FSP News - April 2009

FSP News - April 2009

PorcFest 2009

The 5th annual Porcupine Freedom Festival (a.k.a. PorcFest) is only a couple of months away. The official dates are June 25th through the 28th, but you are invited to arrive early. Liberty lovers will be camping out as early as Monday, the 21st. Book your reservations today to secure the best spot at Roger's Campground in the beautiful Lancaster, NH. Whether you've been thinking about making the move to New Hampshire or just want to enjoy a weekend of fun with like-minded individuals, this is the event you don't want to miss.

PorcFest is the perfect way to experience NH for yourself, to meet hundreds of fellow liberty lovers, and to make long-lasting friendships. People travel from across the country and beyond each year to attend this event, so the chances are good you'll meet someone from your own home state. Even more importantly, you'll meet people who understand the principles of freedom, individuality, and self-ownership. Who knows? You might even decide to move!

PorcFest is also a great way to experience the many flavors of liberty activism in NH. Whether you're a political activist, a civil disobedience activist, or someone else entirely, you are likely to meet others who share your views. Come to discuss ideas and methods, take activism training classes with Free State Project early movers, enter to win in the Best Liberty T-Shirt Contest, take rifle training classes, go on a hike, or try your skills as an orator in the SoapBox Idol event. For more information about this year's event, visit the PorcFest website. See you in June!

To book your accommodation, call Roger's at 603-788-4885 or visit them online at www.rogerscampground.com. Call before May 1, 2009, and mention PorcFest for your 10% PorcFest discount.

Action of the Month - Porcupines as Twitter Critters

<Plaque on the wall at the Museum of the Universe> In the constant search for freedom and liberty in our galaxy, many useful devices have been employed over the years. One of those most used in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries on Sol-3 was the "PC". The silicon chip based Personal Computer and it's connection, to what they quaintly called at the time The Internet, proved a worthy companion in the fight for doing what you wanted as long as you didn't hurt anyone else. The advent and rapid expansion of "Social Networking" programs caught the forces of nannyners and controlerites completely by surprise. The dedicated and stalwart lovers of liberty used FaceBook, MySpace, and Twitter to spread the meme of voluntary exchange, freedom, individual responsibility and a higher civilization throughout the populated areas of the planet. Prominent in this vanguard of freedom were members of the Free State Project. The FSP, of course, was an outstanding collection of freedom-lovers the likes of which have never been seen in the Hundred Systems. The use of "Twitter", a popular method for sending short messages, enabled these avant-garde guardians of liberty to communicate with followers all around the globe. Most of us, in the civilized parts of the galaxy, are familiar from childhood, with the nursery rhyme that was popularized after The Great Uplifting that brought us to this time of freedom, enlightenment and liberty for all. 

Twitterdum and twitterdee

    thought people were as cattle;

For Twitterdum said twitterdee

    "they make the finest chattel";



Just then up popped a glorious Porc,

                    not scared of any peril;

which frightened both the haters so;

          that they became quite sterile.

Twitterdum and Twitterdee refer here to the majority of the population at the time who thought that using the force attendant with government actions was a solution to the problems of the day. While we know in these enlightened times how ludicrous that is, people in the savage, early days before free minds and free people actually thought it was not only appropriate, but necessary. While people who think like this today are rarely seen and even more rarely tolerated, we must remember that in earlier times the notion was quite popular.

(This plaque sponsored by the Sorens Universal Political Enrichment Ruminations Foundation.)

If you haven't figured it out by now, the action is to spread the word about the Free State Project and freedom in New Hampshire using twitter. Keep your hashcodes simple and obvious, or whatever takes it's place in the tweets of the twittersphere?, twitterscape?, twitterville?, twitteralaxy?, ah well, you get the point.

Merchandise

A special treat for all of you that may have missed the John Taylor Gatto appearance at Liberty Forum. We have a small number of signed copies of his wonderful book, "Weapons of Mass Instruction", available for purchase. Yes, signed by him, not me. That'd be pretty silly for me to sign them. Although... if you want to donate an extra $5 bucks or so, I'd be more than happy to make a mark or two on it. Not on the cover page, of course, but maybe some secret marginalia extolling the virtues of liberty. Maybe some ranting against the government in invisible ink, or perhaps... ahem, we really don't need to go there. Seriously, this book is amazing in it's ability to explain the public, er, government schools as they really are and the dangers they pose to a truly educated citizen. Buy one for your friends who think "My school's OK". They may not think so afterwards.

The Free State Project is an effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people to move to New Hampshire. We are looking for neighborly, productive, tolerant folks from all walks of life, of all ages, creeds, and colors who agree to the political philosophy expressed in our Statement of Intent, that government exists at most to protect people's rights, and should neither provide for people nor punish them for activities that interfere with no one else. freestateproject.org

In New Hampshire

State House Successes

FSP members have been remarkably successful at the State House recently. Here's a short list of successes:

  • Medical marijuana, HB648. This was largely due to the efforts of a freestater, Matt Simon, founder of N.H. Common Sense and N.H. Compassion.
  • Same-sex marriage, HB436. Again, largely due to the work of a freestater, Ryan Marvin, founder of N.H. Coalition for Equal Rights and the N.H. chapter of Pink Pistols.
  • A bill to stop the police from abusing the wiretapping law to protect themselves, HB312. This was strongly supported by the N.H. Liberty Alliance, and was sponsored by a freestater Rep, Joel Winters.

Free State Blogs

What's happening in New Hampshire with the Free State Project? Free State Blogs attempts to answer that question. Here's just a sampling of this month's blog entries:

The RidleyReport

Videographer Dave Ridley from NHFree.com is one of our Porcs on the scene in New Hampshire. See some of what's happening in the Free State on the RidleyReport.

Check the NH Calendars

The NH Underground Calendar lists liberty-oriented New Hampshire events. The NH Liberty Calendar also tracks NH events. Check the calendars before a visit or a move - you are welcome to attend NH events!

FSP News Thanks & Statistics

FSP News circulation: 13,408. Back issues are available. Got FSP news? Please submit content by the 12th of the month. Thank you to all advertisers and contributors.

FSP Participants - here are some quick links:

  • Check out NH housing and other community & logistical information at NH Info

Are you ready to join the FSP, move to New Hampshire and work with us towards Liberty in Our Lifetime? Join here!

Participants: 9,231
Participants in NH: 698
as of April 14, 2009