2006 November 29
Copyright © Brian Wright

Bridge to Real People, Part 2
Connecting Freedom to Citizen Empowerment

In part one I spoke of citizen empowerment and how the experience of the Freedom Portal (via the FSP) encourages real people in communities to stand up for their quality of life.  Specifically, I suggested the Sacred Nonaggression Principle as the most important success-oriented idea for these people in communities.

  What I neglected to mention is the worldwide importance 
  of the specific success of the Free State Project, itself.  And 
  that we are being wildly successful… by modern
  libertarian standards. 

Examples of this practical success I have been fortunate to document in the New Pilgrim Chronicles epilogue.  By removing state authority over home school curricula, defeating a smoking ban, stopping the federal Real ID, and so on, real people working for self-government are at the root of achieving full practical political liberty in our time.

The significance of these victories cannot be overstated.

The significance of these victories cannot be overstated!

Behind such successes are many good, heroic people, specifically people who have embraced the representative process at the political subdivision level of the state. 

Let’s talk about this for a minute:

Some libertarian thinker/activists who regard complete voluntary community as the political pinnacle look at representative democracy (at the level of states and above) as a waste of time at best. 

  “You’re only depriving energy from creating truly voluntary,
  nonaggressive solutions in communities of real people,” they
  argue.

  “By participating in these remote, centralized political
  processes, you sanction them, and hence sanction the
  central state’s power over us.”

My own thinking is “You gotta dance with what ya brung.” 

I share the utopian view of “voluntary community all around,” where we move and live freely among a league of libertarian ‘hoods, trading with one another, nobody aggressing or passing smoking bans, helmet laws, forced school gym classes or band membership, or every little thing.

I also share the view that utopia is not an option, at least not for the next few years.

We’ve inherited a strong central government with excessive powers, which still goes through the motions of elections.  It makes sense to me to use these elections to speak out and create change at the central-government level… if change is reasonably possible. 

It may be true many states and the feds are beyond redemption, impervious to representative agitation for liberty.  Likewise, it may be true most representatives are bipartisan shills for the plunder elite.

But in New Hampshire, it’s different.  And that’s the point of the exercise, of the Free State Project cum Freedom Portal.  FSP founder Jason Sorens saw the need and the opportunity to create a beacon for decentralizing political power in America.  He did.  We did.

My friends, it’s happening in spades, and with only a relative handful of early movers so far.  Read about our triumphs on the forums—esp. the FSP forum and NH Underground—as well as in my book. 

These triumphs are more than New Hampshire success stories, they provide a model or glimpses of humanitarian methods that can work at the state level in many other regions of the country.
 
These political achievements also serve as cover for the other activities we talked about, i.e. for inevitable progress toward quality of life and citizen empowerment in voluntary community.  As much as the Sacred Nonaggression Principle provides the needed moral foundation for citizen empowerment, success in the field provides the practical encouragement.

Live free and flourish!