[Dialup Llama]

Why did they not pick one of the western mountain states where the fictional Galts Gultch was located? Did they fear the state would get 'discovered' by fleeing Californians and the Free Staters would get swamped by even more arriving lefties?

[archy]

Why did they not pick one of the western mountain states where the fictional Galts Gultch was located? Did they fear the state would get 'discovered' by fleeing Californians and the Free Staters would get swamped by even more arriving lefties?

There's still an ongoing *Montana project* taking place on a much smaller scale. And something similar is under consideration for a three county-area of Texas, a beginning, at least.

Not all the Porcupine eggs are in one basket.

-archy-/-

[Jack Black]

It is interesting. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th place finishers were Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. This is the problem with the voting method chosen. I run off would have been better, where the top few states run off. As it is I suspect that many more FSPers wanted to live in the intermountain west, but did not agree on which specific state. East Coasters rallied around the only plausible candidate state, so now we're moving to New Hampshire.

That's unfortunate. I do think the East is inherently way less free than the west. Try driving out to the desert to plink with you .308 in New Hampshire. On the other hand due to crippling taxes and regulations it is probably true that East Coasters *NEED* a Free State more than Westerners do, where freedom continues to exist to some degree in many states, even nominally liberal ones like Oregon have CCW, strong first ammendment protections, etc. Washington and Wyoming have no state income tax.

The net result of the New Hampshire vote will be that the FSP will tend to become an "east coast" movement, with more new members coming from the socialist hell holes near by. In terms of the project goals this could be ideal. It means that, if successful, their will be this island of sanity surrounded by authoritariand socialist states (some of which will be in dire shape like New York and Cali are).

I think perhaps a unitended consequence of this is that Wyoming, by finishing second, becomes the unofficial Western Free State. And this could become official at any time if others pick up where the vote has left us off.