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The Granite State Gang

New Hampshire transplants live free — or die trying
By CHRIS FARAONE  |  August 26, 2009

0905_NH_Mian
ROAD WARRIORS: Free Staters conclude their “Walk for Liberty” at the New Hampshire/Vermont border near Chesterfield.

Big bucks couldn't buy the viral awe and ire that the Free State Project (FSP) scored on August 11, when New Hampshire resident William Kostric arrived outside President Barack Obama's Portsmouth Town Hall meeting with a handgun on his right thigh — "open carrying" is quite legal in the Granite State — and a sign declaring IT IS TIME TO WATER THE TREE OF LIBERTY! Kostric, an Arizona transplant who lives in Manchester, has now become a hero in the FSP movement, which, since 2004, has attracted 523 activists to the "Live Free or Die" state in search of "a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property."

Free Staters — a loose amalgamation of Libertarian offspring who resent drug laws, speed limits, bureaucrats, and taxes — welcome both good and bad publicity. To them, there is little difference between the flattering July 25 Associated Press piece on the group's annual Porcupine Freedom Festival and Kostric's legal but arguably distasteful demonstration of his First and Second Amendment rights. Those developments spurred surges in interest; FSP President Varrin Swearingen, of Keene, says the central FSP Web portal, freestateproject.org, has seen sizable traffic increases in the past month, and nearly 200 new "participants" have pledged to relocate to New Hampshire during that time — more than doubling their previous best for monthly sign-ups. Kostric, who defended his actions on MSNBC's Hardball, among other venues, even inspired two Facebook fan pages — "William Kostric for Congress" and "William Kostric Is My Hero" — which so far have more than 650 combined followers.

While most Free Staters are hardly redneck militiamen (as some media coverage has portrayed them), they seem glad and willing to recruit from Glenn Beck's legions of newly perturbed anti-Obama reactionaries — even if that means rallying behind an accidental spokesman who may have gestured a murder threat at the president. (The Thomas Jefferson quote to which Kostric's sign referred reads in full: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.") Still, they take exposure wherever they can get it. "The sign might have been a poor choice, and I think [Kostric] recognizes that," says Mark Edge, a Quaker FSP member who co-hosts the popular online radio show Free Talk Live (and doesn't carry a gun). "But under the circumstances, it's good that we got so much attention. There's no such thing as perfect activism."

Manifest destiny
The FSP movement was created in abstract in 2001, when its founding father, SUNY-Buffalo political-science professor Jason Sorens, published an article in the Libertarian Enterprise titled "Announcement: The Free State Project." The declaration inspired frustrated liberty enthusiasts across the country to begin selecting a suitable colony for Sorens's vision (with his blessing, though he has yet to relocate), and, in 2003, by a wide margin, more than 2500 online voters chose New Hampshire over such other legislatively lax runners-up as Wyoming and Alaska. Some were already in-state; other individuals and families began to move soon after. The FSP now claims 729 members in the Granite State (most of whom live in and around the city of Keene), though some paranoid transplants — who are weary of formally joining groups — do not show up in counts and databases, so there may be more.

Organizationally, the FSP has a president in Swearingen (a California native who defected to Keene in 2004), as well as a vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and mascot (the porcupine, which, according to one Free Stater, is "a peaceful animal that you wouldn't dare fuck with)". But that's the extent of their infrastructural formalities. It even has an elected official in its ranks — Republican New Hampshire state representative Calvin Pratt, of Goffstown — but the group recognizes no rank and file (nor does it collect dues). As I discovered on a recent trip to Keene (one week, in fact, before the FSP arrived in the national spotlight), trying to ascertain any hierarchy is about as productive as challenging the Old Man of the Mountain to a nose-picking contest. Some members, however, are better known than others.

Before Kostric, the FSP boasted such municipal martyrs as Andrew Carroll, who was cuffed for displaying a marijuana nugget in Keene's Central Square. There's also Sam Miller, of Keene, who, after being arrested for refusing to reveal his identity to police, went on a prison hunger strike. Since the project's inception, several Free Staters have been fined and jailed for disobeying laws and restrictions they consider petty, from flag burning to puppet shows and public pedi-care.

The protests are rarely organized — they're mostly random demonstrations for which fellow Free Staters may or may not have expressed mutual enthusiasm. But, as was demonstrated in the wake of the Kostric episode, FSP enthusiasts are quick to back each other. "They say you can't fight City Hall," says Free Stater David Krouse of Keene. "Well, we're fighting City Hall."

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  Topics: News Features , Barack Obama, New Hampshire, Vermont,  More more >
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Comments
Re: The Granite State Gang
I totally would have gone up there with you Chris. I'm surprised you haven't relocated to Keene yet.
By Tom Cruise on 08/26/2009 at 5:01:13
Pres Assass
 Sure, we have a way to prevent presidential assassinations... by not having a president in the first place.
By AdamWa on 08/26/2009 at 10:14:23
Re: The Granite State Gang
Cool article.  That "gang" sounds a lot like that gang of 230+ years ago: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Paine, Adams, et al.We are lucky to have such patriots here in Northern New England.  The best thing they do is point out the folly of enforcing victimless crimes -- cops should be fighting against violent criminals, not topless girls and peaceful pot smokers.  This is certainly something  everyone can agree on, right?  Right?!
By Geoff Wright on 08/26/2009 at 10:55:14
Re: The Granite State Gang
 Your Bay State readers might be surprised to learn that open carry is also legal in MA -- the LTC-A (license to carry) isn't restricted to concealed carry, and no state law requires concealment. Of course, since it's a discretionary license that can be withdrawn for any reason (or no reason at all), so discretion is the better part of valor for those south of the line.Thanks for the article. Despite efforts to demonize the Free Staters, they're not so much trying to change New Hampshire, as to keep it what it has traditionally been: a fiercely independent stronghold of small government, local control, and MYOB-ism. 
By KBCraig on 08/27/2009 at 2:25:47
Re: The Granite State Gang
He spelled my name wrong. How hard can it be to copy & paste? I sent him some pictures via email - and my email address and email signature say "Mike Barskey" - and he used a picture and credited "Mike Barsky." Sheesh. I think this is a great article, with the except for the 5th and 4th to last paragraphs. "… the lawlessness that FSP allies advocate…" What? I don't know anyone who advocates lawlessness. I know many who advocate voluntary law, private law, etc. "Yada, yada, yada." Are these not important issues? Even if they're not important to you, or to Faraone, it is condescending (at least!) to downplay such concerns as "yada yada." "… well, they haven't quite figured that one out yet." Of course not! No one has all the answers. Not even everyone has all the answers. Look at government: theoretically, everyone who is not anti-government is pro-government, yet government does not provide all the answers. Government creates at least as many problems as it tries to solve. Yet if someone advocates another method of social harmony (e.g., voluntaryism), they have to have all the answers or they way isn't valid or won't work? Bah. "[The FSP's] attempt to take over the state…" What? The FSP is doing no such thing, and as far as I know (and I know hundreds of "free staters" personally), no individual is planning such a thing, either. Also, Faraone says "the FSP movement, which, since 2004, has attracted 523 activists to the 'Live Free or Die' state." Why not also mention the 9000+ activists that the FSP movement has attracted to *commit* to move here?
By Mike Barskey on 08/27/2009 at 10:27:32
Re: The Granite State Gang
This article is very unrepresentative of the FSP and nearly bashes and bruises our ideas in every sentence.

1. Keep Glenn Beck's conservative anti-Obama hate out of the Free State Project. It is just as hostile to liberty as the current status-quo. Kudos to Mark Edge's quote.
2. It is not exclusively paranoia for one not to cough up personal information. In fact I welcome privacy buffs.
3. A GOP state rep? We ain't all republican politicians. In fact many of us downright abhor them. Don't paint the group with such a broad brush.
4. The state secrecy privilege that our government continuously uses to hide torture memos, wiretap programs and the like gives it incredible immunity and power above and beyond the rule of law. Carrying a small bud of pot in one's hand like Carroll did is not lawlessness--nor do we advocate lawlessness--it is a ethical stand for a just rule of law that respects the free will of human beings. Gandhi explained that coercion cannot but lead to chaos and lawlessness in the end. We see this happening with our government's torture programs, wars without end and sureveillance programs. Liberty is the abscence of coercion. Liberty is what Free Staters advocate.

By Got it wrong on 08/27/2009 at 11:01:38
Re: The Granite State Gang
 Congratulations to the FSP and similar peacefull law-abiding citizens for exercising our constitutional rights, whether the whiners on the left like it or not. If we dont use them, we're sure to lose them.Mark in Michigan
By MarkinMIch on 08/27/2009 at 12:32:34
FSP: The Insane (Anarchist) Clownish Posse
This article is a good expose of these anarchist freaks. It's sad and pathetic that they seem to enjoy being exposed, because it gives their insane ideas more exposure to other misguided bunker-dwelling Luddites. Their plan to tear down society includes an unimaginable hell they would put in its place - no schools, all roads becoming toll roads, no speed limits, no food safety laws, no environmental protection laws, heroin meth and crack all legal and freely available (even to young children.) That needs to be exposed, too. Of course, these "individualists" (read: militia-types) will all deny that THEY individually hold these crazy views. It's only the OTHER crazies. Never THEM. Right. Don't you believe it. This group of individuals engages in GroupThink all the time. They just understand "plausible deniability," just like any covert military group does. The good news is that they've been a colossal failure in "taking over" the state (although the GOP is quickly being taken over by them, and that will force the GOP out of existence when voters get wind of their plans.) Again, great first step in exposing these nutters.
By nhpoliticalguy on 08/28/2009 at 10:37:13
Re: The Granite State Gang
nhpoliticalguy is only looking at half the story. 1. No schools? I haven't met one Free Stater who believes we shouldn't have schools. There is a common belief among libertarians and minarchists that schools should not be operated by the government and that privately owned and operated schools always deliver a higher-quality service at a lower price (once you consider the concommitant reduction in taxes from eliminating public schools). When services are provided by businesses that need to do a good job or go out of business, those services are always better than services provided by a government that really has no incentive to improve quality and reduce overhead (since the government will continue to exist no matter how inefficiently it operates).
By whitslack on 08/28/2009 at 1:18:50
Re: The Granite State Gang
1. No schools? I haven't met one Free Stater who believes we shouldn't have schools. There is a common belief among libertarians and minarchists that schools should not be operated by the government and that privately owned and operated schools always deliver a higher-quality service at a lower price (once you consider the concommitant reduction in taxes from eliminating public schools). When services are provided by businesses that need to do a good job or go out of business, those services are always better than services provided by a government that really has no incentive to improve quality and reduce overhead (since the government will continue to exist no matter how inefficiently it operates).
By whitslack on 08/28/2009 at 1:19:10
They just do not get the liberty thing!
 
By freeable on 08/28/2009 at 3:19:28
Re: The Granite State Gang
 Sorry for the repeat.  This thing didn't seem like it was accepting my post.  I have a lot more...  2. All roads becoming toll roads. All roads already are toll roads. You pay for them with your taxes. Want to save some money by living close to work and walking? You'll still have to pay for use of the roads, which you're not using. That's like having to pay an electric bill even though you've decided to live without electricity. It makes far more sense, both economically and intuitively, to pay only for the services you actually use. Then you can make decisions to optimize your own life by adjusting the balance of your consumption of various services.
By whitslack on 08/28/2009 at 3:57:01
Re: The Granite State Gang
3. No speed limits. I am not alone in my belief that it is wrong to punish someone for some offense that they have not yet committed. The ostensible purpose of speed limits is to reduce traffic fatalities. But if someone injures or kills someone else in a traffic accident, that's already a crime (with a clear victim), and there are serious consequences. Driving a vehicle at a high speed, while risky, should not be a crime because there is no demonstrable victim. Whose rights am I violating if I cruise down an empty highway at 3 AM at 100 mph? Until I actually hurt someone or damage someone's property, I have not infringed upon the rights of anyone. Speed limits are unnecessary because there is already great disincentive against driving in a manner that could put oneself at risk of accidentally harming someone and being held accountable for it.
By whitslack on 08/28/2009 at 3:57:13
Re: The Granite State Gang
6. No environmental protection laws. We already have the necessary legal framework to prosecute cases of environmental damage. If you harm the environment, you're damaging property that someone owns. They can sue you for that damage and force you to make reparations. Under libertarian philosophy, one of government's few just functions is the protection of property.
By whitslack on 08/28/2009 at 3:57:33

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