The Free State Project‘s yearly convention, the NH Liberty Forum, has begun! Now in its eighth year, the Liberty Forum attracts hundreds of liberty-loving people from around the world to network, see great speakers, and socialize. The event features dozens of speakers both from New Hampshire and elsewhere, banquet dinners, and parties both in and out of the hotel. The fun started today with a tour of the state house in Concord and tomorrow the convention events begin in earnest at Manchester’s Radisson hotel, continuing through Sunday morning. You can see the schedule and get further details here on the NH Liberty Forum website.
The largest newspaper in NH is the Union Leader. The editorial page editor, Drew Cline, promoted the event today in a glowing article that affirmed that the Free State Project will help make New Hampshire even more awesome. Check it out:
Last year, the Free State Project’s Liberty Forum, held at the Crowne Plaza in Nashua, felt a little crowded. About 350 people attended, according to organizers. Today, the event kicks off in a bigger venue, the Radisson in downtown Manchester. Organizers expect about 500 attendees. Roughly half of them will be “liberty lovers” who do not live in New Hampshire. Yet.
Some of the out-of-staters showed up last weekend to participate in Tour New Hampshire, a series of self-guided tours throughout the week offered by the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, a separate organization not part of the Free State Project. That there is a tour of New Hampshire organized by locals to cater to Free Staters is an indication of the group’s increasing clout. (more…)
According to Free State Project founder Jason Sorens, the database available on the FSP website does not actually catalog when movers moved, despite using the term “mover” in the database. The date shown there for each mover is apparently their date of signing the FSP’s Statement of Intent. So despite us double-checking the numbers, this confusion resulted in an inaccurate article I posted earlier today. Here is a correction to that article.
In the original article here, I corrected (or so I thought) the incorrect (and subsequently withdrawn) article that was originally posted by the FSP that used bad numbers to determine that FSP movers numbered 36% of domestic migrants from Jul 2013 – Jul 2014. Using the numbers provided to me by Darryl W. Perry, we determined that, using a larger timeframe of Apr 2010 – Jul 2014, the actual percentage of all migrants (including international) was 15%. However, due to bad input data it turns out that the actual number is over 26%!
Here’s how I determined that FSP movers amount to 26% of the net migrants into NH from Apr 2010 – Jul 2014. First, I kept the same number of net migrants from the census data, which is 3,013. Then, using data from Archive.org from April 2010 and July 2014, I determined that according to the numbers presented on the front page of FreeStateProject.org on those dates, that 810 people moved to New Hampshire in that timeframe. 810/3013 = 26.88%!
That’s an impressive percentage, especially if you consider that the FSP’s official move has not yet been triggered. When that happens (at 20,000 FSP signers), thousands more liberty-oriented activist movers will be on-the-way.
Carlos Morales and Brett Veinotte join RLS this week for our second trek live on LRN.FM. The show starts off with Liberty Forum updates. RLS will be recording each day at Liberty Forum at 2:30pm March 5th, 6th, and 7th in Manchester NH at the Radisson hotel. Carlos and Rob will also be doing talks at Liberty Forum. Topics discussed on the show include the great Dunkin Donuts debate, Carlos goes on a food rant, Shire Dude invents the signed selfie, Brett doesn’t care about his listeners, RLS does school sucks outreach, activism in Manchester, online vs in person activism, chilling out in the Shire, podcasting learning hospital, transhumanism, Shire Dude is confronted about being the mastermind behind @IanGoogling on twitter, Rob and Carlos discuss ISFLC, Carlos talks about his dislike for Ron Paul, and the need for more art in the liberty community. RLS broadcasts live every Tuesday night at 10pm EST on LRN.fm and you can watch us live at rebelloveshow.com/watch
On this week’s episode two of Monadnock Showdown, hosts Parker Springfield and Judy Fine confront how the system can make incidents of minor domestic violence into total nightmares.
His character seems kind so I’d have liked to have known if guest Patrick Michelson was drinking alcohol the night of the incident where after 35 years of a violence-free relationship, he threw a laundry basket and grabbed his wife by the shoulders. For this act, he ended up pleading guilty to a felony assault charge. Interestingly, Michelson says that in hindsight he wishes he’d refused the first plea and chosen not guilty. According to his story, a roommate/tenant called police and by the time the cops arrived he and his wife were sitting down and talking. He was surprised to see them show up.
Guest Kelly Darling-Snow admits to having been both the victim and victimizer in domestic violence situations and goes on to say that she knows people whose lives have been torn apart by the system. Michelson says the state involvement in his situation was quickly “out-of-control”. His then-wife told the prosecutor she only wanted Michelson to go to therapy, not face criminal charges.
Sadly, “the state” is not compassion. It is aggressive force, and the state agents do what they want. (more…)
Recently I shared a couple of news articles describing the contentious scene at this year’s Grafton deliberative session. I had wondered what the activists would have to say about the scene there and now Bob “Weeda Claus” Constantine has weighed in:
I am one of the unfortunate people that the town of Grafton, NH sends a demand note to, often euphemistically and oxymoronically referred to as a property tax bill by government apologists. Therefore I attended the annual Town Meeting or Deliberative session on Feb. 7th 2015, in an attempt to reduce the theft and rattle my chains, well aware of my forced subservient position within the coercive government food chain. Plus I know they’ll steal my home if I don’t pay their ransom.
This year’s meeting was again run sloppily by Susan Frost, a serial bureaucrat and the same moderator who proclaimed her “fairness” in her 2014 Town meeting preamble by quoting Voltaire. You know the quote, something like I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Less than two hours later, she had Brian Fellers, a friend and a forthright long time Grafton resident, arrested for asking the deliberative body to “examine his right of free speech”, that is, if you still believe in that kind of stuff. Or “being disruptive”, if you think Voltaire quotes sound good, but weren’t meant to actually be followed. No, I’m not making that up. Brian has stated the real reason he was arrested in 2014, was that he told the Police Chief prior to his arrest that he was there to cut his budget which had bloated enormously in recent years. Brian does not mince words. The cop has a gun. Guns, sadly trump words. Apparently Voltaire is an electrical term to the double dipping salaried and hourly overtime paid Police Chief. (more…)
The Free State Project‘s yearly convention, the NH Liberty Forum, has begun! Now in its eighth year, the Liberty Forum attracts hundreds of liberty-loving people from around the world to network, see great speakers, and socialize. The event features dozens of speakers both from New Hampshire and elsewhere, banquet dinners, and parties both in and out of the hotel. The fun started today with a tour of the state house in Concord and tomorrow the convention events begin in earnest at Manchester’s Radisson hotel, continuing through Sunday morning. You can see the schedule and get further details here on the NH Liberty Forum website.
