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âFree statersâ pick New Hampshire to liberate
A libertarian movement promoting "minimalist government", the free market, drugs, prostitution and gun ownership plans to infiltrate New Hampshire to create a breakaway American regime, its leaders will announce today. The Free State Project, which has supporters in the UK and worldwide, will reveal today at a meeting in New York that its members have voted for the small but highly-symbolic north-eastern state as its target to win power. Project chiefs will now try to persuade 20,000 people to move to New Hampshire and sway the electorate towards blocking federal "nanny" laws and social restrictions. Jason Sorens, a lecturer in political science at Yale University and president of the project, said he wants to create an "autocratic territory" and the Free State Project will follow the examples of the Mormons in Utah, the French separatists in Quebec, Canada, and the conservative Amish religious communities. Political sceptics have dismissed the project as the fringe cult fantasies of a disorganised shower of anarchists and internet geeks. But Professor Sorens claims membership is soaring as people become angry over increasing restrictions on personal freedom, government surveillance of private individuals and greater state power in the justice system. The FSP argues that civil government should exist only to protect life, liberty, and property. Individuals are free to do as they please, provided it does not harm others. In a "Free State", that would translate as a green light for casinos, brothels, cocaine farms and gun supermarkets. Leaders would also do away with seatbelt laws, limits on gay marriage and most taxes. Schools and hospitals would be entirely privatised. Prof Sorens sees new New Hampshire as having economic parallels with Singapore and Hong Kong, and social parallels to the tolerant Netherlands. A British member, Matthew Hurry, a 24-year-old computer technician from Brighton, was already preparing to move to the chosen state. "Itâs one of the few good ideas Iâve seen actually put into practice with a good chance of success. Freedom is important for people, and the western world is severely lacking in it," he said. But Francis Tyers, a 20-year-old University of Wales student, who studies in Aberystwyth but is currently on placement with the computer giant Hewlett Packard in Ireland, said Alaska would have been his first choice. "I specified on my membership form that I would move when they had legalised the cultivation of marijuana. Iâm hoping that this will be one of the first things on their agenda. And secession from the United States would be great," he said. It is this kind of radical idea that Prof Sorens emphasises is not the FSPâs main thrust. "We have no wish to alienate the people of New Hampshire. We want to win them over," he said. Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-10-01 |
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