Free State Flourishment Reflections on the eve of Porcupine Festival #5
I am only one, but I am one.
I cannot do everything,
but I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something
that I can do.
What I can do, I should do.
And what I should do ... I will do.
— Edward Everett Hale
First let me make an announcement that the Free State Project (FSP) is holding its Fifth Annual Hootenanny in the Hills of New Hampshire— Porcupine Festival #5—June 9-15, at Gunstock Resort in Gilford, NH. If you sympathize with the Free State movement and you've not yet been to a Porc Fest, this is a great time to check it out; a number of interesting speaker-activists and Early Movers will be on hand to present the case—implicitly and explicitly—for making the Free State idea "one great step for humanity" that you can accomplish yourselves... without special training.
In my humble opinion, it isn't so much the Free State Project, rather the emerging Free State itself that warrants the continued enthusiasm of liberty-minded people. I've made my own move and can tell you from experience that if you really want to be part of the resurrection of freedom in this country and on this planet, some kind of connection with this (mostly) young vanguard in New Hampshire is highly practical. Many have come and much has been accomplished; victory in terms of moving the Free State into the "literally and abundantly free" category is now a brighter light at the end of a shorter tunnel.
Note, in particular, the NHCommonSense.org along with New Hampshire Liberty Alliance have moved a partial marijuana possession decrim bill (HB 1623) through the NH House in an unexpected landslide of representative support. Media coverage has been exceptionally favorable, and the NH Senate members who cowardly stabbed the measure in committee will face a hostile public reaction. The people want freedom and they expect their political representatives, as a minimum, to not get in the way: otherwise, they'll be got gone from office. Simple as that. [Note addendum: we currently have a pro-liberty Free Stater in the House serving as a Democrat—obviously of the Jefferson-Jackson variety.]
Personal Reflections
When we look at participating in the Free State experience, most of us feel it would be wonderful to make the move to New Hampshire ASAP and start plugging away for the cause every day. At least I certainly do; and as I've stated in my book New Pilgrim Chronicles[1] you have such a humongous menu of free-market and free-mind choices available when you arrive in the Free State, there's never a dull moment for anyone who wants to chip in (or even for those who prefer mainly to party). I've been fortunate from my own early move in Summer of 2005 through Autumn of 2006 to be boots on the ground locally full time.
Unfortunately, for a number of reasons in my own circumstances, the installation process got rocky—two room rental contracts were less than accommodating—and I did not have a prearranged or preexisting job when I first arrived. I fully expected to find decent consulting work in the technical writing/editing profession (in which I'd been quite successful for two decades). The two contract hits I did get were promising—and both of them occurred from being connected with Free State forums and people—yet the ownership... well, no, nothing negative. Basically, I'd counted on my normal string of good fortune and came up short.
Times are tough.
Thanks to unconscionable state destruction and confiscation of wealth, Americans are living in the age of the Haves and the Have Nots: those that Have jobs and benefits (with livable compensation) and those who Have Not. Moreover, the jobs had have become increasingly political (e.g. "human relations," services for large federal regulatory bodies, government-school mass-indoctrination processes, the war machine, the pharmaceutical-monopoly grist mill, and so on). [What were the Nazis trying to achieve? Everyone's dependency on the state. Frederic Bastiat said, "The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else..."]
That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.
The state is in everyone's business today: we have too many people failing to grasp the roots of wealth, conforming, feeling the safe-statist way is the only way. Too many do not ask whose pocket was picked to write their paychecks. On top of confusion and moral evasion, we have a longstanding clique of genuine sociopaths who have taken control of the central state apparatus—particularly the money and banking system —and are operating on the Rothschild Formula [loaning vast amounts of money to war machinery on all sides of all military conflicts, reaping vast fortunes of inflationary loot]. More recently homegrown Neoconservative psychos are turning Earth into "War and Prison Planet"... at a handsome ransom for the banks, Halliburton, Bechtel, the oil cartel, Blackwater, Lockheed, and a host of other Wall Street-welfare-chiselercons.
End of rant.
My point is we have vast armies, literally millions, of citizens with skills, know-how, and the will to generate wealth by productive work. But the businesses in which they can apply these abilities have been destroyed or aborted (e.g. agricultural hemp and marijuana) by application of arbitrary unConstitutional state power. I know several, personally, and many of them are like family... because they are family! Corporate-state wealth-depletion aggression led to my strategic temporary retreat from the Free State per se (I like to think, as Washington retreated to Valley Forge to keep from being captured by the British). Other early movers or would-be early movers are stuck in the same economic quagmire; many of us maintain NH residences and presence, but have to generate income in VAW (Vast Authoritarian Wasteland) locations.
Yet this economic malaise is ephemeral.
Solution: The Free State and Constitutional Liberty
As I've presented in my first commentary of the new year, 2008 is the year of libertarian breakthrough. The omnipotent state cannot possibly douse the hundreds of freedom brushfires breaking out all over, any one of which brings down the Kleptocracy... and restores peace, freedom, and abundance to normal people everywhere. It just so happens the Free State is one of the biggest, baddest brushfires on the mountain. When you combine
the FSP with the incipient Ron Paul-catalyzed thrust for Constitutional Liberty, it's soon gonna be all over but the shouting.
Interestingly—regardless of whether Hillary wins the Dem nomination thereby killing off any hope for installing an actual human being in the White House—the Libertarian nominee (there are currently 15 seeking the nomination, including two former older-party mainstays: Mike Gravel, former Dem Senator from Alaska, and Bob Barr, former Republican Congressman from Georgia) will undoubtedly play a large role in Election '08. [The LP National Convention is in Denver, May 22-26.] Word to Obama: cultivate your Constitutional Liberty (CL) alliances in the liberty movement, make CL a central strategy and we'll take back the country in a social crusade that will put the civil rights movement to shame.
Note: Just checked my Huffington Posts this a.m. and it's pretty clear the Wrong Reverend Wright is not going away. Damn! It appears this pretentious Christian charlatan isn't simply senile as I have speculated; rather he's a drooling, demented hatemonger of the worst kind. While I don't think Obama has the least inclination toward Wright's paroxysms of black-power hysteria, my guess is now if Barack wants the Dem nod, he's going to have to make a choice: forcefully repudiate Wright and his ilk forever. Problem is it may be too late; such rejection would appear opportunistic to the voters. Damn, damn, damn! I sure hope we have not seen the singlehanded destruction of greatest black hope of all time... by a deranged, two-bit shyster preacherman. [I speculate the Kleptocon intel agencies orchestrated this Wright "zombie-mole" emergence at precisely the right time to derail the Obama peace train.]
Well, you can see—except for this late-breaking Reverend Lunatic story—I'm in a good mood this cool spring day penning my thoughts from the Michigan VAW. Any quibbles I have with directions or detailed policies of the FSP organization shall be passed over in silence— [except I simply must slam a disturbing little predilection of some members who seem to think sucking up to Republican-fascist-imperialist officeholders (not Ron Paul kin) is good politics. Trust me, as Dr. Paul set it down with his extraordinary campaign, liberty is the message... any good Republicans had better be sucking up to CL, pronto, or they're very likely going to be sucking up to hard time in Leavenworth.]
Another reason for the positive outlook lies in medical technology. As some of you are comfortable with, I've been promoting life extension ideas in my columns for quite a while now[2].
As a Baby Boomer, I'm seeing the gradual and not-so gradual decline of peers and family from the disease of senescence (aging); we're holding out as best we can, but there really isn't anything attractive about a diminished mind or a saggy butt. Add aging to consideration of our substantial sociopolitical problems, and you have a prescription for depression. Fortunately, we're on the threshold of breakthrough in these matters as well. So as a beautiful-springtime antidote to age-related depression, let me leave my gentle readers with this upbeat scientific perspective of well known scientist and author Aubrey de Grey—who recently published "Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime".
Liberty and Life über alles! Right arm!
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[1] Note: My plan is to have the (more useful and convenient) second edition of NPC available for Porc Fest 5. Please contact me for details. (Also, and I really hate to preannounce except we live in an extraordinary context, I plan to have a monograph on the Sacred Nonaggression Principle—my preliminary SNaP work appears here—published by end of year.
