From the NH Free Press’ Kat Kanning, a more detailed story covering the Free State Project reaching 10,000 signers, complete with several reasons liberty activists made the move NH:
Ten thousand people have now signed up with the Free State Project to move to New Hampshire – halfway to the group’s goal of 20,000. I am one of the approximately 1000 people who have already made the move. It’s been over 5 years since I packed up one daughter, one cat and a truckload of stuff to drive from Texas to New Hampshire. Since then my life’s been turned upside down. I now run a newspaper, I’ve been arrested three times, and I don’t think twice about waving a sign on a street corner.
There are a few main areas where people have chosen to move, but there are freestaters scattered all over the New Hampshire. Concentrations are in Manchester, Concord, Keene, the seacoast and Grafton. Keene has become the focus of Voluntaryist action, from civil disobedience to filming bureaucrats in their misdeeds. Manchester houses more of the political activists who work toward getting freedom-minded candidates into office and enacting pro-liberty legislation. Grafton was the site of the Free Town Project and now has the highest concentration of freestaters in any one town.
It is common to receive a message that someone is moving in. Twenty or so freestaters will show up on the fly to move the new person in to their new home. It always turns into a party. The going price for this service is lunch, or dinner…whatever time it happens to be. The porcupine movers are exceptionally efficient after performing so many moves. With so many people, it’s rarely hard work.
There’s a community here that most geeky libertarians have never experienced before. Most will tell you that they felt isolated before “making the move”. Now, they have a choice of activities with like-minded people most days of the week. There is Social Sundays in Keene, Taproom Tuesday in Manchester, and various other meetings that happen on a less than weekly basis. People interested in politics can join up with the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance and attempt to effect state legislation. At 4:20 on any particular day there might be a open demonstration of marijuana use in defiance of unjust law. Often there are court cases where activists attempt to gain justice through the court system. On Sundays there is “gun church” where guys fire off a bunch of rounds for target practice.
Besides the activism, freestaters have banded together for various business purposes. This newspaper is funded by mainly freestater donations. There are a few regular businesses that have been started up by porcupines, such as Murphy’s Taproom in Manchester, and Manchester Brewing in Concord. It’s fairly common for freestaters to hire other freestaters for building or remodeling. Mark Edge of Free Talk Live had his home built entirely by freestaters. “Barnraising” type activities are fairly common.
Another common occurrence is to receive a message that someone is being stopped by police, or someone has been arrested. The Porc 411 phone system, set up by freestater Michael Hampton, is used to get messages quickly out to everyone signed up with the system. Many people when stopped by police will record the interaction by making a phone call to Porc 411. Porc 411calls are emailed out to system subscribers. People can then react quickly for emergency situations, like an arrest, or get to an event, like an unplanned protest or a move in request.
Besides protesting and politicking, another way that freestaters have attempted to gain more freedom in New Hampshire is by creating liberty oriented media. The nationally syndicated talk show Free Talk Live relocated to Keene with the Free State Project. The New Hampshire Free Press has attempted to get liberty oriented ideas out in print. Internet news outlets such at the Ridley Report have become popular. The Ridley Report is a video news feed put out on YouTube and other outlets. Many text and audio blogs also attempt to get out the message of liberty.
What causes otherwise normal people to pack up and move in the hopes of attaining more freedom? Here are some responses from other Freestaters.
Kat Kanning: I watched what happened at Waco – the government coming into a church and killing off everyone, even the children. I even went there and saw where the tanks had run over the little children’s bicycles. It was so horrible, I felt I had to do something, even if it might be futile, even if I might do the wrong thing, I’d have at least tried to stop the tyranny.
Jeremy Olson: What finally prompted me to actually move was Massachusetts passing a compulsory health care law.
George Wilson: I had worked with a few other organizations in the past trying to do the same sort of thing, uniting the various liberty factions, but we had never tried moving people to one place and focusing the effort, and the idea seemed sound to me. My core reason for doing all of this is my daughter. I want her to grow up in a better world than I have. What sort of father would I be if I didn’t try to give my daughter something better?
Mike Tiner: I first learned about the FSP in Jan 08 by reading an interview discussing anarchocapitalism on Tech Central Station. My first impression was “Holy crap! What a great idea. I’m in.” After coming across a video link in the NH Free Press and watching David Krouse’s case in front of Judge Burke, as soon as I heard him say “as an act of civil disobedience I am refusing to pay the fine” (for expired tags) I was sold. I went to Manchester last April without signing the statement of intent, never read the forum, never watched a Ridley Report. Family issues brought me back to Detroit a few weeks later and I should have been back months ago. I’ll be returning for good soon, and I believe the FSP will truly become a part of history. After discovering the forum and the Ridley reports last August, I watched Lauren’s eminent domain video and Russell’s day with Burke. If I had any reservations about moving to NH for good (I didn’t), those would have closed the deal. The project itself is a great idea and I can’t wait to thank Jason personally, but what the first 1000 movers do (especially on video) will be the recruitment tool that will change the world. There is no way this can fail. Free Stater’s are too committed to this cause.
David Krouse: The war in Iraq, and the obscenity known as New London eminent domain.
Geoff Baxter: I was in the military, got out and let my wife move us to NJ. Then I wanted an air rifle, and found out that for any gun, air rifle, or even slingshot, or to buy ammo for any of those you have to go through a 3 month waiting period/backround check to get licensed. And it just so happens that guns are my “pet” issue. That was my reason for joining.
Sandy: Iraq War #1 was what pushed me over the edge to start publicly identifying as a L/libertarian. Before it started, I really didn’t think it would happen. I didn’t believe my country would start a war for oil. I was wrong. I marched in the streets of San Francisco with tens of thousands of other people, to send a message to my “representative govt”, and it completely ignored me and went ahead and incinerated a bunch of brown people. As far as the FSP, it was love at first sight for me. I joined on the spot, prior to the state vote, opting out of no states. I flew to New Hampshire for an exploratory visit a month after the vote. I moved as soon as I could (which was over 4 years ago now).
Nick Ryder I’d been following and agreeing with you people for a while via FTL and the forums. Even though I worked on FMTV at that point, I still was content to sit back and let you guys do the fighting. However, an incident where I was harassed in MA by some cops re-invigorated me to start going to Social Sundays again (they were at the Colony Mill at that point. Met David K for the first time then) and become as active as I am today.
Rich Angell: I was a mainstream Republican type until 1990. That’s when I fully woke up to the circumcision issue. I wondered what else was going on that isn’t covered by the media, what else were my parents wrong about, what else are the medicos doing that is harmful, what else do we Americans do that we take for granted that others see as barbaric, what kind of country was I defending when I joined the Marines, where was God when this happened to me, is there a God?, why didn’t my religion (Christian Science) take a stand against it… And so my paradigm began to unravel, ultimately leading me to libertarianism and the FSP.
Kate Mueller: I didn’t have a line in the sand moment. I have slowly been heading down a path of personal responsibility and financial freedom for over twenty years now. When I found out about the FSP in 2002 I didn’t really care which state would be chosen. I figured moving because of the quality of the people and type of lifestyle would be a much better fit than moving somewhere for work or family. Moving here was the best decisions I have ever made.
Slim: Lots of things led up to my joining the FSP but the straw that broke the camels back was the smoking ban in NY and realizing that nothing short of a act of god would turn it around. Ruby ridge and Waco was really a wake up also the Oklahoma city bombing gave me more questions then answers (at that time I could have went down the conspiracy rabbit hole, I am glad I did not).
Patty Lee: May have been primed for awareness seeing my grandmother pursue books with titles such as “The Road to Serfdom”. Other family thought she was a little crazy but now she is known as a prophet. Watching the communist threat come not from the Soviet threat of the 1960’s but rather from DC. I could never adapt to the mounting struggles imposed by so much government against my otherwise productive and hopeful adulthood: Stunning escalation of of taxes; IRS confiscation of properties (including a horse farm my horse lived at). Regulatory mandated loss of national prosperity and robbed opportunities for the nations youth increased over many years. Feeling personally frustrated that no matter how hard I worked, through my younger years or how ambitious I was; the authoritarian system was rigged against any progress. Incurring a $10,000.00 self employment tax, impoverishing IRS payments. Noting betrayal from the cumulative legislation passed serving special interest; individuals sacrificed. Institutional ghettos of quasi-medical welfare/ military industrial machines feeding off of private ownership and further funded at the expense of future generations. Sound practice addressing human needs outside of govt. system made illegal. Something “clicked” me to radical watching 93 Waco. Before the military raid, I read this article in the Dallas Morning News about this shadowy group, the Branch Davidians. Then a 3 month military occupation of this part of Waco, TX. The sick feeling in my gut listening to the car radio broadcast foreboding the final military assault on these people and watching within this 24 hour period a remote broadcast of a murderous conflagration consuming 74 people, some of which were children. The feds launching from a tank, gas canisters creating the big fire; destruction of evidence. The local firetruck was not allowed in the “compound”.Discovering the gas used. Fed denial. Media cover up. Bring that along with the neocon/ DEM wars; aide to foreign dictators = Dalfur atrocities. Growth of feds used locally. Expansion of penal colonies; a cancer of corrupt “law” enforcement growth; the jailing of peaceful misfits. Meeting like minds through Libertarian activism, achieving some modest educational goals about the natural rights of a human; historical development of individual liberty. Further inspired, listening to this lady give a speech about the Free State Project at some pancake house in Mesquite TX, maybe about 2005. My fire was set to join the FSP listening to this eloquent speech, her name was Kat Kanning.
Karl Biesel: wrote on the FSP website My decision to make the move was pretty easy. The city in which I lived, Washington, DC, was already a cesspool of corruption and unfreedom. The government’s dysfunctional overreaction in the aftermath of September 11 only worsened the situation – barriers were erected around city parks, SAM sites popped up on the National Mall, machine-gun toting “police men” put everyone in their place at public gatherings. Even that perennial of terrorist targets, the local DMV, had metal detectors and more guards installed. The city, and its surrounding suburbs, had gone mad.
The Ridley Report did a series of interviews on people who had made the move. Here are some of their reasons for moving:
James Schmill: I realized that if I didn’t move up here and try and participate in something that could have real change for more freedoms and more liberties and more in general world happiness, that in the end I would just be beating myself up every day watching awesome videos like Dave Ridley’s Ridley Report. Cause the whole time I was up in Iraq, I was listening to the great stuff that people were doing and seeing the fun that they were having , the progress they were making and it just made me want to come up here and be a part of it that much more.
Lauren Canario: The main trigger was when the Supreme Court ruled against the Kelo homeowners in New London, CT, and said that the city could take away their homes and make a mall out of them. I said “No, that’s really a bad idea.” The Supreme Court had been a nice thing. I liked some of their rulings in the past. But I said, “That does it. I’m not going with the government anymore. I’m going to try and fight to let those people keep their homes. So I moved to CT at that point and since I was close to NH, I said, “Hmmm..I might as well stay out here.”
Cal Pratt: My main interest is in economics. I’ve seen a lot of people including members of my own family suffer because of government interference in our economic life. It has made it more difficult for people to earn a living. So I would have to say commerce and the opportunity to engage in entrepreneurial activity, to be your own boss, those are the kinds of things that are important to me.
Those are just some of the reasons why people are leaving home and family to move cross country to NH. My husband Russell pointed out, “If people are wanting freedom for purely selfish reasons, they would just hide from the government, not move here and work with a bunch of other people, taking risks.” These are people who understood Carl Schurz when he said: “If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.”
