Editor’s note: This is the last in a series exploring the Free State Project. This week, we look at what the future holds for the Free State movement.
The logo of the Free State Project includes a crudely drawn image of a porcupine, a symbol that became part of the movement’s iconography after an online vote by early project participants.
The porcupine won out over more conventional symbols of liberty, such as the “Don’t Tread on Me” snake, menacing and coiled, depicted in the early American flag designed by Gen. Christopher Gadsden.
According to the Free State Project’s website, the porcupine was chosen by popular vote of its members because something more original and “public relations-friendly” was desired to emphasize the “freshness” of the movement’s approach.
“Porcupines are cute and nonaggressive, but you certainly don’t want to step on them,” explains the official literature of the organization.
There’s little doubt that the Free State Project has established a foothold in New Hampshire. (more…)
Yesterday I called in to Keene’s open-phones local news show, Talkback, after the main host, Cynthia Georgina suggested jail telephone systems were too expensive. She didn’t understand why such an expense was necessary where jails are ‘supposed to be punishment’.
In the program, we were only able to touch on a few aspects of her belief, when there’s so much that could be said about that mentality. People who are not affected by jails can fail to recognize the unnecessary strain on human life created by conditions of caging. In the nation that has 25% of the world’s institutionalized inmates, it is still easy to ignore the plight of others when they are removed from sight and mind.
Because Cynthia was specifying jails, she was endorsing punishment of people held for either misdemeanor convictions (facing a penalty of under a year of incarceration) or those being detained pending trial. Detention pending trial could simply mean one is too poor to afford bail, or that they were in violation of any number of stringent bail conditions. When I brought up that New Hampshire jails are occupied by a large number of individuals convicted of driving infractions, Cynthia was surprised, unaware of the mandatory minimum prison sentence written into state law for those designated habitual offenders. (more…)
Still more footage of KPD’s Ken Meola behaving poorly towards Dave Ridley. Ridley also suggests I am “passive aggressive” and that I’ve wasted my time having breakfast with people like Ken. I disagree that it’s time wasted conversing in a humane manner with government workers and politicians. Ridley may be angry, but I am generally not. If I find myself angry, I’ll do my best to admit it, and work on shifting to better feelings. As usual, when someone accuses me of being “passive aggressive”, I think that’s just projection on their part. Ridley wants me to be angry for him, because he feels, perhaps, as though he would be angry in the situations in question.
I’m long past being angry at the government guys. They are just humans doing the wrong thing by aggressing against their peaceful neighbors. Everyone can change – I know I have. Here’s Ridley’s report:
A Keene-area state representative laments the fact that, “there is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal.” The Other; “them” in this instance refers to participants in the Free State Project, the political migration of liberty minded people to NH. Though the FSP has no central direction and amounts to little more than a promise to move together with like-minded others, freshly elected representative Cynthia Chase has classified her new neighbors as a threat. But not just any threat. “Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today,” she opens with on a blog featured at the Blue Hampshire website. Continuing,
In this country you can move anywhere you choose and they have that same right. What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave. One way is to pass measures that will restrict the ‘freedoms’ that they think they will find here.
One wonders how Ms. Chase plans to make the state “so unwelcoming” for libertarians in such a way that would not be unwelcoming to others. She tips her hand by opening in regret that political purges are illegal, but then suggests that she and her ilk can try.
In the video, Woods provides a ringing endorsement for the Free State Project:
“We should support the Free State Project, I think it’s a great idea. But now I’m doubly enthusiastic for it because now I feel like we have to do it just to drive this woman [Cynthia Chase] crazy.”
