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2007 February 09
Copyright © Brian Wright
The Coffee Coaster™
Why I'm a Free Stater
Special times call for special measures
The Free State Project. What's in it for me?
Most of my friends outside the libertarian movement are sensitive to removal of more and more of their basic liberties—from taxes to subjecting their children to drug searches at government schools. One of their least favorite government intrusions is mandatory seat-belts:
"How can they do this in a free country!?" they protest.
Well, Virginia, I'll tell you. America is not a free country, not by any stretch of the imagination.
A free country doesn't arrest half a million of its own people every year for adult, recreational drug use.
A free country doesn't keep a million people in prisons and jails for victimless crimes.
A free country does not transfer trillions of dollars from its citizens to corporate-state welfare chiselers.
Finally a free country does not invade other countries; kill, maim, and imprison the people of other countries; and shed the blood of its own soldiers based on utter lies.
The freedom ship has sailed. The Free State (FS) is all about citizen empowerment and launching the next ship. On the simple biological level, what's in it for us?
• The FS has no general sales tax
• The FS has no state income tax
• You can openly carry a pistol
• You have the right to allow people to smoke in your bar
• The state cannot dictate your private school curricula
• The FS will soon defy the federal Real ID law†
• The FS will soon decriminalize use
of marijuana†
• Job rates and quality of life are near-highest
• FS crime rates are near lowest in the US
• Numbers of police are near lowest in the FS, and that feeling
of being watched by the authorities is refreshingly absent.
• A Free Stater is a member of the state house of reps
Now, I want to specifically address my fellow libertarian activists throughout the movement. Let me suggest why the Free State Project—by which I mean moving to New Hampshire and fighting for freedom, now —is the best available technique for imminent liberation of humankind.
• First, in no other regional political subdivision on the planet
are liberty-loving people having widespread, nearly
continuous SUCCESS. Five of the Benefit bullets
above are
due to FS freedom-fighters. For a complete list of political
successes, please refer to Varrin Swearingen's list.
• Second, success breeds success. The focus of numerical
advantage, like a magnifying glass directing sunlight on a
piece of paper, results in spreading the wildfire to other
political subdivisions.
• Third, the coalescence of so many pro-liberty spirits here
provides the richest possible soil for healthful ideas, like my
Sacred Nonaggression Principle, which stand to dramatically
accelerate the freedom-reacquisition
process.
I'm so convinced of the value of coming here, I wrote a guide book of my experiences. Entitled New Pilgrim Chronicles, it introduces people to what it's like to live here and how wonderful it feels to actually hear freedom ring. Please join me at the Liberty Forum on February 23-25, 2007, in Concord, NH, where leaders of the freedom movement will be planning the next bold moves.
† In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
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