Folks, despite the latitude, NH is a NASCAR state. The rednecks just wear parkas up here.
Not when we gather at Laconia/Weirs Beach every June we don't....
Posted on 09/30/2003 7:24:17 PM PDT by Dan Evans
A libertarian movement promoting "minimalist government", the free market, drugs, prostitution and gun ownership plans to infiltrate New Hampshire to create a breakaway American regime, its leaders will announce today. The Free State Project, which has supporters in the UK and worldwide, will reveal today at a meeting in New York that its members have voted for the small but highly-symbolic north-eastern state as its target to win power.
Project chiefs will now try to persuade 20,000 people to move to New Hampshire and sway the electorate towards blocking federal "nanny" laws and social restrictions.
Jason Sorens, a lecturer in political science at Yale University and president of the project, said he wants to create an "autocratic territory" and the Free State Project will follow the examples of the Mormons in Utah, the French separatists in Quebec, Canada, and the conservative Amish religious communities.
Political sceptics have dismissed the project as the fringe cult fantasies of a disorganised shower of anarchists and internet geeks.
But Professor Sorens claims membership is soaring as people become angry over increasing restrictions on personal freedom, government surveillance of private individuals and greater state power in the justice system.
Membership of the Free State Project rocketed after an article in Playboy this year.
"I think that was a good place to find people who are socially tolerant and wary of government regulation over private behaviour," Prof Sorens said yesterday.
The FSP argues that civil government should exist only to protect life, liberty, and property. Individuals are free to do as they please, provided it does not harm others.
In a "Free State", that would translate as a green light for casinos, brothels, cocaine farms and gun supermarkets. Leaders would also do away with seatbelt laws, limits on gay marriage and most taxes.
"The classical liberal philosophy has a long and respectable pedigree. We see ourselves as a kind of chamber of commerce, promoting the state as somewhere where people will come and live freely and do business," he said.
Schools and hospitals would be entirely privatised. Prof Sorens sees new New Hampshire as having economic parallels with Singapore and Hong Kong, and social parallels to the tolerant Netherlands.
New Hampshire's state motto is already "Live free or die".
A ballot last week had members choosing from a shortlist of 10 states, each chosen on the basis that the FSP had calculated the populations were low enough and federal influence weak enough that moving 20,000 members there would give enough leverage to sway the state legislature.
Wyoming came second in the ballot. Other states on the list included Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Vermont and the Dakotas.
Members must agree to move to the chosen state.
But the New Hampshire Democratic chairwoman, Kathy Sullivan, said she considered the project "sort of a very fringe group that can best be described as anarchists".
A British member, Matthew Hurry, a 24-year-old computer technician from Brighton, was already preparing to move to the chosen state.
"It's one of the few good ideas I've seen actually put into practice with a good chance of success. Freedom is important for people, and the western world is severely lacking in it," he said.
But Francis Tyers, a 20-year-old University of Wales student, who studies in Aberystwyth but is currently on placement with the computer giant Hewlett Packard in Ireland, said Alaska would have been his first choice. "I specified on my membership form that I would move when they had legalised the cultivation of marijuana. I'm hoping that this will be one of the first things on their agenda. And secession from the United States would be great," he said.
It is this kind of radical idea that Prof Sorens emphasises is not the FSP's main thrust. "We have no wish to alienate the people of New Hampshire. We want to win them over," he said.
James Maynard, one of 150 project members who already live in New Hampshire, is currently campaigning as a Libertarian to try to win a council seat in the Keene city elections in November.
"The FSP is a mix of common sense ideas and "thinking out of the box". Within the framework of a real-life state and local politics, a group will not be afraid to try new things and take lessons from the business world to bring New Hampshire a smaller, less expensive, more accountable government," he said.
Project members are mostly men and in their 20s and 30s. Many own small businesses and half of them have a university degree, with 18% possessing doctorates and 40% earning more than £40,000 a year.
Don'tcha just love mediots.
What I found even funnier, was as hard as I tried?
I sincerely couldn't tell what the political bent of this moron was!
C'mon let's face it, the mere *thought* this kind of plan could succeed scares the bejebbers outa both sides; so, they're going to want to join forces -- if only -- for the express purpose of whacking this effort, el pronto.
This is just beginning, they're only starting to get cranked up with this type of smear & sleezy distortions.
Just imagine, fracturing the system by offering a carrot to, & then stealing away, one of their precious crown jewel minorities. One they've spent so much of their time & resources building up into a political "Frankenstein," too.
The gays.
...bwahaaaaa!!
Jobs are not a physical resource that is fixed in quantity; they are contracts between producers and consumers, which flourish in a free economy. Not to mention the fact that those 20k people are consumers as well as producers.
That would cause temporary turbulence, true.
I changed my FReeper profile and didn't have the heart to keep it that wqay, not yet at least.
I reckon I'm just a Texian clodhopper at heart. You figure those New Hampster folks will get used to the hat and boots okay?
Wyoming would have presented a few less problems. But the hats there sure do have some funny shapes to 'em, expecially the bumpy dents on top instead of a neat Texas crease.
You bet I'll be back. But it was mighty rough when Austin's barbecue in Dallas closed down.
-archy-/-
Folks, despite the latitude, NH is a NASCAR state. The rednecks just wear parkas up here.
Because I'm such an august presence, or because I seem like I might snap at any moment? :-D
When that happens there will be less viable acreage to build on but on the bright side we'll enjoy more coast line.
Folks, despite the latitude, NH is a NASCAR state. The rednecks just wear parkas up here.
Not when we gather at Laconia/Weirs Beach every June we don't....
My son's 19, and old enough to make his own decision as to eastward, westward or to stick in between where he is.
He favoured the west, as I did, and he may stick with that decision, or may give NH a try with me; his choice. Nothing's set in stone yet, and we'll see how it goes.
-archy-/-
Well, the relocation of kids to safer areas, including Canada and US during the *Blitz* bombing of Great Britain by the Germans comes to mind, as does the resettlement of those residing in the Warsaw Ghetto, though those examples are more drastic and less voluntary on the part of the participants than the FSP effort.
In more recent times, the *chicken run* and *gapping it* flight from Rhodesia circa 1979-'80 as the Mugabe government siezed power and began its steps toward the ethnic clensing of the IsiNdebele tribe and whites in Zimbabwe offers another example, as does the less-intense migration of hippies and communalists to Vermont in the '70s and '80s. But those efforts were more scattershot efforts at survival, and less carefully thought out as to long-term political goals of the participants.
Sucess often breeds imitation. It'll be interesting to see if others attempt something similar: If the FSP porcupines can do it in New Hampshire, we can do it in.... [insert your favourite or worst nightmare as a target goal for various factions or groups here....]
I could imagine some quantity of them the entreprenurial (sp?) but not a large quantity. In the original post, I kinda took it as a short period of time for them to all move, from further reading I understand it is a slow growth situation. Much easier, people relocate and the economy grows with it.
I don't know how many Bill Gates, Clarence Saunders, John Moses Brownings, or Fred Smiths we'd need; and we wouldn't want to be competing against each other in the same fields. But the move is to come within five years of our acquiring 20,000 members; I expect that's going to happen rather quickly, but the FSP projection is for it to take place in about 113.7 weeks, given the past numbers and rate of growth. Note that within a year, we had about 1000 members; 12 months later, 5500.
So for some, it could be in 7 years, give or take a few months, for others- well, they're there already. Pretty soon you'll be seeing a running tally not just of numbers of pledged porcupines, but also of those who've made the move. I expect they'll be a factor in the 2008 election, maybe a major factor.
-archy-/-
You're added, and welcome aboard!
-archy-/-
I checked the figures; 154 Porcupines resident in NH at present. We'll see how long it takes for that number to double to 300.
-archy-/-
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