Libertarians Look for a State to Call Their Own. (Free State Project)

The Everett Herald (WA) | 2/23/2003 | reprint from the Baltimore Sun

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Plans are under way for an invasion of New Hampshire. Or Wyoming. Or maybe Delaware, Montana or Alaska. Sparsely populated and independent in spirit, they're all attractive targets for a certain bloodless coup in the making.

Within the next several years, according to the plan, 20,000 Libertarians would move to a single state and begin infiltrating. They'd get jobs, join civic groups, get elected and take a hatchet to taxes and laws. In this utopia called the Free State Project, schools would be severed from the state, gun-control laws abolished, drugs legalized, health and social services privatized, and most federal aid rejected. Government's only job would be to protect against "force and fraud."

[Cultural Jihad]

I just can't get enough of this picture. Always makes me laugh out loud<.I>

Stan needs to consult with a professional color co-ordinator. He should always wear complimentary colors to his natural blue tint, such as an orange suit, or a deep red shirt. Additionally, an acting coach might be useful so that he can appear more animated and lifelike, so as to not scare children or dogs needlessly.

[Catspaw]

LOL! The Schmoos were tasty morsels! They taste like chicken...or ham...or ribeye....

[Dead Corpse]

I see where you are going with this. No. There would be no direct seizure of publicly held assets.

If you buy into a house/business, you'd also buy into the infrastructure. Direct payment for upkeep and usage instead of umpteen layers of government beuracracy. If one company fails to provide value for service, you either start your own company or contract with another company. Kinda hard to contract with a different government when the one you have is more intent on wasting your money than giving you good value for the dollar.

[tpaine]

Protagoras:
"He is the email alert custodian"


We've advanced far beyond that, now we just use telepathy to manage our conspiracy.
-roscoe-


I'm back to favoring the laughably evil 'mojo' type posting FReak;
- hunched over a group of computers, each with a different persona, cackling madly as he spreads disruption over his hated enemies. - Who are:

- Real conservatives of every stripe, gathered at FR to discuss the news of the day.

[Catspaw]

What happens to the public roads? The ones that actually exist.

Well, if the Libertarians can suspend the Constitution and move to "Superior," I can attest to the state of the roads in the former UP, northern Wisconsin & parts of Minnesota. If I were to move there, the first thing I'd do would be to set up a comprehensive vehicle repair shop, doing everything from suspension to alignment to tires to auto glass to headlight replacement. The second thing I'd do is get a fleet of snow plows. I'd be rich beyond measure.

[Catspaw]

Do you think Stan is a "winter?"

[Cultural Jihad]

Do you think Stan is a "winter?"

He certainly looks frost-bitten.

[Roscoe]

There would be no direct seizure of publicly held assets.

Is that what the proponents say? The Libertarians I see here on FR usually claim that society has no rights.

[Dead Corpse]

How do figure we'd "suspend the Constitution"?

You mean we no longer have freedom to travel, to move to whereever we can afford to? To participate in local and State politics?

As for running road services...
The LP's take.

Another article from Mises.org.

Yes. You COULD make a fortune. Provided you can give good value for the dollar.

[Roscoe]

And you could use their whiskers as toothpicks afterwards.

[Catspaw]

Well, gee, Dead, if one wants to make a new state out of the UP of Michigan, one runs into direct conflict with Article IV, Section 3. How do you propose to get around Article IV, Section 3 of the United States Constitution to achieve forming a new state out of an existing state?

Strict Constitutionalists like yourself should have the answer at the tip of your fingers.

[Dead Corpse]

The "commune" you love so much has no Rights. Only the individuals who make up any group of people can have Rights.

Do they not deserve some recompense for having had to be forced at gun point to pay for "public" projects? Even if that money is paid to the local "government" to be redistributed back out amongst tax-payers, it should still be paid by whoever is going to be maintaining/building/upgrading those formerly "public" services.

TANSTAAFL applies even MORE to libertarians than it does to collectivist governments. Or do you think CARA land grabs are a good thing?

[ActionNewsBill]

You do know what that says, don't you?

I had to look it up.

Section 3. New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

It appears that the only difference between new states admitted and new states formed is that consent from the individual states must be obtained also in the latter case

[Catspaw]

And you're going to get the majority of the legislatures of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota to do so? Good luck.

Well, in Michigan's case, they'd probably be glad to get rid of the UP, which has the heaviest concentraion of welfare cases in the state. I'd say good riddance, wouldn't you?

[Dead Corpse]

So you assert that the Free State Project would form a completely New State? You obviously had the same reading teacher Roscoe did.

How is moving into an existing State creating a New State?

[Roscoe]

The "commune" you love so much has no Rights.

The state of Michigan is a "commune"?

[Protagoras]

We've advanced far beyond that, now we just use telepathy to manage our conspiracy. -roscoe-

Make note of the lack of denial.

[ActionNewsBill]

You do know what that says, don't you?

I had to look it up.

Section 3. New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state; nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, or parts of states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned as well as of the Congress.

It appears that the only difference between new states admitted and new states formed is that consent from the individual states must be obtained also in the latter case

[Catspaw]

I didn't assert a thing--I suggested the Free Staters move to the UP. ActionNewsBill brought the once-proposed state of "Superior." You must really keep up on these threads.

[Roscoe]

And we use mind control beams on the Moderators.