We're doing this for your good, too

We're doing this for your good, too

by Neil Alexander • 10/09/03

Letter to the editor I am one of those "self-styled" Free State Project members. I will be moving to the Granite State next year.

I felt compelled to reply to your Oct. 6 editorial, penned anonymously because of its insulting personal attack on the Free State Project and its participants. First, you paint us with same brush as 19th century Utopians and other crackpots. This is an attack without corroborative facts. Other comparisons with religious zealots and millennialists just add to the flavor of irrationality you seek to portray. The kindest thing you have to say is still an insult. The intended inference is that all libertarians are nutty. Next, you attempt to get your readers to fear us by presenting several sacred cows that you say we wish to see gored: Social Security, public education, etc. But your most shocking and disgusting attack is that "philosophically they would be prone to support slavery and reject government intervention to prevent it." The long history of libertarianism shows just the opposite. It was the government that instituted slavery on this continent! Your sneering diatribe and obvious hatred of the freedom movement borders on its own irrationality. Why the hatred? Hatred is frequently distilled from fear. Do you fear a group of people who are truly opposed to what you stand for? America is now a welfare/warfare state. The welfare side is promoted by Democrats, the warfare side by the Republicans. Communism and socialism are both forms of the welfare/warfare state. Your mocking final paragraph shows you know this to be true, and you embrace the concept. Only libertarians are a threat to you. Only libertarians want to reduce the state's intrusion into our lives and the lives of people around the world. The Free State Project is based on a Ph.D. thesis by one its founders and uses strong empirical evidence that a movement such as this can succeed. It is the only movement in my lifetime that has any hope of achieving its goals. This is why my wife and I are participating. The Free State Porcupines are not irrational screaming zealots out to disrupt your lives. We are here to get our lives back, and yours, too. Live Free or Die! NEIL ALEXANDER Selma, Ore.

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