Live Free or Die Trying

“The main problem, they maintained, was that taxes were too high, rules too suffocating, statism too overbearing, and authority too abundantly wielded”.

– A Libertarian Walks into a Bear

In Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged”, the men of the mind go on strike and disappear from the public, ending up in the fictional paradise called Galt’s Gulch.  A retirement community for individuals who opposed the bureaucratic takeover of a free society in a dystopian United States, America’s best accepted the call of John Galt to shrug by creating their own ideal society.  After selling more than 10 million copies worldwide, it's not surprising that some enterprising anti-statists might try to form a utopian society of their own.  Enter New Hampshire’s own, Grafton Gulch. 

In Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling’s 2020 book, “A Libertarian Walks into a Bear”, Hongoltz-Hetling tells the story of the Free Town Project that set out to create a model libertarian enclave in Grafton, New Hampshire.  Chosen primarily for its low levels of civic participation and an abundance of uninhabited land, those of an independent streak were harkened to join together to reduce the town’s already low budget, and tackle public services, including education.  Nearly 200 people arrived, disproportionately men, drawing a ragtag team of extremists, some who merely wanted to slip off the radar, under a big tent that included libertarians, survivalists, anticapitalists, and even a few sex offenders.  For a town that previously attracted the Moonies, a mass marriage cult, before them, many natives were not up for the adventure. 

The Free Town Project quickly reduced the town's tiny budget by 30 percent, aiming to replace government services with private solutions.  The immediate results were potholed streets, a single police officer with a barely functioning squad car, and spotty trash collection that led to an increase in bear sightings and bear attacks.  The free towners, nonetheless, held on for 12 long years, until the system collapsed in 2016 under the weight of its own ignorance and disregard. 

Grafton’s largest employer was the local mine that began producing mica until globalization closed its doors, in lieu of cheaper foreign options.  Add poor planning and a leave-me-alone attitude, and the town crumbled.  Infighting ensured.  Lowering taxes often meant no services at all.  Unable to provide mandatory emergency services and public assistance, put themselves at the mercy of other towns, having to accept mutual aid when they were unable to do it on their own.  An embarrassment for any respectable libertarian.  More idealistic than rational, the free towners were living libertarian in the abstract, and not in reality.   Turns out the live and let live people were not the best at organization and truly didn’t want to be bothered.    

During the Libertarian National Convention in 2016, the juvenile side of libertarianism would be further revealed when fellow freeman James Weeks stripped and danced on the stage, to the delight and horror of other attendees.  This would be the consequence of a political philosophy of everyone for themselves, many of whom took its message to heart. 

At the same time, mercifully, another group of libertarians attempted a different strategy.  The Free State Project began in earnest in 2001, calling for 20,000 libertarians to pledge to move to the state of New Hampshire to maximize their collective influence to lower state intervention.  By 2005, the pledges were made, and individuals began their descent into the state.  By May 2022, more than 6,000 politically migrated to the state, with nearly 20 already serving as state representatives.  Unlike the free towners, the Free Staters understood the real world.  Rather than bulldozing public services, they attempted, instead, to aggressively influence them, slowly and steadily. 

New Hampshire, already known for its pro-liberty culture and low population density, was a state born on the ideals of self-government and independence.  Its “Live Free or Die” motto became more than a platitude; it was taken as gospel.  At the time the experiment began, New Hampshire already had no income tax, no sales tax, minimal government intervention, and a lot of personal freedom.  It also had the largest lower house in the US with 400 members, providing more direct representation to its citizens.

Its mascot became the porcupine, an animal known for its lack of aggressiveness towards anyone or anything that leaves it alone.  Its quills rose only when hostility was initiated toward them.  This innate do no harm response was the perfect symbol for the libertarian project.  Launching its annual event, Porcfest, in 2004, the Free State Project’s freedom festival has become the largest gathering of libertarians anywhere in the world, reaching 20,000 in 2016.  With its initial sights on New Hampshire, the goal of the Free State Project is to expand its success.  First to other states, and then perhaps, around the globe. 

Somalia is often mocked for its libertarian failures.  But like the Free Town project, Somalia was anything but a libertarian experiment.  Despite its stateless status, once its central government collapsed in 1991, anarchy, along with fraud and civil war, became the rule and not the exception.

The lesson for Free Towners in the end was that the New Hampshire they hoped to conquer already had much of what they wanted to begin.  Instead of maintaining what they had, they overplayed their hands.  And shot themselves in the foot.