Posted on 06/09/2003 10:41:16 PM PDT by wallcrawlr
The libertarians are coming -- maybe to one of the Dakotas, maybe to Montana or Wyoming, maybe even to New Hampshire or Vermont. Maybe. A plan is gaining traction among libertarians nationwide to target the most "freedom living" state with a small population, and start moving there en masse. If all goes as planned, as many as 20,000 of them would be living in that state by the end of the decade, their numbers large enough to start affecting public policy and potentially taking over the state legislature. "We're serious about this," said Jason Sorens, founder of the Free State Project. "It's looking very likely we'll get a lot of people to move. Whether we have political success may be less likely." Sorens, who has a newly minted doctorate in political science from Yale, said that the number of people who have signed on nationwide is approaching 4,000. Once that number gets to 5,000, the target state will be chosen. Once the 20,000 target is reached, the moving vans are supposed to start rolling. Ben Thompson, a handyman from New Ulm, has signed on. "In most states, the constitution and its principles have been turned on their head," he said. "So you end up with a gigantic, bloated government bureaucracy that gobbles up and wastes 50 percent of the taxpayers' money. The Founding Fathers must be turning over in their graves." The only state he's keen on moving to is South Dakota "because I think the political atmosphere would give us a chance to do something. I don't know if this is going to work -- and if I was a betting man, I probably wouldn't bet on it." That's probably prudent, said Lisa Disch, a political scientist from the University of Minnesota who specializes in political third parties. "It seems pretty impractical to me," she said. "Normally you try to take over an existing party. How do you impose discipline on members if you don't know whether they agree with what the leadership wants to accomplish?" Placed in the context of the nation's third-party movements, the Free State Project "seems pretty unprecedented to me," she said. "This sounds truly odd. Almost utopian. Where would you find 20,000 people so committed to politics that they would stage such a takeover? Most people can't be bothered to go to the polls in their own neighborhood." Born in cyberspace The Free State Project is yet another movement born and nurtured almost exclusively in cyberspace. Sorens, 26, a libertarian since his days growing up in Houston, came up with the idea after the 2000 election, when Libertarian Party candidates were blown out nationwide. Careful to make clear that he was not formally affiliating with the party, he floated the idea in an online journal in the summer of 2001. His readers began signing up, and Sorens quickly put up the project's Web site, complete with a mascot: a porcupine. "I thought it was kind of cute, which symbolizes the idea of live and let live, that the government should back off. Porcupines are not aggressive, but you shouldn't mess with them." More specifically, the Free Staters want to see taxes slashed and government scaled back to the bone. Schools would be privatized. Drugs would be legalized. Gun control would be abolished. Federal aid would be spurned. "Government should not go beyond protecting people's rights," Sorens said. But Disch warned that, " 'Leave us alone' is not a viable political strategy. Libertarians want a limiting force, cutting back taxes and dismantling government. And it's simply impossible in this day and age to dismantle all networks of a state's responsibility. You're not going to get rid of the garbage collection." Although many press accounts call the Free Staters' plan a "takeover," Sorens said "that's just the easiest way to describe it. I'd prefer to call it a migration of freedom-loving people." As the number signing up has grown, his Web site has overflowed with data and analysis about the 10 states that are on the list because of their small populations; from smallest to biggest, they are Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Idaho, New Hampshire and Maine. All have fewer than 1.5 million residents, which would give the 20,000 Free Staters a potential critical mass in steering state politics. After allying with like-minded voters already living in the state, they would take aim at the state legislature. "We don't intend to go busting into a state and take over," said Tim Condon, a Tampa lawyer who is a member of the project's board of directors. "We'll probably be the sign-wavers, envelope stuffers and precinct walkers for people who are already there and feel the same way about political reforms that we do." Once the Free Staters have settled in, they probably will be most like members of a service club such as the Kiwanis, he said. Warm reception? Although the project has been embraced by the Libertarian Party in several of the target states, some residents are leery, calling the Free Staters members of the political fringe. Some of the media coverage the project has gotten has been downright derisive. "A lot of that condescension comes from people who are already alienated from our ideas," Sorens said. "I think most people in the state we pick are likely to welcome us." Added Condon: "The states under consideration are already more freedom-oriented than other states. . . . Every citizen of the free state will eventually thank heaven that their state was chosen." He's leaning toward picking New Hampshire. South Dakota Free Stater Crystal Bogue is pulling for her home state. "Nothing happens here," she said. "Nothing happens because people like to keep to themselves and take care of their own." For his part, Sorens won't say which state he favors "because I'm trying to stay neutral. There's a dichotomy in the group with a lot strongly western and a lot pro-eastern." At the rate new members are signing up, Sorens said the 5,000 threshold should be reached by October; that's when voting on which of the 10 states becomes the Free State will occur. Sorens hopes the 20,000 level is reached by 2005 but cautioned that that remains a long shot. "I'd say it's 50-50 we'll get to 20,000, but the odds seem to be constantly improving."
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Wouldn't that be the whole point?
I can see if there was a libertarian state ---with open borders but no government handouts the welfare class would not be moving to the libertarian state including many of the illegals. If illegals did go but found no social programs they'd go back or else would learn English and would have jobs.
-archy-/-
Uh oh...drugs, prostitution, euthanasia, and homosexual marriage for everyone. Sorry but the red states are smarter than that.
The FSP motto is Liberty in our lifetime. If the initial efforts in the first state are successful, there are hopes the idea will spread to other states, particularly neighboring ones.
Of course, it's sometimes said that The difficult tasks can be accomplished immediately; the impossible takes a little longer....
-archy-/-
AND SEX!
AND DRUGS!
AND ROCK 'N ROLL!
I fail to see a problem yet.
Neither did the guy who came up with the idea back in 1994.
-archy-/-
As a long-ago light weapons infantryman and tank gunner, sometime biker and former bar bouncer who needed a little financial augmentation to the GI Bill money paying my college tuition, I can tell you that I have lost a fight or two before.
But not against an opponent whose pants were on fire, and down around his ankles.
-archy-/-
A wide variety of considerations came up in picking the ten best of 50 candidate states for the FSP *goal state*, The final ten candidates were, in no particular order, Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Idaho, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and South Dakota
Selection criteria included Low Number of Voters, a low dependence on the federal government, Strong Projected Jobs Growth, Geographical considerations including Coastal access, international borders or landlocked inside the U.S., Low Campaign Expenditures High Votes for Conservative and Libertarian Presidential Candidates, low state and Local Taxes, Per Capita Income, Lack of Statewide Land-Use Planning, Low Crime Rates, More Gun Freedom, Smaller State & Local Government Sector, Low Level of City Urbanization, Livability Ranking, Low Percentage of Residents Born in State, Low Percentage of Government Employees, Low Percentage of NEA/AFT Members, and the existing level of economic Freedom.
I'd imagine Hawaii was way up there on the livability index, but dropped quite a few points on the others.
C omparative data on the 10 candidate states *here.*
-archy-/-
Er...those are the White Mountains. The "Green Mountain State" is that well-known bastion of Libertarianism...Vermont.
This idea seems a little far-fetched to me. Do they really think that this will work? As the political scientist pointed out, you can't even get most people to vote, much less move across the country.
I think they may get the twenty thousand people. However, as I've said earlier on this thread, once the takeover begins, the Feds will try and crush it. First, the pressure will be economic. If that doesn't work, they'll send in the troops and the JBTs.
What do ya'al think?
There are now 3,945 *porcupines* as of 6-6-2003 pledged to give it a good try, including a couple of dozen or so FReepers. But I don't think we'll be doing it by ourselves; I don't consider myself a Libertarian/libertarian, though I figure they'll make better neighbors than most Democrats and some Republican's I've known.
But these are not the apathetic or lethargic throwing in their lot with the FSP- you need only check out some of the exchanges in the FSP discussion groups to realize that pretty quickly. There's a high concentration of young college libertarians, military veterans and business professionals with all sorts of skills and backgrounds, and for the most part, they're the ones who have NOT given hope that the American political process remains of value and have instead settled down to a future of watching *Survivor* and *American Idol* on the idiot box.
I think the 5000 *first wave* porcupines will be voting sooner than Jason conservatively estimated...and there are those early birds in their number planning to make their move within 30 days of the announcement of which state it's to be. That choice will influence the initial numbers, of course, but I'd expect to see the first few hundreds in their new home before the end of this year, with a thousand sometime early in 2004. And they may very well be a factor as soon as in the upcoming 2004 election, particularly in the goal state's capital city.
Neither do I think that the FSP *magic number* of 20,000 will remain a static one, though it'll be a fine start. And I think there'll be less of a *takeover* of the state's political and electoral direction than a pendulum swing of direction in it. I bet there'll be common cause with existing political leaders from existing parties who'll be able to redirect their own parties goals once some deadwood and corruption in their leadership is replaced. We'll see.
I'm not a big fan of most of the Eastern Seaboard candidate states, though more for considerations relating to the likelihood of realizing political gains than livability issues.
But in any event, I'm looking forward to both the challenges and the opportunities. And if you'd like, I'll send you a post card from my new home once it's picked. I suspect things won't be boring in the least.
-archy-/-
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