Free State Observer

I frequently get the feeling that I’m in the minority amongst New Hampshire liberty activists for having a “normal” job. I define “normal” as on a schedule of Monday - Friday, 9 - 5 (officially, anyway; the reality often exceeds those boundaries). I have health insurance. I pay extra for long-term disability insurance, so that if I come down with cancer, get in a car accident, or whatever, I won’t become either destitute or a burden to others. I save for the proverbial rainy day. And I pay taxes. Boy, do I pay taxes.

I laughed, with a tinge of mania, when my annual Social “Security” Statement arrived a week ago. It informed me that I’ve already paid over $55,000 towards my retirement “benefits”, which I’m sure I’ll be able to start collecting back at age 67, right after monkeys start flying out of my butt. Until then, I’m on my own. No, scratch that; even if monkeys DO fly out of my butt, I’ll be on my own.

Some make the argument that ’tis virtuous to not “feed the system”. My taxes pay for wars. Do I lay awake at night, racked with guilt over that fact? Um, NO. No more than I’d feel racked with guilt over being mugged, repeatedly. Angry, frustrated, impotent; these things I feel. But guilt? The government is like my friendly neighborhood pimp. I sell my services in the marketplace; he pockets a percentage of my take, with the clear understanding that if I hold out on him, he’ll beat me senseless.

Anywho, I just read an old article by Murray Rothbard on this exact subject, and most unsurprisingly, he puts it far better than I ever could. Preach it, Murray:

Libertarians in a State-Run World

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I tried to kill this blog the other day. I swear I did. It resurrected itself.

First, I deleted the index file. I didn’t delete the others because I wanted to export the content, and due to something buggy in the blog software, I couldn’t actually access the export button. A couple of days later, someone emailed me that something was weird with my blog. What blog, I mused? Why, the one that came back from the dead. Not only that, it locked me out of the server control panel so I couldn’t stab at its electronic innards.

So I posted something about cylon technology, then went through the hassle of upgrading the blog software, just so I could enable the export functionality, so I could try again to kill it.

While I slept, it rolled back the upgrade, cleverly removing the export button (as well as the last couple of posts and comments).

Clearly, there are cybernetic and/or astral forces more powerful than myself at work here. I will make no further attempts to kill it, but rather will attempt to live with it in peace and harmony, forging a whole that is greater than the sum of its fleshy and digital parts. Or something.

Frakkin’ toasters.

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Yesterday was the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November. In the United States, that means it was election day. It boggles my mind how much time, energy and money is poured into this annual event, which becomes especially crazed every four years when it includes the election of the President. On the radio the other day I heard that it’s estimated that $8 has been spent for every vote that will be cast for President. On a local level, I have several personal acquaintances who have spent hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of dollars campaigning for themselves or others.

Like the Ron Paul Revolution of last year, this whole phenomenon leaves me cold. It’s like a fever that almost everyone I know has caught, but I seem to be immune. Call me crazy, but if every single so-called liberty lover who is running for office in New Hampshire this cycle succeeds in getting elected to the state house, I don’t see how that’s going to affect my life one bit. The state is in a deep financial hole. The country is in a financial hole so deep, there’s no possible way to climb out of it. It’s like a train without brakes that’s screaming downhill, and all these people are fighting tooth and nail to get a hold of the controls; it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a train without brakes screaming downhill! No matter who’s steering, we’re all gonna go splat.

So this is how I spent this Tuesday. First, I went to work. I earned a full day’s wages, and I’m using those wages to bolster my personal financial position. Maybe I’ll pay off a little more of my grad school debt. Maybe I’ll buy a soon-to-be-outlawed gun.

Secondly, I voted. Long-time readers of this blog and/or viewers of the Ridley Report may recall my stating several months ago that, thanks to the rantings of Stefan Molyneux among others, I have come to the conclusion that politics is inherently immoral. I still believe that. But at the same time, I ain’t no pacifist… if an abusive political system is going to be shoved down my throat, I’m going to take what tiny action I can to minimize my pain. L. Neil Smith put it so well on his blog, I’ll just quote him here: “I have no use for those who fastidiously disdain to protect themselves or their loved ones, either with weapons or by voting defensively. I tried that path for a while, myself, and it leads directly to where we are now, a broken subject people, nearly in chains.”

One thing I’m *not* doing is running for office myself, or helping anyone else do so. I’ve had a few debates with myself about this. At times, I had to stop my hand from writing a check for personal friends for whom I have great respect who are running for office here in New Hampshire. But the truth is, I think they’re misguided. Downsize DC, an organization I admire and sponsor financially, explained my opinion better than I could myself in one of their almost-daily dispatches during the past week, so I’ll just quote them here (gee, this copy and paste thing is neat!):

Today we’ll compare the cases of Alan Greenspan, Ron Paul, and John Stossel, beginning with this . . .

If you oppose fiat currency and centralized government banking, and would like to abolish the Federal Reserve and legal tender laws in favor of free market banking and free market money . . .

And you think the best way to achieve these things is to put the right people — people who believe as you do — in positions of power, then . . .

It would have been reasonable to assume, prior to seeing him in action, that Alan Greenspan was the “right person” to head the Federal Reserve.

You could have justifiably assumed, based on Greenspan’s previous writings and statements, that he would use his position to not only control the damage done by the Fed, but also to argue for its abolition.

None of these things happened. Instead, the opposite happened. Greenspan betrayed every economic principle he had previously professed. Putting a presumed “right person” in a position of power did not have the right result.

To contrast with this example we can compare the case of Ron Paul. Ron Paul has always said the right things, and done the right things too.

Two different “right people” have produced two different results. What are we to conclude from this?

We conclude that you cannot tell in advance whether or not you’re entrusting power to the “right person.” The person you trust might turn out to behave like Ron Paul, or like Alan Greenspan. This means there is a huge probability that the time and money you invest in a presumed “right person” will turn out to be wasted.

Even if your chances of actually choosing a “right person who will behave in the right way” is as good as 50-50, that still means your time and money will have been invested to zero result. The good work of the 50% of “right people who do right” will be cancelled out by the bad actions of the people who betray your trust.

But we think it’s even worse than that. We do not think the attempt to choose “right people who will actually do right things” can possibly produce anything close to 50-50 results, even assuming that a majority of other voters choose as you do. The reason for this is simple . . .

The incentives of government power are structured to entice the people who have power to do bad things. We could choose many examples to bolster this claim, but there is one huge example that should suffice . . .

The Republicans told us for years that they would reduce the size of government, if only the voters would give them full control of both Congress and the White House. Eventually they gained that full control, and look what they delivered — the hugest spending increases ever.

We believe this example is devastating to the “elect the right people” strategy. And lest you think the problem is merely a Republican problem, just get ready for what the Democrats do. Obama has already betrayed his supposed principles in the case of his warrantless spying vote, and we predict more betrayals to come. Obama is not change, he is stasis.

We are supposed to be able to rely on the Democrats to protect civil liberties, and upon the Republicans to control government spending, but we cannot, because the incentives encourage the constant expansion of centralized government power in all directions.

And the prospects for a third-party solution are even worse, given winner-takes-all voting, gerrymandering, campaign finance laws, and a persistent partisan tribalism that limits the extent to which any third party can ever grow.

But there’s a further problem. How do you get a majority of Americans to vote for your supposed “right person?” You might argue for education to achieve this goal, but assertions are easier than results. The difficulty is highlighted by the example of John Stossel of ABC . . .

John Stossel has a mighty megaphone. His voice is far larger than that of any other person or institution advocating for downsized government. Every few months he produces excellent hour-long shows puncturing the myths of government programs. He reaches more people more powerfully than all other downsizing advocates combined. If you missed his latest installment, we strongly urge you to watch it.

But . . .

Even John Stossel’s mighty megaphone produces but a whisper in a hurricane. Aligned against Stossel’s one-hour shows are around-the-clock news coverage, political advertising, and teaching in our schools that constantly promotes the idea of more-and-more government “solutions.”

Even John Stossel, with his mighty megaphone, is fighting a losing battle.

The only way to win the battle is to have superior forces and superior funding. It will require a huge army that funds outreach capable of reaching everyone, everywhere, EVERY DAY. But what kind of institution could build such a force?

Will a think tank or a political party do it? We think not. Think tanks are think tanks. They are NOT grassroots organizing vehicles. Political parties ARE grassroots organizing vehicles, but to convince someone to join you must NOT ONLY convince them of your ideas, you MUST ALSO convince them to betray their old identity. It’s a doubly difficult task. Or . . .

If the vehicle you choose is a third party then the task is triply difficult, because the rules are rigged against you, and to change the rules you would need resources of people and money that the rules themselves prevent you from obtaining. We speak from experience.

We are humbly suggesting that we need a non-partisan, or even anti-partisan institution that educates, recruits, and imposes pressure on the politicians, all at the same time. We further suggest that such an institution should be structured so as to impose the smallest possible cost on each individual participant, so as to maximize both recruitment and participation.

I’ll drink to that.

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It’s primary day in New Hampshire. In towns all over the state, starry-eyed Free State Project early movers are standing at polling places (and from the looks of the sky, will soon be standing in a thundershower), holding signs, bright smiles plastered firmly to their faces, asking that their fellow New Hampshire residents choose THEM (or one of their friends) to be their elected representatives instead of those other guys who want to be their elected representatives. With very few exceptions, they’re all running as Republicans. Because, as we all know, the Republican Party stands for limited government.

What’s wrong with this picture?

I’m reminded of the excellent, if controversial, cartoon entitled No More Kings by the talented anarchist comic Dale Everett, creator of Anarchy In Your Head. A play on the popular Tolkien Lord of the Rings series, it shows Ron Paul holding out his hand, stating “Give me the ring, Frodo! With its power, I can lead the forces of liberty to victory.” I believe Everett’s goal was not to put down Ron Paul or his legions of fans; by all indications, if there is an incorruptible human being in American politics today, he’s the one. It was to show that the way to dismantle a corrupt and immoral system is not to attempt to put yourself in charge of it, confident that you will run it ever so much better than your neighbor (who, of course, is thinking the exact same thing).

Meanwhile, many hard-working political activists were shocked (SHOCKED!) when the Manchester Board of Aldermen used legal chicanery to refuse to put the spending cap for which they’d worked so hard gathering petition signatures on the November ballot. See the ridleo here.

Open your eyes. Freedom doesn’t come from an elected official (even if that elected official is your friend). It doesn’t come from a political party. It doesn’t come from any of the options printed on your ballot. It certainly doesn’t come from any piece of paper detailing the specifics of how a group of strangers can dispose of your property without your permission.

Thoreau had it right 150 years ago. “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

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[editor's note: the following post may be offensive to hippies, Christians, and people who don't find South Park funny]

A few weeks ago, I received an invitation to attend an organizational meeting of a new “ecovillage” that’s being developed in Barnstead. I didn’t know what an ecovillage is, or where Barnstead is, but I was intrigued enough to find out more.

The idea behind the ecovillage is that a couple of self-described hippies own a large tract of largely undeveloped land. They’re getting on in years and lack the time and energy to develop it themselves. They’re also demoralized by battling, for years, with the planning nazis of their small town, who have wasted a great deal of their time and money by imposing various arbitrary rules on them as far as what kind of home they can live in on their own property, how many friends they can have living with them, etc. But, as you are probably aware, the national real estate market is in the toilet right now, so they don’t even have the option of selling their property. Their adult children don’t share their passion for permaculture and have no interest in giving up their various careers to live in Barnstead. So the property owners are making a last-ditch effort to meet like-minded individuals willing to join them and try to develop an intentional permaculture community on the property.

I had to look up the word permaculture on wikipedia, as I really didn’t know what it meant. After doing so, I liked what I saw. I particularly liked this quote: “Permaculture design principles extend from the position that “The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children” (Mollison, 1990).” Although I was pretty turned off of modern American environmentalism as practiced by mainstream government-funded-and/or-colluding nonprofit organizations, based on my experiences working for the Sierra Club and a nonprofit recycling company, I still believe in the fundamental concepts. Resource conservation makes sense. I like fuzzy woodland creatures. I’ve been known to climb a tree (OK, mostly I just *think* about climbing trees…). I’ve also been giving a lot of thought to what kind of house, if any, I’d like to own. The truth is, a 1-BR apartment holds me, my cats, and everything else I own pretty nicely, and I am beyond lazy when it comes to things like housecleaning and handyman tasks. The thought of me owning a 3+-BR house seems like a recipe for disaster, unless I firmly commit to paying other people to maintain it for me. So the idea of developing a community based on the principles of resource and energy conservation, possibly featuring tiny houses, appeals to me. I also like the idea of having privacy within my own modest home, while still having the option of hobnobbing with other freedom-loving individuals who live within walking distance. Plus, the ability to just pack your house on a trailer and relocate it as necessary has definite appeal in these increasingly fascistic times.

I missed the first ecovillage organizational meeting due to illness. I did make it to the second, but showed up late on account of having to rush from the monthly LPNH meeting. By the time I got there, everyone else had disappeared into the woods for a tour of the property. One woman who had stayed behind told me which direction to head into the woods, and said “When you get to the yellow schoolbus, just keep going.” Ah yes… I was definitely in Hippie Country.

Perhaps I should mention that I spent many years in the socialist triangle of Berkeley/Oakland/San Francisco California. I attended college at Cal Berkeley, spending the first two years living one block up from People’s Park. I know hippies. And, [Cartman mode]GODDAMMIT!!![/Cartman mode] I don’t like ‘em.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I occasionally burn incense. I saw the Dead… twice! (Granted, I fell asleep during one of the shows.) I am most definitely anti-war. I can even tolerate the scent of patchouli.

But many other aspects of hippiedom make my stomach churn. I’ve got nothing against peace, love and happiness per se, but for Christ’s sake, would you get a JOB?! Take a SHOWER?! Plan for your own FUTURE, not to mention that of your children and those two mangy dogs you’ve got living under the overpass with you?! Unconditional love, IMHO, should be limited to pets and babies. Everyone else needs to *earn* love by being a decent, pleasant, productive human being. Obviously, if Jesus “Love Thy Neighbor” Christ and I had to go mano a mano, Jesus would kick my weenie ass in the fans-of-his-philosophy department, but I don’t care. I’m right, [Cartman mode]GODDAMMIT!!![/Cartman mode], and Jesus was just the first of the hippies, mooching free food and crash space off other people with, you know… jobs.

Where the hell was I?? Oh yeah, Barnstead. So, I caught up with the others, but was surprised to discover that, although all the snow had melted down where I live on the southern border of the state, there was still at least a foot of it up there in the woods. Fortunately, Doc Martens are fairly waterproof. We had a nice tour of the property, which is beautiful. We saw an owl head (yes, just the head), which was an odd David Lynchian touch. The owner of the property, who seems like a very nice old guy, told us his history with the property and what his vision for it is. Then we adjourned to a cabin on the property to continue the discussions.

Now, despite the fact that Barnstead is a bit beyond commute distance from my job, and my aforementioned aversion to hippies, I was trying really hard to keep an open mind and to see if I might be able to work with these people. Unfortunately, the owner lost me when he started discussing the mandatory ground-rules that would have to be applied to all who chose to pay to come live on his property. They included the following:
* no alcohol (granted, I don’t drink, but I have friends and relatives who do)
* no drugs (no mention was made of allowance for people who smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes)
* no firearms (I guess intruders will be kept off by the smell of patchouli?)
* no harsh language, because that is violence
* no walking your dog in the woods; it might disturb the wild creatures

Now I’m sorry, but this, to me, does not sound like a recipe for “freedom”. Some of these rules were to be imposed as a form of self-defense against the local police, who would apparently be looking for any excuse to shut the whole thing down. I fully understand that, and would probably be equally eager to protect my assets, liability-wise, if I were the one who owned the property. But still, if I can’t get hammered and scream obscenities at my significant other within the privacy of my own home, and must rely upon my bad breath to scare off intruders, what’s the point? And what the hell did my (theoretical) dog do to anyone?

Maybe I’ll take a second look at Grafton.
– fin –

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[Note: I'm swamped, getting ready for the Doug Stanhope Fundraiser for the LPNH, amongst other things. I therefore shamelessly dug up a used pre-blog rant for your viewing displeasure.]

I’m pissed.  If harsh language or frank discussion of human sexuality disturbs you, please go away now.

You’ve been warned.
—————————————————————
I give blood sometimes; it seems like the right thing to do.  I’m not afraid of needles and I can handle a little pain, although to be honest I hate the sight of flowing blood and never look at the tubes in the donation room. I don’t even like the sight of fake blood spurting in violent movies. So anyway, I’ve been donating periodically for at least 10 years now. I like to think that if someone I care about needed a transfusion, there’d always be a ready supply.  I wonder, though… I’ve been to blood drives where a room full of nurses are sitting around bored stiff, waiting for anybody to walk through the door.

So why, when blood is needed and a lot of people choose not to donate for a myriad of reasons, does the American Red Cross try so darned hard to screen people out? I find their questions embarassing, and impertinent, and invasive, and irrelevant, and just plain STUPID.  And they ask the same ones every single time, because even though they have my record (with Social Security Number) in their database, and I’ve answered all these questions several times before, most recently just a couple of months ago, they insist on asking them again and again. And after I give the correct answer to every question, they’ll test my blood for all the diseases that the questions are designed to screen for anyway.

I don’t give the nurses a hard time; I know they don’t write the questions, they’re just trying to do their job and maybe even help someone in the process (the guy in the chair next to me today did not seem to know this, and was being quite testy to the poor girl taking his blood).  But to those in the upper echelons of the American Red Cross, the NIH, the CDC, the AMA or whatever the hell is the source of this idiocy, this is how I’d REALLY like to answer your g-d questions:

Q. What’s your first name? Spell it. What’s your last name? Spell it. What’s your address? What’s your phone number?
[repeat three times]

A. Am I donating blood or have I stumbled into a POW camp?

Q. How much do you weigh?

A. Oh come now… I think any nurse can easily see I weigh more than 110 pounds.

Q. How many days have you spent in any of these Western European countries since 1980?

A. Are you kidding me? I’ve been to Western Europe many times. But I was only 11 years old in 1980! I’d be lying if I pretended to know the answer to that question.

Q. How many days have you spent in this list of Eastern European countries?

A. OK, I know Yugoslavia’s not a country anymore… is one of the ones on this list a place I’ve spent time in? Do you have an atlas handy?

Q. Have you ever had sex, even once, with a man who has ever had sex with another man?

A. Did I MENTION I’m from San Francisco?

Q. Have you had any tattoos or piercings within the last 12 months?

A. Did I MENTION I’m from San Francisco?

Q. Have you ever accepted cash in exchange for sex?

A. I’ve accepted DINNER in exchange for sex; does that count?

Q. Have you ever given someone cash in exchange for sex?

A. As a female, I’ve always been curious as to how exactly that works…

Q. Have you ever had sex with a man who has ever given someone cash in exchange for sex, or has ever taken drugs intravenously?

A. Why no, of course not.  I demand a notarized list of all previous sexual partners and illicit recreational activities of every man who wishes to see me socially.  Well, OK, not really. But I ASK them. And hey, a guy with a hard-on would never be less than 100% honest and forthcoming with me, right? 

Q. Have you ever had sex with anyone from the following (African) countries…

A. That sounds pretty racist to me!

And the things they DON’T ask… like,
Q. Have you ever had a medical procedure in a third world country?
A. Yes!

Q. Have you ever vacationed in Thailand, where the children know things children shouldn’t know, and the pretty ladies do awe-inspiring things with ping pong balls?
A. More than once!

Q. Have you ever been so drunk, you couldn’t remember the next day what exactly you’d been doing the night before?
A. No… which I do believe puts me in the minority of my high school and college classmates.
[note: this rant was written prior to PorcFest 2006   ]

!@#$ me for trying to do the right thing. 

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Hey! What was Seth thinking?! Who was that lady at the MVP meeting today and who did she think her audience was?

Well, I don’t know about any one else, but I was both bored and offended by the politician from Mass. She seemed to imply that those of us who have moved here needed a lesson on who Charlie Brown was (I mean Harry Brown) and yet all I heard was “Wa! Wa, Wa! Wa!” Did she really think that we are ignorant of what the problems are and if so, why didn’t she offer any solutions?

What her rant did remind me of though, is how much we really are accomplishing here. I mean, come on, where else have so few people grabbed the attention of the establishment? Certainly not Mass! We have such a diverse group of individuals and yet, I believe, our common goal IS to “make a difference.” This concept did not seem to phase our speaker and yet, how is SHE achieving any difference?

I moved here from across the country to do what ever I could with my meager experience and qualifications. I do believe that my efforts and those of my fellow Porcupines are valid, important and worthy of recognition. We are doing something about what ever it is that we deem is the problem and I am proud to be living in New Hampshire today.

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