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Free State Project Reaches Goal of 20,000 Signups (freestateproject.org)
Okian Warrior writes: As a followup to our recent story, at 11AM Tuesday, Free State Project president Carla Gericke announced the FSP had reached its goal of recruiting 20,000 participants. The 20,000 mark is significant, because it 'triggers the move' – the mass migration of the Free State Project participants who have all agreed to move to New Hampshire within the next five years. So far, almost 2,000 have already relocated to the state.
According to the Free State Project website, ``In a vote that ended in September 2003, FSP participants chose New Hampshire because it has a low state and local tax burden, a low level of dependence on federal spending, a citizen legislature where state house representatives have not raised their $100 per year salary since 1889, low crime levels, a dynamic economy with plenty of jobs and investment, and a general culture of individual responsibility, independence, and self-reliance.''
Less people, mostly
There are other reasons, but really, it's all population count. 20,000 people moving to California with a united voting bloc wouldn't make a dent in that state's policies, amid the 39 million other residents. New Hampshire is just over 1 mil total population. Assuming 20,000 people displace 20,000 current residents (moving in as others move out), they'd comprise nearly 2% of the entire state.
Given the average turn out of ~50%, and assuming all of these people are active voters, within a few districts ... they could throw a serious wrench into the political gears.
This signature is false.
Yes you can. There a surprisingly large high tech sector in Nashua
(I've never lived in NH, but I has a couple of customers I was supporting in Nashua.)
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
The far southeast of the state is basically Boston exurbs, and there's a bunch of engineer types who live there and commute in to the Boston area. Although the rest of New Hampshire barely considers those people to be part of the state.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Two very important things:
1) Virtually no people.
2) A libertarian ethos.
In those circumstances 20k libertarian activists should be able to totally revolutionize the state's politics, which will in turn mean that the national political scene has to deal with libertarian ideas in a much more serious way then otherwise.
That's the plan. And if they all actually follow the fuck through it will work. The issue is that getting 20k people to click on an internet link saying "I will move to New Hampshire in the future" is way easier then getting them to move to NH, much less getting them to move to NH and all agree on a single political program.
The point is that being a State House Representative is not a full time job. Whether it should be or not is a different question, but in the U.S. the position of State Legislator is mostly considered part-time.
https://ballotpedia.org/States_with_a_full-time_legislature
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Religions cannot even agree on what the belief is. Using the same old testament as primary source Christianity concluded that humanity starts at conception and so are anti-abortion.
But Jews, noting genesis in particular, concluded that life starts at the first breath and so they dont have an issue with abortion. Both are wrong. Scientifically consciousness is the closest appriximation of human and that happens between those extremes.
Interestingly most fundamentalists even oppose abortion in cases of rape and incest: despite the bible flat out authorising it in those cases. Biblical law allows for stoning babies resulting from rape or incest at birth. Modern medical abortion is just a less cruel way to do that.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I have a friend who has lived there her entire life and she's bitched about how people are now coming into meetings and derailing them. Everyone else is trying to get work done and they're ranting about some very obscure topic and how it's oppressing them. They don't have the best rep locally.
However, if the 20k people move, the other 49 states will become that much nicer of a place to live.
You're overstating. Let's look at the 2014 governor's race -- chosen because turnout is lower then a presidential election, thereby magnifying the impact of the Free State Project on voting.
Democratic Maggie Hassan, the incumbent, won 254,666 votes (52.49%) Republican Walt Havenstein, the challenger, won 229,610 votes (47.32%) Other/blank won 907 votes (0.1%)
New Hampshire has 1.327 million people (2014), 20.1% of which are under 18 (2014). That leaves 1.06 million adults. Not all are eligible, data is tough to put together, let's call it an even 1 million. Now, lets replace 20,000 adults at random with the Free Staters. 48.4% didn't vote, 25.5% voted for the Dem incumbent, 23.0% voted for the GOP challenger. 0.1% voted for another candidate or blanked it. Net change: Hassan loses 5100 voters, Havenstein loses 4592 voters, "other" loses 18 voters, and "free state" gains 20000. Even if all 20,000 free staters voted for the losing candidate (Havenstein), their candidate would still only get 49.5% to Hassan's 50.4%.
Is it possible that, if all 20,000 actually move to New Hampshire and all actually vote in a local election that they'll win some state house seats? You bet. No question. Thing is, the NH state house is so remarkably unstable that it would amount to just a bit more noise (% Dems in NH House of Rep at the end of the last four sessions (today is "end" for the purpose of this study): 55.4%, 26.4%, 55.2%, 40.1%.
Is it possible that their mere presence will result in Republican candidates leaning more libertarian? Sure, but within the state they're still only 4 percent of the electorate, and dispersed throughout the state. Certainly not enough to have a systematic effect on the NH GOP. But what if they all go Libertarian or some other third party candidate? Have at it, but good luck actually winning any representation in a First Past the Post system.
New Hampshire already does have a libertarian streak, as loads of Massholes emigrate to NH to escape taxes but retain their liberal social values. Even if all 20k Free Staters show up (and come on, not a chance), it would be a small nudge to NH politics, at best.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Whatever the hell the anti-abortion crowd is they sure as fuck are NOT "pro-life" - they are, at best, "pro-birth".
If you look, there is a consistent thread through the set of beliefs you mention: a belief in personal responsibility. They oppose abortion because killing is generally wrong, and because if the mother didn't want a baby she shouldn't have gotten pregnant. They oppose welfare because people should take care of themselves. I don't think you're right that most are opposed to public schools, but it also fits the personal responsibility narrative, in that people should take responsibility for educating the children they create, not demand that others do it. And they're pro death penalty because, although killing is generally wrong, people who commit heinous crimes should be held responsible (aside: your characterization of it as "ever does something wrong" is extremely slanted; they don't support the death penalty for spitting on the sidewalk).
Lest you try to turn this around on me, I'll note that I'm pro-choice[1], anti-welfare[2], support public funding of education[3] and oppose the death penalty[4].
[1] I think abortion is terrible, but don't believe the government should get involved.
[2] I oppose welfare but expect that we're going to have to institute a Basic Income system due to massive automation, and don't think that will be a bad thing. This is a complicated topic and it would take a lengthy essay to explain why this isn't a contradiction.
[3] Public funding of education is crucial. Public schools I don't like so much.
[4] I have no moral qualms about executing murderers, but in practice lifetime incarceration achieves the same goals at lower cost and with less chance of irrevocable injustice.
...a citizen legislature where state house representatives have not raised their $100 per year salary since 1889...
That's not a good thing - it means that representatives are exclusively funded through independent wealth, this may seem like a good idea, but the practical upshot is that working class and to a certain extend middle class can't participate.
I don't know why you would make that assumption. There are many, many political activists that are quite poor, and that requires dedicating more time to the cause than is asked of part-time legislators. In fact, looking through the biographies of the current legislators gives lie to your assumption. For instance, Michael Abbott is a retired high school teacher who started out working at a grocery store. And Glen Aldrich is a carpenter with no more than a high school diploma.
I think having regular citizen legislators, with not much financial gain to be had from the job, is an excellent way to run a state house. It means you are more likely to get people involved for the right reasons, instead of career politicians looking for money and power.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Some Libertarians seem to just want to replace government tyranny with corporate tyranny or at least tyranny of the rich (them). The famous quote is something like "wanting just enough government to protect them from their slaves"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism