Give 'Em Liberty

Readers Digest, hard copy page 22 ^ | March 2004 | Readers Digest

[Solitar]

The Big Idea Give 'Em Liberty March 2004

One of our political system's greatest virtues is that every vote counts. Now, one group of voters plans to move to one state, so that their votes count together.

The Free State Project is a simple, if radical, concept: Mobilize enough people with libertarian views – lowering taxes, cutting social programs, privatizing schools, relaxing gun laws – to live in one state in order to create a viable third part that will shape local government. "The idea is that, incrementally, we'll move to a freer society." says founder Jason Sorens, a Yale political science lecturer. Last year, the group chose New Hampshire as its promised land. The goal: Get 20,000 people to agree to move by 2006.

So far, 5,000 have committed, and nearly 200 are already there. One pioneer, Justin Somma (pictured) of a serious-looking Justin, 26, a copywriter, and his wife left New York City for Keene, New Hampshire. While the Free State Project was a factor in their move, he concedes the scenic small town "is a place we'd much rather live anyway."

Some political scientists doubt the movement's potential, but Somma isn't worried. "I think it's a solid plan," he says. "It's a matter of convincing people to think of alternatives to more government."

[Solitar]

The url to the Free State page is for those who want a web version. Nevertheless, the above article is transcribed from the hard copy page 22 of the March issue of Readers Digest.

Free State Project main web page

Free State Project discussion forum

FReeper thread: What's Freedom Worth (about similar movements)

Free West Alliance for Montana, Idaho, & Wyoming

Free West for Alberta and Western Canada

Free Wyoming Project Yahoo group

[MonroeDNA]

I'm moving there in two years, to support this.

[BlazingArizona]

I bet that Reader's Digest sees this movement as a threat.

[Solitar]

Good to read that some of the FReepers are supporting this movement.

Do you think 20,000 is enough?

Why not go for 200,000?

Are there enough freedom loving FReepers?

[bc2]

I'm a member of the FSP but I'm thinking about moving to Wyoming. The NorthEast has too many people, and not enough land. I've still got something inside me that craves the wild west, and adventure, that hasn't been killed off yet.

I honestly don't think the FSP will work. However, if they get 20,000 people, I'll be one of the first to move. It'll be one of those things we call "a good problem".

[Solitar]

Blazing Arizona, Why do you say "I bet that Reader's Digest sees this movement as a threat."

bc2, Have you looked at Boston T. Party's ideas for Crook County in Wyoming in his new book? Crook might be a good place for us to go. Crook County: A Black Hills Refugium Personally I think that Goshen and Torrington would be better (closer to Cheyenne and warmer than most other places) but Goshen has twice the population of Crook County. Check out the ideas for t-shirt artwork Giant Mountain Goat on top of Devil's Tower

[Moonman62]

The Free State Project is a simple, if radical, concept: Mobilize enough people with libertarian views – lowering taxes, cutting social programs, privatizing schools, relaxing gun laws – to live in one state in order to create a viable third part that will shape local government.

They forgot about rampant drug use, prostitution, gambling, loan sharking, Linux consulting and every other activity on the fringe of society.

[archy]

I'm moving there in two years, to support this.

PorcuPing! There's also a Free Republic Free State Project ping list, whose archive of FR-posted articles can be found with a keyword search for the ping list keywords: FSP; PORCUPINES; FREESTATEPROJECT

[archy]

Do you think 20,000 is enough? Why not go for 200,000?

The idea is for Liberty to both take back some of those locales overrun by the anthill people, and to reestablish its roots in other regions: the west, where the three states of the Free West Project are home to a similar effort; in Texas and the southwest, where a regional strategic influence on Texas ghovernment is underway, and perhaps as a forthcoming movement in the American south; with Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee possible centers for such resurgence.

The motto of the FSP is Liberty in our Lifetime, not * liberty restored for those of us in a single jurisdiction, and the rest of you can pound salt.*

There are many who for employment, family or personal reasons are tied to other regions or other states. But the FSP *porcupines* of New Hampshire have set the example, and if necessary, addiutional numbers beyond Jason Sorens' originally envisioned 20K can be added. If not, they might be better directed to keep the momentum going elsewhere. Such decisions may well be driven both by events and the desires of those individual Porcupines. But restoring liberty in New Hampshire [and possibly the neighboring *Taking Back Vermont* effort as well] is a noble purpose, whether fully successful immediately or not.

[archy]

Check out the ideas for t-shirt artwork Giant Mountain Goat on top of Devil's Tower

The mountain goat, in giant form or standard, is familiarly known in the West as *Rocky*, as in the *Rocky Mountain* range. See also the Free West Org logo:

[archy]

bc2, Have you looked at Boston T. Party's ideas for Crook County in Wyoming in his new book? Crook might be a good place for us to go.

Boston suggests 5 counties; I say 9 or 10. But he's correctly identified the core counties, and victories in four of those Iwould add on aren't necessarily critical so long as some sort of effective showing can be made there.

From BTP's book:

***The subject of author "Boston T. Party's" next novel is a rebellion against federal authority in libertarian-dominated Wyoming in the near future.

The book is called "Molon Labe" (or "Come and take them, as in guns).

The book is due to be released in a few weeks. Information is available at BT Party's website www.javelinpress.com
***

Teaser:

Natrona County, Wyoming March 2006:

"Good morning, sir. Here are last night's figures. We have sufficient numbers for five, and almost six."

The dark-haired man behind his desk nods and smiles. He is distinguished like an executive, but also tanned and rugged like a rancher. Little wonder. He is both a rancher and an executive. "Great news, Tom. Five will work. Five is all we need for Phase 1a."

"What about the overflow from number six?" asks the assistant.

"Let's spread half into the first five and reserve the remaining half until September for any surprises."

"Yes, sir. That was my thought, too," agrees Tom.

The rancher executive turns to his computer keyboard and briskly composes a short message, which he PGP encrypts with the public key of a colleague in Phoenix. This he pastes into an email composition window. Above the encrypted message he adds some curious text which looks like a simple computer language and includes several e-remailers' addresses. The entire email was then again PGP encrypted, but with "To's" public key. An envelope within an envelope. Only the email's header (i.e., From, To, Subject) was in plaintext. The Subject line read one question.

He sits back for several moments of calm satisfaction. Then he looks up at his assistant and says, "You've put enormous work into this, Tom. We couldn't have done it without you. Would you do the honors?"

"Yes, sir! Thank you!" Tom steps behind the man's desk, places his hand on the mouse, moves the cursor to the "Send" icon, pauses, and clicks the mouse button. At the speed of light, through two dozen nodes, the email is instantly enroute.

"Iacta alea est," says the man.

"The die is cast," echoes Tom.

The exclamation was attributed to Julius Caesar upon his crossing of the river Rubicon in 49 B.C. against the Senate's orders to lay down his military command. By invading central Italy from the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul (what is now northern Italy), Caesar kicked off a civil war with his former ally Pompey, a Roman general whose rule extended to Syria and Palestine. Caesar defeated Pompey the next year at Pharsalus and pursued him to Alexandria in Egypt (where he was assassinated). Two years later in 46 B.C., Caesar defeated the remaining Pompeian force in Africa at Thapsus.

"Not that you aspire to become Caesar," Tom qualifies.

"No," sighs the man, "but they will accuse me of it all the same."

*******

Before the two men had finished speaking, the email had already crossed the Atlantic. "To" is a covert e-remailer in Berlin used by only several dozen international libertarians for urgent business. "To" picked up his web-based email from several different public terminals which required no ID or sign-up to log in. Always with Karl Heinz Kolb was his powerful laptop, loaded with virtually every encryption program in existence. It had built-in software and hardware security devices to foil any third-party attempt at usage or data downloading. His friends joked that it would probably convert any snoop into argon gas. Kolb was quietly revered for how seriously he took his computer privacy. There was none his crafty equal in all of Berlin.
Sipping his chai tea at the Potsdamer Platz CyberCafé, he sits down at a terminal, logs onto his Yahoo! account, opens his Inbox, and clicks on the waiting email from aglet@mail.com. Once, Kolb thought aglet was an odd name and so he looked it up. He was surprised to learn that it wasn't a name, but a thing. It is the plastic end of shoelaces that allows you to thread them through the eyeholes. Without aglets, we'd all be wearing sandals or loafers. Whoever aglet was, he evidently appreciated the small, overlooked things which made bigger things not only possible, but common.

The email is a PGP message, which he saves on a floppy. He knows that it had been encrypted with one of his public keys. The "one" in the Subject line's one question means Priority One.

Most public terminals do not have PGP installed, so the 31 year old Berliner must use his laptop. This is really the only downside to web-based email from public computers. Kolb doesn't mind–in fact, he considers it a vital part of the process as he has no intention of sending email from the same terminal he received it. Not even from different accounts, as the IP address would still be the same. Physically breaking up the email chain by using different computers is what makes Kolb's remailing service so solid. His laptop is the only link between them.

Analyzing Kolb's Yahoo! anonymous account would reveal only log- ons from public terminals and the receipt of encrypted remails. Kolb never emailed anyone from that account. Thus, the vaunted Kripos–the Kriminal Polizei–could not learn from Yahoo! who he was, what he was receiving, or from whom.

Ghosts communicating with a ghost.

Kolb deletes the email from his Inbox, empties the Trash, shreds (he had installed Eraser on the server) Today's History from the computer, and logs out. He pays the 5 Euros, leaves the café and disappears down the U-Bahn stairwell a block down the street. Twenty-three minutes later he is at a university library which also has public terminals. He boots up his laptop, inserts the floppy, and decrypts the email with his secret key. Following the enclosed forwarding instructions he prepares to send the remaining PGP message kernel down the remailing chain. The first recipient is a Copenhagen partner of the Berlin operation, so the message is encrypted on Kolb's laptop with the Dane's PGP public key. Thus, what Kolb sends is different from what he had received, in case the two emails were ever somehow compared with each other. The two remailers' public PGP keys were known to precisely 37 people, all trusted libertarians.

From Copenhagen the kernel will skip through Helsinki, Krakow, and Tacoma before landing in Phoenix.

Four hours later the final recipient has it. Its Wyoming origin simply cannot be discerned from backtracking the IP packet flow. Physically, the trail went stone cold at Terminal #14 in the Berlin Technische Universität library, and that's assuming investigators could backtrack all the way to Copenhagen–and then to Berlin. Learning even that useless dead-end would require an expensive and prolonged multinational intelligence effort. The Subject line read Lose 24lbs. In Just 5 Weeks!! Most people would have immediately deleted such an apparent spam, but the man in Phoenix had been awaiting precisely this email.

Not that he was overweight. The message was a grain of sand hiding on a beach. The "24lbs." meant that he had to proceed within 24 hours. The "5" told him the scope of the operation–5 counties. Hands shaking with anticipation, he uses his PGP secret key to decrypt the message.

It reads:

The thunderbolt falls before the noise of it is heard in the skies, prayers are says before the bell is rung for them; he receives the blow that thinks he himself is giving it, he suffers who never expected it, and he dies that look'd upon himself to be the most secure: all is done in the Night and Obscurity, amongst Storms and Confusion.

It was a quote from Gabriel Naudé, a 17th century Paris political author. The Phoenix man smiles, and then laughs out loud to himself. Four years of planning and work! It was actually going to happen! He grabs his laptop, kisses his wife good-bye and says that he'll be back in a few hours. He drives to the main downtown library on Central Avenue, walks up to the second floor where the public terminals are, signs on with an alias as a guest, and begins to work. Within an hour, 9,816 people across the Southwest are notified by an encrypted group email. The message is simple:

Solivitur ambulando. It is solved by walking.

The problem is settled by action–the theoretical by the practical.

*******

Cheyenne, Wyoming
Wyoming Department of Administration and Information Division of Economic Analysis, Emerson Building
October 2006

"Huh! Now, this is odd," observes a data analyst.

"What's odd?" asks his colleague friend in the adjoining cubicle.

"These new resident numbers for this year. Five counties show increases of over 20%."

The analysts work for the Wyoming State Data Center (WSDC) which publishes a monthly bulletin of economic conditions, housing figures, sales tax collections, cost of living indices, etc. Their second floor cubicles had a view of northern Cheyenne. It was a slate and pewter autumn day. A winter storm coming.

"Over 20%? Which five counties?"

"Niobrara, Hot Springs, Johnson, Crook, and Sublette."

"Not Teton or Albany?"

"Nope, it's five economically stagnant counties with very low population bases and–hey, wait a minute!"

"What now?"

"They're not just sparsely populated, they're the five least populated counties! That can't be coincidence!"

"Hmmm. That is weird! Hot Springs has Thermop, Johnson has Buffalo, Crook has Sundance, and Sublette has Pinedale–and those are all nice little towns, but who the hell would move to Lusk? It's a tumbleweed gas stop on the way to nowhere."

"You got that right."

"Intrastate relocation?"

"Hold on, I'm accessing migration flows. Nope, very few intrastate movers. Most came from...California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas."

"That's strange. California and Colorado is typical, but we always lose people to Oregon, Arizona, and Texas. This makes no sense. Besides the oil boom in the early 1980s, when did we ever have a net inflow from Texas? What the hell is going on?"

"Hold on, lemme run some of these new addresses. I wanna see if they're urban or rural." A few mouse clicks later, he exclaims, "You wouldn't believe how many common addresses are popping up!"

"Common addresses? Really?"

"Yeah, common. And all of them rural. Take Crook County, for example. I'm showing a September increase of 1,346 new residents, and guess how many of them listed their address as 2075 Highway 112?"

"How many?"

"217."

"217! At the same address?"

"Yeah, 217. That's 16% of the county's new residents. One in six."

"What's at that address?"

"Hold on, I'm checking. A trailerpark and campground just north of Hulett. Bastiat Trailer Estates. Built this year. It's got...hold on...60 mobile home lots."

"Four residents per trailer; that comes to a capacity of 240. So, yeah, it would easily hold 217 people. Even more."

"Hey, here's another one–384 people show their new residence as the Galtson Mobile Home Park on Highway 111 just south of Aladdin."

"Galtson? That's a funny name."

"Yeah, I thought so, too. And, hey, there's one more trailerpark, the Rothbard Trailer Court on Highway 585 south of Sundance. 316 new residents there."

"Those two trailerparks account for...let's see...over two-thirds of the new people. Where are the rest?"

"The rest–429 to be precise–seem spread out amongst 35 addresses. It's like 35 families just up and decided to take in a dozen refugees in their homes."

"This is the weirdest damn thing I've ever seen. How 'bout you?"

"Oh, by far! Hey! Guess what their voter registration is?"

"What?"

"Republican."

"All of them?"

"Yep. Every last adult. No Democrats. No Libertarians. No Natural Law. No Independents."

"Whaddaya bet same thing's goin' on in those other counties?"

"I'm already on it."

Within an hour, a fairly detailed abstract has been made of the numbers, which shows identical patterns in Niobrara, Hot Springs, Johnson, and Sublette counties. New community housings, trailerparks, and apartment complexes had sprung up there in the past year to be totally filled by new residents relocating from generally six other states. This relocation appears to have begun in the sparsest county of Niobrara, and then in order to the next sparsest counties of Hot Springs, Sublette, Crook, and lastly Johnson–like water filling up an ice tray. This shows design, direction, and coordination.

Purpose.

If the sudden concentration of this orchestrated immigration was suspicious, the timing was alarming. Nearly ten thousand Americans had descended on five sparse Wyoming counties just weeks before a general election. Within the counties, all the political officers were up for election. Clerks, Assessors, County Attorneys, District Attorneys, Sheriffs, Commissioners, Treasurers, Coroners, Judges, everyone.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Who wouldn't be–those five counties are facing a coup d'état!"

"Shit! Who are these people?"

"Beats me, man. Hey, it's 5:30. Let's get outta here and grab a few beers. Get a game plan going before we tell the SecState about this!"

"Sounds good. We'll take all this stuff with us and work on it at down at Muldoons." After several hours at their usual tavern, the two computer analysts are well and truly plastered. An early winter storm had hit southeast Wyoming that evening, and the roads were sheeted in black ice. Driving home, the carpooling pair careen off a mild curve in the road, go down a thirty foot embankment and flip. One is knocked unconscious; the other his neck broken. Their car's fuel line had been ripped away by the dense underbrush, and raw gasoline spilled onto the red-hot exhaust manifold. Only the blaze gave notice of the lonely accident, and by the time the fire trucks had arrived the car was a black, smoking shell. Bits of burning computer printouts floated about like Dante's snowflakes.

The curious fattening of five Wyoming counties goes unnoticed by the replacement analysts at the WSDC. The general election of 2006 is just twelve days away.

***The subject of author "Boston T. Party's" next novel is a rebellion against federal authority in libertarian-dominated Wyoming in the near future.

The book is called "Molon Labe" (or "Come and take them, as in guns).

The book is due to be released in a few weeks. Information is available at BT Party's website www.javelinpress.com
***

Teaser:

Natrona County, Wyoming March 2006:

"Good morning, sir. Here are last night's figures. We have sufficient numbers for five, and almost six."

The dark-haired man behind his desk nods and smiles. He is distinguished like an executive, but also tanned and rugged like a rancher. Little wonder. He is both a rancher and an executive. "Great news, Tom. Five will work. Five is all we need for Phase 1a."

"What about the overflow from number six?" asks the assistant.

"Let's spread half into the first five and reserve the remaining half until September for any surprises."

"Yes, sir. That was my thought, too," agrees Tom.

The rancher executive turns to his computer keyboard and briskly composes a short message, which he PGP encrypts with the public key of a colleague in Phoenix. This he pastes into an email composition window. Above the encrypted message he adds some curious text which looks like a simple computer language and includes several e-remailers' addresses. The entire email was then again PGP encrypted, but with "To's" public key. An envelope within an envelope. Only the email's header (i.e., From, To, Subject) was in plaintext. The Subject line read one question.

He sits back for several moments of calm satisfaction. Then he looks up at his assistant and says, "You've put enormous work into this, Tom. We couldn't have done it without you. Would you do the honors?"

"Yes, sir! Thank you!" Tom steps behind the man's desk, places his hand on the mouse, moves the cursor to the "Send" icon, pauses, and clicks the mouse button. At the speed of light, through two dozen nodes, the email is instantly enroute.

"Iacta alea est," says the man.

"The die is cast," echoes Tom.

The exclamation was attributed to Julius Caesar upon his crossing of the river Rubicon in 49 B.C. against the Senate's orders to lay down his military command. By invading central Italy from the Roman province of Cisalpine Gaul (what is now northern Italy), Caesar kicked off a civil war with his former ally Pompey, a Roman general whose rule extended to Syria and Palestine. Caesar defeated Pompey the next year at Pharsalus and pursued him to Alexandria in Egypt (where he was assassinated). Two years later in 46 B.C., Caesar defeated the remaining Pompeian force in Africa at Thapsus.

"Not that you aspire to become Caesar," Tom qualifies.

"No," sighs the man, "but they will accuse me of it all the same."

*******

Before the two men had finished speaking, the email had already crossed the Atlantic. "To" is a covert e-remailer in Berlin used by only several dozen international libertarians for urgent business. "To" picked up his web-based email from several different public terminals which required no ID or sign-up to log in. Always with Karl Heinz Kolb was his powerful laptop, loaded with virtually every encryption program in existence. It had built-in software and hardware security devices to foil any third-party attempt at usage or data downloading. His friends joked that it would probably convert any snoop into argon gas. Kolb was quietly revered for how seriously he took his computer privacy. There was none his crafty equal in all of Berlin.
Sipping his chai tea at the Potsdamer Platz CyberCafé, he sits down at a terminal, logs onto his Yahoo! account, opens his Inbox, and clicks on the waiting email from aglet@mail.com. Once, Kolb thought aglet was an odd name and so he looked it up. He was surprised to learn that it wasn't a name, but a thing. It is the plastic end of shoelaces that allows you to thread them through the eyeholes. Without aglets, we'd all be wearing sandals or loafers. Whoever aglet was, he evidently appreciated the small, overlooked things which made bigger things not only possible, but common.

The email is a PGP message, which he saves on a floppy. He knows that it had been encrypted with one of his public keys. The "one" in the Subject line's one question means Priority One.

Most public terminals do not have PGP installed, so the 31 year old Berliner must use his laptop. This is really the only downside to web-based email from public computers. Kolb doesn't mind–in fact, he considers it a vital part of the process as he has no intention of sending email from the same terminal he received it. Not even from different accounts, as the IP address would still be the same. Physically breaking up the email chain by using different computers is what makes Kolb's remailing service so solid. His laptop is the only link between them.

Analyzing Kolb's Yahoo! anonymous account would reveal only log- ons from public terminals and the receipt of encrypted remails. Kolb never emailed anyone from that account. Thus, the vaunted Kripos–the Kriminal Polizei–could not learn from Yahoo! who he was, what he was receiving, or from whom.

Ghosts communicating with a ghost.

Kolb deletes the email from his Inbox, empties the Trash, shreds (he had installed Eraser on the server) Today's History from the computer, and logs out. He pays the 5 Euros, leaves the café and disappears down the U-Bahn stairwell a block down the street. Twenty-three minutes later he is at a university library which also has public terminals. He boots up his laptop, inserts the floppy, and decrypts the email with his secret key. Following the enclosed forwarding instructions he prepares to send the remaining PGP message kernel down the remailing chain. The first recipient is a Copenhagen partner of the Berlin operation, so the message is encrypted on Kolb's laptop with the Dane's PGP public key. Thus, what Kolb sends is different from what he had received, in case the two emails were ever somehow compared with each other. The two remailers' public PGP keys were known to precisely 37 people, all trusted libertarians.

From Copenhagen the kernel will skip through Helsinki, Krakow, and Tacoma before landing in Phoenix.

Four hours later the final recipient has it. Its Wyoming origin simply cannot be discerned from backtracking the IP packet flow. Physically, the trail went stone cold at Terminal #14 in the Berlin Technische Universität library, and that's assuming investigators could backtrack all the way to Copenhagen–and then to Berlin. Learning even that useless dead-end would require an expensive and prolonged multinational intelligence effort. The Subject line read Lose 24lbs. In Just 5 Weeks!! Most people would have immediately deleted such an apparent spam, but the man in Phoenix had been awaiting precisely this email.

Not that he was overweight. The message was a grain of sand hiding on a beach. The "24lbs." meant that he had to proceed within 24 hours. The "5" told him the scope of the operation–5 counties. Hands shaking with anticipation, he uses his PGP secret key to decrypt the message.

It reads:

The thunderbolt falls before the noise of it is heard in the skies, prayers are says before the bell is rung for them; he receives the blow that thinks he himself is giving it, he suffers who never expected it, and he dies that look'd upon himself to be the most secure: all is done in the Night and Obscurity, amongst Storms and Confusion.

It was a quote from Gabriel Naudé, a 17th century Paris political author. The Phoenix man smiles, and then laughs out loud to himself. Four years of planning and work! It was actually going to happen! He grabs his laptop, kisses his wife good-bye and says that he'll be back in a few hours. He drives to the main downtown library on Central Avenue, walks up to the second floor where the public terminals are, signs on with an alias as a guest, and begins to work. Within an hour, 9,816 people across the Southwest are notified by an encrypted group email. The message is simple:

Solivitur ambulando. It is solved by walking.

The problem is settled by action–the theoretical by the practical.

*******

Cheyenne, Wyoming
Wyoming Department of Administration and Information Division of Economic Analysis, Emerson Building
October 2006

"Huh! Now, this is odd," observes a data analyst.

"What's odd?" asks his colleague friend in the adjoining cubicle.

"These new resident numbers for this year. Five counties show increases of over 20%."

The analysts work for the Wyoming State Data Center (WSDC) which publishes a monthly bulletin of economic conditions, housing figures, sales tax collections, cost of living indices, etc. Their second floor cubicles had a view of northern Cheyenne. It was a slate and pewter autumn day. A winter storm coming.

"Over 20%? Which five counties?"

"Niobrara, Hot Springs, Johnson, Crook, and Sublette."

"Not Teton or Albany?"

"Nope, it's five economically stagnant counties with very low population bases and–hey, wait a minute!"

"What now?"

"They're not just sparsely populated, they're the five least populated counties! That can't be coincidence!"

"Hmmm. That is weird! Hot Springs has Thermop, Johnson has Buffalo, Crook has Sundance, and Sublette has Pinedale–and those are all nice little towns, but who the hell would move to Lusk? It's a tumbleweed gas stop on the way to nowhere."

"You got that right."

"Intrastate relocation?"

"Hold on, I'm accessing migration flows. Nope, very few intrastate movers. Most came from...California, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas."

"That's strange. California and Colorado is typical, but we always lose people to Oregon, Arizona, and Texas. This makes no sense. Besides the oil boom in the early 1980s, when did we ever have a net inflow from Texas? What the hell is going on?"

"Hold on, lemme run some of these new addresses. I wanna see if they're urban or rural." A few mouse clicks later, he exclaims, "You wouldn't believe how many common addresses are popping up!"

"Common addresses? Really?"

"Yeah, common. And all of them rural. Take Crook County, for example. I'm showing a September increase of 1,346 new residents, and guess how many of them listed their address as 2075 Highway 112?"

"How many?"

"217."

"217! At the same address?"

"Yeah, 217. That's 16% of the county's new residents. One in six."

"What's at that address?"

"Hold on, I'm checking. A trailerpark and campground just north of Hulett. Bastiat Trailer Estates. Built this year. It's got...hold on...60 mobile home lots."

"Four residents per trailer; that comes to a capacity of 240. So, yeah, it would easily hold 217 people. Even more."

"Hey, here's another one–384 people show their new residence as the Galtson Mobile Home Park on Highway 111 just south of Aladdin."

"Galtson? That's a funny name."

"Yeah, I thought so, too. And, hey, there's one more trailerpark, the Rothbard Trailer Court on Highway 585 south of Sundance. 316 new residents there."

"Those two trailerparks account for...let's see...over two-thirds of the new people. Where are the rest?"

"The rest–429 to be precise–seem spread out amongst 35 addresses. It's like 35 families just up and decided to take in a dozen refugees in their homes."

"This is the weirdest damn thing I've ever seen. How 'bout you?"

"Oh, by far! Hey! Guess what their voter registration is?"

"What?"

"Republican."

"All of them?"

"Yep. Every last adult. No Democrats. No Libertarians. No Natural Law. No Independents."

"Whaddaya bet same thing's goin' on in those other counties?"

"I'm already on it."

Within an hour, a fairly detailed abstract has been made of the numbers, which shows identical patterns in Niobrara, Hot Springs, Johnson, and Sublette counties. New community housings, trailerparks, and apartment complexes had sprung up there in the past year to be totally filled by new residents relocating from generally six other states. This relocation appears to have begun in the sparsest county of Niobrara, and then in order to the next sparsest counties of Hot Springs, Sublette, Crook, and lastly Johnson–like water filling up an ice tray. This shows design, direction, and coordination.

Purpose.

If the sudden concentration of this orchestrated immigration was suspicious, the timing was alarming. Nearly ten thousand Americans had descended on five sparse Wyoming counties just weeks before a general election. Within the counties, all the political officers were up for election. Clerks, Assessors, County Attorneys, District Attorneys, Sheriffs, Commissioners, Treasurers, Coroners, Judges, everyone.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Who wouldn't be–those five counties are facing a coup d'état!"

"Shit! Who are these people?"

"Beats me, man. Hey, it's 5:30. Let's get outta here and grab a few beers. Get a game plan going before we tell the SecState about this!"

"Sounds good. We'll take all this stuff with us and work on it at down at Muldoons." After several hours at their usual tavern, the two computer analysts are well and truly plastered. An early winter storm had hit southeast Wyoming that evening, and the roads were sheeted in black ice. Driving home, the carpooling pair careen off a mild curve in the road, go down a thirty foot embankment and flip. One is knocked unconscious; the other his neck broken. Their car's fuel line had been ripped away by the dense underbrush, and raw gasoline spilled onto the red-hot exhaust manifold. Only the blaze gave notice of the lonely accident, and by the time the fire trucks had arrived the car was a black, smoking shell. Bits of burning computer printouts floated about like Dante's snowflakes.

The curious fattening of five Wyoming counties goes unnoticed by the replacement analysts at the WSDC. The general election of 2006 is just twelve days away.

[archy]

Open Letter #2 from Boston T. Party to All Free Staters

November 10, 2003

The NH/FSP muttering I'm hearing about my Wyoming initiative is sounding increasingly collectivistic. Apparently, my critics expect every free stater (present and future) to join the NH bandwagon, and those who do not are "splitters."

It reminds me of the Highlander declaring, "There can be only one!"

The invective has been astoundingly laden with recrimination and imposed guilt for potentially derailing the NH/FSP's success. "Those who don't join us in NH will wreck our chances!" -- that sort of thing.

This, dear readers and colleagues, is the strident bullying of unionism. "If we fail in NH, it'll be because of you WY scabs!" Well, is the FSP a closed shop, or an open shop? Does the NH/FSP truly believe in free competition?

Evidently, at least Jason Sorens is realizing how foolish this attitude is because I now read in the NY Times (10/27/03) that he said the FSP may eventually designate a second free state out west.

"If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" -- eh?

If the FSP can't resist putting their ex posto facto stamp of approval on a Wyoming free state movement already well underway -- largely due to the efforts of just one author, and without significant FSP help -- then the FSP is welcome to not only admit a kind of defeat, but also to embarrass itself by such a blatant political ploy. I think the FSP caving in to the idea of Western second state now would generally be ridiculed by us out here.

It's growing more and more obvious that the NH/FSP needs the WY/FSP, and not the opposite.

The FSP should have offered a dual choice from the beginning, so don't start pining for the West now. You've already voted, remember? The FSP has made its NH bed, so lie in it (if, at 138 people/square mile, there is any room).

Because of my temerity in pointing out the extreme difficulties of a NH success, my very character has been snidely questioned. "We should have known what kind of man Boston was" -- that sort of thing. No kidding.

Anonymously and indirectly, of course. I've heard directly from only one dissenter, and he was an "abstaining" FSPer smarting over my derision of the 54% non-voters.

(I'm curious about those abstaining voters of September. Once they move to NH, will they then abstain from voting in their county/state elections, leaving the matter up to those with "stronger preferences"?)

The ad hominem attacks rankle, not only because they are stupid and baseless, but because they are unprecedented in my 11-year career as a well-regarded author and freedom activist. And they have come from people with whom I would have thought I had the most in common.

If these character assassins knew what I have sacrificed since 1992 -- socially, emotionally, and financially -- they would wither from shame.

Should this sort of nonsense continue, I will be forced to conclude that the NH vote was retrospectively a blessing in disguise. By choosing NH, the free state movement has installed a filter to trap the whiners, ankle-biters, and back-stabbers -- thus keeping them out of Wyoming.

(And for you quality folks moving to NH, which I've no doubt comprises the vast bulk of the NH/FSP, I still send my sincere wishes for your success, nevertheless lamenting that you must deal with such ilk as neighbors.)

If the NH/FSP feels stung by my WY stance, they shouldn't. I was always remaining in the West, and Wyoming was always my first choice of state.

Everyone . . . KNEW . . . this.

This considered, how could anybody purport that I turned my back on the FSP? If anything, one could make the vague case that the FSP turned its back on me with its NH vote, but I've never even implied that, much less said it.

To the contrary, my Open Letter began with praise and congratulations to Jason and his staff for their work. It also read that "we (of the WY/FSP) will be pleased to work with NH/FSP in any mutual matters," followed by my best wishes for success.

These are the remarks of a "crybaby?"

A final thought on the indigenous voter percentages of NH and WY. In Wyoming, about 70% of the people are registered voters, and of them about 55.5% actually vote. That means about 39.9% of Wyomingites are active voters, compared to about 45.8% of NH folks. That gives the WY/FSPers about a 15% local advantage over NH/FSPers, all else being equal.

(Occasionally, during heated elections the Wyoming percentage pops up to about 43%, but even that is still lower than NH.)

So, not only are WY's counties less densely populated, fewer WY locals vote in comparison to NH. This pro of WY has largely been overlooked. Our target state is ideally politically lethargic, not dynamic. The fewer the voting locals, the easier it is for free state relocater.

The last thing we'd conceivably want is a state of high AND dense population, which is politically active (such as Maine at 50.7%). And that, my friends, is nearly precisely what the FSP chose in NH.

Idaho has similar NH population (though not as dense), but with only 37.7% active voters.

Only Wyoming has low AND sparse population, AND comparatively low voter turnout.

Is any of this getting through to the skeptics?

From the FSP's own website (and you all should download this before such post-vote embarrassing info is removed) is a very well argued comparison between Wyoming vs. New Hampshire:

"Although New Hampshire is better for the FSP than some states, it does not seem to compare favorably to Wyoming. For starters, Wyoming's population is only 39% as large as New Hampshire's. Wyoming has inexpensive elections at $4,700,000, whereas New Hampshire has the most expensive elections, at a whopping $19,600,000. If these numbers hold, the FSP members will have to come up with well over four times as much money to run campaigns as successfully in New Hampshire than in Wyoming. New Hampshire has a very low estimated rate of gun ownership, at only 36%. Wyoming, on the other hand, has the highest estimated rate of gun ownership in the country at 88%. In addition, Wyoming has 10 gun shows for every 100,000 people, whereas New Hampshire has only 1.5. New Hampshire has large state legislative districts (especially senate) and no term limits or ballot imitative [initiative?] processes, while Wyoming is just the opposite. New Hampshire is not a right-to-work state, and because of this, it has both a large number of members in both labor and teacher unions.

"New Hampshire is surrounded by very statists states (Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Providence Plantation, and Canada), while Wyoming is surrounded by many liberty-friendly states (Montana, South Dakota, Idaho, Colorado, and Nevada). This means that if New Hampshire was picked it would likely attract the few freedom activists that are left in its surrounding states. This would leave the freedom movements of the surrounding states in even worse shape and prevent the FSP from expanding into New Hampshire's neighboring states. However, something even worse is already happening in New Hampshire: statists from Boston are moving to New Hampshire at an alarming rate. This growth is expected to increase, and even more so if the FSP selects New Hampshire and de-regulates business laws."

As the author of the above so cogently put it, the question isn't really why we all should move to WY, but why shouldn't we? What are the compelling reason not to choose WY?

Regarding Wyoming's winters (the severity of which has often been exaggerated) and rugged lifestyle, a quote from Jefferson comes to mind:

"We do not expect to be transported from despotism to liberty on a featherbed."

My question to many of you is this: Do you want to be a Rugged Libertarian, or a Featherbed Libertarian?

Fortunately, there is now a choice for both.

Not that you'd learn of such from the NH/FSP, as I have learned that their official policy is to "ignore" me. While that is preferable to the pettiness of its few random members, such a policy nevertheless is counter to the spirit of a free exchange of ideas -- a spirit I will uphold by linking the NH/FSP site with my Wyoming one, even if they do not reciprocate.

I will even include links to any posts which may purport that I am going my Wyoming way for allegedly selfish, egotistical, nefarious, duplicitous, acrimonious, or wrong-headed reasons. THAT is how deeply my commitment to honest discourse goes.

I formally challenge the NH/FSP to open the broad free state movement to the fullest of discussion. We're talking about the transplanting of thousands of families -- changing lives at the most primal level. The magnitude of this demands the widest possible exchange of idea, fact, and opinion.

The FSP has not publicized my Open Letter to its members, clearly for fear that my tight reasoning for Wyoming will cause many NH/FSPers to waiver (I'm already receiving emails from some of them), as well as offer future free staters a -- my gosh! -- choice in locales and organizations.

Patrick Henry wrote:

"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to prepare for it."

This has always been my attitude. I am grieved that my Open Letter has yet to be shared by the hierarchy of the NH/FSP. The NH free staters will of course learn of it on their own, though not as quickly as if their leadership had informed them directly.

While the NH/FSP has no formal obligation to post my Open Letters, there still remains a moral obligation to do so. Especially when the letters come from the individual who has longest been researching the free state concept (i.e., since 1997).

Their refusal, if not quite censorship in the Soviet style, is its first cousin. It begs the obvious and uncomfortable question:

"What else isn't the NH/FSP telling its members?"

And now, dear readers and colleagues, I must return to work on my novel. I will keep all of you informed of the WY/FSP as it develops. Thank you for your enthusiastic interest in joining me and many others in America's last undiscovered frontier.

Molon Labe!
Boston T. Party (Kenneth W. Royce)
wyoming_freestate*AT*yahoo.com

[budwiesest]

Liberty bump for later (as if it's not already too late) Thanks archy.

[Travis McGee]

BT Party Bump!

[archy]

Liberty bump for later (as if it's not already too late) Thanks archy.

You're welcome. More forthcoming, I'd expect.

Anyone who wants on the FR FSP/PorcuPing list, just let me know, either with a post here or via FReepmail. And if anyone inclined toward or interested in the Wyoming efforts would care for an invite to the WY FWP Yahoo group, let me know your e-mail and I'll send an invite there to those so interested; I'm that groups moderator as well.

-archy-/-

[Reagan Renaissance]

Freedom is on its death bed under US law. It has been more than ninety years since the government imposed unconstitutional fake money on Americans and more than seventy years since any American could choose their own investment/retirement plan.

I bought a magnificient piece of property where I intended to build our family home in 1992. Until this year, government required "permits" before I could build. Regulations in place made it impossible for me to obtain these "required permits". Over the past six months, our local government and the state amended two of these laws probably making it possible for me to obtain the "required permits", but if I build, current law prevents me from being able to buy all the required insurance that a prudent man would want. Anyone needing a mortgage to be able to afford to build would be unable to build on our property as federal law prohibits banks from making loans without a full complement of all prudent insurance policies.

Zoning laws want to restrict what and how I build our house. The Code of Federal Regulations limits how much water I can use to flush my toilet. The state wants me to buy a permit that would allow me to park my car on my own land, and demands that I allow the area (where I have to pay to park) be open to anyone including the right to drive across my property. Building codes dictate how I will build my house and landscaping codes demand what I can plant and what I must plant to get a certificate of occupancy that would allow me the right to buy water or for the electric company to sell me power.

As a retiree, I track my finances carefully in Quicken and in Excel. For the last five years, my combined income tax and property tax bills have been 190% of my family's total living expenses for food, shelter and all other personal expenditures of each and every kind. In some states and localities, one is tempted to speculate that the odds are not bad that some families are forced to pay more for the upkeep for an aids-infected baby of a crack-addicted momma than they can afford to spend on their own children. And most Americans live with the delusion that the United States is a free country.

[jmc813]

They forgot about rampant drug use, prostitution, gambling, loan sharking, Linux consulting and every other activity on the fringe of society

This website is run on a Linux platform.

[Landru]

"Freedom is on its death bed under US law...I bought a magnificient piece of property where I intended to build our family home in 1992. Until this year, government required "permits" before I could build. Regulations in place made it impossible for me to obtain these "required permits"...but if I build, current law prevents me from being able to buy all the required insurance that a prudent man would want. Anyone needing a mortgage to be able to afford to build would be unable to build on our property as federal law prohibits banks from making loans without a full complement of all prudent insurance policies...Zoning laws want to restrict what and how I build our house. The Code of Federal Regulations limits how much water I can use to flush my toilet. The state wants me to buy a permit that would allow me to park my car on my own land, and demands that I allow the area (where I have to pay to park) be open to anyone including the right to drive across my property. Building codes dictate how I will build my house and landscaping codes demand what I can plant and what I must plant to get a certificate of occupancy that would allow me the right to buy water or for the electric company to sell me power...And most Americans live with the delusion that the United States is a free country."

What a shame, and, you're absolutely correct but...

If you thought what you've gone through up to now -- as described above -- couldn't [possibly] get any worse?
You'd be sadly mistaken.

Just in case you missed it, here, read THIS.

...America's version of the Brave New World.

[u-89]

Mobilize enough people with libertarian views....

Both sides of my family have been in the NJ/NY area since the 1600s. My ancestors got fed up with the government in their historic homelands and got up and moved to a new world. NJ and NY are both now beyond hope of redemption and its time for me to move on in search of freedom. Free State Project bump! NH here I come -

[Moonman62]

I usually throw that in for comic relief. I have Gentoo on one of my partitions.