New Hampshire Public Radio Posts Feature on NH Freedom Migration
Thanks to New Hampshire Public Radio reporter Taylor Quimby (originally from the Keene area) for his detailed and well-researched report on the Free State Project, which delves into the history of the project, the diversity of opinions of its movers, their effectiveness and impact in New Hampshire, including plenty of focus on Free Keene – one of the top blogs in NH that chronicles the NH Freedom Migration, focusing on Keene.
The audio version of the report is excellent, with audio that doesn’t appear in the printed version. Both editions are lengthy, so settle in for a good long read or listen.
Besides a few minor quibbles, Taylor’s reporting is fair and the audio version is quite entertaining. I laughed out loud a few times.
Last summer marked the beginning of the decentralized, friendly competition to the longtime centrally-organized Porcupine Freedom Festival. Some people called it Somaliafest, others called it Shirefest, still others came up with other names. What it ended up being was a couple dozen liberty-loving people camping with each other, a couple of great parties (one including Will Coley as the DJ), and a nationally syndicated talk radio show recording in the campground.
This year, New Hampshire’s decentralized liberty camping event is back, once again to be held Jun 14th-18th (the five days prior to Porcfest). However, the talk radio shows on LRN.FM have been calling this year’s event Forkfest, a name created by Liberty Lobbyist Darryl W Perry.
Why Forkfest? It’s an embracing of the idea of “forking” or when a movement (cryptocurrency, political, religious, or whatever) has a split, usually when some perceived impasse among a growing group is reached. It’s something that has happened in New Hampshire’s freedom migration over the last fifteen years on multiple occasions. Such schisms are natural with large numbers of people, which most libertarians don’t have if they are outside of New Hampshire, so libertarians aren’t used to it. Given the ever-increasing number of liberty activists moving to NH, they were inevitable.
Ernest Hancock and Will Coley Broadcasting from Forkfest 2017
Unlike Porcfest, which is a great festival in its own right, Forkfest differs in that there is no organizer, no board of directors, and no one in charge. That means that everyone attending must decide how to self-organize. Throw a party, perform music, put on speeches, sell food or merchandise, whatever happens to be your inspiration! Or, if you just want to take it easy and camp around the company of other libertarians, voluntarists, and liberty-minded anarchists, no problem! Just lock down your camping, RV site, or Motel Room at Roger’s Campground for June 14th-18th and enjoy. There are no tickets to Forkfest.
If you’d like to plan something for attendees to do, see what else is being planned (there’s at least one party, athletic events, and a marriage already scheduled as of this writing), or just connect with other Forkfest attendees, visit the Forkfest forum (part of the Shire Forum). Also, you’ll find links to Forkfest chat rooms and an event to which you can RSVP on the unofficial Forkfest website at Forkfest.party.
Ron Paul Speaks at Anarchapulco 2018 to a Full House – Photo by Luke Rudkowski
For many years, the Porcupine Freedom Festival was the must-go libertarian/voluntarist/anarchist yearly gathering. Many would travel from around the United States and globe to attend. Maybe they enjoyed the various speakers and panels, relaxed camping atmosphere and beauty of the location at Roger’s Campground, or the various activities like Buzz’ Big Gay Dance Party. Or maybe it was just the fun of being with other liberty-minded people for a week in the woods during the Summer of northern New Hampshire. Whatever it was that attracted people, Porcfest was the key such gathering for many years.
Unfortunately, due to certain prudish elements Porcfest made a critical error and jumped the shark in 2016. After many longtime attendees dropped out in protest, the event has re-branded itself as a family gathering. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it has limited the event’s turnout for the last couple of years. According to attendees of the last two years, Porcfest is just not what it used to be.
According to our discussions with organizers over the many years my radio show, Free Talk Live, broadcast from Porcfest, the top turnout they had was about 1,700 – that number reached after about a decade of events.
Now in just its fourth year, Anarchapulco has already hit 1,700 ticketed attendees! For those unfamiliar, Anarchapulco is a hotel convention in Acapulco, Mexico that is attracting a very diverse, international audience. Attendance more than tripled between 2017 and 2018’s events. This year, for the first time, it was SOLD OUT!
Adam Kokesh joins from the Free Talk Live broadcast table at Anarchapulco 2018.
The speakers couldn’t get any bigger. Ron Paul spoke to a standing-room-only crowd, former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney came out on-stage as an anarchist with Libertarian Party 2020 presidential candidate Adam Kokesh, and dozens more spoke on everything from cryptocurrency to economics to esoteric conspiracy kookery. The attendees were in good spirits and ranged from crypto-suits to crypto-hippies! Seriously, everyone was into cryptocurrency. At least that’s how it seemed from the conversations in the hallways.
Most of the event’s sponsors were cryptocurrency-related including prime event sponsor Bitcoin.com, DASH, PIVX, and others. In fact, as they did the previous year, the final day of Anarchapulco was completely dedicated to crypto-related speakers. They called that Cryptopulco.
Like last year, music was an important part of the convention with nighttime performances from Wu-Tang, Jordan Page, Backwordz, and others. Art was also once again present with artists creating beautiful works right in the main hall at the front of the stage. The location was spectacular. It was held this year at the Princess resort right on the beach in Acapulco.
No attendee I spoke with had anything bad to say about the event – it was all rave reviews. Everyone I spoke with is planning to return with friends in 2019 and tickets are already available at Anarchapulco.com for 2019. They’re moving to the venue’s largest event room and can next year hold approximately 4,000 attendees. Expect 2019 to sell-out as well, so get your tickets soon. We hope to see you there.
If you want a taste of what it was like to be there, we did several days of broadcasting Free Talk Live from the event and featured a bunch of the speakers and sponsors of the event on-air. Here they are in chronological order:
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…)
Porcfest wasn’t totally square this year – thankfully they still welcomed underground drug marketplace Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s mother Lyn as a featured speaker. Vlogger Tarrin Lupo recorded this interview with her:
A few months ago, after more than a decade of promoting the Free State Project on my radio program Free Talk Live, I was unceremoniously kicked to the curb by a unanimous decision of the board of directors. They also decided to prohibit my show from broadcasting live from the Porcupine Freedom Festival (Porcfest), their yearly camping gathering.
I never asked anyone to boycott the event, but they did anyway. Many Porcfest regulars were not in attendance this year, which apparently was exactly what some of the NBC crowd were hoping for. “NBC” are the group of squares that formed years ago – they gathered at Porcfest and all bought identical t-shirts that said “Normal By Comparison”. The following year they had new shirts that said “Not Batshit Crazy”. The shirts were their way of attacking those wacky civil disobedience and outside-the-system activists in Keene as well as the libertines and hedonists who had been attending Porcfest.
Every year the “NBC” people would complain about something they didn’t like about Porcfest, like women being topless, open cannabis use, and parties at night. Ultimately, they got what they wanted, according to those who attended this year. (Here’s a video and an article by two longtime attendees.) Many longtime attendees said Porcfest 2016 was smaller, targeted to square families, and did not have the same vibe as previous years.
It’s not the first schism that has affected the NH liberty community – there have been a bunch over the last decade. The Porcfest schism however was one of the most publicized as it involved the FSP and their biggest recruiter, my radio show. For newer movers and people taking an interest in the FSP, it’s their first schism, so the first one can be the most shocking. Given that the beloved Porcfest was involved, it felt like a big deal to a lot of people, many of whom attended the event anyway.
One of those folks was longtime Porcfest attendee and Philadelphia superactivist Jim Babb who took to the stage during “Soapbox Idol” and went on a fantastic rant that indicted the FSP board and defended me. Thank you for the kind words, Jim and thanks also to the supporters in the audience and to the person who recorded it:
The fun has just begun here in New Hampshire, and regardless what decisions the FSP’s board makes, they have zero impact on the activism that liberty-minded people are doing here. You don’t need to join the FSP to move here and be with the largest community of libertarians and voluntarists on earth. If you want join something, sign the Shire Society declaration. The Shire Society is a liberty migration to NH that has no board of directors, no centralized power, and no membership rolls. You just sign the declaration and start planning your move to the Shire.
Also, if you’re looking for a good camping party this Summer, try NH Hempfest! It’s happening at Rogers Campground August 25th-28th. Free Talk Live will be broadcasting live! Rumors abound about another liberty camping festival being formed to cater to those who feel excluded by the FSP. If it actually materializes, you’ll see the news here on Free Keene, so stay tuned!
