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Free State Project 93% Towards Goal (freestateproject.org)
Okian Warrior writes: Long term readers may recall the Free State Project, a plan to gather 20,000 liberty-minded participants and move to a low-populated state, as covered here on Slashdot. The project reached 90% of its 20,000 member goal last year with accelerated growth in recent months, and is on track to trigger the move to New Hampshire before year's end.
Should be entertaining.
I wish them luck. If nothing else, this could be very entertaining. They might even accomplish something.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
So.. 1.5% of the population... that's a powerful voting block?
Are we sure that this isn't just the New Hampshire Chamber of Commerce trying to get wealth individuals? At least in Wyoming, you'd be over 3%...
This is really a lot of hype.
Let them spend a full winter in NH and we'll see just how many stick around.
I've been following their progress from the beginning, and they're already having an effect on local politics.
A number of free staters are already a member of the NH house. They managed to get the law banning switchblades repealed. This made sense, because virtually no one gets injured by switchblades, and there's lots of situations where being able to open a knife one-handed is really useful (such as EMS and rock climbing).
They were just shy of legalizing marijuana in the last round (2 votes short of an override of the Governor's veto), they made it legal to inform juries of their right to nullification, and they've reduced the budget.
(On jury nullification: at least one person was acquitted on cannibus charges by unanimous jury vote.)
All in all, they're really having an effect. I can't wait to see what happens when the entire 20,000 get here.
"Liberty Minded" is US code word for "white male who own guns".
Drug laws are disproportionately directed at blacks. Commercial sex laws are almost exclusively directed at women. Libertarians want to repeal both.
Lets wait and see how many back out when the move gets triggered. There is a huge difference between signing a non-binding pledge and leaving jobs and home to move to NH.
You are a libertarian. You just don't like other libertarians. I don't really like other libertarians for the same sorts of reasons you probably don't. Or maybe you aren't a libertarian. It's just a meaningless label that's been co-opted by the republican party anyway.
In any case there is no reason you can't support a social welfare system and be a libertarian. Libertarians aren't anarchists (or at least they shouldn't be). Libertarians should believe in government doing the jobs that government can do better than the private sector, and libertarians are free to disagree on which jobs those are.
There are plenty of stupid shitty selfish libertarians, and there are plenty of compassionate and thoughtful libertarians, just like every other political persuasion. Although it seems as though lately many of the libertarians I can actually relate to, have started to shy away from that label as it has recently become rather toxic.
In any case, all I want to point out is that "libertarian" is a very broad philosophy that encompasses more than just the dickhead republicans who are the loudest self proclaimed libertarians at the moment. Although I would argue that you aren't a real libertarian if you don't support liberty for people outside your own demographic (e.g. gays, women, minorities, muslims, atheists, recreational drug users, polygamists, etc). It's easy to support liberty for yourself.
Quite apart from the question of whether this is feasible, I think am important question is whether this is morally right? People who have lived in a cplace for generations generally get up in arms if a large group - say, muslims - suddenly stream in and want to change things; the same will apply with any other large group. They are simply newcomers, who want to impose their views on people. And, of course, isn't there something contradictory in trying to impose "Freedom" on anybody?
You should read more about libertarianism/classical liberalism and Austrian economics - I suggest starting with a paper called Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard. He also has a book called For a New Liberty that I recommend. You can download all of his and other influential libertarian thinker's writings for free from the Mises Institute website. While you're at it, read up on the other side - communist manifesto, Marxism/Leninism, neosocialism, etc. Anyway, I think a lot of people confuse Ayn Rand's Objectivism with libertarianism - they are very different things and Rand was explicitly not a libertarian. Most libertarians do believe in a stong social system - just a private one. This may seem crazy to you at first, but you can look at the numbers and see the poor were much better off before the government got involved and that private charity was much more effective. The social security systems in place now are little more than a thinly veiled attempt to buy votes and do little to actually help people improve their condition. Case in point - the standard of living among poor minorities was improving rapidly until the 'war on poverty' was started and has since leveled off. While libertarians just don't agree that forcibly taking money from one group to give to another is really charity, that doesn't make them greedy people who wouldn't freely give. Actually I believe they tend to be above average in charitable giving, but don't feel like looking up any stats. Wanting a state imposed system that takes by force so they don't have to get their hands dirty doesn't make one a caring charitable person. Anyone who thinks libertarians are just greedy Republicans really has no clue and hasn't done an ounce of reading. I started as a libertarian - lite but have moved to the anarchocapitalist side since I'm just not convinced by logic, reason, and actual data that the state can ever produce a better outcome than private interaction, and even in instances where it may, I believe voluntary interactions are always preferable to the use of force and coercion by the state. Many may disagree, but I think one's willingness to have the state take from me by force is a fucking dick who really doesn't give a shit about his fellow man no matter how much he jumps up and down with feigned concern. /rant
Moving to another state with a real likelihood of no equivalent employment just for an ideological cause, by definition is self-selecting for the upper reaches of the UMC or even higher. Now this crowd will instantly pipe up: "I code from home so no problem". How much _real_ broadband is available in New Hampshire? Where it is available is probably not too cheap, cost of living-wise (see first point).
Libertarian: one with the enough luxuries of time and money to take a bold political stance.
"Liberty Minded" is US code word for "white male who own guns".
And does not want to pay taxes.
The idea sounded nice, but after a visit on the website, it's just a bunch of skinflints who want to evade taxes.
Video of some good progressive thrash music
1. it is a small state, with about 1.3 million residents
2. it is a rich state, #6 on per-capita income and household income
3. there are jobs to be had, the state has a favorable economic climate
4. there's a lot to do, mountains, lakes, the ocean.
5. no sales tax, no income tax (OTOH property taxes are very high)
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
In any case there is no reason you can't support a social welfare system and be a libertarian. Libertarians aren't anarchists (or at least they shouldn't be). Libertarians should believe in government doing the jobs that government can do better than the private sector, and libertarians are free to disagree on which jobs those are.
I think you've confused libertarians with social democrats. They're not anarchists, they want the rule of law and enforcement of contracts but that is pretty much it. All public services involve a loss of control, "they" take the money to fund it, "they" decide what, when and how to deliver and some have much bigger needs/wants than others. Even if the government can do better as a whole, there will always be those paying a lot for very little. And the libertarian mantra is that everyone should agree to things voluntarily through private agreements, not be forced into a public system whether they want to or not.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
You are very correct, we do not want to pay taxes but are quite happy to voluntarily pay for public roads, water treatment , electrical infrastructure , and education. Something my community does without coercion and 100% voluntarily. Please try to understand that we want to be productive and contributing members of society but we also do not want to fund programs like the NSA spying programs and the military industrial complex. Do we have have a right to not pay for these institutions of corruption and violence or will you support sending armed men to kidnap and torture us for not shouldering the responsibility of ignoring your own constitution's due process provisions and supporting the destruction of villages where 90% of the families killed are innocent targets - https://theintercept.com/drone...
Most do not have an issue with limited taxes. It's when you're being taxed outrageous sums, and then your politicians hand half a billion dollars to a rich cat so his football team can have a new stadium.
New Hampshire, has always been a strongly libertarian leaning state for the northeast, especially New England area. Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire along with Oregon were often referred to as the left libertarian states. As in it tended to be "socially liberal" and "libertarian".
So basically New Hampshire, seemed to be one of those locations where it'd be most easy to say "I support your right to gay marriage, guns, and ganja". It's also a very beautiful rustic state.
Heck, when ALL their license plates exclaim "LIVE FREE OR DIE", of course it's going to be one of the top choice of people who want to live freely.
http://www.plateshack.com/y2k/...
Base principle of effective government right there.
Complexity is the enemy of reliability, and when laws are most numerous, the state is most corrupt (with sincere apologies to Alan Robertson, Tacitus, and Sun Tzu).
The Georgists who moved to Arden, Delaware with the same basic idea as the Free Staters (that is, to go to a small state where their ideas would have more impact on society) had a long-term positive effect on the area, reaching even beyond Delaware's borders. People who are willing to pull up roots and work in order to achieve their ideas - people who are willing to strive towards their goals - sometimes build vibrant, dynamic and productive communities... although not always, as the ruins of Salubria and Icaria attest.
Um, no. There is actually a great deal of libertarian thought given to the most effective compromises that can be made since not everyone is on-board with ubermen-against the-world archetype that seems to be in vogue now. In fact, New Hampshire already fits within the geolibertarian model (no sales or income tax, high property tax), which is an anathema to the "taxation is theft" crowd. You can't even set up your corporate structure in the Cayman islands to be rid of it.
Hayek and Friedman already championed the ideas behind basic income as the least destructive way to have social services, and curiously is now being championed by the left. And then there is that whole other left-libertarianism as well.
There has been very considered thought on how to move society in a more libertarian direction without letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The hardline libertarian types are simply ignorant beyond sloganeering, which is a shame really. Libertarianism has some rather nuanced insights beyond "government is bad, m'kay".
Well, you certainly illustrate the point that there are thoughtful libertarians out there. An interesting point on libertarianism along the lines of what you're saying... I once volunteer-taught a class on American politics for some adult ESL students. When I introduced "libertarian versus statist" as a dimension that is distinct from liberal and conservative, it was pretty new to most of them. That is, while almost all societies grapple with the how much control the state should exercise over various kinds of activities, it's only in the US that we have a name for that (Liberty!) and a group that (nominally) wants to minimize state control over everything. The US has a long lefty-libertarian tradition that has fueled many important social advances (freedom to love and marry whoever you please being the most recent example), while our righty-libertarians have also served to keep the US out of some of the worst excess of statist economics (think price controls).
That said, it's pretty hard to line up with libertarianism in it's current form. The three axiomatic views that most turn me off are
1. The private sector does everything better than the government does or might do
2. Everyone can always have everything if they only try hard enough
3. Social well-being can only be maximized by increasing individual well-being
What drives me nuts is how often these are asserted as axioms in spite of numerous and obvious counterexamples. Skepticism that government intervention will solve a problem is necessary, healthy, and frequently true. But there are so many readily available counterexamples that these cannot be axioms.
# 3 might be a little different than the others, and I'd actually be interested in a thoughtful libertarian critique of it. It is what Pope Francis calls "subsidiarity", the idea that humans actually gain meaning and satisfaction from feeling that they are subsidiary to something bigger than themselves. I'm no Catholic, but I see this in a lot of things. An individual who is free of all external obligations is a lonely, disconnected person, and I have a hard time believe that there are many people who are happier this way. Clearly there is such as thing as too much obligation to society, but what about too little?
A potent example of #1 is the lunatic response to Obamacare. This was an idea from 1970s "conservative" think tanks that was a pragmatic compromise right up until someone tried to implement it. And all told the ACA has a pretty non-statist system architecture: the state does not mandate what insurance you get, it does not mandate which company you choose it from (in fact there are standards to ensure a minimum of choice), it does not say what doctor you can or cannot go to ...you are always free (like Liberty, not beer) to go to a doctor that is not in your plan, and Obamacare makes that EASIER not harder.
The mandate components of the law (health insurers have to take anyone who wants insurance ---> everyone has to buy insurance) that elicit all this yelling about "state force" and "FBI marshalls frog-marching me" are just system architectures to deal with real and fundamental problems.
The business of insurance is to collect as many premium dollars as possible, and it's very, very easy for insurers to cheat without some rules (oh, you got cancer in the rain on Sunday... if you look in Appendix R20421.13 subsection 7 of your plan, you'll see that this is not covered). Likewise it's really easy for covered people to cheat without some rules (oh, I rode motorcycle without a helmet for 10 years and now I crashed and am paralyzed from the neck down... pay for all my healthcare). This is what happens in the real world, and we as engineers/technologists are the ones who stick our heads out and find a set of tradeoffs that makes things a little better. And we are also the ones who deal with the sucky parts of the architecture we chose. So I can't understand when this type of thinker can't relate to what Obamacare is about.
Didn't we see what happened the last time someone tried to build Galt's Gulch?
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2...
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
"there were already millions of people living in the land we now call Israel."
Actually,
1) There have always been Jews there
2) Around 1900, there were approx. 600,000 people in the land. In 1930, there were 1 million, nearly 250,000 of which were Jews and Christians. In 1947, there were 2 million people in the land, 600,000 of which were Jews.
3) There were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Jews in neighboring Arab states that were forced out of those countries. But you don't hear about that. And in fact much of that whole region had a large Christian population until the Muslim massacred them - which is in fact what triggered the crusades.
4) Many in Palestine immigrated there from neighboring Arab countries as well.
5) The vast majority of Palestinian territory was NOT taken by Jews, but in fact by neighboring Arabs of Jordan.
6) And while there were originally only 700,000 Palestinian refugees, today there are about 6 million. Pregnancy is a bitch. The real problem is that everyone is reproducing.
7) The largest camp of refugees is in Jordan (the larger half of the Palestine territory).
8) "Palestinians are not allowed to hold or even apply for Saudi citizenship, because of Arab League instructions barring the Arab states from granting them citizenship" - you see the Arab League doesn't want Palestinians to have any home. They want them to remain refugees so they have an excuse to eradicate non-muslims from the region. And THAT is the #1 reason why Palestinians suffer. They're a tool....
One small anecdote should drive the point home. Note that I have had many experiences when I lived there that also might illustrate the issue nicely, but it takes a while to write this all down, so just the one anecdote will have to suffice to prime the palette if you will.
While at the beach I went to "The Cows Ass" leather shop and I was duly impressed with my "freedom" to purchase things such as Nunchaku, Throwing Stars, and various other cool martial arts "toys". A particular cane caught my eye. The lady behind the counter proceeded to demonstrate this it was actually a Sword Cane. I didn't want the sword part, but decided I would buy the thing and use an oxyacetylene torch to cut the sword part off, and then it would actually be able to store things as an added benefit. I was gleeful as I went to the bar, got drunk, and then proceeded to walk home. On the way back home I stopped and sat on a bench where I fell asleep / passed out.
:-( Luckily, or so I thought, a police cruiser was coming down the road so I waved the cop over. When I told him my stuff was stolen he claimed to know nothing about the glasses, but that he confiscated my cane because it was illegal ! I couldn't believe it since I purchased it at a store on the main part of Hampton Beach. Still I told the officer that it was no problem that he confiscated it as I had no intention of owning an illegal item. I asked that he provide me with some documentation that he took the cane so I could return to The Cows Ass and get a refund for my hard earned money. The Cop refused to do so.
When I awoke my glasses and Sword Cane were gone!!!
After a bit of "recovery time" I returned home and proceeded to call the Hampton Police department and asked to speak with whomever is in charge. I was actually told that "nobody is in charge". When I persisted I was told that an officer would be out to speak with me about the incident. When I opened the door the cop immediately arrested me!
Months later, The Cows Ass was still selling the illegal canes of course, though the department was well aware of their practice of selling them.
Do you want to guess who had the money and the power? Both the store and the law had even more money as The Cows Ass got the money for the cane, and the piglice / courts fined me plenty, of course. You can bet their attitude was You ain't rich, and you ain't connected to anyone in power. Die Motherfuckka!. Indeed, though they never expressed those words literally, their attitude, affect, words, and body language were very clear that they would be fine with it if I did die, and actually would prefer it.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The fundamental virtue of human activity is to provide for your own life. By taxing efforts to provide for yourself, income taxes discourage productive activity, so they are destructive and immoral.
Government's primary responsibility is the protection of its citizens lives and the means by which they provide for themselves, which requires that the government should protect the fruits of their productive efforts known as property. Add to that a means to handle wrongs (a court system) and the government's responsibilities are covered; and that is the proper limit of "social services."
A basic principle of justice is that "you get what you pay for and pay for what you get". The government protects your life, you pay a head tax. The government protects your property, you pay a property tax. Use the court system, pay court fees. The government has no just basis for taxing income.
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