Jeff_NH

Welcome to the forum. Feel free to come up and visit NH either for one of the many weekly informal meetups or for porcfest which is only about 8 weeks away.

Fair response. And yes let me be clear, I am primarily saying that 'thinking' about making such a community is not productive. It's not that thinking is a bad thing - my point was that when thinking about something is continued to the exclusion of 'doing' that it is not productive. Most of us fall prey to this sort of thing from time to time and certainly it is not in and of itself harmful but it is not the same as 'just doing it'. At some point in a day, I assume Mark Zuckerberg thought - hey I think I can make a better online community than myspace - and then he went off and did it. The pondering stopped and the progress began. So the first point is really just a warning that I would even give myself with things like this - if you want something to happen - start doing. There is and was a second intention in my response which did also specifically call into question the 'in our lifetime' viability of the concept that I just encouraged you to 'do' instead of thinking about. I don't expect that even if you try that anything productive will come out of it and so I offered an alternative that I thought already is. This is a much much less useful input on my part. The world is full of people who had success at something that others told them would not work (it is also probably full of the less visible cases where the person failed). The common factor in those cases (I assert without evidence) is that the person with the idea just started doing it.

While devoting a little bit of braintime to this sort of thing is not harmful and can be fun, there are a many more productive things to do with your time. Start a garden, start a business, learn a new skill, tell one more person about peaceful parenting. It seems unlikely that anarchotopia will exist in our lifetime or if it exists , that it could persist in our lifetime. In the meantime, there is the Free State Project. Yes there are a wide mix of people who are participants varying from minarchists to anarchists. Yes it gets a little cold for 4 months of the year but I not only believe it is the best chance for Liberty in our Lifetime - I believe it has already resulted in a substantial improvement in the lives of those who have made the move.

I don't think it is fair to collectives preppers. There certainly are some who think that way - there are others who would self identify as preppers who have far different goals than you suggest. I certainly 'enjoy' the small opportunities to use my preps. Lots of reasons why. I'm sure part of it is a sense of self validation but in many cases it is just fun because you get to test out and refine a plan.. In addition to Stef I regularly listen to the Survival Podcast (www.thesurvivalpodcast.com). Fun show. Large community as well. Certainly a mix of different personalities on that discussion board from lurkers to SHTF people but each is an individual and most seem pretty normal to me. The host's "Philosophy" is summed up in 10 values: Everything you do to “prepare” for emergencies, disasters or economic turmoil should be blended into your life in a way that improves your life even if nothing disastrous ever occurs. Debt is financial cancer! Minimize it, pay it off early and stay away from credit cards. Growing your own food is for everyone not just people that want “organic” fruit and vegetables. To produce your own food, even as little as 10% of what you use reduces your dependence on “the system”. If nothing else gardening is good for your emotional and physical health and increases the value of any property. Tax is theft, the best way to combat it is to understand every legal deduction you can take or create. In general I think “the system” is bad but when it comes to taxation either learn the system or hire a damn good accountant to work it for you. Every dollar you keep can be used to improve your self sufficiency, every dollar taken from you can be used to make your dependence on the government stronger. Food stored is an exceptional investment. Food is increasing in cost faster than just about any investment right now and certainly faster than the rate of inflation. You simply can’t lose by storing additional food that you use on a regular basis. Plan for disaster in the following order of priority – Personal-Localized-Regional-State-National-Global. Despite the real possibility of a true economic melt down or catastrophic terrorist attack or some other major global disaster the most probable “disaster” for any individual is personal. Loss of a job, loss of a family member, a fire or localized weather event are the most probable threats to impact any individual. So plan and prepare for those first, then continue to build going forward. Renewable energy is great if you do it in a way that saves you money (short or long term) but your solar panels are not going to save the planet. Man made global warming is a scam designed to force the U.S. into a global taxation system. If you want to promote solar, wind, hydro, etc. the best way is to develop it in a more cost effective manner. Fuel efficient vehicles are also great. I personally drive a 2006 Jetta TDI diesel that puts many hybrids to shame at 44 MPG! That’s doing 80MPH on average by the way. I bought it because it was affordable, well built and incredibly engineered and cost me a lot less to run even with diesel being a lot more expensive than gas. The lesson is that the best way to promote “green energy” is via economics. Owning land is true wealth. I advise people to strive to own land in the country where taxes are low and restrictions are limited. Even if you live in the city finding, buying and improving land within 3-5 hours of your primary residence makes a lot of sense. If you can use it to get out of the city at some point so much the better. In addition to food, water and other common survival stores use common sense methods of hedging against “disaster”. Pragmatic things like, cash emergency funds, good insurance and secondary income streams are not just for people in “the system”. These types of protection can make you life a lot less miserable when something goes wrong. Make them part of your planning. Your personal philosophy is more important for you than mine! You are the master of your own life and if you don’t agree with my views, great, define, understand and implement your own. The biggest thing you can do is understand that you are in control of your life and that what you do matters. Those two factors have the greatest impact on individual survival across every demographic you can imagine. I've never met someone who identifies as a prepper who is not interested in helping others both in normal day to day scenarios or in some of the prepping scenarios that were discussed. Zombie slayers are of course out there in the community but there are also zombie slayers in the non-prepping community who just say they don't need to prep because they just go take what they need. Speaking of zombies rising up from the dead - I just now noticed that this is a somewhat older thread that just popped back alive.. Normally I'd just let it die but I've already written this so....braaaains!

As anarchists we certainly have a way to go when we think we can read something and immediately understands the hearts of minds of 16,000 people - collectivism is certainly runs deep in the human mind. FSP participants include people who ignore the state, people who engage the state via civil disobedience and people who fight within the state trying to change things. I am not aware of any study, survey or other metrics that would allow one two write 'authoritatively' (pun intended) on the topic to know what 'they' think. Of course it is possible that in making this claim, you are not intended to claim to know the minds of FSP participants (the people, culture and community that would actually impact your life if you moved here) and are instead making claims about FSP, Inc - the entity and small group of people that have organized, run two promotional events each year (Liberty Forum and Porcfest) and host a website. Even when narrowing the scope to this smaller group it is not clear to me that there is sufficient evidence to support the claim. Some will occasionally offer anecdotal evidence of FSP participants or FSP, Inc claims of improvements in the state that were 'won' through the political process. Fair enough - of course that is partially because these tend to be visible and tangible improvements (i.e. painting the cage walls and or making the cage a little bigger). Whenever this topic comes up I ask for examples of meaningful metrics that I could collect to demonstrate improvements (or lack of improvements) in stateless solutions or mindsets - I have yet to have anyone take me up on that request. Perhaps people think I am asking rhetorically solely in an attempt to demean the arguments of the other people in the conversation. That is certainly not my primary goal though admittedly if I am fully truthful with myself I am sure that is part of it. Finally, as for 'kicking out' people... The results of a kicking out are that individuals are not welcome at FSP events (generally the two outreach events that I previously discussed). In terms of people's day to day lives FSP, Inc makes no claims and holds no sway over the activities of FSP participants or others in the state. They are free to choose to associate or not associate with anyone for any reason. For those that believe in property rights, I also think it is fair for individuals or organizations that own space or lease space to include or exclude anyone for any reason. There are lots of reasons one might choose to associate or not associate with FSP, Inc. This decision should really have very little impact on whether or not one thinks that concentrating people in a geographical area who claim to believe in the FSP statement of intent is a good thing, a bad thing, something one wants to participate in or something one does not want to participate in. If wherever you are now you are happy with the philosophy of those around you and believe that you are making progress towards a freer world (or are not making progress but are on the precipice of a quantum leap that can't possibly be achieved incrementally) then great! Congratulations! If however you find yourself frustrated by being surrounded by people who regularly advocate the initiation of force in order to build a library, then take a look at NH. Consider whether or not you'd like to sign the statement of intent and move here or perhaps just move here. Either way for the vast majority of people in the minarchist+ to anarchist spectrum, I suspect once you get here and step away from the keyboard of doom, you'd find that life can be better than where you currently are.

I'm sure others will answer as well as there are a lot of opinions out in the wild that speculate whether the FSP will eventually succeed or fail. For those of us already in NH, it is pretty clear that for what matters in our day to day lives, the FSP has already succeeded. The FSP is no longer proof of concept, alpha testing or beta testing. It is here and real. As you probably know, the idea behind the FSP is that once 20,000 people sign a statement of intent everyone who has signed is supposed to move to NH within 5 years. > 1600 people have moved early and are already living in the state. There have been successes and failures over the years but one thing that has succeeded is that there is a large/active community of pro-liberty people here. On almost any day, you can find an FSP or liberty related meet up event to go to. Sometimes they are small, sometimes they are large but they are always happening. The annual Liberty Forum event just came to a close this morning. In manchester NH, the weekly bitcoin meetup will still be happening tonight. If you go, probably >50% of the people at that meetup will be people who did not even bother to go to Liberty Forum. At the same time, just 15 minutes away in Nashua the weekly Nashua social meetup will be going on. My wife and I will be a few minutes late to it because she'll be at the monthly women's defense league shoot providing entry level firearms training and a social meetup event where there will probably be > 20 women shooters at least half of which will be first time or very early in their experiences. One thing I found interesting at Liberty Forum is that there were no explicit talks about Peaceful Parenting but oddly enough I think on the whole this was a positive thing - I know, hard to believe around here. How can I say that? Well, I only was in a small number of the various talks at the event. In two of those events as we went to the Q & A section and people starting discussing the best way to move forward with some aspect of the topic at hand, several people would suggest that peaceful parenting would play some role in it and there was wide agreement and additional discussions on the topic - so much so that although we clearly have a long way to go, it is starting to become part of the culter that we want to take for granted that everyone in the community agrees with (Obviously this is a bit optimistic on the part of people but libertarians tend to be an optimistic bunch). Still I thought it was cool how much this is starting to become part of the culture. Still I wish we had a specific session on it for people from out of state.

Welcome to the Forums. If you've got time this weekend and are in the eastern portion of upstate NY, take a short drive over to Manchester, NH this weekend for the Free State Project liberty forum event and meet lots of other interesting liberty people and fdr listeners.

The price is not 'so low' nor is it 'so high'. It is currently where the market values it. It could be worth $100 tomorrow or $1000 six months from now. While bitcoin is designed to be money, it currently acts much more like a volatile commodity. I would not view money put into bitcoin as an investment. There are lots of reasons to buy bitcoin. Even more reasons to buy it, sell it, trade it, spend it, buy more. I would not recommend it as an investment. At the very least, get your feet wet and find a way of getting bitcoin easily (coinbase, circle, localbitcoins, etc). Then, when you are donating to charities, buy items at places like newegg, overstock.com or anyplace else that accepts it, opt to buy some coin and spend it. You'll understand the technology better. You'll contribute to free (as in speech) money. You'll be in a better position over time to understand how to safeguard your wallet(s). Nothing wrong with stashing a little away right now but I would not put more money into long term storage than you can afford to burn.

While such skepticism is inherently useful, it is a pretty deep rabbit hole for if one always needs personal confirmation of everything, there is a whole lot of time that is going to be spent looking for confirmation (or more typically confirmation bias) of external events. Don't get me wrong - I do tend to walk around at all times assuming that everything and everyone is potentially wrong or lying (at some level). I've found this to be useful if for no other reason than it helps one to listen or read critically and in the end assuming you accept the information, you tend to understand it better. Have you applied this same level of disbelief to the information that you've read about the ISS and nuclear bombs? It is quite true that I have not been to the ISS. I have been to the trinity site and seen the sand turned to glass. Certainly by itself not super compelling information but of course I also have little interest in seeing an A or H bomb set off just so I can look at it. As for the ISS, while it is certainly somewhat non-trivial to do a little bit of science on this it should be doable. One theory that the author of your website puts forward is that the ISS is 'just' a balloon. The math behind orbital motion is not all that complicated. Look it up. Read about it. Then start doing your own math. Do something like measure the transit time of the 'balloon' across the sky. Calculate the velocity for a few different apparent altitudes given that transit times. Realize how much cooler it would be if we had the technology to make a balloon move that fast. If that is not enough, it might be possible to do something like make a rudimentary homemade radar system and attempt to measure the distance to the 'balloon'. Again non-trivial but I think completely within the realm of possible science for an individual. What you will find when you do these things is the awesome power of the non-falsifiability of the tin foil hat people who will immediately come forth with a new theory for their non ISS. I'm not suggesting you always take the 'official story' of everything as truth. Even if the 'official story' of some event is intended to be truthful, humans sort of suck and make mistakes so at the very least, the healthy skepticism is needed to throw away garbage input data. I just suggest applying that same garbage filter to all external sources, including the website you linked and of course my post. Signed, Official Disinformation agent of the 2016 Olympics.

Welcome to the forums. I lived in upstate NY for 7 years (Plattsburgh) before escaping the evil empire and settling into relative freedom in NH. Always glad to see someone who recognizes that 'upstate' does not mean White Plains!

I have no problem dismissing the assertion out of hand. The site also indicates that the ISS space station is just a balloon and re-entry/return from the space station is not possible...

I do not buy/own/use bitcoin as an investment per se (though I did decide to take some profits in Dec 13). Bitcoin is technologically interesting Bitcoin is socially interesting even when it eventually fails (everything in this world eventually fails). For this aspect, I purchased some of the early casascius physical bitcoin. Bitcoin is monetarily interesting in that it is the first meaningful voluntary form of money in many hundreds if not thousands of years. Given the above, I want to be involved in the bitcoin economy and help it succeed. Other than the coins that I previously mentioned taking off the table, I've generally tried to hold a fairly constant number of coins but I spend/donate them regularly and then just replenish the what I spent from an exchange. In this way, the price fluctuations really have no impact on me. Peter Schiff is not the value god and plenty of people have lost money listening to him (and people have made money listening to him when his near constant advice happens to align with a gold bubble). I am fairly certain that Peter Schiff's intentions in accepting bitcoin are not "He realizes that a lot of people made a lot of money with this bubble, and he wants to help them make good investments with it.". His intention is (and should be) to see a way to attract more customers and trade value for value in a win win free market exchange based on each parties subjective measure of the value of the items they are exchanging.

I first heard of it at the 2009 NH Liberty Forum. Sadly, I did not actually make it to Stefan's talk but a few others at the conference were talking about Stefan. Not sure exactly when I first visited the website. I know I did not listen to the podcasts at all until just a few years ago (2012 I think).

Welcome. Glad you found FDR but even more glad that you're raising your son peacefully. My two boys are nearly grown now. You've got some fun years ahead.

Fair enough. Though to be clear, the quoted subset of my post that you selected was specifically addressing the concern of another poster that the FSP had not had much or any impact. The items cited are certainly concerete differences that can be attributed all or in part to people who identify as FSP participants. I also said in that original post: And in fact I was opening with the argument that there are FSP participants who's chosen path is to work outside the system or ignore the system. While I agree to some extent that the concept of 'FSP' is collectivizing, as a concept, it is only slightly more so than somewhat less specific concepts like 'anarchists'. The legislative examples are the easiest to cite because they are observable diffences. It is far less clear what evidence one could offer to show that individual participants have had success in helping to 'identify the problem'. It is also a bit of a false dilema to offer that because someone spends time achieving a marinally improved outcome, they have done something positive because they could have spent that time doing something else. You're going to really upset with me when you find out that I spend time skiing, running, hiking and even occasionally watching TV when I could be taking steps to 'identify the problem' or 'address the problem'. Of course as you've stated what we are (primarily) arguing about here is a matter of opinion over the the overall level of positive or negative impact of either the concept of the FSP or the actions of those who identify as participants. It's not entirely clear to me that there is an objective measure by which we could determine the validity of your (or my opinion) in this case. Is there some metric that you can suggest that you use to measure the effectiveness of actions that you believe to be positive that we could use to weight the relative impacts your preferred actions have had over those that i've enumerated?

How very collectivist of you. As I pointed out FSP participants are individuals - each with their own lives and ideas. Some are anarchists and don't get involved in politics at all and they just try to live their lives and ignore the state while others do try some things that I've indicated. Some do in fact try to get others to understand the root causes of the problems before accepting lesser/partial solutions. You presuppose that each is 'making no effort to identify the problem' without any evidence or experience to back it up. I've certainly not offered compelling evidence to the contrary but the audacity to believe you know the actions and intent of 2,000 individuals who you quickly dismis as 'they' is fairly amusing.

I'm not a free state project participant but I'll do my best to answer some of the topics from this thread. First, to those who express concerns that they are anarchists that are not interested in activism or changing the system or voting and thus would not fit in. This is not true. Certainly there are lots of personalities so you'll find someone that gives you grief over it but there are a mix of people involved in inside the system, outside the system and ignore the system and in general, people tend to not spend a lot of time trying to convince other libterarian types to try their 'brand' of freedom. Most are pretty much over that... People are who they are and do what they do. Fresh water is unlikely to be a concern. There is a crap ton of water in NH. As for the loosing battle, wrong state, etc....First point is that the idea behind the FSP is to get 20,000 people to sign, and then withih 5 years of signing, everyone moves. They are only at 16,000 signers so to express concern that they are not changing things is a bit...odd. Now, it is absolutely true that 1600+ have moved already and this has resulted in there being a pretty vibrant liberty 'community' in the state... We could look at there successes but then there is the anarchist trap because "ah ha they are working inside the system I knew they were statists all along"... but ok I'll bite. FSP participants stopped real ID, repealed all of NH's knife laws. Eliminated the laws on the books outlawing adultry, passed a pretty good jury nullification bill (not good enough). Have certainly stemmed the tide of some statist initiatives and failed at others. These are all interesting things...but really the best thing is the community, friends, social events and being surrounded by people that get it. It is certainly much easier to sit at home on the keyboard and complain about people who are doing something than it is to uproot your life and move across the country. Its also fun to sit back and plan out the way we are all going to starve or die of thirst when 'the big event' happens... By all means, if you're happy where you are with the people that surround you or wandering the wilderness of Wyoming looking for a community that does not exist (or looking to stay away from a community that does) by all means do so. If however you want to change your life for the better, move to NH - whether part of the FSP or not there are lots of worse places in the world.

I suspect many FDR listeners both in the region and from across the country will be attending the 2015 Free State Project Liberty Forum (http://nhlibertyforum.com/) event in Manchester. (For those who have attended Liberty Forum in prior years, it has always previously been in Nashua, this year it is at a hotel in the heart of downtown Manchester). I'll be there. Not planning on getting any of the event 'meal' packages and I will instead go to one of the large number of restaurants within walking distance of the event hotel for most of my meals. Any interest in an FDR lunch time meet-up some time during Liberty Forum? I'll probably pick the venue based on # of potential attendees.

While I certainly think it would be a stretch to say that these results are due to the libterarian leanings of New Hampshire or the influence of the Free State Project, I thought this was some interesting data (though we clearly all need to do better). The following data is taken from a High Point University poll. Do you approve or disapprove of spanking children? Likely N.C. Voters Likely Colo. Voters Likely N.H. Voters Approve 75 percent 50 percent 37 percent Disapprove 21 percent 35 percent 46 percent (Don’t know/refused) 4 percent 16 percent 17 percent Likely voters – Marijuana legalization Which comes closer to your view about the use of marijuana by adults? Likely N.C. Voters Likely Colo. Voters Likely N.H. Voters Personal use 31 percent 43 percent 36 percent Medicinal use 45 percent 34 percent 40 percent Should not be legal 22 percent 19 percent 21 percent (Don’t know/refused) 2 percent 4 percent 2 percent Likely voters – Gun rights Which of these would lead to less violent crime in the United States: If guns were banned or more law-abiding people had guns? Likely N.C. Voters Likely Colo. Voters Likely N.H. Voters Guns were banned 24 percent 27 percent 30 percent More people had guns 61 percent 56 percent 52 percent (Don’t know/refused) 15 percent 17 percent 18 percent