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.

Comments

Why?

[guruevi]

What's in New Hampshire?

Re:Why?

[jouassou]

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.''

Re:Why?

[WarJolt]

a dynamic economy with plenty of jobs and investment

Can I find a decent software engineering job there?

Re:Why?

[jxander]

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.

Re:Why?

[H0p313ss]

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.)

Re:Why?

[Trepidity]

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.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, if they all vote as a well regimented bloc.

Which if you think about it, implies a slightly ironic idea of "freedom".

Re:Why?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Can I find a decent software engineering job there?

1. Start your own company.
2. Hire yourself.
3. Profit!
4. Complain about the owner of the company.

Re:Why?

[NicBenjamin]

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.

Re:Why?

[chill]

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

Re:Why?

[dbIII]

So I doubt, 20,000 voters will make a difference even in New Hampshire

The paradox is that they won't all vote together all the time unless directed in an authoritarian way.

Will it end up as a replay of when Koch decided to be that person? It led to the truly ironic situation of those who cried for freedom seeking to replace George Washington's "tyranny of the masses" with a King George III style aristocracy with Koch and similar as the ruling aristocrats. Bizzaro world. Just as well they didn't succeed that time.

Re:Why?

[Applehu Akbar]

"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."

It's the same concept as Mars One, except that the organization would have to get its people to move the harsher New Hampshire climate.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

...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.

Re:Why?

[MightyYar]

Although the rest of New Hampshire barely considers those people to be part of the state.

Wait until they have 20,000 organized outsiders...

Re:Why?

[j-beda]

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

I wonder if you can effectively be a representative without unduely impacting your full time job? At the very least, I would think it would be appropriate to be paid the local minimum wage for the hours you are expected to be "working".

I have always thought that tying legislators' wages to some multiple of the mimimum wage would be a good way to keep the two numbers reasonable - in NH they could make that number one.

Re:Why?

[iamcadaver]

Called the "Silicon Millyard". Every morning Segway's creator flies in on his helicopter, dyn.com employees plug in their Tesla's, dozens of startups load up on coffee. Many of these are concerned with the blockchain - this is the epicenter of bitcoin innovation going forward.

I moved to NH for the Free State Project in 2008 after learning of the project here on Slashdot years before. I've since met the folks that wrote those early articles and got to thank them personally for getting me here.

Rather than list of the hundred reasons to live here I'll list just one penultimate result: NH is the wealthiest state per capita in the country. The FSP's inadvertent founder, Jason Sorens, recently crunched the numbers and reports it may be one of the wealthiest province/state per capita in the world. Crunching numbers is what he teaches for a living.

Re:Why?

[kwbauer]

AmiMoJo's claim was that the attempt happened but things turned out poorly. Certainly if the attempt happened and failed IT HAPPENED and evidence that it happened can be given.

Re:Why?

[Curunir_wolf]

I get the impression a disturbing proportion of politicians don't actually believe in the founding principles of the nation they govern anymore.

At the risk of going wildly offtopic, be careful when you venerate people. Many of the Founding Fathers had slaves and saw no conflict with what they then wrote in the constitution about all men being equal and having the right to liberty. They had their own vested interests, and acted on them.

It was a hugely contentious issue, and many of the framers wanted to eliminate slavery as part of the founding. There were too many states, though, that relied on slavery and would not have agreed to a ban. So a compromise was made in order to keep all the states in the new union. It was always assumed that slavery would be phased out, but it continued to be contentious (especially with the expansion of territory and new states) until it erupted into war 80 years later.

I have no doubt that many of them, indeed, were conflicted about allowing slavery in Constitution that spoke to equality for all, but saw it as a goal even if it could not be immediately realized. Many (Ben Franklin, for instance) had been members of the Abolitionist Society for years. They probably figured it would be best to state their ideals and work toward them, rather than found a new country on a current reality that many of them found intolerable.

Re:Why?

[Curunir_wolf]

...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.

Re:Why?

[ChrisMaple]

There are many small towns in New Hampshire, and each town has perhaps a dozen boards and committees with unpaid positions some of which are elective. It takes a population of about 2000 before there are dependably enough people running for office to fill all the offices. Some of these boards meet evenings, so there's no need to leave your job. Some of them require about 5 hours a month of effort. If you run for office, you stand a good chance of being elected. If some board isn't fully staffed, often you can be accepted to fill the vacancy immediately.

What are your efforts likely to net you? Responsibility for maintaining a cemetery, planning recreational events, helping pass judgement on zoning exceptions are examples of three unpaid jobs. Members of the Planning Board are responsible for writing the town's Master Plan, a document with no legal authority.

More powerful elective jobs are town selectmen and school board members -- I don't know offhand if these positions pay anything, but they involve more responsibility and more time. In my town, selectmen meet once a week for a couple of hours in the evening, and spend a substantial amount of other time doing things like assembling the town budget. Sometimes more than one person runs for an open Select Board position. Even if you're not on the Select Board, meetings are small and if you want to affect things, attend meetings and press your plan.

In small towns many things are voted on, like whether to allocate $20,000 to a reserve fund to replace the fire department tanker when it rusts out in a few years, or whether to give $200 to a local charity.

Schools account for about 2/3 of money paid in property taxes. If you want to lower taxes, figure out how to cut down $10,000/yr/student.

Re:Why?

[Plugh]

I work at Oracle. The Oracle New England Development Center is located in Nashua. AutoCad is in NH, as are BAE systems, Liberty Mutual, DynDNS, and a bunch more. So yeah there's tech jobs

Re:Why?

[Plugh]

Actually if you look at the voting patterns, what you call the "Boston exurbs" like Salem NH are in fact some of the most libertarian. A lot of people move to NH and away from MA for a reason, you see...

Authoritarians will always rule.

[EzInKy]

Libertarians will never come to agreement as to whether not there is a duty to ensure that ALL people are equally free. This of course allows for Authoritarians to gain and keep power simply by promising to enforce a Conservative Libertarian agenda on Social Libertarians or a Social Libertarian agenda on Conservative Libertarians. Perhaps someday we will all agree to live and let live, but I fear that day is a long, long way off.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps someday we will all agree to live and let live [...]

So you are against abortion? Or for it? Not sure of what you mean because empty statement like this, while they make you feel good, do not communicate anything of value to your audience.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[EzInKy]

Even if I'm against, laws prohibiting abortion force those who are not to bow to my beliefs and surrender their own. I guess it is kind of like gay marriage. There is a big difference between allowing homosexuals to marry and forcing heterosexuals to enter homosexual marriage. To my mind, Conservative Libertarians fail to see this obvious distinction.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[mjwx]

Libertarians will never come to agreement as to whether not there is a duty to ensure that ALL people are equally free. This of course allows for Authoritarians to gain and keep power simply by promising to enforce a Conservative Libertarian agenda on Social Libertarians or a Social Libertarian agenda on Conservative Libertarians. Perhaps someday we will all agree to live and let live, but I fear that day is a long, long way off.

Libertarians are naive in the extreme (like the bunch that invested in the "Galts Gulch" in Argentina a few years back). On the up side, there's a business opportunity in New Hampshire with the best kind of clients happening pretty soon. Anyone with a silver tongue and no qualms about ripping people off should be rubbing their hands with glee at the moment.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[Nutria]

laws prohibiting abortion force those who are not to bow to my beliefs and surrender their own.

And what about my belief that stupid people should be shot hit the head?

If you say something about my freedom stopping at his nose, then I remind you that the baby's right to live stops at the aborter's saline injection, scraping blade, etc.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[EzInKy]

And what about my belief that stupid people should be shot hit the head?

That is an Authoritarian viewpoint. A Libertarian view would be that all people are free to shoot themselves in the head.

If you say something about my freedom stopping at his nose, then I remind you that the baby's right to live stops at the aborter's saline injection, scraping blade, etc.

Abortion is indeed a deep question, and I would be all for making it illegal if the state incubated the fetus from conception and paid all costs involved in the raising of the resulting child.

 

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[Nutria]

That is an Authoritarian viewpoint.

No. The Authoritarian viewpoint would be that stupid people must be shot hit the head.

if the state incubated the fetus

That's not very Libertarian. In fact, it's downright Brave New World.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[EzInKy]

No. The Authoritarian viewpoint would be that stupid people must be shot hit the head.

To an authoritarian there is no difference between "should" and "must".

That's not very Libertarian. In fact, it's downright Brave New World.

Actually it's not, because there would still be choice. The important thing here is that people aren't "forced" to be incubators and subjugated to a lifetime of servitude.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[Mashiki]

Don't worry, you've already got them on the left. They're called progressives and SJW's.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[EzInKy]

Sex is a drive imposed on humans by nature, the same as most other animals. Just because you can't get any doesn't mean you should impose lifetime penalties upon others. You do understand that by forcing women to carry a fetuses that they did not wish upon themselves is akin to forcing them into slavery, right?

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[EzInKy]

Simple, because anti-abortionist want to force women to carry children they do not want. When men can incubate children and fully suffer the consequences of doing so then men should have a say in the process. Don't you get it, forcing a woman to carry a fetus against their will is forcing them to do something they do not want to do. Donate all your free money to incubator research if you are truly motivated to allowing fetuses to become humans if that is what you truly believe. My guess is you are far more interested in dictating lives of servitude on others than you are about preserving potential lives though.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[silentcoder]

Then why do I have the right to NOT donate blood that will save your life and let you die?
Why do I have hte right to choose not to be an organ donor.

Seriously why does my dead CORPSE have the right to let you die if it doesn't CHOOSE to be violated to save you, but a woman doesn't have that autonomy ?

In every other case where bodily autonomy and a third party is involved the legal standard in every free nation is that you must opt IN, you must CHOOSE to save that life, you can't be forced to give up your bodily autonomy to save somebody else.

Re: Authoritarians will always rule.

[EzInKy]

So it is settles then. You are an authoritarian who wants to impose his opinions on those who disagree with you and force women into a a score of years of servitude to satisfy your agenda. So noted. As I previously said, I would gladly support a law against abortion if the makers of that law would incubate the fetus and assume all costs of raising the child. No person should subject to a life of poverty just because the "State" says so.

Re: Authoritarians will always rule.

[silentcoder]

It's pretty amazing how almost everybody who is anti-abortion is also anti-welfare and anti-public-school and almost always pro-death-penalty. They will force a life to come into this world, but they won't bat an eye if that child and her mother starve to death a week later (nor will they move an inch to pay the not insignificant medical costs involved in giving the birth they forced her to give).
And if that child growing up in hardship ever does something wrong, they will be quite happy to electrocute and adult instead.

Whatever the hell the anti-abortion crowd is they sure as fuck are NOT "pro-life" - they are, at best, "pro-birth".

Re: Authoritarians will always rule.

[silentcoder]

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.

Re: Authoritarians will always rule.

[EzInKy]

No, they are Authoritarian. They have an inborn need to dictate that others must follow their beliefs. Life begins when they dictate life begins, life ends when they dictate life ends. They have no concern for people, only for doctrine. Would you believe the Catholic Church still deems pregnancy prevention a mortal sin?

Re: Authoritarians will always rule.

[Greystripe]

Would you argue that if a man decides he doesn't want to pay for a child he helped conceive he shouldn't be forced to? This is why it isn't a simple question. If it is ok to absolve the woman involved of all responsibility then it follows that it must also be ok to absolve the man as well.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[Mashiki]

Actually no, on the left we say: Live and let everybody else live.

All those "rules" you hate, they are what "let everybody else" live LOOKS like - breaking them KILLS people.

Had a look at modern university in the last 10 years? How's those 'free speech' zones going, how about all those universities engaging in censorship and student unions -- especially leftist student unions that actively engage in censorship. No platform policies? Yep, how about those folks that are driven out or fired from their job because someone doesn't like a joke, or because on their own private time they support something that a group of people don't like. Or start screaming that xyz is sexist/racist/ect, and the person should be fired. That's also coming from the left. How about the "if you don't vote for Hillary you're a misogynist."

Land a probe on a comet? Fuck no, your shirt is sexist. Yep the progressives and SJWs strikes again. Two dudes joking over dongles? That's rape culture.

Sure are "live and let live" on the left these days...

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[Anonymous Coward]

ah the pro birth position libertarian position, where in, women must be forced, against their will, to have babies, because fetuses have more rights than living people.

yet, the woman cannot have any public support for:
-contraception, to prevent unwanted pregnancy, even though unplanned early life pregnancy is the single biggest derailment to a young low income woman's life plans
-food stamps and welfare to care for the child she was forced to have
-free education to better enable her to support herself and the child she was forced to have
-free education for the child so he/she can escape the same cycle of poverty
-free lawyers for when the mother or child does end up in jail (statistically ~20x more likely than someone in the middle class, both because of racial and economic factors)

really this list goes on.
here's the short of it: you're stupid.

I don't support abortion myself, but the best way to prevent it is through education and contraception.
and every time its been done its resulted in lower pregnancy rates and lower accompanying abortion rates.
and when its been made universal through public funding, its been even more effective.
and when all of that still fails, yes, it should still be legal to obtain an abortion if she chooses.
if you truly believe that shouldn't happen, then you are free to raise the fetus from a test tube yourself, because you shall not force a woman to be an incubator.

the rest of the civilized world knows this, and as part of their nationalized medicine, makes all of it available.
and the result is that like, so many other sad pathetic statistics, the US is the only western nation with large numbers of unwanted pregnancies, especially of young low income women, and the only western nation where it leads to a cycle of poverty. one reason that our peers in Europe and Canada have a higher base level of economic output? they let women choose for themselves.

Re: Authoritarians will always rule.

[goose-incarnated]

So it is settles then. You are an authoritarian who wants to impose his opinions on those who disagree with you and force women into a a score of years of servitude to satisfy your agenda.

Well, we currently do it for men. Do you have any good arguments for why forcing men into years of servitude is okay but forcing women into years of servitude is not? If it is okay to force $GENDER into servitude for years, why does it stop being okay when the gender changes?

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[drinkypoo]

Abortion is indeed a deep question, and I would be all for making it illegal if the state incubated the fetus from conception and paid all costs involved in the raising of the resulting child.

That's not very Libertarian. In fact, it's downright Brave New World.

Actually it's not, because there would still be choice. The important thing here is that people aren't "forced" to be incubators and subjugated to a lifetime of servitude.

Uh, what? If you outlaw abortion under ANY terms, women ARE forced to be incubators. Your comment no logic.

Re: Authoritarians will always rule.

[shawn2772]

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.

Re: Authoritarians will always rule.

[drinkypoo]

Would you argue that if a man decides he doesn't want to pay for a child he helped conceive he shouldn't be forced to?

As long as the woman makes the decision whether to have the child, which she should, the man should not have to pay child support if she chooses not to, unless he entered into a marriage contract with her first. Anything else puts all the responsibility on the man, all of the rights are the woman's, which is just a form of slavery. You're not a deadbeat unless you make promises and then don't keep them. I say this as someone who had a deadbeat dad who cheated on his wife, got divorced, then drank up the child support money. He made a commitment and then failed to follow it. There is reasonable justification for treating him like a criminal; he broke a contract.

Only in the case of perpetrating a rape should the man have to pay child support out of wedlock, and a woman should have the absolute right to decide whether or not she has a child. Anything else is grossly unfair and puts all the responsibility on the man.

ObDisclaimer: I have no children, wanted or un-

Re: Authoritarians will always rule.

[evilviper]

It's pretty amazing how almost everybody who is anti-abortion is also anti-welfare and anti-public-school and almost always pro-death-penalty.

The Catholic Church is opposed to both abortion and the death penalty, while pro-welfare.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[vel-ex-tech]

All of your points are 100% true.

The only thing I'd like to point out is that you should head to flyover country and talk to some of those low income women. They typically have their first baby between 17-19 years old. Often their mothers provide guidance about how to get all the assistance they need from the government even to the point of having no need for employment in some cases.

I'd say on average there are at least 3 fathers involved by the time she's had her 4th child. They literally recruit fathers by promising them that they just want a baby and won't try to get child support. Liars.

Those people themselves are pro-birth. I have no sympathy for their stupidity and closed-minded reactionary authoritarian mindsets. They are not victims by any measure.

It's one of the reasons I still have some support for the capital L Libertarian party. Gut all the welfare programs and let these stupid, inbred, lead-poisoned, dipshit talking apes starve to death.

If I had any more faith in this species, I'd say I was a bleeding heart libertarian who wants a universal basic income.

you are free to raise the fetus from a test tube yourself, because you shall not force a woman to be an incubator.

So much this. Except that raises the possibility of a trans woman being a legitimate mother. They would never allow this.

Sure, this will get modded to oblivion. Feel free to keep impoverishing yourself, USA, with your own stupidity so the wrong person won't get a free lunch. This especially applies to the assholes in flyover country. When the system comes crashing down, you will deserve every single death that happens.

Me? When it happens, best case, I'll be somewhere civilized like Germany. I'll make some popcorn for you. If I'm still here, I'll play the world's tiniest violin as I watch you kill yourselves because a number in a computer was too small.

Re:Authoritarians will always rule.

[whoever57]

Excepting cases of rape and incest, you chose to have sex, deal with it...

You not wanting to carry the child doesn't give you the right to kill it...

Why are rape and incest different? The "child" isn't responsible for the rape or incest. Why should a potential child suffer for someone else's actions? The potential child is the victim.

What I am saying here is that "no abortions, except in the case of rape or incest" is not a moral position. The only moral position is: "no abortions". It's a pragmatic position, and if you are going to be pragmatic, you should allow abortions in a much wider set of cases.

As a social democrat

[Goonie]

I propose an increase in taxation to support a Libertarian Emigration Fund.

Re:As a social democrat

[drinkypoo]

I propose an increase in taxation to support a Libertarian Emigration Fund.

#metoo, but only if we send them to Dubai, and don't let them come back. I want to see what happens to them if we send them to a real libertarian utopia

Re:A Tad Expensive.

[TechyImmigrant]

$165,000.00 for a 972 sqft mobile home on 1.08 acres? Christ, I could buy over 200 acres for less than that around here, and still have plenty left over to build a house.

Free state my ass. More like rip you off on cost of living state.

The trouble with cheap land is that it's a long way from where you want to be.

So you're still part of the US of A then?

[ChunderDownunder]

I was expecting to read New Hampshire had seceded from the other 49 but obviously "Free State" means something different in American English.

The "Free" Staters are looking to force...

[EzInKy]

...their views on everyone they can. What else would you expect authoritarian dictators to do?

Re:May be too late

[FlyHelicopters]

That, and the right of revolt is right in the state constitution...

"Live Free or Die" is the motto for a reason...

Anyone else feel sorry for New Hampshire?

[Shadow of Eternity]

Although they do have a front row seat for watching this train wreck...

Re:Anyone else feel sorry for New Hampshire?

[zzyzx]

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.

Re:A Tad Expensive.

[bjwest]

The trouble with cheap land is that it's a long way from where you want to be.

Unless where you want to be is away from everybody, which is exactly where I want to be if I could get decent internet

Re:A Tad Expensive.

[Sique]

You could always go and dig the trench to lay fiber from your home to whatever internet node you want to be connected to.

Totally Revolutionize is a remarkable overstatemen

[stomv]

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.

Re:This has nothing to do with technology

[cfalcon]

This isn't a gun article, it's a Libertarian article.

It's certainly news for nerds (though I doubt it matters).

This is a long standing online push, going back to just a few years after the web started, and seeing it click over to its goal number is certainly interesting. Libertarians generally have little political relevance unless they are extraordinarily rich, and this is entirely due to their reasonably small numbers. Left leaning Libertarians can often be persuaded to vote for Democrats, who trash some of their freedoms but are generally thought of as "good enough", and the more common right leaning Libertarian often votes for a Republican for similar reasons. This reduces their relevance even more.

So putting a few in a small place might actually have interesting effects. Certainly this experiment must be deliberate, and must be voluntary.

I've thought this has been interesting since proposed.

And there's about three end games: the first is that they move there and tick everyone off because they aren't just Libertarians, they are the sort that will move to a state for their beliefs, making them almost assuredly meddlesome- we'll get some lulz stories. The second is that they matter and convert people, in which case New Hampshire doesn't just become a beacon for liberty, it actually becomes a social experiment- many libertarians sound like utopians, so what happens if they actually get to make some policies you don't see elsewhere? Much like cannabis in Colorado, it could challenge the notion of "if you do X then Y will happen, so we'd better ban X in 50 states". That would be a huge boon, and New Hampshire would either get the benefits first, or pay the consequences first.

The third and final one is probably the most likely- they don't make much of a difference. They get some silly law passed about how internet distributors work, and they all have a wall of guns in their homes, but the state just doesn't change much. This is the least amusing, beneficial, or detrimental, and it would tell us what many secretly suspect- if you want to change politics at all, you need to go to a new place or carve up on an old one, meaning either exploration or conquest. There's a big barrier to exploration, and libertarians are opposed to conquest, so that would probably be bad news for ANY group seeking peaceful change of laws by engineered move.

But regardless, we should get some awesome headlines soon!

Re:Totally Revolutionize is a remarkable overstate

[Rockoon]

and dispersed throughout the state.

The thing is, they havent "dispersed" throughout the State .. the ones that have moved there already are mainly centered around Keene. Several dozen of them have already been elected to the State legislature. They took 12 State House seats in 2010 alone.

You guys think whats going on there is just something that might happen in the future and probably wont work if it does, but its already happening and it is already demonstrably working.

The plan was so sound that even a partial execution of it has already gotten results.

Weak reasoning.

[Qbertino]

Excepting cases of rape and incest, you chose to have sex, deal with it.

What if the partner was lying about contraception?

What if somebody wasn't educated on the consequences of sex?

What if the mother was brought up in an enslavement society that taught her from early childhood that women should to as they are told and spread their legs when told to? (Basically all societies on this planet until a few decades ago)

What if somebody was emotionally coned into getting a child and the abandoned by those just as responsible? (Mostly men abandoning women, except in societies that ensure guys don't chicken out and have more-or-less equal rights)

What if somebody is using a child as an excuse for a free ride and as a vector for irresponsible behaviour?

Aside from that, I'd like to hear from you if it's better to keep the child and have it born into misery and/or abadoned into foster care or rather ensure that someone who doesn't want to have a child or technically can't handle it can abort (up to a medical resonable point that is).

Bottom line: Your reasoning looks so neat and simple, but it has holes so big as to drive a mac truck through them. Ergo: Wrong. You should reconsider your maximes on this.

Good luck with making good...

[bsDaemon]

I vaguely remember signing up when I was 19. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that I'm almost 32, have a job, a wife (who has her own job), a child, a dog, two mortgages (we live in one and have a renter in the other), etc., there is pretty much no damned way I'm picking up and moving because of some crap I said on the internet while in college, probably drunk and definitely on anti-depressants. Frankly, I expect there are others just like that.

Additionally, I do believe I had stopped paying for a domain at some point and then lost my password to the website, causing me to re-register. Therefor, they're down at least two "members" just with me, "sorry" to say.

Re:May be too late

[coolmoose25]

And just picture the guy in prison that has to stamp out the license plates with the Live Free Or Die on them all day long.

What a bunch of jerks

[skam240]

Thank God I don't live in New Hampshire. I'd be pissed if a bunch of out of state yahoos whose political views are in an extreme minority in this country all moved to my state in an attempt to change the political spectrum to what they think is right for everyone.

Well guess what libertarians. Your political views are in the minority for a reason, most people want government to do more then the minimalist government you want. That's literally why this project exists to begin with!

Re:What a bunch of jerks

[Curunir_wolf]

OMG! Those evil libertarians are going to take over the government and ... leave everyone alone! Evil plan, just evil.

Re:Totally Revolutionize is a remarkable overstate

[Anonymous Cow Ward]

And someone who says libertarians (you know, the small government people) are fascists.

Re:Oh-no the Libertarians are coming...

[radish]

Your "leaving everyone alone" is my "defunding and shutting down essential government services that benefit society". So - no thanks.

Re:Free as in little minibar bottles

[Locke2005]

What a coincidence... I moved OUT of California 20 years ago. One of my motivations was I could see the government interference in people's lives was putting the state into a death spiral.

Re:Life Liberty and ......property? Really?

[Curunir_wolf]

What are we supposed to think when the group explicitly replaces "the pursuit of happiness" with "property"?

The Declaration of Independence used "the pursuit of happiness" - but that would just a document saying they wanted to be free from English rule. The Constitution uses "property" instead, because it's, you know, a governing document. So that "change" is actually 226 years old.

Re:Totally Revolutionize is a remarkable overstate

[dryeo]

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"

Two opposed postions on abortion, both libertarian

[steveha]

If you say something about my freedom stopping at his nose, then I remind you that the baby's right to live stops at the aborter's saline injection, scraping blade, etc.

libertarians might agree that abortion should be illegal, and might not. I'll explain why:

The core of libertarian philosophy: force and fraud are not acceptable, but as long as people are free to choose, the state shouldn't intervene.

Thus a libertarian would not be in favor of the state forbidding drugs like alcohol or tobacco or marijuana. If a person chooses to use such drugs it is his/her choice.

But a libertarian would agree that murder should be illegal.

So it comes down to: is an abortion murder?

libertarians who believe that life begins at conception, and even a one-week-old embryo counts as a person, would believe that abortion is murder, and thus should be illegal.

libertarians who believe that an embryo isn't a person yet would believe that abortion should be the choice of the mother.

The question of whether an embryo is a person is not one that is decided by libertarian philosophy, and thus two people who are libertarians might have opposite opinions.

All libertarians would agree that the state should not be using tax money to fund abortions. Some libertarians think the state should be very small, and others (the "anarcho-capitalists") want no state at all; none would consider funding abortions to be a legitimate function for the state.

P.S. I read an essay by Carl Sagan where he suggested that before brain activity starts up, a fetus is not a person, but after the brain is functioning it should be considered an unborn person. IIRC he said that is about the third trimester. (Note, I did a Google search and found one web page saying brain activity starts around 25 weeks, which would be early third trimester.)

Re:USdebtclock says lots of debt

[ChrisMaple]

This is largely due to the Democrats that have to a large extent taken over the state in the last 15 years. NH used to have emergency funds, stockpiles on money to use in disasters. It took only 2 years of a Democrat governor, in the absence of any emergency, to zero out those funds. The spending has continued unchecked.