Free State Wyoming vs. Free State Project (New Hampshire)

[heavenlyboy34]

Thats how we can restore Liberty. Have so many kids that in 18 years we will win everything.

lolz
Polygamists for Liberty!

 

[John F Kennedy III]

lolz
Polygamists for Liberty!

Haha

 

[Keith and stuff]

Another really hard-to-live with thing in Wyoming is that you have to go to Denver, CO or Rapid City, SD or Billings MT to fly anywhere. There is not one big airport in the whole state.

There is really excellent trout fishing there, though.

Great point. I did hear that billionaires fly in and out of Jackson Hole all year long though

You also need to go to Denver or Salt Lake City to see any major professional sporting event or even concerts outside of Cheyenne Frontier Days (it is a few day long event with a big rodeo and some national country acts tend to perform.) If you live in MT you are out of luck unless you are a huge Warped Tour fan as the yearly Warped Tour (a one day indie, punk rock, emo, screamo and nu metal music festival) often makes a stop in MT. If you live in ND or SD you have to drive to the twin cities in MN.

There is an international airport (even with Southwest Airlines) in NH. The Boston airport is a 35 minutes drive from NH (best case, with no traffic) and the CT airport (the Springfield, / Hartford, CT airport) is an 80 minute drive from NH. 2 NASCAR weekends happen in NH and Boston sporting events are 35 minutes or so from the NH border if traffic is very low (which it often is at night.) Boston has professional baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer. Also, major concerts come to NH and certainly happen all over MA and CT.

What about shopping? NH alone has 4 decent sized malls (and then several of those really small malls) which I would guess is the same amount that WY, MT and ND have combined.

 

[ronpaulnh2012]

This worries me. Also, apparently NH is full of liberal douchebags. That also worries me.

What do ya'll think about Oregon?

It does rank #1 in personal freedom...

If you are that worried about liberals in NH, then Oregon is probably not a good choice:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2011/02/gallup_oregon_washington_among.html

I second everything Keith and stuff said, and I'd add that you should really come to NH and check it out in person. It is natural to have doubts but it usually turns out that once someone comes to visit, they want to move here

The two best times to come visit are Liberty Forum and Porcfest. (2012 event info will be posted soon on those pages)

 

[flightlesskiwi]

NH is overrated and was a bad state to pick. RP did poorly there in 2007 while he finished 2nd in Montana (or Wyoming I forgot) in 2007 and they did not even have FSP help. SD, ND, Montana, NM, Wyoming all would have been much better picks.

Had the 1000 people moved to Wyoming, Montana or a state like that it would have been so much better. For one thing Wyoming is the smallest state with 560,000 people while NH has 1.4 million people so in sheer numbers the 10,000 would have had 2.5 times more impact per activist in Wyoming than NH.......plus the average Wyoming is much more open to libertarianism than the average NH citizen, who is more socialist.

Now I understand you all wanted NH because it is more fun to live there than a empty state like ND, which is fine I can't fault you......but don't act like NH was the best state to pick. It was and is nowhere as good of a state to pick for liberty as many other states, many of which are in the Mountain West region.

The goal is to take over ANY state- so it should have been the smallest state. Once you can take over a state and get a liberty candidate as governor, the governor and the other liberty politicians can make huge moves like making a gold standard, threatening to secede or actually doing it etc.

i do have a qualm with one of the states you mention. New Mexico, by far, would NOT have been a better pick than New Hampshire. don't assume that because a state is rural and still has gun-owner "friendly" laws that the residents are liberty-oriented or liberty-friendly. NM is one of the most progressive, nanny-state, corrupt, federally dependent states in the union.

 

[Eric21ND]

Great point. I did hear that billionaires fly in and out of Jackson Hole all year long though

You also need to go to Denver or Salt Lake City to see any major professional sporting event or even concerts outside of Cheyenne Frontier Days (it is a few day long event with a big rodeo and some national country acts tend to perform.) If you live in MT you are out of luck unless you are a huge Warped Tour fan as the yearly Warped Tour (a one day indie, punk rock, emo, screamo and nu metal music festival) often makes a stop in MT. If you live in ND or SD you have to drive to the twin cities in MN.

There is an international airport (even with Southwest Airlines) in NH. The Boston airport is a 35 minutes drive from NH (best case, with no traffic) and the CT airport (the Springfield, / Hartford, CT airport) is an 80 minute drive from NH. 2 NASCAR weekends happen in NH and Boston sporting events are 35 minutes or so from the NH border if traffic is very low (which it often is at night.) Boston has professional baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer. Also, major concerts come to NH and certainly happen all over MA and CT.

What about shopping? NH alone has 4 decent sized malls (and then several of those really small malls) which I would guess is the same amount that WY, MT and ND have combined.

Bringing up the Yankees and Red Sox will not help your case for moving to the north east....god I hate those teams.

 

[Keith and stuff]

Bringing up the Yankees and Red Sox will not help your case for moving to the north east....god I hate those teams.

I didn't try to bring them up. While I do attend big liberty events in MA (which are common) and rarely concerts, I am not a big sports fan. Although, last I knew, I'm pretty sure that the two most popular baseball teams in the US are the Yankees and Red Sox.

As you know, there are no major sporting events in MT, ND, SD or ID and there is only one in WY if you count the rodeo. It doesn't matter to me but that does matter to the majority of middle class and wealthy Americans so I thought I'd bring it up in the WY vs. NH debate because it really is an issue to some people.

 

[klamath]

The best way to get libertarian freedon IF that is what you really want is to have space. If your neighbor is right next door I don't care how libertarian you think your neighborhood is your freedon is going to conflict with someone. Long live the wide open places.

 

[studebaker]

Ron Paul and the Free State Project.....

 

[helmuth_hubener]

The WY movement has no ad plan nor much else, so that will likely be the end of it.

Bingo, that hits the situation right on the head. I've told them that, but the rest of the members seem content with the situation as it is. Obviously there will be no large influx of libertarians into the state because of the FSW. So, yes, the FSW is a small club for some libertarian and libertarianish and even conservative people in or interested in Wyoming. As a "movement" like envisioned in Boston's book Molon Labe, it's dead.

I'm glad he writes liberty books even if I'm not a big gun person.

Actually, now he doesn't. He has stated that he's done writing any more "Boston T. Party" books, that is, those with a libertarian theme. Future books will be "Ken Royce" books for a general audience not "liberty books", such as his upcoming book about how to be a manly man.

And when you consider that some of those movers aren't political activists and that some of them aren't even activists at all, what do you have? Maybe 10-30 current political activists that are movers.

Some? The truth is: basically none are! Your guess of 10-30 is ten times too large; 1-3 is about right.

Do Leadership Institute, American Majority, Campaign for Liberty or Young Americans for Liberty do training in WY, ND or MT?

No.

As for jobs, there are jobs but they tend to be of the less high tech type and outside of the mining / oil /government jobs, the pay usually isn't very good.

That part about pay is untrue. The mining and oil jobs pay very well and can pay very, very well. High school dropouts and felons making $60,000 and up is not uncommon. I met a third-grade dropout roustabout on a tank project who made some $4,000 per week ($200,000 a year) or some remarkably high amount like that. Maybe more, I don't remember. It's work, it's hard work, and it gets cold out in the field in the winter, but if you're willing to do it, you will get paid for it. Furthermore, especially in the energy boom times, energy wages push all other wages up, too. Fast food places have to bring in foreign exchange workers because no one, even very marginal workers, will work for less than $10/hr. Remember cost of living is very low here, so while $10/hr would not be a lot in Boston or New York, in Casper it is. Right now the boom has largely left Wyoming and moved to the North Dakota oil puddle, but the employment numbers are still good here, too.

As you know, there are no major sporting events in MT, ND, SD or ID and there is only one in WY if you count the rodeo.

College sports are major events. As for pro teams, yes, the closest ones are in Denver, or Minneapolis for ND, Salt Lake for ID, at least for football, basketball, and baseball.

 

[John F Kennedy III]

If you are that worried about liberals in NH, then Oregon is probably not a good choice:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2011/02/gallup_oregon_washington_among.html

I second everything Keith and stuff said, and I'd add that you should really come to NH and check it out in person. It is natural to have doubts but it usually turns out that once someone comes to visit, they want to move here

The two best times to come visit are Liberty Forum and Porcfest. (2012 event info will be posted soon on those pages)

Thank you

I am STRONGLY leaning NH. I just want to make sure I choose the right state. I don't want to move and 6 months be later be wishing I went somewhere else.

Edit: NH has 4 electoral votes Too bad we can't take over California, it has 55 electoral votes.

 

[John F Kennedy III]

Bringing up the Yankees and Red Sox will not help your case for moving to the north east....god I hate those teams.

Weird thing is (for someone living on the West Coast) the Red Sox have always been my favorite American League team. However my favorite overall team is the San Francisco Giants. So I would be moving from close to my favorite team to close to my 2nd favorite team. Hmmm...

Edit: I hate the Yankees with a passion. And it has nothing to with the Red Sox.

 

[WilliamShrugged]

I pledge with the FSP to move to NH, but I ended up moving to Idaho. Got a job within a month being here and have met a couple Rp fans running around. I like NH and really thought about the move, but i don't see it as a state that can pull it out in the long run. When you're surrounded by socialist states how do you prevent the locust (for example, California ruining NV)? Lets say because of NH's economic freedom, they have huge job growth. That will attract many from Mass, VT, NY, etc... Liberal and big gov conservative minded looking for work. Thus destroying years of hard work.

At least with ID, you have the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, even NV nearby.

 

[Southron]

I pledge with the FSP to move to NH, but I ended up moving to Idaho. Got a job within a month being here and have met a couple Rp fans running around. I like NH and really thought about the move, but i don't see it as a state that can pull it out in the long run. When you're surrounded by socialist states how do you prevent the locust (for example, California ruining NV)? Lets say because of NH's economic freedom, they have huge job growth. That will attract many from Mass, VT, NY, etc... Liberal and big gov conservative minded looking for work. Thus destroying years of hard work.

At least with ID, you have the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, even NV nearby.

Well, I think it comes down to activism vs escapism. Eventually there will be nowhere to run to if we don't fix things. Idaho would be a good place to escape if everything goes to hell.

A semi-permanently free state would have to end Universal suffrage and open migration I believe.

 

[John F Kennedy III]

That is an interesting theory you have but as far as I can tell, history and all of the facts don't show what you say to be true.

History isn't always current reality and I don't know what facts you are referencing.

Honestly, my guess is that you are new to serious effective activism. How many Leadership Institute training events have you been to? How many candidates have you campaigned for that got elected? How many bills have you helped pass? Being relatively new to effective political activism doesn't make you a bad person, but if does mean you don't know what you are talking about. Seriously, if you didn't already know that NH was the freest state, there is likely a lot of information you don't know about. Please stick with politics. You can likely be an excellent activist if you keep it up

1. Yes I'm new to serious political activism.
2. Never been to any LT events
3. One.
4. Zero bills.

There is alot I don't know and I am always open to learning more and I am always open to being wrong. Feel free to educate me Also I would love to be an activist, I know I can be excellent at it. However I don't do groupthink, I will only be an activist for what I believe in.

I completely agree and I've never met a single political activist in NH than does anything like that. Of course, NH is the most effective place for a national political activist to be outside of the DC area. If someone is really interested in national politics, I recommend they live in one of those (NH or DC / VA suburbs) areas.

NH is sounding really good. The whole Ron Paul thing really disturbs me though. And I'm hearing there are a ton socialists there. Both of these things seem to be counter productive to the liberty movement and the things that make NH rank #1 in freedom. I have alot to weigh before I decide where I can go that will give me the chance to make a real difference.

Absolutely agree. That's why people need to work hard to counteract the statist on a national level and within states by influencing state government.

Agreed 100%

Oh for sure. The idea of the free state isn't that liberty activists moving to NH will instantly save the world.

I do not intend to come off as saying NH is expected to instantly save the world. I do however feel that our country is on the brink of either saving itself or falling off the cliff into something that will make 1984 (or even Nazi Germany) seem tame.

We need lots and lots of well training, experienced liberty activists to gather in one state, and this is only happening in NH. It is going to take 100,000s of hours of hard work to bring about any type of serious protection from the national government IMO. I'll already working hard on this by recruiting other liberty activists to move to NH and helping training liberty activists in NH in connection with the top liberty activist training organizations in the world.

I agree it will take ALOT of work. I think that a FSP needs alot more than 20,000 people for it to work. We can only take over a state if we have the numbers. Is there anything to show that FSP has been recruiting NH into the liberty movement?

 

[Keith and stuff]

Some? The truth is: basically none! Your guess of 10-30 is ten times too large; 1-3 is about right.
No.

I know about Michael D. for example. He was a political activist but now seems to be mostly a media activist. He made the Gun and Weed documentary and now does freedomfeens.com, a liberty podcast. Really, if you are correct, that is really sad.

That part about pay is untrue. The mining and oil jobs pay very well and can pay very, very well. High school dropouts and felons making $60,000 and up is not uncommon. I met a third-grade dropout roustabout on a tank project who made some $4,000 per week ($200,000 a year) or some remarkably high amount like that. Maybe more, I don't remember. It's work, it's hard work, and it gets cold out in the field in the winter, but if you're willing to do it, you will get paid for it. Furthermore, especially in the energy boom times, energy wages push all other wages up, too. Fast food places have to bring in foreign exchange workers because no one, even very marginal workers, will work for less than $10/hr. Remember cost of living is very low here, so while $10/hr would not be a lot in Boston or New York, in Casper it is. Right now the boom has largely left Wyoming and moved to the North Dakota oil puddle, but the employment numbers are still good here, too.

I am using stats that just came out in August from the Census, here they are http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/statemedian/index.html
They show average median household income $10k-$16k less per year in WY/ OR / ND when compared to NH. They show the average median household income over $22k less in MT when compared to NH. So yes, compared to the states around WY, pay is high in WY, no doubt. But compared to NH, it is low. And to admit that I'm wrong and concede your point, pay in WY is higher than the national average. I'm guessing that is partly related to the mining and oil jobs in WY.

College sports are major events. As for pro teams, yes, the closest ones are in Denver, or Minneapolis for ND, Salt Lake for ID, at least for football, basketball, and baseball.

I don't blame you for settling for non-major sporting events when major sporting events aren't near-by No seriously, unless you are talking about nationally know college bowl games or NCAA Sweet 16 tournaments or better, I'll just have to agree to disagree with you.

 

[John F Kennedy III]

Feel free to close this thread...

 

[Keith and stuff]

Lets say because of NH's economic freedom, they have huge job growth. That will attract many from Mass, VT, NY, etc... Liberal and big gov conservative minded looking for work. Thus destroying years of hard work.

It sounds like you are talking about what happened to NV and to a lesser extent OR, WA and MT by movers leaving CA. It also happened to VT by movers leaving NY. To a lesser extend, you could say it's happened in PA by movers leaving NJ and NY.

It is true that the economy is better in New Hampshire than anywhere else in the Northeast. Likewise, it's true that the quality of life is better in NH than anywhere else in the US. There are liberals and statists moving to NH, it's true. They move to every state. Look at what is happening in Jackson Hole, WY. Check the voting patterns. The same thing is happening in Cheshire County, NH. However, the largest amount of movers to NH move from MA and it has been that way mostly for 100s of years. Just like 150 years ago, those movers tend to move to NH because of the freedom.

At least with ID, you have the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, even NV nearby.

Even if your point of liberals in near by states mattered, and I don't think it does, it makes ID look pretty bad. Heck, I can make ID look even worse than NH using your comparison if I have fun with the numbers.

According to self-identified liberals, these are the states with the most liberals that border NH or ID ranked by the highest percentage of self-identified liberals in the US:
1. VT (625,741)
3. MA (6,547,629)
6. OR (3,831,074)
8. WA (6,724,540)
16. ME (1,328,361)

OR total = total population of folks that live in border states with highish percentage of the population that are self identified liberals 10,555,614
NH total = total population of folks that live in border states with highish percentage of the population that are self identified liberals 8,501,731

It looks like a heck of a lot more liberals border ID than NH.

You can do the same thing with Democrats if you want. There are a ton more Democrats in states bordering ID than NH. But I don't consider that the most useful information. Don't believe me? OR leans 47.5% (Democrat) to 35.8% (GOP) Democrat and WA leans 45.3% (Democrat) to 37.6% (GOP)

But let's look at movers. It is well known that more recent movers in NH came from MA than any other state. Likewise, it is well known that more recent movers in ID came from CA than any other state. While MA leans more liberal and more Democrat than CA, there is certainly more liberty in MA than CA. CA is run worse and the economy is much worse in CA than in MA.

BTW, a mover recently came to NH from ID Heck, we had a couple that moved from OR several years ago. Now they are both elected state reps. The wife is even in charge of a state house committee. She used to be on the board of directors of one of the two most powerful groups in the NH state house. Now he is helping run the other group that is one of the two most powerful groups in the state house.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

I know about Michael D. for example. He was a political activist but now seems to be mostly a media activist. He made the Gun and Weed documentary and now does freedomfeens.com, a liberty podcast. Really, if you are correct, that is really sad.

Yeah, he's cool. I bought Guns and Weed at the latest FSW Jamboree, and just watched it this week. It's uneven, but I enjoyed a lot of it. And yes, he's become ancap and given up on politics. The two FSW people he interviewed a lot in the movie are also not political activists. The two FSW people most active politically and electorally are probably Don Wills and myself. And that's kind of a sad commentary, because I'm really not that active and don't have a lot of faith in the political system myself! But I did run for State House in 2010. I am the only FSWer I'm aware of who has run for an elected office.

FSWers did contribute money and support to the campaigns for the no-permit-concealed-carry and firearms freedom act, so they could take some credit for those. But it's nothing on the level of what's happening in NH.

I am using stats that just came out in August from the Census, here they are http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/statemedian/index.html
They show average median household income $10k-$16k less per year in WY/ OR / ND when compared to NH. They show the average median household income over $22k less in MT when compared to NH. So yes, compared to the states around WY, pay is high in WY, no doubt. But compared to NH, it is low. And to admit that I'm wrong and concede your point, pay in WY is higher than the national average. I'm guessing that is partly related to the mining and oil jobs in WY.

Like I said, remember that cost of living here is lower than average. You can make Mississippi, for example, look really bad just using raw median household income, but the fact is that it's super-super cheap to live in Mississippi, so it's not as poor as it looks. I don't know which has higher incomes adjusted for cost of living, WY or NH, but I would guess that you're right and it's NH, but the cost of living will soften the disparity somewhat.

I don't blame you for settling for non-major sporting events when major sporting events aren't near-by No seriously, unless you are talking about nationally know college bowl games or NCAA Sweet 16 tournaments or better, I'll just have to agree to disagree with you.

A pro football team could open up in Nebraska and it would never, never, never get the level and support and enthusiasm that University of Nebraska football gets. There are sports fans in my family, and they prefer the college level. Lots of sports fans are bigger into the college game, believe me, even when pro teams are nearby. In places like Tulsa, OK, even high school football is huge. Wyoming towns tend to be big into the high school sports, too, much more than where I'm from. That phenomenon is, I think, more for the reason you say: podunk town, nothing to do, nothing better going on,... hey, let's go to the high school football game!

 

[ronpaulnh2012]

When you're surrounded by socialist states how do you prevent the locust (for example, California ruining NV)? Lets say because of NH's economic freedom, they have huge job growth. That will attract many from Mass, VT, NY, etc... Liberal and big gov conservative minded looking for work. Thus destroying years of hard work.

That is a great question. It turns out that it doesn't really work like that. Studies have shown that the people who tend to move from Massachusetts to NH are predominantly conservative - even though MA is a liberal state. Basically what happens is we get the people who are fed up with high taxes and liberal politics in MA. And, on the flip side, people who live in NH but are looking for handouts (but not getting much, because NH doesn't roll that way), pack up and move to MA because they have better welfare. In short, being surrounded by more liberal states isn't nearly as bad as you might first think.