Free State Project President Matt Philips Speaks to Libertarian Party of NH Convention

I interviewed Free State Project president Matt Philips at Anarchapulco on my show Free Talk Live last month and some people didn’t understand it. After all, they say, the FSP kicked me out of their events last year and Matt was on the board of directors. Further, he was one of those who voted I be booted from Porcfest and Liberty Forum, so why should I be so kind as to interview him on my nationally syndicated talk radio show?

On the other hand, a different group of critics say that my recent article about the hypocrisy of the Free State Project board regarding their selection of John McAfee as the headliner for Porcfest is proof that I’m holding a grudge over being booted from their events.

Both groups are upset – the people who hate the FSP and the people who blindly carry water for the FSP. So, why would I give the FSP free publicity but also criticize them?

Uh, that’s what I’ve always done. For long before I (and my show) was kicked out of the FSP events I had held their feet to the fire on a multitude of occasions when I though their board made an ill-advised or hypocritical decision. The Snowden recording controversy from 2016 was the most recent one prior to my removal. There were other instances, but a review of the “Free State Project” category on this site reveals what the bulk of my posts have been – puff pieces for the FSP, for more than a decade.

Most of the time, the FSP is doing good work – encouraging liberty people to move to New Hampshire and get active. Every now and then their board will do something dumb and they’ve been called on it by me, other Free Keene bloggers, or a fellow Free Talk Live talk show host. I don’t take what they did to me personally and I don’t hold a grudge. I do allocate my airtime mostly to promoting the Shire Society rather than the FSP, as I believe it to be a superior migration movement since it’s decentralized and has no board, but on my radio show when we are discussing why people are moving to New Hampshire, I still mention the FSP as one of the active migrations here.

If I were holding a grudge, why did I interview FSP president Matt Philips at Anarchapulco about what the FSP has been up to since they reached their goal of 20,000 participants? Regardless of the haters, the FSP and the Shire Society are competing towards recruiting libertarians, voluntarists, and liberty-loving anarchists to uproot their lives and move to New Hampshire. I’m not letting some petty haters within the liberty community get in the way of that goal, which I still share with the FSP.

Further, practicing forgiveness doesn’t mean avoiding holding the forgiven accountable in the future. With only love in my heart, here’s the video of FSP president Matt Philips addressing the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire‘s 2017 convention in Concord: