Contrary to the trend found throughout the united states and in each individual city and state, liberty is winning in New Hampshire. The ‘Live Free or Die’ state is already ranked #1 in freedom by the CATO and Frazier institutes. And its libertarian citizens and activists will continue to diminish government powers and strengthen individual rights with each passing day. Here are the top reasons we can confidently make this assertion:
New Hampshire has a long history and proud culture of freedom. Those who have lived here since the 1776 secession from Britain have liberty in their blood. They are skeptical of government powers and regularly vote against empowering politicians with increasing authority. Natives of the state are proud to be free from mandatory helmet and seatbelt laws and are determined to keep it that way, even in the face of pressure from the DC Empire.
New Hampshire is the home to the only pro-freedom migration. Over the past few years, around 6,000 libertarians have moved here from other states seeking a life of peace and liberty. These people are not just escaping tyranny; selection bias means that the ones who moved are the most motivated and financially stable libertarians in the united states. So, once they arrive here, they continue working hard to keep the state free (and make it freer). Free Staters are much more likely than the average person to vote, run for office, get involved politically, start a business (often agorist in nature), or engage in some other form of liberty activism. These people are often very outgoing and are nearly always extremely well-read on economics and philosophy. They love talking to others and find that when speaking in person, they have great success enlightening non-political people to the ideas of peace and liberty. To date, the Free Staters alone have opened at least 120 businesses and 50 of them have been elected to the State House.
It is very hard to explain to those who aren’t part of it, but the New Hampshire liberty community is very decentralized. There are around 50 liberty organizations and another 100 unofficial, loose groups within the state. Each organization has its own primary focus, though there is some overlap and a few redundancies. Some organizations focus on drug decriminalization, gun rights, taxation, education freedom, economic freedom, and/or many other issues. Additionally, most people within the liberty movement are fierce individualists who have little inclination to follow any one leader or organization just because they say something. The decentralized nature of the large and powerful movement makes it extremely difficult to combat. There is no one leader of the movement. There is no one group controlling the movement. There is no one plan other than making the state more free. So, the enemies of liberty flounder around, making futile and embarrassing efforts to defeat us. They blame the FSP for controlling the legislature, although the FSP engages in zero political action. They blame ‘NHexit’ for being the lead organization pushing for secession, despite no such organization of that name existing. In fact, the secession movement is so decentralized that there are at least five individuals who have made their own websites to promote New Hampshire independence. And they are each completely independent of each other, and often disagree with each other. But the thousands of individuals often cooperate and coordinate with each other very well. Like a 50-headed snake, it’s nearly impossible to defeat the liberty movement. While nearly every other organization in the world is centrally controlled, causing new projects to go through long and arduous approval processes, the liberty movement in NH is totally decentralized. There is no boss or group that makes decisions for the movement. When one of the thousands of brilliant and dedicated activists has an idea or wants something done…they just do it. Countless times, I have seen a website or project or initiative started spontaneously by one motivated liberty activist in one day. Many of these projects blow up, including We The People, The Resolve, We <3 West, the #NHexit movement, and hundreds or thousands of others. Every day, libertarians in NH are creating new projects, businesses, activities, websites, networks, and so much more. Even if some magical dark lord got to the 10 most active or important people in the movement and totally compromised them, even those big activists could not stop the movement of thousands of individuals. In a traditional war, a general could be captured or could call off his troops, or surrender. There is no general in the liberty movement, and even if there were, libertarians don’t give a crap about authority, even in their own movement. They simply cannot be controlled.
The liberty movement of New Hampshire works on promoting freedom and peace through every angle and in every arena. Many activists primarily work in the political sphere, helping candidates get elected while also helping pass good bills and stop bad bills. Many primarily work as agorists, as entrepreneurs who simply work without caring about the government’s laws and taxes. Many primarily work in the media. Two of the three largest (most visited) websites in the state are pro-liberty sites (The Liberty Block is #3 in the state). As well-educated individuals, many liberty activists are excellent writers, many have podcasts, and dozens have written books.
Over the past few years, progressives have been leaving the state rapidly. Those who support larger, stronger government and weaker individual liberties are giving up on New Hampshire due to its steady shift towards liberty, and they are moving to more progressive states, like nearby Massachusetts. Multiple progressive elected officials have left the state in recent years, including the Democrat Senate Leader and Gubernatorial nominee (who only received 33% of the vote).
Non-political individuals in New Hampshire have been exposed to traditional Democrat and Republican views for their entire lives. Few of them have heard about truly libertarian policies and fewer have gotten involved in the movement. In economics, this would be referred to as an ‘untapped market’ or ‘room for growth’. Liberty activists love doing outreach; they often approach apolitical people in everyday life and casually mention some libertarian points to them, such as the basics of inflation, the failed war on drugs, or privacy. As libertarians reach more of these people, the movement will grow exponentially. (Last night, I had excellent 10-minute conversations with a young lady and later with a young man in Manchester. The man was very familiar with libertarian ideology and said that I inspired him to get involved in activism again. The woman seemed very familiar with the ideas of liberty, but took my info and was very interested in peace, liberty, and secession. With 6,000 people like me creating many more of us each day, liberty will continue winning in New Hampshire and will be increasingly difficult to stop.)
When individuals become libertarian, it is generally a one-way move. People almost always continue to become more libertarian, and very often identify as voluntaryists a short time after discovering the ideas and the movement. It is extremely rare for a person who has discovered liberty to turn around and become more authoritarian. This trend bodes very well for the liberty movement in New Hampshire.
Considering that the dollar is in rapid decline and may possibly be in its final days, New Hampshire’s liberty community is in a good position. Many of the people here use alternative currencies, largely due to the aversion to using fiat money that the DC Empire prints and uses to pay for perpetual wars all over the world and domestic abuse of its citizens. They believe that the less the dollar is used and accepted, the less value it will have (due to low demand), which will bring about its death even faster. On principle, many libertarians and voluntaryists in New Hampshire simply want nothing to do with the money created by evil people in DC. So, they use cryptocurrencies more than any other place in the united states. Stores that accept crypto and crypto vending machines can easily be found all over New Hampshire. Additionally, many liberty activists use silver bits and goldbacks for transactions with each other and with others. Remember, we already have our own economy within the liberty community, with businesses of all types, from farms that raise chickens and cows to restaurants, gyms, and even therapists, real estate agencies, and builders. Nearly every libertarian in the state accepts crypto, gold, and silver. We don’t really need the DC Empire’s Fraudulent Reserve Notes anymore.
Liberty activists and casual libertarians in New Hampshire are extremely tech-savvy, with a large percentage of them working in IT, programming, cyber-security, or a related field. This gives liberty a huge advantage versus other movements that wish to control all people. It’s hard to control such technologically advanced and decentralized people. As of this writing, there are libertarians all over New Hampshire creating their own tech projects that will help the liberty community remain independent and free from government coercion and surveillance.
New Hampshire’s porcupines seem to be much healthier than their counterparts. The community has many farmers, chefs, and natural food growers. They each extremely healthfully and rarely get sick. Additionally, many libertarians are athletes who stay in great shape and regularly hike and play sports such as hockey, basketball, football, and many other sports. Many are surprised to learn that many New Hampshire libertarians are fighters and powerlifters, as well. There is a thriving BJJ and boxing community within the FSP, and the Free State Barbell Club in Manchester is home to a few of the many serious powerlifters in the community.
New Hampshire’s libertarians are among the hardest workers and most modest people you will find. Despite their relatively large amount of wealth and high incomes, these porcupines do not mind rolling up their sleeves and getting to work, even if it means literally getting their hands dirty. Prominent and wealthy liberty activists regularly knock doors for liberty candidates, help new free staters move into their homes, and work on their farms. They don’t consider any job too big or too small for them. They are too busy working to care about egos.
New Hampshire’s liberty community members seem to have more children than nearly any other cohort. While average couples have around 1 child and anti-freedom progressives have around 0.3 children per couple on average, libertarians in New Hampshire are rapidly becoming the majority. By the next generation, the liberty movement will be much larger than it is today, simply because of reproduction.
If you love liberty and don’t live in New Hampshire yet, move here as soon as you can and join the greatest, largest, nicest, most successful liberty movement and peaceful community in the world. For me, moving here was one of the best decisions of my life and the liberty community is now my family.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Liberty Block or any of its members. We welcome all forms of serious feedback and debate.
