I accept the FSP Award for “Spreading the Message”
In 2016 at the Free State Project‘s yearly “Liberty Forum” convention, there was an excellent awards ceremony called the “Liberty in Action Awards” put on by Andre Rosa and a large cast of volunteer performers. Lots of production value and practice was required to make the entertaining and very funny stage presentation. The awards were given out in several categories where the nominees and winners were selected by popular vote of FSP participants. It was a fantastic show and really well done.
The performers put a lot of work into this, so why did it take until now (over two years since it happened) for video of the awards to be released?
Despite paying a professional videographer to record the whole ceremony with multiple cameras, the official video was never released by the Free State Project. The official videographer, Free Keene blogger JJ Schlessinger, reported he completed the video shortly after the event and delivered it to the FSP per their contract with him. No one outside JJ and the FSP board of directors has ever seen it. Thankfully, there was an independent videographer present who was not hired to be there by the FSP! Paul Gibbons of Red Pill Recording has now released his video of the event from start-to-finish:
Last year at the Porcupine Freedom Festival, Will Coley of Muslims 4 Liberty threw and was the DJ for what people have said was the best party at Porcfest 2016. This year, Will again performed at Roger’s Campground as an electronic music DJ and played for five straight hours, two hours of which was beyond the campground’s “quiet time” of 11pm! However, Will’s party was not held during Porcfest 2017 – it happened during the new decentralized festival(s) that are taking place before Porcfest happens.
Depending on who you asked, the people on the campground from Friday June 16th through Tuesday the 20th were either attending Somaliafest or Shirefest. Other festivals sprung up over the weekend as Shire Dude proclaimed that the rule of Shirefest is that every attendee has to have their own fest. Some people were having fun with this idea, and it really encompasses the decentralized nature of these friendly competitors of the longtime king of Summer camping freedom festivals, Porcfest.
Please note, this article is not intended to be an attack against the people who have run Porcfest over the years. They did their best in a largely thankless role to make the various Porcfests successful. I’m writing this to assess the question of whether centralizing Porcfest harmed the event and introduce the competition, which are not centralized.
Despite generally philosophizing about the benefits of decentralization, some libertarians have embraced centralization in the process of creating the liberty movement’s largest and most successful camping freedom festival. Depending on what needs to be done, centralization can provide some benefits. However, there are costs involved. Some would argue the centralization of Porcfest’s organization led to its decline. Let’s look closer at what happened. First, for those of you newer to the ongoing New Hampshire Freedom Migration, a little history: (more…)
From 2010-2014 I ran a summer camp on the Northern shores of Oneida Lake in Upstate New York. We had 850 acres and a private 45 acre lake to ourselves for most of the year, and during the summers we welcomed in hundreds of children to help them understand what it meant to live in a community that put consent and voluntary interactions ahead of everything else. My living expenses were taken care of, and with the camp thriving, we could have stayed there forever had we chosen to. But, we left.
In 2014 we moved to the Seacoast of New Hampshire, leaving behind security and mostly free living to join a growing community of liberty-minded folks that had left other destinations around the world to try and create something new.
Why take such a risk when life was mostly going great? I’ll explain.
This Independence Day, I am pushing the meme of New Hampshire Independence. It is its own country of 1,331,000 people with a unique set of cultural, economic, and philosophical values. It’s about time you and I start referring to NH as a country. Forget “draining the swamp” — Leave the swamp!
Johnathon Dunker stops for a selfie at the VA border.
One week ago, Johnathon Dunker made the announcement on the Free Talk Live forum that he’s kicking off a 1,500 mile bike ride from Florida to New Hampshire! He says he’s moving to NH as part of the Shire Society, and his destination is Keene (after he visits the Porcupine Freedom Festival).
Dunker has been riding upwards of 100 miles per day for over a week, starting in Sebastian, FL. As of this writing, he’s currently in Virginia. He is part of an ongoing migration of liberty-minded activists who are picking up their lives and moving to be near other libertarians and voluntarists so we can have a greater impact on one state. (It’s already working!)
Longtime readers of this blog will remember when Will Buchanan (now known as Will Anderson) moved to New Hampshire for the Free State Project by walking across the country from Oregon. Like the most hardcore activists, Will’s still here, working with the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance in the state house.
Dunker, while not following in Anderson’s exact footsteps is definitely making his move to the Shire with the same spirit. Not many people make a big deal out of their move. This is the first such spectacle in nearly a decade, and it’s awesome! Dunker has been calling in to Free Talk Live over the last week with updates, in addition to posting a bunch of photos and GPS tracking maps to his blog at DunkerBike.com. He’s also been interacting with people on his discussion thread on the Shire Forum. (more…)
