The successes of the freedom migration to New Hampshire keep piling up. So much that our statist opponents cannot ignore or laugh at us anymore. Their posts on social media are a constant stream of frustration at their failures to impose more tyranny on the Granite State. Recently, leftist group “Granite State Matters” posted, “FREE STATERS plotted to invade and take over NH two decades ago. Their plan is working.”, when announcing a podcast episode about it. This, not long after the Hillsborough Democrats gave a 90-minute infomercial about the amazing success of the Free State Project and the various organizations libertarians have started or engaged with here in New Hampshire. There are a lot more such caterwauling posts from the statists than I can put here. To see it all, I recommend following @FreeStateNH on Twitter.
Granite State Matters is right. The Free Staters’ plan is working. It’s actually been working for quite a while, but since COVID happened the migration has kicked into overdrive as libertarians, voluntarists, and liberty-loving anarchists have begun moving here sooner and faster, thanks to state governments becoming super-tyrannical virtually overnight.
Concentrating liberty activists in one small, low-population state is effective. The Free State Project is no pie-in-the-sky, fanciful idea. It’s a real movement with nearly two-decades under its belt. It’s a proven success. Anyone paying attention knows the freedom migration to NH has had more wins in 15 years than the entire Libertarian Party has nationally in 50 years.
It’s no surprise that with the world’s largest concentration of libertarians on the planet, New Hampshire is the freest place in all of North America, and arguably the entire world. Indeed, recently released studies from CATO and the Frasier Institute bear this out with hard numbers and research.
NH #1 in 2021 “Freedom In the 50 States” Study
CATO’s study, Freedom in the 50 States, looks at both economic and personal freedoms in multiple categories, coming up with rankings for each category and the overall score. Overall, New Hampshire has reclaimed the number one spot, defeating Florida, which had somehow snagged the top slot from NH in the 2020 rankings. Though the study is released in 2021, anything that actually happened in 2020 and 2021 are not factored into the study as it takes time to gather the statistics. The study’s authors point out in their NH analysis that New Hampshire had some major advances in freedom in 2021, like Education Savings Accounts, and lowering and eliminating taxes, and they expect NH to put some distance between it and #2 Florida in the coming years. These advances are largely due to the dozens of Free Staters who have been elected to the state house and the tireless efforts of groups like the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance.
Not only did New Hampshire beat Florida in the CATO study, but in the 2021 Economic Freedom of North America study by the Frazier Institute – with data from 2019 – NH again took the top spot, beating #2 Florida when all US states, Canadian provinces, and Mexican states were considered. New Hampshire also took number one in their separate ranking looking at just state and local laws affecting freedom, with Tennessee taking the #2 spot there and Florida dropping to #3. The difference in the results are that the overall North America freedom rankings factors in Federal government restrictions and the rankings of just the states ignores Federal controls. New Hampshire wins in both rundowns!
We’ll even help you move-in!
Finally, thanks to the Free State Project‘s newsletter for pointing this one out, the “Taxpayer Return-on-Investment” rankings from Wallethub for 2021 show New Hampshire as the number one state, meaning not only do its inhabitants have an overall low tax burden, but that its government “services” are relatively high quality considering their low cost.
As the numbers of liberty migrants to NH continue to grow, it will get harder for the little tyrants to have any success expanding the state. They will continue to be frustrated and eventually, they’ll quit, as many already have. They they will leave New Hampshire for places where their meddling ways are common and welcome, like Massachusetts and New York. New York, by the way, is number 50 in both the Frazier and CATO studies. Libertarians who want a better life instantly and who are willing to work towards more freedom should move to New Hampshire as soon as possible. Here are 101 reasons why you should.
Don’t be fooled. Florida is not going to get more free and libertarians there have zero influence. Florida a police state. If you’re a conservative, move to Florida or Texas. If you’re a liberal, move to California or the other West Coast states. If you love liberty, there’s only one place on the planet with the largest and most successful liberty community, and that’s New Hampshire.
Thanks to two heroic state representatives, New Hampshire has now taken the lead nationally in the independence movement. Yesterday, five-term state rep Mike Sylvia filed the text of a constitutional amendment that would, if passed, declare independence from the United States:
“Are you in favor of amending the first part of the New Hampshire Constitution by inserting, after article 7, a new article to read as follows:
[Art.] 7-a. [Independent Nation.] New Hampshire declares itself as independent from the United States and peaceably, immediately proceeds as a sovereign nation. All other references to the United States in this constitution and state statutes and regulations are nullified.”
To pass, it must first receive over 60% of the vote in both the state house and senate. If it does, it will then be placed on the 2022 ballot and then must receive over 2/3rds of the vote to be enacted. If so, it goes into effect immediately. There would be no political games like with United Kingdom’s “Brexit” from the European Union, which took several years to hammer out after the vote. New Hampshire will instantly declare our independence and nullify all standing agreements with the federal government gang. Compare this to the thus-far unsuccessful attempts in other US states.
In recent years, secession movements around the country have sprung up and made headlines in California and Texas, but with very little legislative support. In Texas, a state rep filed a bill this year that if passed, would merely have placed a non-binding referendum on the ballot for Texas voters to register their opinion on whether the Texas legislature should begin an arduous process of figuring out how to leave the United States. This bill’s filing resulted in plenty of media coverage and discussion, however, it died before even receiving a committee hearing. A key reason that New Hampshire was chosen as the destination for the Free State Project is that EVERY bill gets a public committee hearing, no matter how much support it has from the state reps. Most states are like Texas, where it’s a political game whether a bill even gets a hearing.
New Hampshire Independence
In California, a left-leaning group called “Yes California” has been trying for years to get an independence question on the ballot by gathering the hundreds-of-thousands of required signatures. If passed, the measure would require the legislature to declare independence from the US and become its own republic. So far, they have been unsuccessful despite garnering significant media coverage. Currently their website is offline, though their Twitter is still active. Even if they do get the question on the ballot and it passes, they may not survive the inevitable court challenge given the CA state constitution provides that California, “is an inseparable part of the United States of America.”
While I want to see both Texas and California exit the United States, it’s clear that with the filing of this constitutional amendment bill – called in NH a “CACR” or, “Constitutional Amendment Concurrent Resolution” – that New Hampshire has taken the clear lead in the race to see who will leave the union first. Plus, unlike California, the NH constitution clearly protects the “Right of Revolution” in Article 10 and “State Sovereignty” in Article 7 of the NH Bill of Rights.
Representative Sylvia, in an exclusive interview with Free Keene, had this to say on why he filed the proposed amendment, “The people of America have forgotten their history, if we take the time to look at our roots we can see that our constitutions have received ‘lip service’ for far too long. While I can not change the direction of the federal government, I can hold up the New Hampshire constitution and demand that we honor its clear directives. Article 10 reads in part, ‘whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government.'”
The 2018 liberty “Legislator of the Year” representative Sylvia is joined by freshman state rep from the Keene area, Matt Santonastaso as the co-sponsor of the amendment. Other state reps have been approached and have expressed support and a full list will be released when the amendment is assigned a CACR number and moves onto a committee.
NH Independence NOW!
The process is just beginning, with Sylvia submitting the proposed text to NH Legislative Services on Monday. It may take several weeks for them to officially draft the CACR and send it back to Sylvia for final approval. It then is assigned to a committee which will then hold a public hearing sometime in early 2022. What happens from there is up to the committee and will largely depend on how much public support the amendment receives at its hearing.
Even if it doesn’t pass this time, it will get many conversations started about the evil federal government and why peacefully declaring independence is the best solution. Minds will be persuaded and changed. Many media and political attacks will be brought against us, as the power-seekers will be desperate to keep the status quo. Potential migrants to New Hampshire will be energized and make-the-move.
To help the movement, you can contact your local state reps in support of the amendment, connect with other supporters online, and more. Visit the “How You Can Help” page on NHexit.us for a full list of ideas.
As was the case with my bail conditions, the federal “magistrate judge” denied Nobody’s bail initially and the defense had to appeal that “de novo” to the actual judge in the case, Joseph Normand Laplante. Laplante also happens to be the chief judge for the entire Federal District Church Court. Thus far Laplante has been much more reasonable than the magistrates, though the bail restrictions on the Crypto Six have varied wildly.
For instance, Aria DiMezzo is highly restricted on what websites she can visit and must ask permission from her probation officer to go to any sites that are outside her limited “whitelist”. However she has no restrictions on drug use. In contrast, I am able to go to any website except for sites for buying, selling, and trading cryptocurrency, am on home confinement, and am subject to random drug testing. I am allowed to use alcohol, though I prefer not to.
No co-defendants are allowed to speak with each other, though after filing motions with the court to remove the contact restriction between us, Aria and I were granted an exception by Laplante for the purposes of being able to perform and run our nationally syndicated radio show, “Free Talk Live“. I have a long list of people in addition to my co-defendants with whom I am prohibited from speaking. This includes my longtime co-host and co-minister in the Shire Free Church, Mark Edgington. As part of his bail, Nobody is also prohibited from speaking with the same list of people. Aria has no such restriction.
The BEARCAT bashed in Nobody’s front door.
At the de novo bail hearing, unlike the magistrate, Laplante didn’t seem concerned with Nobody’s statements on the recorded jail phone that seemed to be in favor of shooting police. He agreed with the defense that Nobody’s comments were just blowing off steam as Nobody was frustrated by the outrageous arrest and subsequent caging. Despite Laplante’s voiced opinion about Nobody’s lack of dangerousness, in a frustrating concession to the prosecution, he has restricted Nobody’s freedom of speech and prohibited him from making any public statements on media or at protest events. Here’s the relevant portion from page six of Nobody’s bail conditions:
Defendant shall refrain from the use of any social media platform to make any publicly viewable posts…
Defendant shall refrain from public speaking engagements on radio, television, or podcasts, and shall also refrain from “taking the mic” at public rallies or public events.
Federal District Church Court
It was stated during the bail hearing that the concern was not that Nobody himself would commit violence but that he might influence listeners or followers to do so. So now he has no freedom of speech. This despite an accused person supposedly being allowed to be “at liberty” prior to trial. Does the first amendment not apply to people on bail? Strangely, he had more free speech inside the cage at the Merrimack County Spiritual Retreat where he was held the last several months. Nobody could, and did, call in to Free Talk Live on more than one occasion – so long as Aria or I were not on the show. Now he is specifically prohibited from any audio or tv appearances. He had also, while in jail, begun a newsletter for his church. Will he even be able to continue it?
Arguably, the restrictions as-written don’t prohibit his newsletter or perhaps even blogging. However I wouldn’t blame him if he chose not to rather than risk a post to Free Keene being considered “social media”, violating bail and getting locked back up. Hopefully his attorneys will be fighting to get his right to free speech respected again. On the positive side, he’s not restricted on travel and can leave his home without permission from his federal handler.
So much for freedom of speech. That said, I’m glad Nobody’s finally out.
I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Simon Wood at New York Magazine for an in-depth feature-length story about The Crypto Six and the migration here to New Hampshire and Keene as the Mecca for cryptocurrency users.
The attack on the Crypto Six is more evidence that the libertarian migration to New Hampshire is a clear threat to the status quo. First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. We’re solidly in the “fight you” phase. The Verge feature will hopefully raise awareness of the ongoing attack on liberty-loving activists here in New Hampshire and bring even more people to the front lines of peaceful activism here. It even mentions secession!
