Union Leader Editorial About “Free Staters”

January 13, 2013 by Ian
Filed under: New Hampshire, News, Police, Update, Your Evolution

The Union Leader has editorialized about the Free State Project and voluntaryists. They get it wrong about voluntarists, claiming that a voluntarist’s belief is that even the existence of prisons is a violation of our rights. That’s not at all the position of voluntarism. Voluntarism merely states that all human interaction should be voluntary. As a voluntarist, I have no problem with the idea of locking away truly dangerous people. I DO have a problem with locking up peaceful people.

Most of the rest of the editorial favors the Free State Project:

In 2001, some libertarians thought they could secure the maximum amount of personal liberty for themselves if they convinced like-minded people to move en masse to one state. They chose New Hampshire for the combination of its “Live free or die” ethos and its small size. Their goal was to have 20,000 people move here, a state with 1.3 million people, making them a whopping 1.5 percent of the population. In 11 years, about 1,000 have come. At this rate, they will reach their goal in 220 years.

And yet this movement is what some on New Hampshire’s far left consider an existential threat. Last month, Democratic state Rep. Cynthia Chase of Keene posted this comment on the liberal blog BlueHampshire: “In the opinion of this Democrat, Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today. There is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal. In this country you can move anywhere you choose and they have that same right. What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave. One way is to pass measures that will restrict the ‘freedoms’ that they think they will find here….”

Had the comment not come from an elected state representative, it would be laughable. But when a member of the majority party in the House of Representatives openly advocates restricting personal freedoms for the purposes of molding the electorate to her liking, alarm bells ought to ring.

As demonstrated last week, some Free Staters are indeed radical. Local radio host Rich Girard included a Manchester Free Stater and city police Officer Dan Dougherty, who was shot multiple times while pursuing a suspect, in an online poll asking listeners who should be the person of the year. Some people identifying themselves as Free Staters said vile things about Officer Doughtery in particular and police officers in general.

It is true that some in the Free State movement consider themselves “voluntaryists,” not libertarians. They believe that even the existence of police officers and prisons is a violation of their rights. But in our experience over the last decade, they are not representative of the movement as a whole (though they are very vocal in Keene, home of Rep. Chase, which might give her a skewed view of the entire movement).

To think that these few misguided souls are a grave threat to the State of New Hampshire is silly.

A much greater threat lies in the dictatorial impulses of legislators who find it permissible to reshape the electorate in their favor through the selective dismemberment of our liberties.

Keith Smith

The editorial is a little biased against liberty. Though, it is mostly right. While it may be a little off about Keene, there has been quite a lot of well published activism in Keene that was off putting to quite a few people. That’s especially true because of the negative spin some statist in the media put on the activism in Keene. It’s up to the activists in Keene to think about their activism before they do it. In fact, there has been some negative activism, like trying to bully a crossing guard that was only promoted by Keene folks. If they wouldn’t have promoted their negative activism, people wouldn’t have even known about it.

The editorial is clearly coming from a friendly source. The opinion is worth considering.
- davidinkeene
  
  You complain about “statist negative spin” and then proceed to speak a falsehood regarding the crossing guard : No one “bullied” a crossing guard.. and that is not a opinion..thats a fact
- Keith Smith
  
  Fair enough comment
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MaineShark

Ian, locking up /anyone/ – violent or dangerous or not – is a violation of his rights. It treats him as an animal. If he’s truly irredeemably dangerous, just kill him and have done. Killing someone /might/ be neccessary. Locking him in a cage is just a sick revenge fantasy, and is a degradation of humanity. There is no one so depraved as to deserve that sort of treatment.
- Joseph Nabors
  
  And just how many would-be inmates have you killed in order to save them from being subject to the degradation of sick revenge fantasies? You talk a good game, but you’re too busy listening to the sound of your own keyboard to actually live your own life according to the principles by which you criticize others. You ought to put up or shut up (and I recommend shutting up).
- MaineShark
  
  I carry a gun every day. I’ve had to use it, when some nutcase attempted to carjack me.
  
  I live my life in exact accordance with my principles.
- Pablo
  
  Ok…I see….no one should be locked up….how about someone who is constantly burglarizing businesses to support his drug habit? Should he not be locked up and allowed some sort of rehab treatment while he is a prisoner in the hopes of rehabilitation? According to what you say, I get the impression that there should be no incarceration and that the person should either be allowed to carry on as he is, or be killed?
- PabloKOh
  
  My mind is running thinking up ways to keep people and businesses safe from this soul without incarceration. Pay him to go to in-treatment counseling rehab and education. Tracking his form of transportation and alerting nearby people. Facial recognition software used in stores to alert business owners. Anyone else have a good idea that could work in a voluntary fashion?
- Pablo
  
  Some of the things you suggest may be workable for some, except for the truly incorrigible and corrupt. I believe that some of these things are already being used in some areas such as ankle bracelets to supervise some while under arrest for certain types of crime….such as threatening or harassing people…in order to keep them at home instead of in prison. But I don’t see how it is possible for a society to function in a manner that the citizens feel safe without locking certain people up in mental health or prison facilities….granted there has to be a movement toward more humane and fair treatment of people in these areas….and granted…there are many in there that shouldn’t be…but simply closing them is certainly not the answer. Legalizing drugs may go a long way to help…legalizing pot would be a good place to start….and a lot of lesser crimes such as shop lifting and non payment of fines and a whole list of other relatively petty things should not result in a jail sentence.
- MaineShark
  
  And clearly, locking him in a cage to be brutalized on a daily basis is going to stop that?
  
  Personally, I don’t consider torture and oppression to be worthwhile responses to burglary. I certainly didn’t seek to do something like that to the folks who burglarized my last house – I have to be able to look myself in the mirror every day, and I sure couldn’t do so if I committed such a petty and egregious over-reaction to the lose of a few thousand dollars in possessions.
- Pablo
  
  I suppose we should open up the prisons and let them all out the front gate….perhaps shooting the violent offenders on the way out…and the rest will be free to pillage, vandalize and steal to their hearts content? You make no sense man. I don’t think that there is anything left for you and I to discuss on these matters. BTW Is your home painted black and white? Do you dress in black? Have a good life buddy.
- MaineShark
  
  The US imprisons a larger percentage of its population than even the most totalitarian dictators in history. More than Stalin. More than Pol Pot. The absolute most.
  
  How’s that done for the crime rate, here, exactly? Your theory that treating people like animals will somehow make them better neighbors doesn’t seem to be supported by the actual facts of actual reality.
  
  Not that it matters; even if it made them into model citizens, it would still be wrong to act like that, just as it would be wrong to repeal the Fourth Amendment, no matter how much being able to avoid those pesky warrants might make it easier for the cops whom you love so much…
simplulo

It’s amazing how poorly conservatives, progressives, and libertarians understand each other, let alone their various subtypes, but progressives are measurably less understanding than the others. Read the section titled “Crossing the Divide” in this interview with Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind: http://reason.com/archives/2012/04/10/born-this-way/2