What do you do when you get so frustrated with the middling, leveling side-effects of democracy – the averaging out that makes it impossible for more dramatic philosophical/political ideas ever to take hold? You get together with throngs of like-minded people and take over a state, swing the vote, and create your own legal utopia, that’s what you do.
A group of largely techno-libertarians are gathering forces right now to do just that, and it looks like they’re honing in on Delaware, New Hampshire, Wyoming, and Alaska.
The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S. to secure there a free society. We will accomplish this by first reforming state law, opting out of federal mandates, and finally negotiating directly with the federal government for appropriate political autonomy. We will be a community of freedom-loving individuals and families, and create a shining example of liberty for the rest of the nation and the world.
The FAQ is a good read, and is revealing of some of the types of readers a project like this attracts, e.g. “Q. Why don’t we make common cause with white separatists?” and “Q. Why don’t we start shooting government agents?”
Trying to imagine spin-off organizations…. I wonder which state will get to host the bleeding heart liberal utopia? The Jerry Falwell utopia? The Camejo-Green utopia? The skate punk utopia… ?
But I should be careful throwing the utopia word around:
Q. Is the Free State Project some utopian power trip?
A. By no means. The Free State Project is ameliorative, not utopian. We’re not trying to create heaven on earth, just a sphere of liberty, a framework for individuals and families to make of their lives what they will.
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Music: Ozric Tentacles :: Cat DNA
I can see a couple problems with this scheme that bother me. 1. When I (as a hypothetical member of this project) and my 19,999 buddies move to Wyoming and vote the welfare state out of existence, what happens to those people who are *on* welfare? And what happens to all the people who used to work for the state government?
Wyoming has, as they say, a state culture of self reliance, but I don’t think that extends to letting people starve if they can’t work. Otherwise they’d HAVE that kind of government already. They don’t. I know. I grew up in Cheyenne.
I’m sure the interlopers won’t see that as a problem – they’ll be glad to crap on the welfare recipients, I’m quite sure.
To be clear, I think the experiment is an interesting one – that doesn’t mean I support them.