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Free Your Mind, Vote with Your Feet
Free Your Mind, Vote with Your FeetBy James Guzman
If you are a person who assumes that the country you were born in is better than any other country on earth, then I would say no, you should not leave the United States. You have been afflicted with the hateful and divisive mental illness called nationalism, and there you should be quarantined.
To a true lover of liberty, one who has the will to explore and the social skills to deal with different kinds of people, I would answer with a resounding yes. Hell yes!
In order to have more liberty, you need to have the resources necessary to do whatever it is that you would like to do. Many people do not realize how well you can live outside the United States.
In a recent blog post I showed that you can rent a beautiful beachfront condo in Thailand, with all the amenities of a five-star hotel, for the same price as a dumpy apartment shared with three others on the outskirts of Austin. Further, technology has now made it easier than ever to earn money from anywhere on earth and use legal tax exemptions to dramatically increase your standard of living.
If you are able to live like a king, rather than being forced to live like a serf, wouldn’t that mean that you have more liberty?
Another huge part of liberty is obviously not living under a giant despotic government.
As Robert Higgs put it:
No other country has the means that the government of the United States does to carry out these horrifying surveillance programs and other measures of state tyranny.
I don’t think I need to remind anyone that the United States has by far the highest per capita prison population in the world. That fact alone disparages the myth of the United States being “the land of the free” or any kind of bastion of liberty.
Any libertarian should be completely outraged by the state of affairs in the United States. If you were outraged by the service of a restaurant what would you do? Would you continue to patronize the same restaurant or would you go where you were treated better? You should do that same with where you live. You should vote with your feet and go where you are valued.
Increased inter-connectivity is creating better systems that supersede nations. Floods of people worldwide are working together to use these networks to live amazing lives, rather than spinning their wheels fighting over chairs on a sinking ship.
James Guzman is a US expat living in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He is a writer at borderlessblog.com. Follow @jamesguzman8, and join his network of migrants and sovereign thinkers.
Come to New Hampshire
Come to New HampshireBy Carla Gericke
EspañolNo, they should move to New Hampshire, home of the Free State Project. This radical social movement seeks to concentrate 20,000 liberty lovers in one geographic area to “exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of individuals’ rights to life, liberty, and property.”
The FSP is now at 85 percent of its goal. More than 17,000 participants have pledged to move, and nearly 2,000 liberty lovers have already moved, with more arriving weekly.
New Hampshire was selected in 2003 over nine other low-population US states for many reasons, including:
- It has no state sales or income tax.
- It consistently ranks the “most livable state,” with median household income greater than US$60,000.
- It has an existing culture of liberty with the third largest legislative body in the English-speaking world providing easy access to politics.
- It has an international border and deep seaport, recreational resources like mountains, lakes, rivers, forests, and beaches, and four-season year-round tourism is a leading industry.
- It has some of the least restrictive gun laws worldwide, and the right of revolution is enshrined in the New Hampshire Constitution: “The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.”
- It has a robust and growing pro-liberty community, including many bitcoin enterprises.
Some will argue that US politics cannot be improved, so it is best to abandon ship. This is a false choice. Government oppression is increasing everywhere, and the political climate worldwide is unstable.
The solution is not to scatter liberty lovers to the four winds, but, as innovators, to find ways to build a better future together. Two proposed concepts, Seasteading and Liberland, are decades from fruition.
The FSP is a proven strategy. Early movers have already seen dramatic results, from expanding civil liberties and stopping the erosion of others, to reducing in the size and scope of New Hampshire government and launching the first bitcoin ATM.
In 2008, one Free Stater was elected; in 2014, dozens were elected. Pro-liberty legislators now form a decisive voting bloc.
New Hampshire was the first colony to declare independence from Great Britain. Imagine if New Hampshire were an independent country, with a population roughly four times the size of Belize, but with US infrastructure and known cultural and social norms like business climate, language, ease of travel, and ties with family and friends. Would this be a viable place to establish your domicile?
If so, the world’s most successful pro-liberty mass migration movement is a compelling midterm solution — you can always change your mind later. As the founder of the FSP, Jason Sorens said in his groundbreaking essay calling for a Free State: “If we do not carve out a sphere for freedom now, freedom will be lost for a long time to come.”
Let’s not lose the battle. Let’s not give up. Let’s make a stand. The future of liberty is in New Hampshire. Don’t leave. Stay and play. Let’s carve that sphere!
Carla Gericke (JD, MFA), originally from South Africa, is the president of the Free State Project. Follow @CarlaGericke, and listen to an extended interview with her.
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