My understanding is that some libertarians are opposed to the Free State Project in New Hampshire. I couldn't find any articles on the subject online, and forgot to ask someone at the last libertarian event I attended.
It seems like a pretty solid strategy to me. Is it that libertarians opposed to it prefer a nation- or world-wide change, and see moving to New Hampshire as something that would reduce libertarian sentiment in other parts of the country/world? Or is it more of a question of, "Why should I move?" and, "We should oppose the government interfering with the property we already have"?
they dont have good mexican food. and you probably cant find a decent thai place either!
Probably anarho capitalists oppose it because many of them are made of minarchists/constitutionalists instead.
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
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My biggest problem with FSP is the assumption of working within the system. I don't think it's doable. So I personally will not spend my time trying to advance that cause or live within that framework.
Does it make sense to see a region controlled by the mafia and say, "here's what we'll do to get rid of the mafia, let's all move to one block and infiltrate the mafia from within, then rise to the heights of power as mafioso and then tell the other mafioso to get lost." Is that going to work? I don't think so, and you must start by becoming a mafioso.
In the documentary "Libertopia" following people moving to the FSP, one kid turns 18 and excitedly moves out there and runs for Congress as a democract, receives like a couple hundreds votes, about half what he needed.
He's not aware of what being in any legislature is going to do to him. He'd have to be a man of steel and incredible conviction and stubborness to live in a Congress and not become a compromiser to his own values.
And the result will be he will be marginalized by those within that Congress, which forms its own mini-society of power-struggles.
Which is exactly what happend to Ron Paul, who actually was a principled man of steel, but he was completely marginalized, for decades, and couldn't even beat Romney. Romney for god's sakes.
The message of freedom has a firewall in the minds of the average person, placed there by indoctrination of living inside a statist system. People accept without critical thought that which they're born into. Just as people accept the nationality and culture they're born into and are suspicious of outsiders.
Similarly, I think the leftist press actually props up the republicans because they know they'd face the lion of libertarianism if they didn't. If the milquetoast republicans are ever shut out of power, it will cause such a loss of confidence in moderate repubs that libertarians would be able to take over the republican party.
He'd have to be a man of steel
Hed have to be like stalin.
@Anenome
Can't you work outside the system with other people working outside the system in New Hampshire, where there is a higher concentration of them?
I don't object to FSP - knock yourselves out. However, I think the strategy is completely wrong-headed. New Hampshire is not a likely state to secede and the biggest problem at the moment is the Federal government, not the State governments. FSP is primarily causing a headache for the NH State government. It will never do anything to bother the Feds.
The 10th amendment movement is promising. The nullification and End-Drug-Prohibition movement is promising. The End-the-Fed movement is promising. Of course, none of these movements will ever succeed in ending the Federal government.
What I would like to see is a single, decisive victory against the Feds; I'm thinking that we should work with an American tribe with coastal access and see about developing a free-port there that simply flips the bird to the Feds completely - basically, a mini-Hong Kong on "US" soil. There's a tribe up in Washington state with coastal access.
Peter Thiel? Are you around? Or are you too busy playing pat-a-cake in the "let's pretend I'm a libertarian and go build seasteads" game?
Clayton -
FSP has potential but as Clayton pointed out the real problem is the federal government. If enough libertarians were to move to New Hampshire then the bandwagon effect could work to our advantage. With the influx of libertarians, into a small enough area, it would be a effective method of spreading libertarianism. Even if the entire state of New Hampshire were to be converted to libertarians the federal government would still be a problem though.
QuisCustodiet: @Anenome Can't you work outside the system with other people working outside the system in New Hampshire, where there is a higher concentration of them?
It really depends on what your goal is. If you have a normal life and the most you can manage is to move somewhere in the cause of advancing libertarianism, go to NH, knock yourself out. You will be able to meet a lot of libertarians IRL and participate in libertarian culture probably better there than anywhere else in the world.
If your goal however is to see a sovereign libertarian nation form sometime in your lifetime, I don't think moving to the FSP is likely to accomplish that. I think seasteading can accomplish that, and that's where my own efforts run. Clayton's indian tribe thing could potentially accomplish that, but because indian tribes are considered under the custody of the Federal government, not true sovereigns, and there land still contiguous with the US mainlad, you might have a problem there.
Only a seastead offers the opportunity to claim truly sovereign and unfettered territory.
indian tribes are considered under the custody of the Federal government, not true sovereigns, and there land still contiguous with the US mainlad, you might have a problem there.
This is not true, at least, not of all the tribes. The whole thing about how they can have casinos and fireworks and unlicensed liquor and so on is about making a pretense of respecting their sovereignty.
Secession always causes a problem. No political center in the history of the world ever voluntarily just agreed to let a subject territory go out of the goodness of their heart. My idea is that one of the American tribes who have been royally screwed by USG for at least the last 200 years might welcome an opportunity to really spit in DC's face, even if it means putting up with a bunch of chest-pounding and emtpy rhetoric saber-rattling.
Seriously, what could Washington do? "We'll send Federal agents!" For what? Because a tiny remnant of a once-proud tribe that freely roamed the continent - but is now walled off into an enclave of the shittiest land that no European settlers wanted anyway - has decided to assert itself as a sovereign nation in the only way that actually matters: international economic trade and peer diplomatic relations with other sovereign nations?? Even the spinmeisters in the writer's room at The O'Reilly Factor will have a hard time curving spacetime into the pretzel shape required to spin that one around to make DC the victim.
And this isn't my original idea. The Lakotah are already doing this, thumbing their nose to Washington by offering silver-backed bank accounts. We in the liberty movement would do well to befriend Russell Means.
You might have considerable resistance from within the tribe itself. Have you looked into how the tribe holds land? They typically hold them in common as trusts for future generations.
I think you'd have a whole culture-clash and history to deal with. I just went through an audio-course on the history of US-Indian relations, it's pretty dark. Cultural memory being such that, I bet they wouldn't want to court trouble with the US gov. Some indians are still financially dependent on the fed. Others may fear their ire. And those who wanted to join in the scheme, you'd likely have trouble getting agreement on leasehold, due to the way most tirbes hold property as common owners, un-subdivided.
And then there's the fact that they prefer to keep that land in its natural state. You're expecting to modernize a good portion of it.
So, you'd need a tribe that's modern, independently wealthy, and it has to be that one on the sea. Also, they'd be largely giving up the port and inviting in outsiders. If they have a port it's probably because they're primarily fishers culturally. Asking them to give that up or live alongside outsiders--man, tough call.
Listen, I'm not saying it's not doable, but once again it's fighting people and cultures and legal systems, it requires tons of upfront money even if you have no trouble getting the lease.
You wanna do it, go for it. Maybe you can get something rolling much like the Honduras project.
Which is itself running into major problems and hanging by a thread right now.
+1 Clayton. Looks like Lakotans are already pretty Libertarianish, being proponents of hard money. But they have no coastal lands which sucks. Which tribe were you talking about in Washington which might be another candidate for such a project?
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
Quinault for example.
Edited to add: Shoalwater Bay Tribe, as well. It is remarkable how strategically both reservations are placed, given the abundant natural ports and shelters in the area.
I am not an American but I like the idea. Id rather have the fsp than not have it and would wish we had similar sorts of regions in the UK. But although it would increase my chances of living in that region if such a region exists, i do not think that i would get any more politically involved. I would merely enjoy the benefits that other people are achieving through the political system and work in the private sector. It would also increase the chances of meeting a like minded woman, possibly.
Damn, Russell Means just died... sad day.
Anenome: My biggest problem with FSP is the assumption of working within the system. I don't think it's doable. So I personally will not spend my time trying to advance that cause or live within that framework. Does it make sense to see a region controlled by the mafia and say, "here's what we'll do to get rid of the mafia, let's all move to one block and infiltrate the mafia from within, then rise to the heights of power as mafioso and then tell the other mafioso to get lost." Is that going to work? I don't think so, and you must start by becoming a mafioso.
Good points.
I think another reason that a lot of us here have a problem with the FSP is that a large portion of its proponents and residents aren't really Libertarians. Many I have talked to on and off line are among the ilk of Freedom4Me (If you don't know, F4M was a regular on these forums, preaching that "civ" and "agg" are evil). These people may hate the state, but here I disagree with Rothbard when he said that first and foremost we should be aligning ourselves with other haters of the state, sometimes regardless of their message.
This is dumb. Associating ourselves with people who actively hate civilization, and by extension hate the division of labor, marginalizes us and makes us look like loons from a PR perspective (and the fact that associating like they are contradicts their claim that civ is evil). I think Libertarians need to be especially sensitive about the kinds of images that we portray ourselves to be and the kind of people that we associate with. That being said, I am certainly neither saying that we should throw unpopular yet like-minded people under the bus, nor am I proposing that we compromise our ideals; that would be the other side of the coin and just as harmful to the message. One such act of compromising our ideals would be our going into NH with the hopes of controlling the government as the FSP hopes to achieve.
This leads me to the other, larger reason I don't like associating myself with the FSP crowd. Sure, there are many that are part of that crowd that aren't like F4M, that truly want a free society like we do, but it is as Anenome said - it can't be done; it is a fool's errand.
Anenome:think the leftist press actually props up the republicans because they know they'd face the lion of libertarianism if they didn't. If the milquetoast republicans are ever shut out of power, it will cause such a loss of confidence in moderate repubs that libertarians would be able to take over the republican party.
I have begun to think the same as of this election, given Ron Paul's immense popularity compared with previous years of his running. It is just like when Ghandi said something to the effect of "First they fight you, then they taunt you, then they ignore you, then you win. I think that for the most part, we are finally out of the taunting phase and as of this election we were sorely ignored. But we were ignored only by the powers that be; the rest of the nation was listening with some intensity I think. We are starting to get taken seriously now, and my bet is that by the time the youth of today starts to get more power (in the form of income, positions of [legitimate] authority, and respect), things will start to be a lot different. So...let's not move backwards by supporting the Tea Party/Occupy WallStreet equivalent of the Libertarian ideology; people who protest, act, and speak before really educating themselves toward a more meaningful, strategic, and long-term solution to the problem of the state. We cannot ignore the state because it refuses to ignore us, at least in the non-coercive kind of way that I want.
While I do not support the FSP, I do support other-more business centered apraoches toward a free society. I am most excited about blue seed, a sort of sea-steading moving city on a ship that was founded by Max Marty and Dario Mutabdzija; I think Elon Musk, founder of Paypal, also has something to do with it in the way of providing capital. I think this may be the future for a free society, and, of course, it is the market and its wonderful entrepreneurs that are paving the way and building the technology that makes it possible.
What makes Blue Seed different from other seasteading ideas is that the ship is really just a roaming apartment complex that is its own sovereign nation. It is marketed to and constructed for software engineers and software company startup entrepreneurs. Additionally, one of the major draws is that foreign talent (mainly from India and some from China) that couldn't get a work visa to work in Silicon Valley can easily move aboard and exploit their talents while also having access to Silicon Valley's innovation and demand, as the ship is constantly near California's coast. On the ship there is no IP enforcement (something I have come to understand that software engineers hate) and there is no Taxes.
But the other part that makes me think this is the future is its ability to diminish threats from foreign countries and their military (especially the US). For one, if launched, Blue Seed could become the powerhouse for software engineering. If it gets even bigger, it might be out of the interest of a state to destroy or control it, especially if it is experiencing its amazing work first hand. Second, I think that we'll finally get the chance to test out our theories that Insurance companies will play a large role in private protection. I bet this thing will be a moving tank/fort, given the amount of money gone into the ship, as well as the assets on board the ship that belong to the tenants. Which brings me to my last point. Since it can move, I'd imagine that it could easily find a reasonably sized country that would be willing to protect it, should it need to flee from attack, especially if that country is benefitting from it greatly, and has a large enough vested interest in its continuing existence (perhaps India).
Perhaps most of all, imagine if these ships popped up for the thousands of other crafts and skills out there. The division of labor would be insanely efficient. The best software engineers live in this free "state"/ship, and the best Car manufacturers live on that one, and they all simply trade just like countries except there are none, and because it is all International waters no state can claim them. They literally just leave.
There could be problems with my theory, as I am no expert on the practical problems with seasteading, but so far, this has impressed me the most out of all the proposals for an anarcho-capitalist society. I Think Clayton's Indian thing is interesting, although having been to the Lakota reservations myself, I have to see I don't see much hope in them. Like most tribes, they are 80% alcoholic and in poor health. But, it has been a while since I have been there. Maybe their poor condition is just what they needed to say enough is enough.
and @Kelvin Silva - You're a smart guy. I think that upon more research you will find that just because an AnCap doesn't support the FSP, doesn't mean they aren't really an AnCap. As I hope I have outlined, I hope that you can see that it isn't the great ploy they make it out to be.
"If men are not angels, then who shall run the state?"