Carla Howell is the political director for the national libertarian party and a long time Massachusetts libertarian activist. If you’ve been in the libertarian party in the last three decades, you’re probably familiar with her. She was the keynote speaker at this year’s Libertarian Party of New Hampshire convention in Concord. Here’s her speech:
FSP President Matt Philips Addresses the LPNH 2017 Convention
On the other hand, a different group of critics say that my recent article about the hypocrisy of the Free State Project board regarding their selection of John McAfee as the headliner for Porcfest is proof that I’m holding a grudge over being booted from their events.
Both groups are upset – the people who hate the FSP and the people who blindly carry water for the FSP. So, why would I give the FSP free publicity but also criticize them?
Uh, that’s what I’ve always done. For long before I (and my show) was kicked out of the FSP events I had held their feet to the fire on a multitude of occasions when I though their board made an ill-advised or hypocritical decision. The Snowden recording controversy from 2016 was the most recent one prior to my removal. There were other instances, but a review of the “Free State Project” category on this site reveals what the bulk of my posts have been – puff pieces for the FSP, for more than a decade.
Most of the time, the FSP is doing good work – encouraging liberty people to move to New Hampshire and get active. Every now and then their board will do something dumb and they’ve been called on it by me, other Free Keene bloggers, or a fellow Free Talk Live talk show host. I don’t take what they did to me personally and I don’t hold a grudge. I do allocate my airtime mostly to promoting the Shire Society rather than the FSP, as I believe it to be a superior migration movement since it’s decentralized and has no board, but on my radio show when we are discussing why people are moving to New Hampshire, I still mention the FSP as one of the active migrations here.
If I were holding a grudge, why did I interview FSP president Matt Philips at Anarchapulco about what the FSP has been up to since they reached their goal of 20,000 participants? Regardless of the haters, the FSP and the Shire Society are competing towards recruiting libertarians, voluntarists, and liberty-loving anarchists to uproot their lives and move to New Hampshire. I’m not letting some petty haters within the liberty community get in the way of that goal, which I still share with the FSP.
Further, practicing forgiveness doesn’t mean avoiding holding the forgiven accountable in the future. With only love in my heart, here’s the video of FSP president Matt Philips addressing the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire‘s 2017 convention in Concord:
Libertarian Party of New Hampshire secretary Jilletta Jarvis officially announced her run for governor in 2018 at last weekend’s LPNH convention in Concord! Here’s her first campaign speech as delivered to the convention where she discusses ending prohibition of cannabis, lowering taxes, ending DUI checkpoints, ending civil asset forfeiture, and supporting state rights. She promises, “As governor of New Hampshire, I would never sign a bill that took away freedoms from New Hampshire citizens.”
Last year, the Libertarian Party of NH achieved major party status for the first time in two decades, meaning our ballot access is finally equal to the big two parties. That means LP candidates can easily qualify for the ballot just by paying the same fee the other two parties do, rather than having to slave away and throw thousands of dollars at collecting petition signatures. The LPNH is already recruiting candidates for statewide races in 2018, so be sure to get involved!
Libertarian Robert Lombardo ran for the US Congress district one seat in 2016 and he may be gearing up for another run in 2018. Here’s his speech from last weekend’s Libertarian Party of New Hampshire convention in Concord:
Recently, NH state representative Caleb Dyer made history by switching to the Libertarian Party, making him the only sitting state rep nationwide who is an LP member. So of course, he had to be a featured speaker at this year’s Libertarian Party of New Hampshire convention! Here’s the video of his speech:
(More convention videos to come this week on the Free Keene youtube.)
This year, for the first time in the over a decade since I’ve lived here, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire put on a real convention. Previous years have been a couple dozen libertarians sitting around a table, with 10% or fewer of the attendees being female. Since principled libertarians Darryl W Perry and Rodger Paxton took over the party’s executive committee in unanimous votes at a special convention late last year, party membership has doubled. Not only was the turnout excellent, with over 70 registered for this year’s convention, but there were more female attendees than I’ve ever seen at a Libertarian Party event.
The venue was the Concord Holiday Inn which was quite nice and spacious compared to last year when we were crammed around a table in the corner of a bar. Jilletta Jarvis, former independent candidate for governor and current secretary of the LPNH did an excellent job organizing the convention. It included a silent auction, multiple speakers, the requisite business session, and social time including a fancy dinner. I had the honor of being the event videographer and videos from the event will be coming out this week on the Free Keene YouTube channel, chronologically.
The opening speaker was the representative for this region of the country on the Libertarian National Committee, Patrick McKnight. After Darryl teased him in his introduction about leaving New Jersey for New Hampshire, McKnight admitted in his speech, “I know personally a lot of people who have left New Jersey and moved here and are like, ‘Why are you still there?’ and I’m like, well, I don’t really know!”. Here’s the video of McKnight’s speech:
Are you like McKnight? Still living in one of the more tyrannical states in the union? It’s time to start planning your escape to join the largest migration of liberty-oriented activists in the world. New Hampshire is already the freest state and will only get better as more libertarians, voluntarists, and liberty-loving anarchists move here and get active.
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