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Free State Project participants have 101 reasons to move to N.H.
« on: December 13, 2012, 10:08:32 PM »

December 13. 2012 11:10AM
Free State Project participants have 101 reasons to move to N.H.
By Henry Metz and Dan Moberger
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20121213/NEWHAMPSHIRE14/121219621/-1/news

Here is the 1st 1/2 of the article. Click on the link to read the other 1/2.

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series that will explore the Free State Project. This week, we look at who Free Staters are and why they choose to live in New Hampshire.

It is a movement that began outside of New Hampshire by a group of people who describe themselves as “pro-liberty activists,” and in 2003 they made the decision to call New Hampshire their home.

They are participants in what is called the Free State Project, an organized effort to get 20,000 libertarian-leaning individuals to weave their way into the Granite State’s political, social and business tapestry.

Formed out of a belief that government – as stated on the group’s website – 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,” the Free State Project has, thus far, brought approximately 1,100 people to New Hampshire from other parts of the country.

State Rep. Mark Warden is one of those people. A citizen of the Granite State since 2007, Warden recently won election to a second term in the state Legislature, where he represents Goffstown, Weare and Deering.

“I moved here from Las Vegas, Nev.,” said Warden, a real estate agent. “I was single – I still am – and so it was fairly easy for me to just pick up and leave. I was involved in new home construction in Nevada, and I was getting more and more interested in becoming an activist. Overall, I love it here. The winters are cold, but the scenery is beautiful.”

Warden, like many other Free State participants, found that the scenery wasn’t the only thing that attracted him to New Hampshire. He left Nevada for many reasons, not the least of which was New Hampshire’s tax policies – specifically, the lack of an income and sales tax, as well as no capital gains tax.

Freedom from taxes is included in a list of 101 reasons why Free Staters should move to New Hampshire, according to the organization’s website.

In fact, taxes – or a lack of them – figure heavily in what the Free State Project considers the leading virtues of the Granite State. New Hampshire has no inventory tax, the list points out, nor does it have a tax on “machinery or equipment.”

The fact that motorcyclists need not wear a helmet and adults need not wear seatbelts also make the list, as does the fact that New Hampshire has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation.

For Warden, who in the most recent election defeated Granite State native Aaron Gill, New Hampshire is an ideal state to pursue the ideals of the Free State Project.

Warden bristles – only slightly – when it’s suggested that Free State participants are little more than libertarians with an updated mission statement and goal.

“That’s a bit of an oversimplification” he said. “But certainly there are libertarian-leaning participants among the Free Staters who are mostly people with families and good paying jobs who take a nonviolent, nonaggressive approach and who believe that less government is better government.”

Warden believes government creates more problems than it solves, a view echoed by the Free State Project’s official literature.
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Why New Hampshire?  Learn why 1000s of liberty activists are planning to move to NH.  See the debate in page after page of forum messages, http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?124976-101-Reasons-to-move-to-New-Hampshire

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Re: Free State Project participants have 101 reasons to move to N.H.
« Reply #1 on: December 29, 2012, 03:33:06 AM »

This is article 2 of 3.


December 20. 2012 10:41AM
Free State movement not embraced by all Granite Staters
By Henry Metz, hmetz@yourneighborhoodnews.com
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20121220/NEWHAMPSHIRE14/121229936

It was designed to be a critical article so it isn't positive. Here is the 2nd half of it. Click on the link for the 1st half of the article.

Legislation

Among the characteristics that Free Staters admire about the Granite State is its relatively unrestrictive gun laws.

State Rep. Warden, in previous legislative sessions, sponsored bills that would lessen the restrictions on gun laws.

Specifically, Warden voted in favor of HB210, otherwise known as the “Stand Your Ground” bill which eliminates a person’s duty to retreat when they perceive a threat or are threatened in a public setting, such as a shopping mall. Under previous state law, a person had no legal duty to retreat when threatened in their home, but HB210 expands that to apply to public spaces. Warden was in favor of HB 334, which would have allowed guns on college campuses and dormitories, as well as sports venues, state parks and beaches.

In addition, Warden voted in favor of eliminating licensing requirements to carry firearms “whether openly or concealed.”

Such legislation is at the core of the Free State movement, which aims to place the burdens of accountability and responsibility on the individual. And that can best be accomplished, according to libertarian principles, by reducing or eliminating regulation – both in the areas of business and personal behavior – and by reducing or eliminating local, state and federal taxes, which Free Staters see as little more than a form of indentured servitude to the government.

Survival of the fittest

Still, those critical of the Free State Project see the movement in a much less favorable light than what Free Staters themselves would describe.

“I’ve spoken to several Free Staters who’ve moved here, in part, because they see economic and social disaster ahead for the U.S. – so it will be survival of the fittest played out in New Hampshire,” said Parmele. “Their goal is to shrink government down to essentially nothing, including removing safety nets of all kinds, leaving us all to fend for ourselves. This is completely impractical in this complicated world, as well as cruel. The idea of the common good, beyond themselves and their own community, is largely irrelevant to them. To me, they are naive and narcissistic in their quest for liberty. It’s really disturbing to think about what 20,000 of them – assuming they are all serious about coming here – could do to New Hampshire.”

In what may seem like an odd bit of irony for some, most Free Staters who run for public office in New Hampshire run on the Republican ticket. And that is something that irritates Soltani.

In a recent post on his Facebook page, he said Free Staters give traditional New Hampshire Republicans a bad name.

“I am a real Republican,” Soltani wrote. “I have never been the libertarian or anything else for that matter.”

In the post, Soltani is critical of House leadership and its so-called “gang of Free Staters” who he accuses of “trampling civility” during official House business and for whom the rules of the House “were optional” and the state Constitution was “a mere suggestion.”
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Why New Hampshire?  Learn why 1000s of liberty activists are planning to move to NH.  See the debate in page after page of forum messages, http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?124976-101-Reasons-to-move-to-New-Hampshire

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Re: Free State Project participants have 101 reasons to move to N.H.
« Reply #2 on: December 31, 2012, 12:30:50 AM »

Here are some parts of 3 of 3.

December 27. 2012 2:17PM
What's next for the Free State movement?
By Henry Metz and Dan Moberger
http://www.unionleader.com/article/20121227/newhampshire14/121229313/0/NEWHAMPSHIRE05

Quote
• Bedford Rep. John Cebrowski said he’d never heard of the Free State Project, but considers Rep. Mark Warden a libertarian-leaning legislator and “a good guy.”

Quote
When asked why Free Staters who run for political office in New Hampshire don’t identify themselves as such in their official campaign literature, Warden, the state representative for Goffstown, Weare and Deering, dismissed the need to do so.

“First of all, I challenge that premise,” said Warden. “It sounds like one of the talking points of the Democratic Party. That’s like saying we should have to identify ourselves as being Catholic or Protestant if we decide to run for political office. No one would demand that, so why should it be done in this case?”

Quote
Free State Project President Carla Gericke, who describes herself as a “recovering lawyer,” moved to New Hampshire with her husband from Manhattan in 2008, during a blizzard.

“We are originally from South Africa – I won a green card in the diversity lottery while I was in law school – and we landed in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-nineties,” she said. “We both ended up working in the tech sector and were hit hard when the Internet bubble burst in 2000-01.”
When asked to comment on the charge that Free Staters are simply trying to take over the state’s political apparatus, Gericke said that’s simply incorrect.

“I love this question,” Gericke said. “First, I think we should establish where the criticism is coming from. If it is from folks who benefit from the largesse of government, I would caution others to take it with a pinch of salt. Secondly, 20,000 people cannot ‘take over’ a state with a population of more than a million. Even when the move is triggered (when the 20,000 pledge signers are expected to come), FSP participants will make up less than 1.5 percent of the entire population. Third, did you know that two-thirds of the 2010-12 legislators were not New Hampshire natives? That Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen aren’t from here originally? Are they trying to ‘take over’? Lastly, the FSP itself is not a political action organization, it’s not tied to any political party, and we do not run candidates for election. What individual participants do once they get here is up to them.”
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Why New Hampshire?  Learn why 1000s of liberty activists are planning to move to NH.  See the debate in page after page of forum messages, http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?124976-101-Reasons-to-move-to-New-Hampshire
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