The Free State Project, One Decade Later 701
Okian Warrior writes "About a decade ago Slashdot ran an article about the Free State Project: an attempt to get 20,000 liberty-minded activists to move to one state (they chose NH) and change the political landscape. Eleven years on, the project is still growing and having an effect on statewide politics. NPR recently ran a program discussing the movement, its list of successes, and plans for the future. The FSP has a noticeable effect on politics right now — still 6,000 short of their 20,000 goal, and long before the members are scheduled to move to NH."
"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:2, Insightful)
WTF does that even mean? That could be anything from Libertarians who don't want to pay taxes to hippies wanting to set up a socialist utopia.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indoctrination is not education. They often call it that though. Being told you have to submit to the state authority on all things is exactly what is wrong with our current system. IRS, NSA, DOJ scandals all presuppose power to the state.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but it's the same old libertarian-party bullshit wrapped up in a fake facade.
When libertarians use the word "liberty" they mean it a lot like when scientologists use the word "ethics" or a lot of their other word misappropriations [xenu-directory.net] and catchphrases.
It's always funny listening to them speak. The average libertarian screaming about how government is always evil, taxation is always theft, how no entity but the government could ever have an impact on the "liberty" of another person. You know what? I prefer a world where segregated lunch counters don't exist, where there's someone who has my back to say the MY money is just as good as anyone else's rather than some kkk asshat being able to tell me to move to some other city where my "kind" is tolerated. Libertarians are so hung up on eliminating government that they'd gleefully go back to the days where I could be pushed out of a store with a shotgun just for being the wrong skin color.
Fuck them and fuck their racist bullshit [ronpaul.com].
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Interesting)
So if I was free to open a business that would only serve whites would you give me your money? ... not.
My guess is
When people start feeling different about race change takes place with or without government interference.
I much prefer racism to be out in the open where we can see it and act on it. I do not need a law to tell me not to act like an ignorant dick.
I really want to know who the ignorant dicks around me are without laws making them look like the rest of us.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Questions:
Say that you were a member of a minority group in the USA today that still isn't fully protected. For example, if you were gay/lesbian. In many states you could be fired just for being who you are, with no recourse, if your boss found out. You could be denied healthcare coverage, you could be denied the right to visit your significant other in the hospital. You could very easily be challenged at the hospital even if you were carrying the identifying documents making you Power-Of-Attorney [americablog.com] .
So-called "christian businesses" whose function had nothing to do with religion could nevertheless refuse to serve you, refuse to admit you, kick you out if they realized who you were after the fact. And have done so.
NOW: what is the proper role of government in this? I submit that it OUGHT to be to promote the greatest aggregate of liberty and the right of ALL members of the society to be treated as equals. The "right of association" of the business owner is LESS important than the RIGHT of all citizens to be treated as, and participate in, society as EQUAL CITIZENS.
That is what government's purpose is. When two people claim a differing "right" of "liberty", government's job is to determine which right holds sway to protect and support the GREATEST exercise of liberty, not the least.
And if that means treading on the "right of association" of a thousand bigots, I'm perfectly ok with that, because there are more important rights at stake.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a real reason for States rights. One of the things a State can not do is to prevent you from leaving that State for another.
Bad States get left behind and change or die. Good States are rewarded. When you give all power to the Federal government there is only become an exparitate or suffer.
California is doing a bunch of stupid stuff right now. People are moving in droves out. California is going to be hurt further as the average income of its residence goes down and the tax burden upon them climbs.
The rights you so easily give up for convenience will cost you much more in the end. I know you can not be convinced.
People like you can only see the harm when directly impacts you. As long as you can go about your daily life un hindered there is no need to think deeply about what is really going on.
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How about the right to build your own business and hire and fire at will?
"hire and fire at will" is a problem, because it inevitably leads to:
- firing women for being pregnant.
- firing someone for being "gay", or not being a member of the "correct" religion (or any religion), or other stupid excuses.
- firing someone because they've been injured or have a disability.
I would much rather have businesses have a sign right in front that states in big bold letters ....
"No Niggers, No Spics, No Chinks and No Fags!
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strong protection of pregnant women makes the women of ages 20-30 unemployable in the first place. That shit is abused in my country like there is no tomorrow and no small business owner can afford to wait for his employee 2 years (whole duration of pregnancy+maternal leave, some even get pregnant again, wash rinse repeat) with a reserved spot and pay for the first month getting nothing in return. The result is that young women are mostly employed in certain, mostly temporary forms that don't offer the prot
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Informative)
And would you want to go to a business who doesn't like who you are and is willing to deny you the ability to give them money?
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to be on the other end of that, but as much as I hated it, I wouldn't want the government to be able to force people to think in a certain way, because if the situation was different, the government could be used to make *me* think a different way or punish me if I didn't.
Let's just put some KKK tags around your statement:
"And if that means treading on the "right of association" of a thousand [faggots/niggers/wetbacks], I'm perfectly ok with that, because there are more important rights at stake."
You'd be giving those guys that exact same power, it would just be a matter of time before they got it. Sooner or later, as much good as you thought you would do with that, it would all be undone.
Obviously, certain public health situations need to respect legal documents like Power of Attorney. If they are not, then there should be recourse in law for that. Any libertarian should be behind your right as an individual to make contracts and delegate your own authority as required. If someone says that they are a "libertarian", but doesn't believe that, then there is something inconsistent about them.
And look at it this way, even if you thought being gay was wrong, in theory I should be able to make out a Power of Attorney to a third party, and that party could be, and often will be, the same sex as me. Accepting Powers of Attorney isn't about gay rights, it's about people who are ignorant of the law. If they were ignorant of the law in that way, I'd support you in any lawsuit you made to get that rectified. They don't have the right to override legally binding agreements like that.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Interesting)
First. Killing people and burning shit down is illegal. Do not need different laws to prevent it.
Second. You should probably attend a Tea Party get together instead of just listening to what the media tells you.
Many blacks, whites, mexicans and asians attend. Also. Something I found interesting. They are mixed. There are no little groups of similar color.
Third. Calling people names and throwing out accusations only makes you look small and weak. Learn and Love AC. Much better for you.
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Hate to burst your bubble, but I've been to tea party rallies, and had my best friend by my side. He got "go back to mexico" and "fucking wetback" shouted at him a number of times, but at least the shouters had the sense to look sheepish and try to look away when we turned back to confront them.
Tea Partiers like this [plunderbund.com] are surprisingly common in the south.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Insightful)
So you found a couple of people who were pieces of shit that happened to be also attending a "Tea Party" rally. It should be pointed out that most of those gatherings were open to anybody willing to listen, and that included nut jobs, communists, professional agitators who didn't give a damn about freedom, liberal wannabes who were openly trying to paint the rally as something it wasn't, and a whole bunch of just ordinary people who didn't like the direction that America was going and wanted to express some outrage about things happening in America.
That you discovered racism hasn't been eliminated from America should hardly be news, and it hasn't been that long since Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in the wrong place on a bus because of her skin color. I hope things have improved a bit over the years, but there still are jerks to be found anywhere. I guess you found some from random people you met in your town and that is too bad, but shouldn't be surprising.
Inferring what a few idiots were saying that may not even believe in the goals of the founders of these Tea Party rallies simply can't be used as a stereotype of what most of those attending really thought. It would be a completely different story if they say "wetback, return to Mexico" from the podium and essentially holding a Klan rally complete with the white sheets being worn by a number of the speakers at the rally. I seriously doubt you ever saw that, and indeed most of those who would organize such a rally would be horrified if anybody even thought to say something like that before the crowd and might even be immediately denounced for saying that. For you to "hear" somebody say a racist slur out of a random group of a hundred or more people, especially in the old south, should hardly be surprising either. You might likely find the same thing visiting your local Wal-Mart or grocery store as well.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a libertarian and Free State Project early mover.
The few friends I have who go to Tea Party events do so while holding their nose for the sole purpose of hopefully spotting/recruiting the 3% of them who have actual potential for rationalism.
I don't know why you equate libertarian with Tea Party. So many of the comments in this thread are tragically ignorant and insulting.
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I don't know why you equate libertarian with Tea Party.
Down here in Texas, that's how the Tea Partiers are self-identifying. They want to "change the GOP" or "retake the government" but are constantly arguing "libertarian principles."
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Nice thing about jury nullifiication is that you can change that. Sure, the law might say that blowing up a church with black girls in it might be illegal, but "thankfully" no jury will convict you for it. That is, if they can get anyone to prosecute you, that is.
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Again. The people changed. That is the reason racism mostly went away. It had nothing to do with Government laws. The laws are useless at best and harmful in many cases.
The more federal protection a group gets the worse off it becomes later.
Government attempting to fix racial injustice against the black community has resulted in the destruction of the black family unit.
This has done a massive amount of damage to their community. Damage that will take generations to fix.
But you go ahead and feel good about i
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not seeing what Libertarian views have to do with allowing law breaking like that. As far as I know, Libertarians would be in favor of doing what it took to stop violence like that because people were hurt in the process and individual rights were violated. In that case, at least, the federalization of some of those cases would still make perfect sense to a Libertarian. Libertarian != State's Rights except where individual rights are better protected with local government.
If the "libertarians" were not in favor of protecting the rights of the blacks who were hurt in that way, then they wouldn't be libertarians, they'd be racist assholes. There's nothing about Libertarian views that requires the Federal government to stay out of cases of actual violence. That's more of a States' Rights argument. As far as I know, States' Rights is only useful to libertarians because local governance is more likely to take individuals into account, but it isn't an absolute above and beyond protecting individuals from harm.
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Simple answer.
It is actually much more complicated than I am about to state.
You have community "Leaders" like Jessie Jackson and his ilk telling every struggling black male that the world is against him and that his only hope to compete with "the man" is handouts. This makes men feel powerless. It harms a persons drive.
With lowered drive to succeed the feds step in again with "War on Drugs".
Since you have no hope of ever doing something with your life because you are "held down by the man" and
the war on dr
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But find me another powerful country on Earth where there's only two parties to vote for.
China. Oh, wait...
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Interesting)
The state is not the enemy of liberty (or more accurately, it does not have to be, and should not be).
Your liberty can be infringed by the action of any powerful entity, be it the state, a large corporation, a wealthy person or a simple thug.
The role of the state should be to protect your liberties, not just in theory but in practice. And that means regulating markets, providing a social safety net and providing a framework of laws that protect workers from abuse.
I agree with basic libertarian principals. Where you fail is economics. Despite popular belief, Adam Smith was not an advocate of the unregulated market. He wrote it as an overly simplified and imperfect model, nothing more. He also wrote extensively on its risks and limitations, which libertarians completely ignore in an irrational quest for dogmatic purity.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Informative)
Taxation to support a social safety net is not a violation of liberty. For an argument why, you might consider reading F.A. Hayek.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Taxation to support a social safety net is not a violation of liberty. For an argument why, you might consider reading F.A. Hayek.
This is the same argument that has been going on for 400 years: collectivism vs. individual rights. Hayek was a Collectivist. He viewed the State as the ultimate authority, and preservation of the collective as the ultimate goal, even if individuals must suffer to preserve it. But that's a disastrous policy, because when rights of the collective are elevated above the rights of individuals, there are no barriers to tyranny. Ultimately, the opposing arguments (notably by John Locke) emphasized consent on the part of the governed, and preservation of each individual's natural rights. Governments must either respect and preserve the natural rights of the individual, or they are illegitimate and to be ignored or replaced.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, Hayek was an individualist, who thought a functioning state was necessary specifically to oppose collectivism. In the absence of a functioning state, the only feasible option is tribalism: people must band together for protection against roving bands of thieves, and to have any hope of contracts being enforced or anything else you expect in a functioning society.
Hayek, as an individualist, thought the basics of a functioning society should be available to any individual without a tribalist system of providing them. Hence, he believed a state should exist that can do some basic things: 1) defend the nation against outside threats; 2) provide police that make sure there are not roving bands of thieves, rapists, and murderers; 3) operate hospitals; 4) enforce commercial contracts; and 5) provide a minimum level of subsistence income as a safety net.
Those are all functions that are required for a society, and in the absence of a state guaranteeing them to all individuals, the void will be filled by collectivist, tribalist groupings such as extended-family clans, ethnic groups, churches, cults, and the like.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the same argument that has been going on for 400 years: collectivism vs. individual rights. (...) when rights of the collective are elevated above the rights of individuals, there are no barriers to tyranny
If either side "won" it'd be bizarre. Say one individual wants to listen to very loud music at 3 AM and the collective neighborhood wants him to stop, then what? It'd be crazy if society couldn't make any rules because individual rights trumps all and it'd be crazy if society could make any rules because collective rights trumps all. Society can have the democratic consent of the governed, but it can never have the individual consent of every person in every matter, so if you didn't vote for the government that passed the law should the law still apply to you? You never consented to it, there aren't any more free territories and for the sake of argument we can assume all other nations on earth would bar your emigration there. Society does force its will on the individual, if you don't agree with that right then there's no basis for democracy or society in general.
Natural rights - if they exist, after all these are all figments of human imagination and don't exist by any law of nature - are the exception to that, individual rights that society can't take away. Or rather I should say they actually can take away, but that they morally and ethically shouldn't be able to take away. Note that you can reshape many rights as both positive and negative, for example if we agree that society can order you to not do something like play loud music at 3 AM can't they then then order you to not earn any income without paying taxes on it? There's a reason this discussion has been going on for hundreds of years and I really doubt we'll settle it tonight unless we get totally hammered, unfortunately then we won't remember the solution in the morning.
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If a person uses force to continue to occupy property which is no longer theirs, because they have lost title to it in order to secure payment of their debts, they are not in the right, and their use of violence is unjustified.
The person who initiates violence, the murderous tax-protestor with insane theories for why his murder is justified, is the one in the wrong.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you respect the right to live? Do you believe that society has the right to determine who lives and dies arbitrarily, even if they are innocent of any crime? A social safety net helps those who have been temporarily or permanently rendered helpless through economic or other action to preserve their right to live.
Only a plutocrat or their loyal slave would prefer the right to pay lower taxes more than the right for the disenfranchised to live.
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More to the point, "A social safety net helps those who have been temporarily or permanently rendered helpless through economic or other action" through no fault of their own.
Libertarians love to talk the shell-game of trying to put everything through the courts and torts. Legs broken by a drunk driver, or worse injury? Well, his insurance should pay and if he hasn't got insurance, sue him.
Except that just getting the judgement takes YEARS. And in the meantime, the injured party can't work. Has to handle me
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you respect the right to live?
Yes, but you should not have a right to anyones labor in order for you to live.
As soon as you decide that you have the right to someones labor, thats called slavery.
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Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Insightful)
#1 - What do you say to the phrase "Taxation is the price we pay for civilized society"?
That's what the warlords told their slaves, and what the kings told their serfs, what the Aztecs told the parents of the children they sacrificed. It's the old argument from tyrants that it's for the "good of the people" that people must suffer. The suffering is never for the rulers, of course.
#2 - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/hayek_on_social_insurance.html [washingtonpost.com] , what do you have to say?
Ezra Klein is disingenuously being deceptive. He quotes a Hayek passage that saying that a "comprehensive system of social insurance" can be supported as if Hayek was talking about health insurance, which is of course laughably false. He was talking about a limited safety net and government support for victims of natural disasters and the like. It's just BS. Hayek's grudging nod to the necessity of a bare-minimum welfare mechanism for the very neediest in society was not an endorsement of the kind of welfare state currently in evidence, with the IRS enforcing pages of Cadillac health benefits for any "qualifying" insurance, and taxing every implementation of any health provider or consumer up and down the line.
#3 - What other forms of liberty deserve protection? The right to vote? The right to participate in society? The right to have your money, and not your skin color or gender or sexual preference, determine whether or not you can patronize a business?
Individual liberties all deserve protection, collectivist liberties are justifications for tyrannical leadership. Voting, having a say in governance, and other "participation" in society is a necessary duty of individuals for any free society. The current overly burdensome government is a result of too little participation by too few. In the "society" that you seem to be advocating, that "money" isn't even "yours" - it's just an allowance from your ruling overlords.
Note that racism and other forms of discrimination was institutionalized by the very same government that you seem so willing to put in place as the sole arbiter of fairness. It was the moral and religious institutions in the United States that fought for the end to slavery and championed civil rights for all races, and they were opposed at every step by the federal government and the Democratic party. Governments do not have morals, and when they enforce the morals that the most vocal and powerful participants in the political process it's not always a good thing. I happen to think that even were it legal, no business in the US could survive today openly discriminating against people because of race or sexual orientation. And that's the way it should be. The people have the real power, after all, and government is simply a coercive force. They can force businesses to do things you like today, just as they forced liberty-minded people in the 19th century to return slaves to their owners.
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Ok then:
1. What is an overall tax rate that does not qualify as "overly burdensome"?
2. Your claim that "we had all of that before 1913" seems questionable:
- The EPA didn't exist until 1970, and rivers were catching on fire right up until the late 1960's due to pollution.
- Social Security was created in 1935, because elderly and disabled people were starving and freezing to death without it.
- The VA was founded in 1930, veterans of WWI weren't getting medical care, and were desperate for cash. Even after its
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You mean 1861? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1861 [wikipedia.org]
No, I mean 1913. The 1861 tax was temporary (it was repealed the following year), a failure for revenue generation (it was allowed to expire in favor of tariffs, which generated revenues more reliably), and in 1895 SCOTUS declared the provisions taxing income from property were illegal. Also, it didn't pay for any of the things the OP mentioned - it was a temporary tax used only for killing 700,000 Americans.
So taxing income from anything except wages was actually illegal until the 16th Amendment was rat
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Also, it didn't pay for any of the things the OP mentioned - it was a temporary tax used only for killing 700,000 Americans.
1. Actually, the tax was to pay for killing about 260,000 people - the other 365,000 or so weren't people that the US wanted to kill. It's never been US government policy to kill a large percentage of its own military.
2. The answer regarding those 260,000 people depends on whether you think the South had a right to secede from the United States.
- If you think secession was illegitimate, then those 260,000 people were an extremely well-funded and well-organized group of criminals, and thus killing them falls
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1. What is an overall tax rate that does not qualify as "overly burdensome"?
Wrong question, as you know. The burden has nothing to do with the rate, but with the code. If you're middle income, you work from 1/3 - 1/2 of your time for the government. If you're wealthy, you can pay no taxes at all, or get tax credits for NOT growing crops on the 1200 acre estate you had no intention of growing crops on, hire tax accountants to take advantage of other benefits, or if you're really well-connected you can get a lot of funding from the treasury to create jobs in other countries.
2. Your claim that "we had all of that before 1913" seems questionable:
And ye
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The burden has nothing to do with the rate, but with the code.
Then what is the rate you personally would be willing to pay? You've declared somewhere between 33% and 50% to be too high. What's not too high?
Most of the "solutions" you mention after 1913 were to address problems that didn't exist before then.
We were much better off before people started relying on the benevolence of faceless bureaucracies.
- Current historical research places poverty (defined as being unable to afford food, clothing, or housing) at somewhere around 30% of the population in 1910. Even if that figure is significantly off, it's completely untrue to claim that poverty didn't exist: Newspapers were writing about it, political groups were organizing to try to deal with it, charitable organi
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The founding fathers weren't libertarians and did include rules about things like taxation that modern-day-US-style-libertarians condemn as stuff straight out of hell.
The founding fathers were Libertarians or they were as near as makes no difference. Remember, you are talking about a group of people who were willing to fight and die and fill the streets with blood over a tax dispute. And not any sort of tax like we have now where half the year you are working solely for the sake of the government. More the equivalent if a miniscule VAT. Just imagine how such extremists would be viewed today?
The majority of Libertarians are limited government Libertarians and the majority
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Interesting)
The founding fathers were Libertarians or they were as near as makes no difference. Remember, you are talking about a group of people who were willing to fight and die and fill the streets with blood over a tax dispute.
One of the most important things you learn when you study history is the difference between source and occasion.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was the occasion to start WW1, but not the cause.
Likewise, the Declaration of Independence was not caused by one single tax. That was the straw that broke the camels back, but hardly the only reason.
I believe this is one of the arguments for anarcho-libertarianism: that once you have a government at all it will eventually become a dystopian police state. Just a matter of time.
I believe the crucial error everyone makes in this area is to assume that a fixed system will maintain its state in a world of constant change. No matter if your vision of the ideal government is a big, a small or an ultra-minimalist government, most of these visions share one fatal flaw: They are static. Real life isn't static. What your vision needs is a mechanism of adaption to constant change.
"libertarian" has a very specific meaning. Basically it means that you support a system pretty much like 18th century America
omg
You really think that "libertarian" is an american speciality? You're going to ignore Joseph Déjacque? You're going to ignore that the term had a considerable change of meaning in the US in the 1950s? You're going to ignore the Austrian School of economics?
Change, my friend. Change is the only constant phenomenon.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, definitely not, and that's why making voting compulsory is such a bad idea. The point of democracy is to widen the number of people making decisions to reduce the risk of things being missed. It's not to ensure that people, no matter how ignorant, can have a say in governance. That's just an unfortunate byproduct of not being able to decide who is and is not qualified to vote without the risk of screening out people that simply disagree.
If you're too lazy to inform yourself, you shouldn't be voting. People are going to cast votes that aren't for the best, the point of voting is to limit the influence that a small number of people making mistakes has on the governance of the region.
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According to the project page, it means people wo wish to take responsibility for themselves, rather than have the government run their lives.
While get your point that liberty-minded by itself isn't very specific, one thing it can't mean socialist. From Merriam-Webster:
Socialism: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
Liberty: the quality or state of being free
Obviously if everything is owned and controlled by the government, that's not freedo
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't consider a system where the rich rule over the rest of us like unchecked gods to be very liberating (unless you're rich, of course--then it's pretty damned sweet).
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Insightful)
The economic aspect of modern libertarianism will inevitably leads to fascism.
Absolute economic "freedom" grants absolute economic license of the plutocrats to control every aspect of life for the people.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are currently claiming that a totally different economic system from what we have now will inevitably lead to the economic system we have now.
I've seen your argument a thousand times, and it just keeps getting more idiotic every time I see it.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have had unregulated markets before, this is not new. They have always resulting in absolute concentration of wealth at the cost of the liberty, health and safety of the common man.
Many of the problems we currently face as the plutocrats grow in power are a result of deregulation, pushed by people who foolishly think they will get more liberty when in reality it just means that the powerful have more license to infringe on your liberty.
I've seen your argument a thousand times, and it just keeps getting more idiotic every time I see it.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:4, Insightful)
We have had unregulated markets before, this is not new. They have always resulting in absolute concentration of wealth at the cost of the liberty, health and safety of the common man.
I keep seeing this claim, but I have yet to see an actual example.
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Informative)
Probably because you're an idiot. Read up on the economic situation in the US at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century if you want to see why Libertarianism is doomed to failure. Either by destroying the things that made America great or just fizzling out when there's no longer a supply of idiots to buy into it.
We used to have what the Libertarians want, and we no longer have it because it sucked.
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To be "fair", it could end up in feudalism rather than fascism: some rich people letting you live in their company towns and sharecrop their farms, as long as you abide by their rules (agreed to via contracts, of course: you're "free" not to sign them if you don't want to eat!).
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Not really, those that believe in Libertarianism are generally not aware of what it's like to live under totalitarianism. Because then they would understand the difference between what we have in the US and totalitarianism.
Ultimately, getting the government out of our lives means that we also don't have the government there to protect us against corporate interests and the powerful coming in and just taking our stuff. Ironically it's mostly the Libertarian minded people in congress that are eroding our free
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In the USA, 99% of the means of production is owned by 0.1% of the population. Can't see why that is a priory any better.
And 92% of all statistics are made-up, including this one. Production in the US is still primarily driven by small business, not large corporations. The more regulations from Washington pile up, however, the easier it is for corporations to shut out any competition.
Good enough for me (Score:2)
There will always be disagreement on some issues of policy. Unfortunately, preserving our fundamental freedoms and the checks and balances that ensure them seems to continually take backseat to all these other disagreements. Committing to uphold the constitution should be a prerequisite to serving in government, not something that is so low on people's priority that none of the candidates even discuss it in their campaign, and all of them violate it when elected. Assembling a large number of people who will
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Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Informative)
WTF does that even mean? That could be anything from Libertarians who don't want to pay taxes to hippies wanting to set up a socialist utopia.
Liberty means that both of those groups should be able to do those things that they want, short of hurting others.
I'm a long-time NH resident, and have met several of the FSP early movers. That pretty well fits each one of them - let people do what they want, short of hurting others (oh, the horror). They're almost all strong on property rights (except for the odd Georgist or two) and favor peace and tolerance as the prevailing basis for society. Most favor sound money and work hard for private charity. There are already a few that live in something like a commune and the ones that are pro-markets and free enterprise are completely down with that - they think it's silly, but the commune-ists pose no threat to them.
It's probably a safe bet that none favor Greek-style central control, central banking, and a pervasive regulatory environment, or the US-style warfare/welfare state (corporate welfare being tops among them). Their statement of intent [freestateproject.org] says, "the maximum role of civil government is the protection of life, liberty, and property."
I've worked with some of them at the State house on issues like the right to record public officials in their official duty, the prosecution of victimless crimes, and legalizing industrial hemp. The Earth is "full" as there are no unclaimed jurisdictions, so the new reality of the past century is that one cannot simply move to settle a new area with like-minded friends (e.g. Utah) - the only option left is to move en masse and gentrify an existing area.
It's certainly not for everybody - those who would rather be kept as pets should not move here, and that's the beauty of political migration - those who do wish to "Live Free or Die" can move here with the FSP and work to make this one beautiful spot of nine-thousand square miles the freest place on Earth.
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They're almost all strong on property rights
Isn't that extreme hypocrisy? This land was occupied by people before Europeans colonized it, and through a series of what one might term "coercive government action", that land was stolen through wars and outright genocide. Nobody cared about the property rights of the Native Americans.
So to me, there are 3 possible reactions to this:
1) Immediate return land to the Native Americans, recognizing that it was illegally seized through warfare, government coercion, etc.
2) STFU and accept government has final ju
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Their definition of 'Liberty' is to submit to group think. They pretend that you are free to vote as you want (wink wink) but the idea is to transplant 20,000 libertarians into New Hampshire and introduce their political beliefs into that state. If you read the FAQ, you will notice that they don't consider current residents of New Hampshire as full members (they are allowed to subscribe to the newsletter). They do everything they can to not openly declare their intent since they don't want to be considered
Re:"Liberty-Minded"? (Score:5, Interesting)
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There is a huge difference between being totally responsible for your own actions and placing the burdens of your actions on your community. While you may not be required to wear a helmet (yet), you are free to get emergency medical care regardless of your ability to pay. This usually leads to the hospital having to
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There's a huge difference between not wanting to wear a seatbelt and not wanting to be forced to wear a seatbelt. I wear a helmet on my motorcycle, but I'm happy I'm not required to do so by law.
Seat belts save so many lives relative to their cost to include in a vehicle and their cost to utilize on a constant basis, that it seems (now) ridiculous to think that they might ever not be standard on a car, or worn as a matter of habit. However, if you think it was overwhelming civic pressure that caused them to be included as a standard and worn as a standard by people who "wanted to wear them but didn't want to be forced to wear them" you would be pretty wrong. If it's a good idea to wear a seatbelt
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Understand, me too. However "society" decided that it was the benefit of the common good to force people to wear seatbelts, heltmets etc.
Of course, they had to force the boys in Detroit to install them first.
When you see the results, (less lives ruined, lower cost in medical care), then on balance it's clearly a good thing.
Conflicted? Yes of course I am. But there's a difference between what I might not agree with, and that which I can accept.
I accept seat belt, helmet legislation. I accept being search
Re:"no seatbelts" (Score:3)
If you're going to go around with no seatbelt on, whose taxes are going to pay to clean up the mess when you spread your brains on the pavement?
Our seatbelt-free ways predate the arrival of Free Staters. NH is the only state to not mandate seatbelt use for adults, just for 17 and unders. We also have mo law requiring the use of motorcycle helmets for adults.
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Well, in a proper Libertarian society, it would ultimately be the person who is held responsible for the accident who should be made to pay for all costs associated with putting the damage right. Although it would probably be something which has to be covered by private insurance because I don't think many individuals could afford the full costs, at least not at short notice.
Of course then you run into the problem of what happens when someone causes damage to infrastructure that everyone uses but doesn't have insurance which covers it. Should insurance be mandatory or should the state be the insurer of last resort, paying for repairs out of taxes? both of which in theory goes directly against the Libertarian ideal.
It's pretty fucking hard living in a society that values cooperation, without some amount of universal laws governing that cooperation to prevent the inevitable tragedy of the commons (a pattern so universal it might as well be gravity). This is the fundamental flaw in the "ultimate" libertarian ideal.
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How about the current citizens of NH that "don't get it"?
They should be very wary of those libertarians - they want to take over their government and then leave them alone.
Liberty loving? (Score:2, Insightful)
These are libertarians, While they do support many liberties, they utterly fail on economic concepts, and are looking to negate liberty through plutocracy via corporate proxy.
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You people keep lying about libertarianism is, trying to conflate it with its opposite. What is your motivation in doing this?
Was that a rhetorical question? I think it's fairly obvious what motivation is: Muddy the waters by using the BIG LIE technique. The left has a fear that liberty might appeal to some people, so they introduce a faux boogeyman ("Teh Corparashunz!") to compete with tyrannical government. The problem they (willingly?) fail to realize is that most of the abusive powers corporations wield over the masses are enabled by tyrannical government. Agricorps (ADM, Monsanto, et al.) can sue farmers whose crops get cross
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You people keep lying about libertarianism is, trying to conflate it with its opposite. What is your motivation in doing this?
Doublethink + Fear of change.
These people who denigrate Libertarians, claiming that the movement is all about creating some fascist corporate oligarchy, are the same folks who without fail continually vote in Democrats and Republicans who are trying to create a fascist corporate oligarchy (doublethink).
Deep down, however, they know that a government run by Libertarians would be different than the one they know, and regardless whether that difference would be for better or worse, they're absolutely fucking t
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Ron Paul isn't the hero of my revolution. Unfortunately the party has rarely had good candidates. Most Libertarians are just not the kind of people who want to be politicians. Some of us view most practical political action within the current system as 100% useless. It is quite clear that the majority of Americans and, frankly, Earthlings, prefer tyranny to freedom.
The Free State project OTOH hints at a different kind of fight. Going outside the system. What we need is a Libertarian equivalent of the Social
Seriously? (Score:2)
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A large majority of nerds seem to appreciate having freedom. The populace at large could learn a lot from those then ridiculed in school.
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Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
cereal movements
Thanks to my big bowl of fiber every morning, I can move mountains!
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gluten-free is our battle cry!
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Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
An AC basically just said the same thing -- Slashdot seems to have a very large contingent of "Libertarians", some rational, some unhinged. How this happened continues to be a subject of discussion among my techy friends. This isn't "News for Nerds" but it does cater to much of the Slashdot readership, both the Libertarians and we who are interested, but not convinced, by their arguments.
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is easy to equate this with "News for Nerds" -- they are hacking a system while attempting to use the system against itself in order to bring about change. It is also a learning process. This is the epitome of what hackers and other creative people used to embody -- and what many of us should strive for now. Learn, grow, change (for the better, we hope) instead of just maintaining the status quo.
All it takes is one "domino" to fall the right way and systemic change is created - even if it takes years for that domino to fall. The things get exciting.
Re:Seriously? (Score:4, Informative)
Good luck... (Score:3)
I'm an anarchist. I want a society free from capitalism, the state, and other forms of hierarchy. (Oooh look, communism.)
But even so, I can see benefits in working within the state while we wait for the mythical general strike that will bring down the government and implement the seeds of a new society.
And so I can see the benefits of this style of mass migration. Except, good luck. It ain't working is it. They don't even have 20 000 people after ten years!
Besides, they are still capitalists most of them aren't they. They don't want true liberty, just liberty to accumulate wealth and oppress others that way. And any attempt to go against the wishes of the actual rich (as opposed to the merely wanna be rich) will result in them being shutdown by whichever police force got the bribe quickest. Freedom doesn't just come, you have to fight for it.
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And any attempt to go against the wishes of the actual rich (as opposed to the merely wanna be rich) will result in them being shutdown by whichever police force got the bribe quickest. Freedom doesn't just come, you have to fight for it.
If you're a bank executive you can make unethical gambles with other people's money, try to hide your losses, and bring down the world economy putting millions of people out of work. Go to jail? No, you don't even lose your annual bonus that's worth more than most people earn in 50 lifetimes.
But if you paint a sign and get out in the streets to protest, you run a serious risk of being billy-clubbed and pepper-sprayed by the police.
The Free Staters chose my town as the test bed (Score:3, Informative)
They chose my home town as the test bed.
They attempted to stack the select board with their members using unscrupulous means such as slander stuffing mailboxes without stamps in violation of federal rules.
There is some good as they oppose wind development which largely benefits out of state interests and decimates local ridgetops. As a group they seem like nice folks, kind of like right wing hippies ; )
However they are subverting the will of the public by attempting to hijack local and state politics and a similar bunch has devastated the legislature at the state level and made many questionable laws in defiance of the majority of the electorate.
Re:The Free Staters chose my town as the test bed (Score:5, Informative)
They chose my home town as the test bed.
The hippies chose the city of San Francisco here in California and now it's one of the most liberal cities in the United States. The hippies left the conservative communities around the country from which they originated, and where they weren't accepted and couldn't change things politically, to move to an area where they were accepted and could vote to change things. The Free Staters are just a better organized and more intentional effort to do the same.
They attempted to stack the select board with their members using unscrupulous means such as slander stuffing mailboxes without stamps in violation of federal rules.
The lefties here in California have done that and more in pursuit of getting what they want politically and now they run this state. So that's actually pretty tame by California standards.
There is some good as they oppose wind development which largely benefits out of state interests and decimates local ridgetops. As a group they seem like nice folks, kind of like right wing hippies ; )
One thing that you can count on with Libertarian types is that they won't be a drain on local social services. New Hampshire could do a lot worse than attracting a bunch of people who want to work hard and be self sufficient.
However they are subverting the will of the public by attempting to hijack local and state politics and a similar bunch has devastated the legislature at the state level and made many questionable laws in defiance of the majority of the electorate.
They are the public. They moved there, remember? Elections have consequences, as the left is fond of saying, and in this case their strategy of moving to an area to concentrate their votes appears to be working. You may not like the results, but coordinating your move with like minded people isn't illegal and it's the right of every American to live in wherever they choose to and are able to. The states cannot deny any American citizen the right to become a resident if they want to live there and freedom of association is protected in the First Amendment of our Constitution, right up there with speech.
Re:The Free Staters chose my town as the test bed (Score:4, Informative)
If you look at presidential election results since 1916, you'd notice that the plurality of the population of San Francisco have voted for a Democrat 21 out of 25 presidential elections with 19 of them being a clear majority of the votes (over 52%). Since this is almost a hundred years of voting, I don't see San Francisco ever being right-leaning during your lifetime.
If anything it shows that, when it comes to moving to a new community, people will choose a community that reflects their own personal views. The Free Staters are going against that trend by purposely moving to an area with the intent of changing that community's political landscape.
Re:The Free Staters chose my town as the test bed (Score:4, Insightful)
"stuffing mailboxes without stamps in violation of federal rules."
OMG!
Ironic how most people in the USA say they support "democracy", but when a group of people (with whom they disagree) decide to engage in political activism, those people are accused of "hijacking" politics and "subverting" the process.
Are they engaged in actively suppressing the majority? Election fraud? Voter intimidation?
If the majority of "the public" refuses to participate in politics, then why should the "will of the public" matter? If "the public" doesn't like it, what's preventing them from employing the exact same techniques that the FSP activists are using?
A curious thing about NH... (Score:3)
Curiously, for a state whose motto is "Live free or die", NH continues to permit a government monopoly on the sale of any booze punchier than beer or wine. Those two can be purchased at grocery and convenience stores; but if you want the hard stuff it's off to one of the state's state-owned liquor distribution facilities.
Live Free or Die... (Score:2)
So you want to show a difference in libertarian policy, and you choose New Hampshire as your test bed? New Hampshire is already one of the most libertarian states out there, and the capitol of "retail politics" due to it's state in the primary process. The state's motto is "Live Free or Die" already (joked to be changed to "Live Free or Cheap"), you think they come about that one by accident, or because they already espouse these values?
Tainted data from the start.
Too bad they chose NH.... (Score:5, Interesting)
AS there are no JOBS in NH... From the beginning this "project" screamed, "for rich people only" because those are the only ones that can just uproot their lives and move without having to have a job.
The last time the FSP was front page on /. (Score:5, Interesting)
The first time the FSP was on /. I was tempted. The second time the FSP was on /. I signed up.
Now I've lived here for five years. This is the real deal, NH has the perfect state and local government for this experiment. Politics is the unofficial state sport of NH with 400 state reps for only 1.3 million constituents that are about equally divided between the two major parties. Republican and democratic parties engage our ideas, sometimes in battle, other times in courtship. You don't have to explain first principles over and over again, everyone here knows government like fire can be a dangerous master, you get to have debate and make an impact on people and policy with all that stuff as accepted framework of the discussion.
Taxation wrong? Sorry, don't get it. Foreign. (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess that there's nothing that distances the US from western europe more than the attitude towards taxation. I like to pay taxes - I feel that contributing to my nation is a great way of demonstrating true patriotism. The money is used to benefit those who are less advantaged than me. I cannot believe that anyone who has substantially lived in a country that offers universal healthcare would ever dream of going back to any other system, regardless of the fact that such a system entails taxation.
Likewise, the way in which I judge the success of a country is not by the looking at the elites, but by measuring the sense of fulfilment of the least advantaged; it's a different way of seeing the world, I guess.
As for liberty, doesn't that tie in strongly with what one identifies as the individual - i.e., who one is responsible for? For instance, a family man may wish to fight for the liberty of his family, rather than just himself, - his sense of self is tied into what he is responsible for. Likewise, a good politician works for the benefit of the entire country (or state), with no self-interest - he identifies with the needs of who he is responsible for. In my mind, the larger the community one can be responsible for (and identify with) the more mature one becomes, and the more worthy of respect and honour.
So, if we take on the view that liberty for all is the highest possible achievement, then we find that the libertarian view is not different from the socialist one - there is a need for taxation in order to provide liberty to those who cannot otherwise achieve it - for training, for support, and for developing a sense of value, so that even the most humble person may feel great about the society within which they belong.
I probably left everyone behind by this point. Thank goodness everyone believes in the right to freedom of thought.
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I am not suggesting that taxation is used to make payouts. The point is that liberty is about freedom, and freedom is founded on rights. Those rights are where all liberty starts. The right not to be hungry. The right to healthcare. The right to education. The right to vote. The right to work. The right to warmth, clothing and shelter. The right to be protected and looked after when you are flooded, your home destroyed, or your land invaded, or you or your family merely get old, or sick. The more fundamenta
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"The point is that liberty is about freedom, and freedom is founded on rights. "
Absolutely true.
" The right not to be hungry. The right to healthcare. The right to education. The right to vote. The right to work. The right to warmth, clothing and shelter. The right to be protected and looked after when you are flooded, your home destroyed, or your land invaded, or you or your family merely get old, or sick."
Absolutely false.
None of those are rights. None of them could conceivably be rights outside of a syst
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I am only going to respond in one place, Arker.
You speak of obligations and enforcement, but it's not like that; though it may look that way to you.
Every person has choice - we have the freedom to break laws just as much as we do to keep them. But most of us choose to stay within the law, because we prefer the company of law abiders; and there is a mutual benefit.
Humans are social by nature. Language - the internet - slashdot - is evidence of this. Social groups depend upon collaboration for success. The
Well, that pretty much sums it up right there... (Score:3)
Rep. Warden’s Democratic opponent in 2012, Aaron Gill, alleged that Free Staters threatened New Hampshire’s ideals. “Imagine what happens when 20,000 Free Staters move here, get elected and vote,” he said in a letter to the Concord Monitor.
Yes, imagine when 20,000 people who are actively engaged and informed about what's going on in politics and the world have the temerity to vote and make their voices heard. 20,000 people who won't just vote a party line. 20,000 people who believe they can make a difference and are actually working to do so...
Wrong place for this sort of thing (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem with the capital-L sort of libertarianism is that frankly, we're not good enough to make it work. Much like communism, you essentially set up a system that's almost trivial to game, and then you ask people not to game it. Recorded history has shown all too clearly what humanity is in the dark: not enough people will uphold the system to be able to support the system.
You could do it in a culture with an absolutely ironclad notion of honor that was so all-pervasive and agreed upon that the people followed it instinctively. In the West nowadays, we actually see such cultures -either from our own histories or from elsewhere entirely- as exotic: we're that far removed from where we'd need to be for a libertarian system to work. But even in these cultures, honor is almost always confined to the warrior classes: finding a culture that actually practices it throughout borders on impossibility. And when you find these, the underlying philosophies don't even claim to be libertarian in nature.
Honestly, this is where libertarians really need to be spending their time. Their goal is a good one to strive for, but the culture simply is not ready. The real work right now is preparing the culture, and as much as political parties would love to think otherwise, you cannot do this from the top down. You have to work from the bottom up: learn how to produce honorable people in an honorless world, then get out into the dialogue and spread the memes. This is slow, but it's the only way cultural change has ever really worked.
And yeah, this means we're unlikely to see a true libertarian system in our lifetime. That's a shame, but honestly, it doesn't really change the odds. Plunk the modern populace down into a libertarian system, and you'll only wind up with Thunderdome. You've got to fix the people before you can fix the system.
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They must be really pro-big government.
Couldn't be bothered to RTFA, eh?
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Re:Somalia? (Score:4, Interesting)
"failed African STATE" (emphasis added)
Let's overlook the fact that European interventionism disrupted the natural development of African societies. You take a country in Africa, force the people to live under a brutal dictatorship until a civil war eventually topples the dictator. Then, subject the state to multiple foreign military invasions.
THIS is your anecdotal evidence to "prove" that libertarianism doesn't work and that people can't possibly self-organize?
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force the people to live under a brutal dictatorship until a civil war eventually topples the dictator. Then, subject the state to multiple foreign military invasions.
Sounds a lot like France, but they turned out okay.
The real reason that it doesn't work is that people don't naturally self-organize, they divide along arbitrary lines and act like dicks towards anyone who isn't in their clan. Tootsie, Jew, Freemason, middle class, Baggies supporter, Audi driver... pretty much any excuse to screw over your fellow man.
Re:I am not from USA (Score:4, Insightful)
don't even think about forming a Union, Liberty!
Libertarianism (Latin: liber, "free")[1] is a set of related political philosophies that uphold liberty as the highest political end.[2][3] This includes emphasis on the primacy of individual liberty,[4][5] political freedom, and voluntary association. A voluntary association or union (also sometimes called a voluntary organization, unincorporated association, common-interest association,[1]:266 or just an association) is a group of individuals who enter into an agreement as volunteers to form a body (or organization) to accomplish a purpose.
Sounds like Unions are fine so long as they are voluntary.