Jeremy Kauffman, LBRY founder, Free State Project board member, husband and father, yesterday joined a two hour conversation with Tim Pool and Ian Crossland. It’s an informative, timely, and freewheeling exchange.
Kauffman did a bang-up job highlighting the already significant impact of liberty-oriented doers in the Free State of New Hampshire and the potential that exists here going forward. He is well-versed, on-point, and approachable, and his message will undoubtedly inspire viewers to visit (perhaps for Liberty Forum) and vote with their feet.
Take a look:
Props to Kauffman for taking the time and to Pool for extending an invite.
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!
Porcupine Day is the day the Free State Project reached its goal of 20,000 signers of their pledge to migrate to New Hampshire as a liberty activist.
The original Porcupine Day was in February 2016, which marked the beginning of the FSP’s five-year-long moving window. February 2021 marks the close of that window. However, the Free State Project will not be shutting down and is instead going to continue recruiting more liberty-minded people to make the move to the Shire.
I attended the event and recorded the various speakers. Four full speeches appear below.
First up, Jeremy Kauffman, the founder of LBRY and current member of the Free State Project’s board of directors made a couple of proposals to those watching.
1. That “Free Stater” should be redefined to mean any libertarians in New Hampshire
2. The FSP should return to being a member-voted board of directors.
Reopen NH founder Andrew Manuse discussed organizing Reopen NH and encouraged more libertarians to follow the tremendously successful example he’s set. Reopen NH – now Rebuild NH – was originally built by a petition and has morphed into an organization that endorses candidates and has organized multiple successful rallies in favor of freedom: (more…)
Good morning from Roger’s Campground! If you’ve been reading Free Keene over the last week you’ve seen some excellent Forkfest/Porcfest video blogs from Derrick J. I’ve been so busy, it’s been hard to find time to do much of anything besides record my daily talk radio show and hang out with people here at Roger’s during Porcfest/Forkfest 2020.
This year, the Free State Project made the wise choice to decentralize the event. Gone are the unpopular vendor fees and any control the FSP had previously taken over the campground as they scaled back Porcfest 2020 to a minimal number of speakers and a geographic area of only the pavilion and bowl area of Roger’s Campground.
Soapbox Idol at Porcfest 2020
A pervasive myth about Porcfest is that it needs big named speakers to attract a large audience. This year proved that is not the case as very few speakers were present and yet the attendance seemed similar to last year, which had way more speakers. One regular vendor said this year was his best year out of the 5-6 he’s done and the Porcfest vendor organizer Shawn Grissom said his sales were on par with last year.
Clearly, Porcfest attendees preferred the hands-off, decentralized method of organizing and this year had a laid back vibe. It was fun to be able to broadcast from the event for the first time in four years. Or, since Porcfest was in a very specific part of the campground this year, was I instead broadcasting instead from Forkfest?
Some, like Free Keene’s Derrick J Freeman, say that Forkfest 2020 began on June 22nd this year, instead of the popularly promoted June 29th. His rationale was that Forkfest was originally created to protest Porcfest’s organizational missteps and he felt that with the decentralization this year that Porcfest had returned to its optimal form, so he and Steven Zeiler of Anypay announced they’d be having their annual dance party on June 26th during the Porcfest week of Forkfest.
Space Disco @ Forkfest 2020
However, that’s just his opinion. Forkfest is a totally decentralized libertarian camping festival. There are no organizers and no board of directors. Not everyone agrees that Forkfest started on June 22nd. Others believe it is starting today, June 29th. Originally, those who attended in 2019 had no idea that Porcfest would be decentralizing control of their event, so Forkfesters were expecting that Forkfest would be a separate week entirely and had come to some level of consensus that the forked event should happen the week after Porcfest in 2020 instead of the week before, which is how it had been done since its premiere in 2017.
The FSP made their decentralization plans for Porcfest known in mid-May, only several weeks in advance of the two events. As a result, some people – me included – decided that Forkfest is now a two-week long event and Porcfest is an event that happens during the first week. Longtime attendee Jay Noone has collectively called both events the “New Hampshire Freedom Festival”. Admittedly, the range of opinions has created some confusion, but regardless a good time is likely to be had whether you attend one week or both or part of each. You decide what defines Forkfest.
Forkfest 2020 Early Tent Party
Is two weeks too much for most people? Probably, based on the large number of people who left the park Sunday June 28th, which was the final day of Porcfest. However, other people are just showing up now for what they planned was going to be the only week of Forkfest 2020, June 29th through July 5th.
Sunday evening/night had some new arrivals join us for lots of hanging out with dozens still present on the campground as well as multiple venues staying open including a few food vendors and Colin’s large party tent which featured a bar and busy poker table. We’ll see how the rest of the week pans out for the fourth-annual Forkfest as it builds towards a hopefully epic Saturday night on Independence Day which will feature both a fireworks show and a concert featuring a new band, “FUD”, featuring Aria DiMezzo, Captain Kickass, and Michael Gordon.
Early 2nd Week Forkfest 2020 Hangout
It’s too early to say what’s going to happen and we have no ticket sales from which to base any expectations, as Forkfest has no tickets. To attend, you just come to Roger’s Campground during the appropriate dates and connect with other freedom-loving folks. You can also create whatever event you’d like to have people attend. The experience you have at Forkfest is up to you. You can learn more about the event and get connected with other attendees via the Telegram chat and Forkfest forum via the unofficial website, Forkfest.party.
Please do come on up this week until July 5th to Forkfest 2020 and meet a bunch of other liberty-loving people hanging out together in the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. Bring along your favorite form of money like cryptocurrency or Goldbacks as many vendors and individuals accept multiple payment methods. See you soon!
Tuesday, the second day of Porcfest & ForkFest, we went cliff jumping with some friends at a popular area nearby. Also, the Space Disco starts really coming together with the lights and music. Fun night with early arrivals.
I learned that Rogers Campground reserved all available spots in the first three rows (“Agora Valley”). Yesterday I speculated that the vendors were responding to former intrusion in the marketplace by the heavy hand of FSP Inc bureaucracy by not renting sites in Agora Valley. That was wrong! Instead the truth is they are opting to come later in the week.
In previous years, FSP Inc had required all vendors in Agora Valley to register and be set up to sell to attendees ALL WEEK LONG, from the beginning of the festival to the end. That’s a heavy burden for some. They want to maximize for profit and fun, and it should be their choice whether they want to be there selling for one day or seven days. If they have employees to pay, this could mean they can’t even operate due to the high cost of paying labor all week.
