Hypocritical “Free State Project” Quietly Dumps Cody Wilson from Upcoming Convention

UPDATED @ 20:31 Eastern 2018-09-22 – I contacted a source within the FSP about this last night, long before going to press. The takedown was confirmed by the source but they would not speak publicly about it.
UPDATED @ 18:10 Eastern 2018-09-22 – See bottom of story for FSP’s response.

Cody Wilson is a libertarian hero who has made countless international headlines in the last several years, first for releasing plans for the world’s first 3D-printable gun, the “Liberator”. After that, he created the “Ghost Gunner” hardware, which makes machining a gun from scratch almost as easy as pressing “start”. All the while, he has bravely thumbed his nose at the oppressive state and federal governments and recently won a major settlement from the federal government that illegally tried to stop him from engaging in the free speech of sharing his 3d-printable weapon files.

Wilson’s a free speech and gun rights champion, no doubt. No wonder the Free State Project had asked him to speak at their 2019 Liberty Forum convention they’ve held in the wintertime here in New Hampshire for over a decade. It wouldn’t be the first time Wilson’s spoken at the Liberty Forum. Here’s a Forbes article talking about Wilson’s speech from 2014’s Liberty Forum. Here’s a video interview of Wilson at the 2014 Liberty Forum by Free Keene blogger Garret Ean.

Sadly, this week an arrest warrant was issued from Austin, Texas police alleging Wilson had met a sixteen-year-old young lady on a website called SugarDaddyMeet.com, took her to a hotel room, had sex with her, gave her $500, then dropped her off at a Whataburger. In Texas the “age of consent”, is apparently 17, which means they are charging Wilson with felony “sexual assault” for the consensual act he committed with his “victim”.

Within a couple of days, the Free State Project (FSP) quietly removed Wilson’s photo and bio from its place on the front page of their NH Liberty Forum website. Wilson’s photo had occupied the top left speaker’s position on their list of expected speakers. That pretty much means he was their top billed keynote speaker.

Poof! Just like that, he was gone. It’s not the first time they’ve tried to memory hole something – there was also the time when they tried to suppress video of a well-produced awards ceremony from Liberty Forum 2016 featuring me as a recipient.

Oops! Turns out the FSP forgot to cleanse their Twitter of their announcement of Wilson’s speaking gig which I included as the top graphic here, in case they take the tweet down.

The Free State Project used to be the reason many of us libertarians, voluntaryists, and liberty-loving anarchists moved to New Hampshire. They were known for throwing two great yearly events, including the previously mentioned Liberty Forum and the Porcupine Freedom Festival in the summertime. However in recent years, the FSP has taken a strong turn away from the principles of liberty by jettisoning any people they can associate with any uncomfortable ideas of sexual liberation. Namely, the crazy idea that teenagers could possibly make decisions for themselves.

The first indicator of the public shift in the narrative direction of the FSP was the public uproar from some FSP participants regarding New Hampshire State Representative Kyle Tasker who was set up by police for allegedly trying to meet a fourteen-year-old for sex that turned out to be an undercover cop. While the FSP officially didn’t take any public stance, the same prudes within the FSP who later crusaded against me, first turned against Tasker. They targeted anyone who dared stand up and point out that Tasker’s “crime”, even if the allegations were true, didn’t actually involve a victim. In any other circumstance that didn’t involve teenage sex, these ostensible libertarians would have agreed that any accused person should be considered innocent until proven guilty and that the police couldn’t be trusted. Not in Tasker’s case! They threw him to the wolves before he was even arraigned. Tasker was cool with them when he sold them pot and mushrooms, but not after they found out his sexual preferences.

Shortly after Tasker’s arrest, I was banned from the FSP’s two yearly events because I have been open for many years about my libertarian views on “age of consent”. I even had a teenage girlfriend at the time – horrors! Some astute observers thought it was interesting the FSP waited until reaching their goal of 20,000 people pledging to move to New Hampshire, before they kicked me to the curb. I politely resigned from the organization and continued my activism including recruiting liberty-loving people to move to New Hampshire, without joining the Free State Project.

In a bizarre and likely unintended reversal, the FSP then invited John MacAfee to keynote their 2017 Porcfest summer camping festival. Porcfest used to be a blast of an event featuring fun traditions like Buzz’ Big Gay Dance Party until all that ended in 2016, the same year they booted me. To the glee of the haters who had complained to the FSP for years about things like women walking around the campground topless and open cannabis use, the festival was unofficially re-branded as a “family” event. It seemed like a hypocritical decision to make such a fuss over “age of consent” and then invite MacAfee to keynote the “family” event when it’s public knowledge MacAfee had a sixteen-year-old girlfriend when he was in his fifties.

MacAfee curiously canceled his appearance, citing scheduling conflicts.

What must it be like to be the people running the FSP? Surely they are aware of their blatant hypocrisy and pandering to what they think the masses want while all around them their respected libertarian heroes like Wilson turn out to share similar sexual interests. By that I mean the historic tradition of men of all ages being attracted to young women. You know, the way of the world since, oh, at least Jesus’ time. A quick google reveals Mary was no older than fourteen and perhaps as young as twelve when the Christian god decided she was ready to bear his child.

The schism in the FSP ultimately seems to divide the “libertarian” parents who believe their children are their property and those parents who believe their offspring are individuals whose decisions should be respected. The former group appears to be sexually repressed, or perhaps they had a bad sexual encounter with an older person while they were a teen, so they project their experiences and feelings onto every young person.

This group of prudes, for lack of a better term, has always been loudly complaining about the social activism that has happened primarily in Keene, such as the long-controversial topless open carry and Topless Tuesday events, that are now about a decade old but nonetheless live on in their whining about how we’ve “ruined the movement”.

Now their crusade continues as they flush Cody Wilson, the formerly top keynote speaker at the 2019 Liberty Forum, down the memory hole.

All the while, the FSP continues to invite the mother of Ross Ulbricht, Lyn Ulbricht back year after year to speak at FSP events. Ross is the heroic and sadly jailed-for-double-life-plus-forty-years operator of the world’s first underground online drug marketplace, the Silk Road.

The message is clear. The Free State Project is totally cool with embracing two of the most controversial freedoms – the right to self-defense and the right to put whatever chemicals you want in your body. But the right to do what you want with your own body sexually? “WHOA NOW! That’s crazy talk – better disassociate! Issue a statement! No, don’t! Just delete him from the website!”

It’s sad. The FSP board surely know better, don’t they? Why are they and others in this movement so afraid to talk about what non-aggression means when applied to respecting the decisions of ALL individuals, even young people, to do what they want with themselves? How can one possibly claim to support the non-aggression principle and believe in the state’s completely arbitrary and dangerous “age of consent”, which has ruined countless peaceful people’s lives, as it now threatens their now-former hero, Cody Wilson?

No matter that Wilson’s only been charged, not convicted of anything. “Minor detail – kick him aside! No way we’re standing along side that PERVERT! My god, he was attracted to a young woman, that sicko! String him up from a tree – skip the trial! All young women should only have sex with teenage boys so they know how awful the experience is supposed to be!”

The good news is, there are still plenty of real libertarians who have moved to New Hampshire, who are consistent about liberty on all issues, no matter the social costs. We’re not hiding and we’re not ashamed to stand up for the freedoms of all individuals, including the right to emancipation from one’s parents.

Cody Wilson’s still a libertarian hero. The police haven’t alleged he used force against the girl. She wanted a “sugar daddy” and she found one. I doubt he was her first. Wilson is the actual victim in this case. He doesn’t belong in jail for one minute, let alone the maximum twenty years he is facing.

Too bad Wilson didn’t join the NH Freedom Migration and move to New Hampshire. The arbitrary “age of consent” here is sixteen. In Texas the same sexual act that’s legal here could get him decades in prison and and got the US Marshals activated to track him down. All because some politicians in that arbitrary political geographic area decided a sixteen-year-old can’t consent. “Age of consent” laws are insulting to the intelligence of young people and this “sexual assault” where the “victim” is a willing participant is an insult to all victims of REAL sexual assault – where consent is NOT given and force IS used.

Let individuals decide for themselves. That’s the libertarian way. Support for “age of consent” statutes is support of violence against peaceful people. If one supports these laws, one is not a libertarian.

UPDATE 9/22 @ 18:10 Eastern: A few hours after this story ran, The Free State Project has posted a tweet saying: “Cody Wilson (@DefDist) is no longer listed as a speaker for @NHLibertyForum bc recent legal proceedings make it unclear he will be able to attend. Mr. Wilson was invited to speak about the intersection of the first & second amendment and is still welcome to do so. More to come.”