyway, more transparency is always better. When people know what their governments are actually doing, they may be able to put a stop to it...

Re:Transparency

[raymcgill]

Yep. I am here in NH. I was a Freestate mover and have been known to have beer with these guys. Yep. They really do believe in low taxes and capitalism. If you think that is just propaganda and something you are against, why would you care about controlling (or putting a stop to) what the government is doing? Its not anything new, its called the constitution. It was designed for LIMITED GOVERNMENT.

BREAKING NEWS!!!

[Plugh]

One of the Free State project members (at least, I think he's an FSPer) just posted an RSS feed from the State's data, and pulled it into this Facebook.

Reading comprehension FAIL on your part.

[falconwolf]

You've got that wrong, reading comprehension on your part -100%.

Just to try to educate you and improve your comprehension, all businesses pass on the cost of taxes, but by giving corporations limited liability you're giving them an unfair advantage against other forms of business ownership.

Maybe now you understand, but I doubt it.

Falcon

Re:Reading comprehension FAIL on your part.

[corbettw]

So what's to stop any business owner from incorporating their business? NOTHING. Only a fool would not do so, in the first place. So if you're arguing that fools are at a competitive disadvantage, then yeah, I can't disagree with you there.

Re:Reading comprehension FAIL on your part.

[falconwolf]

So what's to stop any business owner from incorporating their business? NOTHING.

Nothing? Nothing but state laws. Each state makes their own requirements corporations have to meet. Some states do not allow all of a corporation's stock to be owned by one person. Some states require corporations to have 3 executives. Other states have other requirements. There are also disadvantages to corporate forms of business. Of course you can register an offshore corporation but they have their own disadvantages.

So before you make a fool of yourself again research what you will post about before posting.

Falcon