My thanks to CNE President Tim Evans for emailing me about this New York Times article, about the Free State project. I usually look at the daily NYT menu. Sod’s Law (and a rugby game – won by plucky little USA) decreed that today I didn’t. First few paragraphs:
KEENE, N.H. – A few things stand out about this unprepossessing city. It just broke its own Guinness Book world record for the most lighted jack-o’-lanterns with 28,952. It claims to have the world’s widest Main Street.
And recently, Keene became the home of Justin Somma, a 26-year-old freelance copywriter from Suffern, N.Y., and a foot soldier in an upstart political movement. That movement, the Free State Project, aims to make all of New Hampshire a laboratory for libertarian politics by recruiting libertarian-leaning people from across the country to move to New Hampshire and throw their collective weight around. Leaders of the project figure 20,000 people would do the trick, and so far 4,960 have pledged to make the move.
The idea is to concentrate enough fellow travelers in a single state to jump-start political change. Members, most of whom have met only over the Internet, chose New Hampshire over nine other states in a heated contest that lasted months.
(The other contenders were Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming. One frequently asked question on the project’s Web site was “Can’t you make a warmer state an option?”)
Once here, they plan to field candidates in elections and become active in schools and community groups, doing all they can to sow the libertarian ideals of curbing taxes, minimizing regulation of guns and drugs, privatizing schools and reducing government programs.
I’ve quoted at some length because the New York Times’ stuff has a habit which I’ve recently learned about of going out of one-click no-cost reach after all while. (Is that recent? Or was I just ignorant about it all along?)
I predict two things about what will happen as a result of this project.
- It will have results.
- The most momentous results will not be what anyone envisaged to start with.
The law of unintended consequences applies, after all, just as much to libertarians as it does to anyone else. Most gatherings of the faithful in the USA seem to result in a bit of spreading of the faith but not a lot, and then, interesting business activities.
One thing already seems likely, however, which the moving spirits of this project did intend. It will stir up media interest in libertarian ideas, not only within the USA but to some extent also beyond it, this New York Times piece being a perfect example of that process.
I want to read Mark Steyn on this subject.
New Hampshire’s state motto is “live free or die”.
New Hampshire has no income tax or sales tax but does have high property taxes. New Hampshire is ripe for a property tax reduction political revolution. The new libertarian immigrants will find a mostly receptive populace.
Another unintended consequence could be migration of tranzi-minded statist reactionaries to NH and ceaseless annoying proclamations from the UN and various NGOs speaking of the need for multilateral efforts to secure universal health care for the oppressed peoples whose will has been subverted by these illegal settlements.
The new libertarian immigrants will find a mostly receptive populace.
Really? Perhaps it’s premature to assume, merely because you agree with any particular political philosophy, that these people will find a warm welcome in N.H. Those folks might just object to a bunch of out-of-staters flooding in to take over their state, especially after organizing to do so.
Those folks might just object to a bunch of out-of-staters flooding in to take over their state, especially after organizing to do so.
The (Republican) governor has already officially welcomed them, but that’s not necessarily indicative of the feelings of the populace.
However, the Free Staters aren’t trying to make instant changes — they’re looking five or ten years down the line, after a large portion of them have laid down local roots and at least partially assimilated.
Out-of-staters have been flooding into New Hampshire (and Vermont) for a couple of decades. Mostly retiring Bostonians, sticking close to home in places that are lovely and comparatively cheap, and they’re politically very different from the indigenous population.
Hm. If Samizdata frowns on the terms “liberals” and/or “leftists”, what does that leave me? Well, Democrats, anyhow. The incomers are Democrats, often of the staunch, not to say loony, sort.
The political divisions in these states, between the natives who are conservativish or libertarianish, and the newcomers who are…not, has become more and more pronounced.
The FSF folks may well be enough to tip the balance in interesting ways.
I am not wishing failure upon the FSP’s, if they succeed in their stated goals that is a good thing.
I suppose I am just trying to point out that a community is not 100% rational, that it might resent outsiders coming in to take over, however worthy the intent. We’re not talking about one of the 19th century Utopian communes, such as the Shakers, these people have declared that they mean to assume political control of an entire state.
Again, I don’t wish them failure, but it is quite a goal they have set themselves. They are essentially moving someplace else and telling the natives that they will take over.
Interesting to see how it all plays out, but I wouldn’t be confident about the outcome just yet, that’s all I am saying.
Out-of-staters have been flooding into New Hampshire (and Vermont) for a couple of decades.
The success that hippie reds had in changing Vermont’s political lanscape in the ’70s is in fact one of the FSP’s inspirations. In form only, of course.
Mike James – the goal is to get 20,000 people to move to NH. I don’t know what the population of NH is, but I don’t think 20,000 people will be in a position to tell the established populace to move over. Second, the reason NH was chosen was precisely because it’s already more libertarian than most other states – so no one would be telling anyone to move over.
Theodopoulos – Mark Steyn (for the uninitiated, a contented resident of NH), seems to think this is a good move. Go to his website http://www.marksteyn.com and go to Mailbox. Someone wrote in and asked what he thought, and he replied.
Thanx, Verity.
So what level of libertarian representation in a random population is enough to keep the yeast stock viable? Would concentrating of this sort reduce the level of infection to a point where libertarianism would lose what viability it has outside of the concentration state(s)?
The iconoclast in me thinks this may be great fun of the self-supporting prison camp variety. I suppose if your only concern is your own tribe of like-minded sorts this might sound like a good idea; but I suspect that it will make it easier for the statist wretches to trivialize and demonize once they’ve self-sequestered themselves in the Great White Northeast.
As a demonstration it could be useful, but again, only if there remain sufficient others in the remaining mass to keep the meme going outside of New Hampshire.