I’m Not The Only One

I’m not a huge sports junkie, but I do enjoy an occasional game once in a while.  However, I prefer watching it online as opposed to attending a live game.  The main reason for this preference comes not just from the price of concessions or tickets, the loud and obnoxious team “supporters, surly asshole ushers who think you’re trying to sneak into the expensive seats when you’re actually just lost, or even leaving my home to go watch the game.

What I really hate about attending live games is what takes place before the game: the demand that everyone there stand during the Pledge of Allegiance and the playing of the national anthem.  Sure, some people will drag out the tired, old argument that soldiers died abroad so that I could have the “honor” of reciting the Pledge. In truth, U.S. troops have mostly died to protect the economic interests of U.S. corporations, overthrow foreign governments, destabilize entire regions, complete Manifest Destiny and punish 11 states for seceding.  Very little of that troop deployment had to do with actually defending Americans from external threats, and indirectly, our “right” to mindlessly recite a pledge and honor America’s theme song when instructed to do so .

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The Free State Project recently reached 1,000 participants living in New Hampshire, shortly after Free Staters celebrated the project’s tenth birthday. The Free State Project, of which I am a part, is an effort to get 20,000 liberty-minded (libertarian, Constitutionalist, anarchist, voluntaryist, etc.) individuals to move to New Hampshire to keep it one of the freest and most prosperous states in the nation and keep it from going in the statist direction of other places like New York and California. As of today there are 11,665  participants, 1,010 of whom have already made the move.

The milestone got a fair amount of press, though a negative comment on one article did get my attention and prompted me to write this piece.  I tried to find this article again, and after trying for a week, was unsuccessful and decided I wanted to move on with this piece.  The commenter basically suggested the Free State Project was doomed to fail because it took ten years for 1,000 liberty lovers to move to New Hampshire while thousands of Massholes move north to New Hampshire every year. (more…)

One of the reasons I quit journalism after seven years in the business was because I got tired of defending journalism and the biased, unethical things that reporters and editors would do on an almost daily basis.  Sure, some offenses are more defensible than others, but they still contradict what journalists say they actually do.

One of my biggest pet peeves is, during election time, when newspapers publish a list of which candidates they endorse in the upcoming race.   Often this is a list of political candidates who have purchased the most advertising space from a particular newspaper.  In some cases, an editorial would run explaining why the newspaper had endorsed the candidate.

At the Queens Courier, the first newspaper at which I worked, candidates were able to bribe the publisher to publish an article smearing their opponents with less than flattering information that was ancient history and had no relevance whatsoever aside from the fact that a candidate had paid for said article to be published.

How can the editorial board of any newspaper say with a straight face that they are unbiased when they clearly make no effort to hide their bias and publish a list of the candidates they support?  How many people actually go out and vote for a candidate simply because their newspaper endorses them?  Is it any surprise that journalism has lost most if not all of the credibility this profession once had? (more…)

Like Occupy Wall Street, many of the participants in the worldwide Occupy protests have been painted as being overwhelmingly leftist with big government advocates demanding the government fix the problems it has created.

The media further solidifies this image of the Occupy demonstrations as being a socialist movement by flooding newspaper, television and Internet with oodles of images of protestors wearing Che Guevara t-shirts, holding up images of Karl Marx and waving the anarcho-socialist flag.  But this isn’t Manhattan; labor unions and other big-government cheerleaders might be less likely to join an Occupy protest in libertarian-leaning New Hampshire.  In fact, the local limited government crowd might produce enough numbers to counter the progressive feel of other Occupy demonstrations elsewhere in the country. (more…)

I’ve been reading articles all year long about individual states forming local alternatives to the Federal Reserve Note (FRN), a.k.a. the US dollar, as a way of stabilizing local economies and protecting the them from the ever-increasing inflation of federal currency or worse, if the Federal Reserve collapses completely and hurls the US dollar into hyperinflation.  (more…)

I recently met a New Hampshire native who was fairly familiar with the Free State Project and was also fairly critical of how successful it could be.  He was doubtful that people from other states would be successful in limiting the government in New Hampshire if they weren’t willing to do the same thing in their home states.

On the surface, this question has some merit, but when you dig deeper, the question sounds absolutely ridiculous.   The Free State Project was launched to attract liberty-minded people to come to a state where they had a far better chance of limiting government than wherever they came from.  The majority of people who emigrate to New Hampshire as part of the FSP come from states whose governments were far more intrusive, expansive and expensive than in New Hampshire.

Most NH natives have no real concept of what an extreme oppressive government is like, the phenomenon of being controlled by the state in many ways and paying extra taxes for the assumed privilege of being bullied around by said governments, so I can understand the ignorance from which this question comes.  Not to say that people from New Hampshire are ignorant; they are in fact some of the most fiscally and politically savvy people I’ve ever met. That said, their frame of reference of what role their local government plays in their lives is very, very different than what Americans from say, Los Angeles, New York City, New Jersey, North Carolina, Michigan and other parts of the country know.   (more…)

I’ve had a few people ask me why police oppression/brutality is so high in New Hampshire.  The Free State Project has the goal of getting 20,000 liberty-minded people to move to New Hampshire, but some of the content posted by Free Stater-owned media outlets like the Ridley Report, Free Keene, Talley.TV and Free Talk Live have made some people hesitant about moving to NH.  One click on any of the above websites and it is not hard to find some coverage about NH judges, state and local police abusing their authority.

One such incident occurred in June when some Free Staters decided to hold a protest outside the Manchester PD headquarters.  Some protestors scribbled slogans on the police station with chalk such as “Badges Don’t Grant Extra Rights” and many held video cameras and cameraphones to document how the police would react.  Eight people were arrested and charged with misconduct and criminal mischief for committing such crimes as chalking on the sidewalk and walls of the station, not dispersing when told to do so, refusing to present state ID and “collecting evidence” with their electronic devices.  Some had their devices confiscated (stolen) from police officers and were arrested when they attempted to retrieve their possessions later.

I don’t know about New Hampshire being the freest, but it is freer than a lot of other places in the country. In my hometown of NYC, the protestors would’ve been arrested just for assembling in public without a permit. Forget no ID or chalking.  And in New York, a lot of those protestors would’ve needed medical attention, as the cops there are lot more hostile and brutal than in NH, even to those who don’t resist arrest. (more…)

If you’re familiar with the Free State Project, then you must have heard of the annual Porcupine Freedom Festival, PorcFest for short.  Held in New Hampshire, this six-day festival turns an otherwise tranquil, law-abiding campground in the White Mountains into a bustling, noisy and exciting temporary autonomous zone, where freedom is not only discussed but practiced on virtually every square foot of the site.

A temporary autonomous zone is an area in which for a limited period of time, regulations from all three levels of government are suspended.  It is the closest most Americans will come to experiencing anarchy in action.  This is my second PorcFest, and my fiancee and I sell food there.  No permit, no business license, no government inspections, and nobody dies of food poisoning.  It’s not in my best interest to poison my customers, as this would result in no repeat business, and word of my bad food would spread like wildfire and I’ll have no new customers either.  In addition to FRNs (federal reserve notes) I also accepted as payment silver and copper. (more…)

Since I moved to New Hampshire last April as part of the Free State Project, I often feel like an immigrant from the Soviet Union or Cuba or some other incredibly repressive place coming to America.  Home to one of the country’s most expensive nanny states, New York City can be very expensive and very restrictive thanks to its high and numerous taxes and scores of regulation.  New Hampshire is the complete opposite, and having been a political activist years ago, to see the inner workings of the NH legislature is amazing when compared to the sluggish, stupified and corrupt governments that run the state of New York and NYC.  Talk about a sharp contrast.

Occasionally, I  come across stories in both New York and New Hampshire worth commenting on, but for some unknown reason, have not.  That’s going to change.  Like any good immigrant, I stay current on what’s happening in my crumbling “homeland” as well as my new home.  And there’s no reason why I shouldn’t add my two cents here.

And that’s what I plan to do from now on.

If you’re not familiar with the term, Mexican hunting refers to a recent practice of white Americans (some blacks, too, although to a lesser extent) of looking for people who “look” Mexican and then beating them, sometimes to death.  Of course, for most white people, almost all Latinos can be visually mistaken for a Mexican.  Already, an Ecuadorian immigrant has been beaten to death and a Colombian immigrant was almost beaten to death.

It’s great to see that blacks and whites in America have transcended their rocky historical relations to come together to attack Latinos. I also find it interesting that this sort of violence is primarily taking place in states like California, New Jersey and New York and not places like Arkansas, Georgia or Arizona. (more…)

I always knew I was right, I just never knew how right I truly was.

For years I’ve used this blog to, among other things, rant about the relentless statist bullshit I encountered on a daily basis, whether it was on the local, state or national levels.  And in New York City, there is no shortage of government invading our personal lives at the whim of a mayor who thinks big government is the swellest thing since sliced bread and a City Council that pays its members a a starting salary of $112,000 a year, not counting additional committee stipends and generous campaign contributions from grateful special interest groups.

Well, I got sick of living in this police state/kleptocracy and worse, paying into the system which keeps it alive.  For more details, refer to my previous entry.  My fiancee and I made the move 300+ miles north and are now residents of Manchester, New Hampshire.  We’ve even changed our phone numbers to the area code of our new home state.  And yes, we are very much involved in the pro-liberty movement, working alongside and exchanging ideas with libertarian socialists, agorists and Christian anarchists.

How will I’m Not The Only One change? (more…)

If you live in a blue state like I do, you are undoubtedly beaten down with rules and taxes; rules which make living more difficult and expensive and taxes and fees which only increase the financial burden.

As a native New Yorker, I’ve seen things go from bad to worse.  Both my home city and state are good examples of a kleptocracy, where the state is run by people who are socially conservative and economically liberal and the city is run by people who are socially liberal and economically liberal, but not socially liberal in the sense that would allow for any kind of observance of civil rights.  Government is as expansive and as expansive as you can imagine, except no liberal goals are actually being met.  Modern-day liberal milestones like gay marriage and legalized medical marijuana do not exist here.  (more…)