The First Dimension of Association

NOTE: The opinions and commentary expressed in this essay are those of the author and are an exercise of free speech. They do not necessarily represent the views of Free State Project Inc., its Directors, its Officers, or its Participants.

The First Dimension of Association

by Steve Cobb

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania

Corollary: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain anything deserve neither it nor liberty, nor will they probably get it.

The Minority Representation Problem and the Local Majority Solution

In a democratic political system where decisions are made governing territorial divisions, a minority that is spread evenly across the divisions is at a disadvantage. Though they may comprise, say, 10% of the total population, they may win 0% of the representatives if the basis for their separation from the majority group is important enough to the vote. The minority is effectively disenfranchised.

The solution to this problem is well known: create a local majority either by creatively drawing the voting districts to match the minority population (known as gerrymandering), or by concentrating the minority population in a smaller territory. Besides the obvious problems with these solutions (e.g. getting the political power to gerrymander in the first place, and the logistical effort of moving people to another location), a difficult question arises: what to do if you belong to more than one minority group?

Which Minority Dimension?

I am black, an atheist, an Esperantist, and a libertarian, a minority on at least four dimensions--race, religion, language, and politics--all of which are quite important in American society. Assuming that I wish to associate only with "my own kind," so that the democratic process produces an environment that suits my needs and values, how shall I go about it? If I go live in a black area, there may not be any atheists, and if I live with Esperantists, there will not be many libertarians. One can only choose a single physical territory, which is what our democratic representation is based on. The solution is to prioritize the groups that one belongs to, gathering first with the group that is most important, then within that population with the group that is second-most important, and so on down the line. But what should that sequence be?

The Fundamental Dimension

If there is one basis for association that is most important, and critical to all the others, it is liberty, i.e. the mutual respect for each other's right to act within a large sphere of action without interference, as long as one is not violating someone else's rights. Within a community that respects your rights, you are free to further associate with other minority groups and otherwise pursue your dreams. Having first associated with those who choose cooperative, non-coercive relationships, one can then subdivide into, say, language groups, whether Esperanto, Scots Gaelic, Pennsylvania Dutch, or something more obscure. Switzerland, with its four languages and decentralized political system, is a more peaceful place than many other countries with just one common language.

Those who forget the importance of liberty, and join with those who prioritize some other passionate interest, may discover in the end that their common ideals are not realized. This lesson was learned by Bolsheviks in Russia betrayed by their revolution, drug warriors in the US who have seen drugs driven underground and use rise, and idealistic Islamic revolutionaries in Iran who hoped religion would purify government. Whatever one's cause, it is second to liberty.

Why the FSP Deserves a State

The Free State Project is a plan in which liberty-minded people will move to a single state to secure a free society. Why should other minority groups not attempt the same thing in the same state for their own cause? Because liberty is the critical first dimension, which must be ensured at the highest possible level. As long as the larger population has renounced the use of force to impose its will on others, all other minorities can be accommodated within, as long as they share that fundamental principle of the larger group. Within the Free State, all minority groups will be welcome, as long as they revere liberty.

March 31, 2002

The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily represent those of Free State Project, Inc., its Directors, or its Officers.

Benson allies gain ground but lose Benson

NOTE: The opinions and commentary expressed in this essay are those of the author and are an exercise of free speech. They do not necessarily represent the views of Free State Project Inc., its Directors, its Officers, or its Participants.

Benson allies gain ground but lose Benson
How should Free Staters react?

by Dada Orwell

Tuesday's gubernatorial election brings a new governor to New Hampshire, John Lynch. Lynch came to power promising an end to our statewide property tax and pledging to veto any sales or income tax. In any other state this would be considered some sort of anarchist coup. But here liberty lovers see it as setback for freedom because his opponent, Craig Benson was far more anti-tax than that. Most observers, including me, expected the incumbent Benson to win. In the event, his allies in the legislature did well...but Benson didn't. Stung by a series of scandals and various other problems I will recount, Benson failed to win re-election, by a margin of 2%. The news is not all bad, not by a long shot. I'll go into detail on that later. But this piece of news is bad enough to cancel out quite a bit of good. Benson is an unrivaled champion of liberty in New Hampshire; when compared to him even Lynch is not.

First, let's look at why Benson lost, or at least my take on it. I'll concentrate only on the factors that were under his control or ours, and as you will see...if any one of these problems had been dealt with, Benson probably would have won.

Winston Churchill once said you shouldn't criticize others for something they did in the past unless you can prove that you sounded the alarm bell at the time. So I'm attaching links to our discussion of these problems in the months preceding the election. Now...the problems:

1. Benson didn't start fighting soon enough. See this thread (in the Participants-only forum).

2. We didn't start fighting for him soon enough, although Kate Rick did sound the alarm starting in August. Thread (Participants-only forum).

3. Benson's campaign did not adequately mobilize the volunteers who signed up as such on his their website, or at least when they did it was too late. Forum thread.

4. His administration had too many perceived ethical breaches. Forum thread.

5. Finally, at this early stage, there simply are not yet enough Free Staters in-state to have a major impact. Sixty of us have officially moved since state selection a year ago, with perhaps another sixty movers not yet counted. One hundred and twenty green, early-arriving activists constituted a helpful force, but not a major one. And only a fraction of us were concentrating on the Benson-Lynch race. As best I can tell, recently moved Free Staters made up somewhere between 3 and 7 percent of Benson's active volunteer base. I'm basing this educated guess on the number of recently relocated Free Staters that showed up at the last two debate rallies. Others, of course, contributed in different ways or helped a different liberty cause.

Perhaps we recent movers were able to gain Benson an extra percentage point. If things had been just slightly different our efforts would have pushed him over the top and changed the course of New Hampshire history, perhaps American history. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, but this won't be our last chance.

Significantly, there is one thing that did not contribute to his loss, as best I can tell, and in this we should take heart. His association with the Free State Project does not seem to have hurt him; in fact it appears not to have been an issue in the race. If Lynch ever attacked him for supporting us, it wasn't reported in the press. As best I can tell, the last media-reported attack on Benson for associating with us was back in June. Since then we have apparently not been a point of contention, just a happy bunch of freedom lovers coming into the state at the rate of about two a week. If we were too small to affect the balance positively, we were too accepted to affect it negatively. This is great news considering the extent to which we had expected to be resented at this early stage.

Speaking of good news, here is the rest of it, at least the parts I know as of now.

1. The "liberty-hawks" in the NH House did significantly better than the ultra-authoritarians. Forum thread.

2. There were some positive results in the Senate. Two key Benson opponents (moderate Republicans) lost their Senate seats to conservative or liberty oriented candidates during the September primary. Both of the upstart conservative Republicans won again Tuesday against Democrats. However the Republican majority in the Senate has dwindled slightly. I haven't yet run the "liberty numbers" to see how libertarians and authoritarians did in the Senate, but these new Senators make up 8% of the Senate and should be better champions of freedom than their RINO predecessors. We're still crunching the numbers over at this forum thread.

3. Having a Democratic governor and a Republican house should, in theory at least, tend to bring about a bit of gridlock...that's usually good for keeping government growth in check. In any case, Lynch had to repudiate most of the things that are associated with Democrats...otherwise he would have lost.

4. New Hampshire Republicans won all four of the national races they were in. Each of the four have decent or bearable rankings from the Republican Liberty Caucus. The Caucus rates Bradley as a conservative, Sununu as a libertarian, Gregg and Bass as enterprisers (which means they are libertarian-leaning by Congressional standards). Though none of them are pure libertarians, each is more liberty-oriented than their Democrat counterparts. New Hampshire voted for Kerry by a hair...I'm not sure why but if they had gotten their way we would probably have seen Federal government growth slow to crawl. Divided government usually does.

5. With regard to the effect on us Free Staters, many of us have gained experience and knowledge as political volunteers. This we will pass on to the hundreds of new liberty immigrants expected over the coming year. I know I've learned a thousand things I can't wait to share!

6. Many of us have made new contacts and friends with whom we worked on these campaigns, many of them already in state government. Some of these bonds will carry on deep into the coming century. Speaking for myself I got to meet five state reps and will be staying in touch with three or four of them, not to mention the dozens of candidates and staffers who have worked to make us freer.

Ultimately, it's all a matter of how we respond to the week's events. We now realize that our untested, unprepared troops probably came within an ace of turning the governor's contest, in favor of liberty. If we had been a bit more active, more skilled or more numerous, Benson probably would have won, and we could have rightly claimed to be the decisive factor. This should inspire us all to action of some kind, regardless of where or who we are. The most "happening" list of things you can do this month seems to be Kate Rick's thread.

Whatever constructive thing you do I don't care...the point is, just go out, do it and tell us about it!

If the result of this defeat is more activity and closer bonds with our newly acquainted brothers & sisters in liberty, it will not have been a defeat at all.

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Best Libertarian Strategy

NOTE: The opinions and commentary expressed in this essay are those of the author and are an exercise of free speech. They do not necessarily represent the views of Free State Project Inc., its Directors, its Officers, or its Participants.

Why the Free State Project Is the Best Libertarian Strategy

by Jan Helfeld

Jan is an attorney/TV interviewer living in Falls Church Virginia. He has written and produced three libertarian TV documentaries: "The Proper Function of Government," "The Media Against Business," and "The Socratic Technique," and has been published in the LP News, San Juan Star and other papers. His address is:
3709 S. George Mason Dr. T 14 E,
Falls Church, VA 22041
Tel # 703 933 7870

The Free State Strategy

The Free State Project (FSP) proposes to identify the easiest state in the union to free, and then relocate 20,000 people to implement the liberation. The people interested in moving will sign up with FSP and vote on the state selected to be freed. There are 10 candidate states: Alaska, Delaware, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Idaho. Presently, more than 1,300 people have signed up. In order to reach the 20,000 mark, less than 1% of the people who voted for Libertarian candidates in the 2000 elections would have to sign up.

The Feasibility of the Free State Strategy

If we try to liberate the whole nation at once we could quadruple our efforts and still fail. However, if we concentrate our efforts on one state with a low population, we already have enough people and money to liberate it.

Do the math. In the last presidential election 328,000 people voted in the Delaware State elections. Probably 182,000 votes would be enough to win any office. If 6 percent of the 3,278,607 people that voted for libertarian candidates nationwide in the 2000 elections moved to Delaware, they would have more than enough votes to elect a libertarian Senator and Governor.

On the basis of my experience with other libertarians, it is reasonable to assume that one out of twenty would be willing to move. Thus, the free state strategy is feasible. However, if in your view only one out of 160 (that's 20,000) libertarians would be willing to move, the free state strategy can still work.

If 20,000 libertarian activists moved to Delaware, they would already have between 11 and 17 percent of the necessary votes in a three-way race. Twenty thousand libertarian activists should be able to persuade the remaining necessary voters to vote for a libertarian candidate. If that's not doable, then none of the libertarian races are, anywhere in the country. In any event, libertarians would certainly achieve some political power.

As far as money is concerned, if libertarians focus their spending, they would be competitive in many sparsely populated states. In Wyoming, Vermont and North Dakota the total campaign spending by all US House & Senate candidates in the most expensive election of the last 6 years was around 4.5 million for each state - that's for Democrats and Republicans combined. Libertarians spent about 5 million dollars in the 2000 presidential election (the LP spent 3.6 million and the Browne campaign spent 1.5 million). Thus, we would have reasonable parity in campaign spending if we focused on one state.

Because the free state strategy would mobilize so many libertarian activists, it would give the Libertarians a great advantage over the Republicans or the Democrats, both of whom would have far fewer than the 20,000 activists we plan to relocate to a vulnerable state. This advantage would permit Libertarians to register large numbers of new voters to vote Libertarian, a factor that could easily make the difference and lead to a Libertarian victory. Not all of our 20,000 will be activists in the Libertarian Party at first, but they will be strong activists for freedom, and the Libertarian Party should benefit most of all parties.

Finally, if we look at history, it is not unreasonable to assume that people are willing to relocate in search of liberty. In fact, our nation was founded by such people. They, and others since them, have been willing to cross oceans in search of liberty. Thus, it is entirely feasible that a small percentage of libertarians would be willing to cross a few state lines.

The Political Benefits of a Free State

How much political power would we achieve if we freed one state? We would gain two US Senators, one or two Congressmen, a state Governor and hundreds of local political positions. This is a thousand times as much political power as libertarians have today. We could have all of that without expending any more political effort than we are today. This political power would be used to free the citizens of that state and begin the process of freeing all US citizens.

In the words of the website, "What can be done in a single state? We could end state redistribution of wealth, repealing state taxes and wasteful government programs. We could privatize education and utilities. We could repeal laws regulating guns, drugs and other victimless crimes. We could abolish asset forfeiture, abuses of eminent domain, inefficient regulations and state monopolies."

What can one free state do for other states in the union? Quite a bit. Given the nature of the US Senate two senators can do a lot of obstruction in the name of freedom. Also, given the delicate political balance between the Democrats and Republicans, two libertarian Senators could have the balance of power on many issues. At a minimum, they could stop the growing encroachment on our freedoms, if not rollback some of the oppression.

How would the national media's agenda be affected by freeing one state? No longer would our position be ignored. Our Senators and Congressmen could keep freedom on the national agenda constantly. They could engage their fellow Congressmen and Senators in discussions and debates and persuade some of them to abandon their statist ways.

Two active libertarian Senators could get themselves on national television regularly and have the opportunity to defend freedom in front of the whole nation. They would provide the nation with a perspective that so far has received inadequate attention. All we need to prevail on all the important issues is sufficient public debate. Two able libertarian Senators could create this public debate and win over the nation.

The free state strategy will permit us to break the vicious cycle we are in today. We can't get elected because the media does not cover us, and the media does not cover us because we don't get elected. By getting elected to important political positions, the media will have to cover us. When the media covers us, we will be able to persuade more people to vote for us throughout the nation and thus, break the vicious cycle.

A free state would serve as a model of the benefits of freedom for the whole country and the world. The peace and prosperity within the free state would be a concrete example of the benefits of freedom, serving as a powerful argument for the liberation of other states. Those wanting immediate freedom could vote with their feet by moving to the free state. They would be great contributors to the free state and would put pressure on other states to reform.

If you doubt this, just ask yourself why it was that the United States was originally so successful? Why did we becomes so prosperous, why did so many people come here, and why were they successful? There's only one answer: freedom. Human beings can live better lives when their individual rights (life, liberty and property) are protected, i.e., when they have the right to decide freely how to live their own lives as long as they don't violate other people's rights.

The political organization of the United States, founded on and illuminated by the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, protected the individual rights of the citizens here, more than in any other place in the world heretofore. As a result, people came here from all over the world and prospered. That was the secret of our success. People here had a better chance of a happy satisfied life than in any other place in the world. To the extent that we return to the principles of our original model of social organization, we will have the same results again. We can get closer to this model in a free state.

Why the Free State Strategy Is the Best Libertarian Strategy

Is there any other strategy that will produce more freedom with the same amount of time, effort and money invested? I think not. If we spread ourselves thin throughout our nation we will liberate fewer people, and to a lesser degree, than if we concentrate all our efforts on one state where it is easy to win. The reason for this is simple: if you invest a given amount of time, effort and money in the free state strategy, it will produce more political power than if the same amount of these resources is invested in a nationwide strategy. The free state strategy is clearly a more efficient use of our resources than the nationwide strategy. Simply put, the free state strategy gives us more bang for the buck.

For instance, in California's 2000 elections, Senator Diane Feinstein got 5,313,355 votes to win, whereas Delaware Senator Thomas Harper only needed 181,387 votes to win. Libertarians need 29 times more votes to elect a Senator in California than they need to elect a Senator in Delaware. Therefore, it is approximately 29 times harder to elect a California Senator than it is to elect a Delaware Senator.

I said "approximately" because there are other factors besides total vote count that affect the relative difficulty of getting 5,313,355 votes as compared to getting 181,000. For instance, it is true that it is easier to get more votes when the pool from which you're drawing is larger. However, you should not overestimate the value of drawing from a larger pool. Consider the case of Harry Browne who drew from the largest pool available - the entire nation (104,000,000 voters). His vote total (376,123) was still about 14 times too small to beat California's Senator, Diane Feinstein. The point is that persuading five million people to vote libertarian is an enormous task no matter how you slice it. It is much easier to persuade 181,000.

Something libertarians should ponder is that sometimes a task's difficulty increases exponentially as the task increases in magnitude. Consider the difference between walking one mile and 29. Most people can't walk 29 miles straight no matter how many times they try, and thus, walking 29 miles is more than 29 times harder than walking one mile. But regardless of your view on the exponential increase in difficulty, if you can get what you want by walking one mile, why would you walk 29? A strategy that is twice as hard is a poor strategy; a strategy that is 29 times harder, or anything in that vicinity, is ridiculous.

The bottom line is, if we can't elect a Senator in Delaware, why are we trying in California where it is 29 times harder? One reason is that we are overestimating our resources and underestimating the difficulty of winning elections. As a result, we are not tailoring our resources to achievable political objectives. Consequently, we are squandering our limited resources.

Clearly this nationwide strategy is not an efficient strategy. We need instead to work as a team, as a real political party. We need to make a concerted effort to smash the weak link in the chains of tyranny.

For those of you who like historical analogies, consider General George Washington's dilemma when facing the British troops. Should he meet them in an open field and in open battle, or on the other hand, should he hide until he can concentrate all of the army's efforts on a weak point where he can win. It is a good thing he made the right decision. We need to do the same. We need the free state strategy.

The free state strategy will free the people that don't move faster than they can free themselves directly and individually.

If freedom-loving people concentrate their efforts on helping to free one "weak" state, the political power achieved in that state will help them more than the small amount of political power they could gain if the same amount of effort is invested in freeing themselves directly in their own state.

Take a state like Massachusetts. How much time, money and effort have libertarians spent, and how much political power do libertarians have in Massachusetts? The amount is embarrassing. The strategy in Massachusetts has produced virtually no political power for libertarians. If instead the libertarians from Massachusetts had spent their political effort in Delaware, in the 2000 elections they would have produced more than the 182,000 votes needed to elect a Senator in Delaware.

In the 2000 elections, Massachusetts' Libertarian candidate for Senate, Carla Howell got 308,000 votes. This achievement would have been more than enough to elect a Senator in Delaware, but since the votes were cast in Massachusetts, she lost badly to Kennedy. As a result, libertarians got zero senators and zero political power. If her great campaign had been focused on Delaware and activists from all over the country had relocated in Delaware, and libertarians had supported her instead of their home state candidates, she would be a Senator today.

Does anyone doubt that the libertarians from Massachusetts would have gained more political power by electing a libertarian Senator in Delaware than they gained from their efforts to elect libertarians in Massachusetts?

A libertarian Senator from Delaware provides the libertarians from Massachusetts with more political clout than the present strategy. A libertarian Senator from Delaware will be as committed to defending freedom in Massachusetts as he will be in defending freedom in Delaware. The reason is that he or she is committed to defending the individual rights of all US citizens in principle. He will try to stop tyranny wherever he finds it. Therefore, the libertarians from Massachusetts will be as protected as those from Delaware.

A libertarian Senator is a libertarian Senator. Regardless of the state from where he is elected, he has one vote, and he will vote libertarian. He is not trying to bring home the bacon; he is trying to stop the slaughter of the pigs (taxpayers). Therefore, electing a libertarian Senator in any state helps all libertarians - and all US citizens for that matter.

The Past and Present Libertarian Strategy

My criticisms of the past and present libertarian strategy should not be viewed as disparaging remarks or attacks on the hard-working courageous members of the Libertarian Party and their work to promote freedom. Quite the contrary, it is because I value and respect them that I don't want their efforts to be wasted. It is because I know that most people don't have the determination and strength of character to continue working for the cause defeat after defeat. It is because I fear that the flame of freedom could burn out if we don't have some success soon.

With that said, let's review the record objectively. Many of you know the record better than I do, but as far as I know the Libertarian Party started in 1976 with a nationwide strategy similar to that of the Democrats and Republicans. Our strategy was to win any and all positions, recruiting as many candidates as possible and running them all over the country. There have been variations in tactics but all within the nationwide strategy. Here are the results as summarized by Jason P. Sorens in his article "The Case for Libertarian Pessimism":

1976 is the first year in which Libertarian Party votes are tabulated for the whole country. In that year the party received 0.1% of national ballots for the House of Representatives. This increased to 0.7% in 1980 and 1982, fell back, and only reached 0.7% again in 1990. Since 1994 party vote has been rising slowly but steadily, from 0.6% in 1994 to 1.6% in 2000, mostly because of a greater number of candidacies. We have seen some real progress over the last eight years in percentage terms, but in absolute terms the growth is very small. Let's say we kept pace and increased congressional vote one percentage point every six years from now on: it would be the year 2204 before we reached 35% of the national vote, possibly enough to elect a majority in the House of Representatives in a three-party system. . . It's clear: a national Libertarian strategy is doomed to fail. No libertarian party will ever win the Presidency or a majority of seats in the U.S. House or U.S. Senate. We have to admit that fact before we can begin to make strategy for the future.

Why has the nationwide strategy failed? Simply because it is not the most efficient use of our resources. The concept that captures this issue is return on investment. It refers to the fact that how you invest your capital, in our case, the time, money and effort of the members, determines what return you will get. If a business repeatedly makes the wrong decision on this question, it will not make profits and will go broke. If our political party repeatedly makes the wrong decision on this question, it will not obtain political power because it will be trounced in election after election and it will lose members.

Why do you think that less than one percent of the people that voted for libertarian candidates in 2000 belong to the Libertarian Party? Could it be that they are disenchanted with the present strategy and past results? Are they disillusioned as a result of so many devastating defeats? Does it make sense to continue a strategy that guarantees more devastating defeats? Do these continued defeats drum into the minds of the voters that libertarians cannot win? What will happen when this idea becomes firmly entrenched in the national consciousness?

We need success above all else. Success breeds success. The free state strategy gives us the best chance for electoral success. We should not continue to use the failed nationwide strategy, election after election. We have tried it for 31 years. Isn't that enough? Don't we make fun of the Democrats when they try to reduce poverty with more government spending and then, when they fail, they propose to do even more of the same? We see the structural flaw in their strategy, why can't we see it in ours?

The Essence of Political Leadership

The fundamental purpose of a political party is to obtain political power to implement, through law, the values of its constituents. In our case, this value is freedom.

The essence of leadership in a political party is to estimate the resources of the party, namely the time, money and effort of the members, and then decide what is the most effective way to employ these resources in order to achieve the greatest amount of political power, in our case, to further freedom. In this regard, it is important not to overestimate the party's resources or underestimate the difficulty of winning a particular election, because once the election is over, the resources are spent and, in large part, all you have to show for the spent effort is whatever political power you have gained. Thus, if we follow a strategy that overestimates our resources or underestimates the difficulty of elections, we will pay the ultimate price, i.e., squandering our limited resources, regardless of the good intentions of everyone involved.

Given the importance of identifying the optimal strategy, leadership consists in fostering discussion and formal debate on the subject, in order to maximize the opportunity for the best strategy to surface. Once there is a consensus on what strategy embodies the most efficient use of the party's resources, leadership consists in persuading the rest of the members of the party that you have identified the most effective strategy and then getting them to rally behind that strategy.

The Personal Benefits

Why you should consider moving to the targeted free state

What kind of people do you like to associate with? Do you like to be with people that respect your rights? Are they by and large more rational, productive, joyful, and benevolent people? Do you usually enjoy their company more?

People that respect other people's rights are more likely to be independent, responsible, fair, friendly and fun loving (my kind of people). The reason is simple: grasping the idea that it is in your own self-interest to respect other people's rights requires a certain level of intellectual development and maturity. This intellectual development and maturity makes it more likely for these people to have reached other important conclusions about optimal living and the character that it requires. They are more likely to have concluded that they must use reason to understand life and know what to do (rational), that they should produce what they need to live (productive), that they should treat other people as they deserve (fair), that they should assume responsibility for their own conclusions and lives (independent and responsible), that facilitating material and spiritual trade is in their own self-interest (friendly and benevolent), and that they should pursue their own personal happiness (joyful). Consequently, you are more likely to be surrounded by good people if you move to a free state.

How important is it to you to live in a community of people that believe in respecting your individual rights and value freedom? In principle, will you have more economic, intellectual and romantic opportunities in such a society? Obviously yes. People that are rational, productive, independent, friendly, benevolent and joyful have more to offer than their counterparts. Thus, you will have more and better opportunities in such a community.

Will your rights be less likely to be violated in such a society? Clearly, you will be much safer in a society where most people believe in respecting your individual rights. It will be less likely for the government to violate your rights (as a result of the free state reforms) or for individuals to violate your rights (as a result of their intellectual convictions). For all these reasons, and others mentioned previously, you will, other things being equal, have a better chance of pursuing and achieving your own personal happiness in a state targeted for freedom. Therefore, it is in your own self-interest to move.

Do you want to do something great in your life? How much satisfaction would you derive from contributing to the liberation of one state in the union? How much satisfaction would you derive from contributing to the liberation of the United States and the world? The Free State Project has the potential to achieve all of these objectives. First the state, then the United States, and then the world. We can turn things around and be the benefactors of our families, friends and humankind. That's a pretty big accomplishment. It is heroic.

Are you doing anything else more important? If so, maybe you can join us later. If not, you are absolutely welcome to join us now. Personally, I can think of few things that would be more important for me to achieve in life. Consequently, I am enthusiastic about the project. I hope my enthusiasm is contagious.

Are you interested in hearing a presentation on the free state project or debating the issue? If so, you can email me at JanHelfeld@AOL.com (subject - free state). For more data on all of the above, see www.freestateproject.org.

October 14, 2002

The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily represent those of Free State Project, Inc., its Directors, or its Officers.

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What Can 20K Liberty Activists Accomplish in NH?

NOTE: The opinions and commentary expressed in this essay are those of the author and are an exercise of free speech. They do not necessarily represent the views of Free State Project Inc., its Directors, its Officers, or its Participants.

What Can 20,000 Liberty Activists Accomplish in New Hampshire?

by Jason Sorens – April 12, 2004

This essay is a significant revision of an earlier article, "What Can 20,000 Liberty Activists Accomplish?".

The main goal of the Free State Project is to recruit 20,000 liberty-friendly Americans to move to New Hampshire over the next several years. The purpose of this cooperative migration is to create a freer, better society through the electoral process and cultural change. Those of us who believe government in the U.S. is far too involved in our daily lives and far too removed from the control and influence of ordinary people represent a substantial minority in the U.S., but a minority nonetheless. In all our political efforts to date, we have been thwarted by powerful special interests in D.C., by the ignorance or apathy of many Americans, and by the self-interest of politicians themselves. The idea behind the Free State Project, therefore, is that by concentrating pro-freedom resources in a single, friendly state we will leverage our influence more effectively while also enjoying immediately the benefits of a freer state culture.

So much is clear. But why 20,000? What is the logic behind this number? There is certainly nothing magical about it. When the FSP started, 20,000 signatures seemed like an attainable goal, and one that would mean something. Further research showed that 20,000 people could significantly influence several states, assuming that they were all active in politics or civil society, not just passive onlookers. This essay expands on that research to consider exactly what 20,000 Free Staters could accomplish in the state we've chosen, New Hampshire.

In my first essay on the topic, I looked at two figures that seemed analogous to what we were attempting. I examined the Parti Quebecois (PQ) and their rise from a minor party favoring Quebec secession to the governing party of Quebec. When they won their first absolute majority in the Quebec parliament, in 1976, there were approximately 100,000 PQ party members in a Quebec population of about 6 million, a ratio of 1 member to 60 residents. If the individual-liberty movement of which the FSP is a part is analogous to the Quebec independence movement, and the average Free Stater is as active as the average PQ member, then the individual-liberty movement might expect to be able to win a majority in a U.S. state of about 1.2 million population (assuming 20,000 Free Staters there). Another figure I examined was Libertarian Party membership in the U.S. The Libertarian Party is one of the political parties popular among FSP members, and therefore their experience certainly seems analogous. In the year 2000, the Libertarians briefly reached a membership of 40,000 and was able to raise $5.2 million that year. If 20,000 Free Staters could raise as much on a per capita basis, that means at least $5.2 million raised by Free Staters every two-year election cycle. $5.2 million in an election cycle is competitive with the entire Republican or Democratic (or both!) expenditure in several states.

Both of those figures imply that FSP participants have the potential to create significant political momentum in a state. However, subsequent research shows that they may in fact be quite conservative. For instance, the PQ became the second largest party in Quebec when they had 60,000 members, in 1973. When that happened, their ultimate victory was only a matter of time, because the voters would tire of the incumbent government eventually, and the PQ was the only relevant alternative. Thus, once the PQ reached a 1 in 100 member-to-population ratio, their eventual electoral success seemed assured. Put another way, their rise from 60,000 to 100,000 members was a consequence of their rising popularity in the 1970s, not a cause of it. So applying the same ratio to New Hampshire's population (just under 1.3 million), we see that under 13,000 Free Staters may be able to have the same sort of impact there.

Likewise, the comparison based on Libertarian Party fundraising does not take into account the fact that state legislative elections are much cheaper than federal congressional elections. The 2002 gubernatorial race in New Hampshire was hugely expensive (over $15 million, more than $10 million of which was spent by Craig Benson from his own fortune), but it appears that just over $2 million total were earmarked for state house and senate elections (source). Moreover, money does not strictly determine election results: Democrats slightly outspent Republicans but were decimated in the election for proposing an income tax.

The upshot of all this is that purely by the numbers, well organized Free Staters could have a significant effect on state-level politics in New Hampshire even if they numbered just eight, ten, or twelve thousand. However, this purely statistical analysis also does not take into account the specific circumstances of our state. Many of the advantages of New Hampshire for freedom-seeking Americans are well known features that sold the state to thousands of FSP members, but I intend to take the well-known lists of "desirable features" to induce a more general picture of the state, a "Theory of New Hampshire" if you will.

I class New Hampshire's advantages in two categories, cultural and institutional. Cultural aspects of New Hampshire relate to the friendliness of Granite Staters to our ideas. Institutional aspects of New Hampshire make it easy for grassroots political movements to have their say in state politics.

First, cultural aspects. The litany of advantages here, well detailed in the "101 Reasons to Vote for New Hampshire" report, is nearly overwhelming - no state sales or income tax, the lowest state and local tax burden in the continental U.S., no adult seatbelt law, no helmet law, very few gun laws, a governor and many state legislators who've been explicitly welcoming, a large percentage of political independents, extremely low dependence on federal subsidies, low government employment, and so forth. What has been missing from all the talk of New Hampshire's independent spirit of tolerance and responsibility is an understanding of the sources of this spirit. As a political scientist, I tend to believe that broad social attitudes on these issues are often influenced by very basic historical and socioeconomic factors.

Let's start with history. As Bryan and McClaughry point out in The Vermont Papers, Vermont and New Hampshire historically developed a specific type of libertarianism to match their settlement patterns, centered around small towns occupying rills, dales, and valleys among the hills and mountains of the area. The town meeting system allowed citizens to keep their government officials close enough to "grab them by the scruff of their necks" if they overstepped their power. Essentially what developed was a kind of "communal libertarianism" different from the individualism of the West, where one could simply escape the company of others. This town meeting system with its emphasis on local government is still largely intact in New Hampshire today. The libertarian frontier spirit of New Hampshire was immortalized in the state constitution, Article 10 protecting the right of revolution and resistance to arbitrary rule.

While New Hampshire did develop a manufacturing base early in the 20th century, it never developed a large metropolis. The largest city in New Hampshire, Manchester, is quite different from most other cities of about the same size (approximately 100,000 residents). It is much more conservative in its voting patterns. Metropolitan areas have typically been left-leaning, because they were historically controlled by corrupt party machines or dominated by labor unions. Furthermore, metropolitan areas have had higher concentrations of free thinkers and people looking to shake off the values of the past. For many of these people, "progressivism" in the 20th century meant socialism. While this tendency is likely to change in the future (and in fact urbanized areas in Europe already tend to be more classically liberal than the countryside), for our purposes, the Boston-Washington corridor, the Rust Belt states, and the Pacific coast are too heavily urbanized and thus too statist. We could not have picked any of those states and had success.

Economically, New Hampshire has the advantage of a dynamic economy centered around knowledge-based and service industries. Such industries tend to favor the global economy and a leaner scale of government that makes rapid adaptation possible. New Hampshire's high per capita income also means that residents pay much more to the federal government in taxes than they receive in expenditures. New Hampshire is thus quite different from neighboring Vermont and Maine, which have struggled economically, and from the interior states of the West and Midwest, which are dependent on agriculture and natural resources and hence take a more insular view of the world. Such societies tend to fear change and integration into the global economy.

Socially, New Hampshire has always ranked as one of the more tolerant states in the country. This fact is related to its religious diversity. States with a very high evangelical Protestant population or a very high Catholic population tend to be socially authoritarian in different ways. New Hampshire is not necessarily secular, but it is pluralist. The Southern states are all too socially conservative, and most of them are also very dependent on the federal government.

New Hampshire thus combines the best of all worlds and ends up with an ideal socioeconomic and cultural mix. Most of the states that are socially tolerant and economically advanced tend to be heavily urbanized and leftist, while most of the states that are not heavily urbanized tend to be poor or too rightist. New Hampshire is the only state in the country that I can identify that is tolerant, advanced, not federally dependent, not too urbanized, and historically libertarian-oriented. If a libertarian movement were to succeed anywhere in the country, maybe in the world, it would be in New Hampshire.

Let's take a look now at New Hampshire's unique institutional advantages. The main "institutional" disadvantage of New Hampshire is that it does not have the absolute lowest population of any state. However, as the analysis above shows, several thousand Free Staters should be able to influence New Hampshire very strongly despite its small-but-not-smallest size.

In addition, a multitude of institutional advantages seem to outweigh the population problem. First, New Hampshire has a large state house, the third largest legislature in the English-speaking world. Low district size means that outsiders and independents can win elections by running a good campaign. For example, several Libertarian Party legislators won election to the NH House in the 1990's. The $100 per year salary for NH House representatives ($200 for state senators) ensures that career politicians do not dominate the legislature. The practice of fusion voting, rare in the U.S., allows politicians to run for election with multiple party endorsements, making it easier for third parties to win votes. Biennial elections for all state elective offices ensures strict popular control of government. Despite the fact that New Hampshire has no initiative and referendum process, the ease of getting on the ballot combined with biennial elections for every state office means that virtually every statewide election is a referendum on the policies of the incumbent government. Another institutional advantage is the aforementioned strength of town government. Schooling is an important policy area that activists can change at the local level in New Hampshire. The state constitution forbids unfunded state mandates on local government.

New Hampshire's institutions thus reflect the state's history and political culture, providing a unique opportunity for a "free state" movement.

Are you interested in helping to secure the future of individual rights, tolerance, and the rule of law? Would you enjoy living in a society that respected your values? Then join us in New Hampshire! My own analysis indicates that there is no better place on earth. Do your own analysis and discover where you'd like to be in the future.

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Welcome from NH Residents

Welcome from NH Residents

(If you are a NH resident and would like to submit a welcome message to the FSP, please send us an email).