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Free State Project
Formation	September 1, 2001
Headquarters	Keene, New Hampshire, United States
Membership	9,600+
Official language	English
President	Varrin Swearingen
Website	freestateproject.org

The Free State Project (FSP) is an Internet-based political movement, founded in 2001, to get at least 20,000 libertarian-leaning people to move to New Hampshire in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideals.

Those who join the Free State Project sign a statement of intent to move to New Hampshire within five years of the group reaching 20,000 participants. Those who move to New Hampshire in advance of the FSP reaching 20,000 participants are referred to as "early movers".

As of September 23, 2009, there are 9,663 participants, of which 763 have already moved to New Hampshire. The movement achieved a victory in 2006 when one of its participants, Joel Winters, was elected to the New Hampshire General Court. Winters ran as a Democrat. In 2008, six Free Staters were elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives, including Winters, according to group participants.

Several project participants also belong to the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance.

Stances and mission statement

The organization identifies itself as supporting free markets and constitutional federalism. The organization's mission statement, adopted in 2005, states:

The Free State Project is an agreement among 20,000 pro-liberty activists to move to New Hampshire, where they will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property. The success of the Project would likely entail reductions in taxation and regulation, reforms at all levels of government to expand individual rights and free markets, and a restoration of constitutional federalism, demonstrating the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and the world.

History

The Free State Project was founded in 2001 by Jason Sorens, then a Ph.D. student at Yale University. Sorens published an article in The Libertarian Enterprise highlighting the failure of libertarians to elect any candidate to federal office, and outlining his ideas for a secessionist movement, and calling people to respond to him with interest. The organization has, since then, come to emphasize secessionism much less strongly, with Sorens publishing a note in the journal to this effect in 2004. Sorens has stated that the movement continues an American tradition of political migration, which includes groups such as Mormon settlers in Utah and Amish religious communities.

Process of choosing a state

The group originally was founded without a specific state in mind. A systematic review started by narrowing potential target states to those with a population of less than 1.5 million, and those where the combined spending in 2000 by the Democratic and Republican parties was less than $5.2 million, the total national spending by the Libertarian Party in that year. Hawaii and Rhode Island were eliminated from this list due to their propensity for centralized government.

A ballot in September 2003 was held to choose a state to focus the movement's efforts on. The ballot used the Condorcet method to choose the target state. New Hampshire was the winner, with Wyoming coming in second by a 55% to 45% margin. Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Vermont, and the Dakotas were also on the list.

The state of New Hampshire was chosen by the movement because the perceived individualist culture of New Hampshire was thought to resonate well with libertarian ideals. The movement, however, has drawn criticism from New Hampshire residents, mostly Democrats and those in towns with spending problems, concerned about population pressure and backlash to increased taxation. Republicans, on the other hand, have responded more favorably to the project, due to their espoused agreement on small government.

Annual events

The Free State Project is the official organizer of two annual events in New Hampshire; The New Hampshire Liberty Forum, and Porcupine Freedom Festival (PorcFest), respectively. The New Hampshire Liberty Forum is a convention-style event that takes place in a hotel each winter, and hosts a wide variety of speakers, dinners and various events. PorcFest is a week-long summer festival that takes place in a campground, and is designed to be a more laid-back event than the Liberty Forum.

Other Unaffiliated Activities by Free State Participants

There are many projects created by Free State Project participants, with similar ideas to the Free State Project, but are not officially endorsed.

Free Keene

Another unofficial initiative is Free Keene, which encourages people to move specifically to Keene, New Hampshire. The website lists "111+ Reasons to Move to Keene", and also documents activity already happening in Keene. Free Keene places a large emphasis on civil disobedience, rather than political activism.

Civil disobedience

Several Free State Project participants have taken part in acts of civil disobedience within New Hampshire. Lauren Canario was arrested for driving without a license, and then refused to co-operate with legal proceedings. She was arrested for a second time when she entered a court building without permission to retrieve a camera that had been taken from her.

On January 10, 2009, Andrew Carroll, an 18-year-old Free State Project participant, took part in an act of marijuana civil disobedience. Though he does not smoke it himself, he openly possessed marijuana, in order to demonstrate what he believes to be the stupidity of the drug war. Carroll was arrested for this, and was found guilty - but is opting to spend eight days in jail and appeal the conviction rather than pay a $420 fine.

Most recently, in April 2009, Sam Dodson was arrested for filming in a court lobby. As he refused to give his name (asserting his Fifth Amendment right), he was held in jail for nearly two months before being released for unknown reasons.

New Hampshire Free Press

The New Hampshire Free Press is published in Keene. Originally known as the Keene Free Press, the paper began as a web-based newspaper in November 2005, expanding to a twice a month print edition on February 23, 2006. The name of the paper was then changed, to its current form, in 2008. The print edition has a printing volume of 5,000 copies. The printed paper is available free at locations throughout New Hampshire.

The Free Press is edited by Russell Kanning, an organiser of the New Hampshire Underground website, and is called the Free State Gazette by many of the residents of Keene.

Gun rights

William Kostric, a New Hampshire resident and Free State Project participant, made news on August 11, 2009 when he was recorded carrying a sidearm openly while participating in a protest at a town hall meeting of President Barack Obama at Portsmouth High School in New Hampshire.

First noted on the TV news network MSNBC, Kostric later gave interviews with several media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, the New York Post, the radio shows Free Talk Live and The Alex Jones Show, the television shows Hardball with Chris Matthews and The Alan Colmes Show, and the Internet video blog The Ridley Report.

Kostric never attempted to enter the venue of the town hall, but rather stood some distance away, on the private property of a nearby church, where he had permission to be.

He held up a sign reading, "It's Time to Water the Tree of Liberty!", a reference to a quote from Thomas Jefferson,

"What country before ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

In Kostric's interview with The Ridley Report, he mentioned that he wishes for "30, 40, 50, 100 open carriers" at public protests and demonstrations. Four days later, on August 16, as more Obama supporters and protesters converged on the Phoenix Convention Center "about a dozen" people were noted by police to be openly carrying firearms, one of which was an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, at another public address by President Obama. Just as in Kostric's case, no gun crimes were being committed and no arrests were made.

References

External links

Free State Project site
NHfree.com
New Hampshire Liberty Alliance
European free state project
A Candid World, a documentary film about the FSP
Free State Project article on the FTL wiki

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