Libertarians Prepare Paradise in New Hampshire

Libertarians Prepare Paradise in New Hampshire

by Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff • 10/28/03

When Libertarians went looking for a state to call their own, they picked one with the motto "Live Free or Die" - New Hampshire.

If plans now afoot gel, they will influence the Granite State's politics and make the motto, taken from the words of Revolutionary hero Gen. Stark ("Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils") and adopted as the state motto in 1945, a living reality.

As we reported a few weeks ago, after a lengthy competition to choose the state they want, members of the Libertarians' Free State Project picked New Hampshire and are urging their followers to move there.

According to the New York Times, they plan to turn the state (the only one in the entire Northeast to vote for President Bush in 2000) into a nursery for libertarianism by recruiting freedom-loving people from all across America. Once they attract 20,000 people they plan to use their electoral clout. The Times reports that 4,960 people have already moved or pledged to make the move.

Once they reach that goal (target date: 2006), they plan to run candidates in elections, get active in schools and community groups, and demonstrate the wisdom of curbing taxes, reining in the gun grabbers, minimizing regulation of drugs, privatizing schools and cutting government programs.

"We want to make New Hampshire our home, and we want to make it a better place for everybody," Elizabeth McKinstry, a spokeswoman for the project, told the Times. "Many times government gets in the way."

Like-minded Libertarians Bruce and Devera Morgan plan a move from Royse City, Texas, to either far-north Coos County or the White Mountains town of North Conway.

"I didn't think I would ever leave Texas; that's how much I believe in this project," said Mrs. Morgan, 34, who wants to lift restrictions on home schooling.

Jackie Casey has just moved from Portland, Ore., to Merrimack, between Nashua and Manchester, along with her cat and her two 9-millimeter handguns.

"I don't like to go places that don't let me have my gun," said Miss Casey. Her plans in New Hampshire include starting eight businesses "because nine out of every 10 fail, and I've already started two, so I need to do eight more.

"I want to be a billionaire in my lifetime, and I don't want to live among people who think that's bad."

Linda Fowler, a professor of government at Dartmouth, called the project a "gimmick" and shrugged off "the idea that 20,000 people are going to make a critical difference in New Hampshire, a state of a million and a half people with very high voter participation."

However, "I suppose if they really did produce 20,000 people, then that might provide a margin in some legislative elections in some parts of the state."

Which is what the founder of the movement, Jason Sorens, a political science lecturer at Yale, intended. He wrote in an article:

"When we arrive in our state, we will have to do our best to blend in, lay down roots in the community, and slowly build our individual reputations. If we come in trumpeting an 'abolish-everything' platform, we will make enemies out of people who might otherwise be sympathetic to us. The key idea behind the F.S.P. is that for every activist, we will be able to generate several voters."

State Democrat chairman Kathy Sullivan said "if they want to have a radical change in our form of government, no, you're not welcome here," but Republican Gov. Craig Benson said to "come on up, we'd love to have you."

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