The Free State Project
Wow—I just stumbled across Amanda’s link to the the Free State Project:
The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S., where they may work within the political system to reduce the size and scope of government. The success of the Free State Project would likely entail reductions in burdensome taxation and regulation, reforms in state and local law, an end to federal mandates, and a restoration of constitutional federalism, demonstrating the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and the world.
My interest was piqued upon noticing that Peter Saint-Andre had contributed to the project by filing a Wyoming report. The project apparently has also been endorsed by Walter Williams, whom Kathy and I respect.
I did a quick search on the Internet for information about the FSP from (in my opinion) reliable sources, and found the following:
A measured call for comment by Jimmy Wales, along with his analysis of one response.
Apparently FSP Vice President Elizabeth McKinstry gave a talk at the Boston Objectivist Network last year, too. Anyone know how that went?
Further research on Peter Saint-Andre’s blog (which server is down now for some reason; but it’s cached at Google) reveals he does have some reservations.
I’ll continue adding more information to this entry as I come across it.
They seem like good people. The guy in charge, the guy who thought it up, is a PhD student in political science — he seems to have a good idea of what it would take (game-theory-wise, if you see what I mean) to get a significant number of people to commit and follow through on something like this.
I mean, consider it: if there was a state where there were significantly better laws, you’d probably consider moving there. Many liberty-minded people would. But until such a state exists, we’re spread all over, diffuse, with minimal non-intellectual political impact. (Although I’ve been accused of being a hopeless optimist about our intellectual impact, I readily concede that rapid electoral
gains are a long way off.)
So, how to get people to move? The FSP concept of a long period of public deliberation and consensus-building, followed by a vote via a voting mechanism designed to accurately reflect preferences in a way that maximizes the possibilty that a move will be acceptable is great. Coupled with a strong moral commitment (i.e. their pledge, which is not legally binding, but which strikes me as pretty serious otherwise), it seems that this might actually work.
So, I support the *idea* — but I have not signed the pledge. Unlike many libertarians (in my estimate) and some Objectivists (perhaps a bigger percentage than I normally like to contemplate), I’m not a pissed off loser who simply hates the government.
Moving to a liberty-minded state is therefore *not* my highest value. I have business interests, personal interests, a family, an extended family, and so on.
So moving would be a pretty big deal.
Especially to the cold-ass states they are considering!
So here’s what I’m doing — watching. When they get to 5,000 people, that signals the start of official voting. When they get to 20,000 people, that signals the start of moving.
At some point, if it looks like it might be a reality, I would revisit it seriously.
One possibility for me personally would be to find out the requirements of a state for “snowbirders”. That is: could I own a home up there and live there only part of the year, spending winters down here? (I’m in Florida now.) I’d consider doing that, if it meant that my vote would count.
I’d also consider giving money for political campaigns there, even if I don’t live there at all. If they have a solid shot of electing a seriously liberty-oriented person to the U.S. Senate, or if they have a shot of getting solid control of the state house and senate as well as the Governors office, I’d volunteer money and possibly time for campaigning — even if I weren’t planning on moving there.
The reason is that I can foresee how the FSP might integrate well with a general trend back to federalism. Can the federal government outlaw marijuana, if the state legalizes it and pushes the issue really hard?
Consider the 2nd Amendment debate — the *worst* interpretation says that it is the right of the state to enable them to defend themselves with a militia. So, imagine a state that passes a law providing easy private ownership of full-auto guns, or banned “assault weapons”, or guns that are banned under imports, and the state then sues under the theory that the Federal law is keeping them from arming their militia.
If the state wins under that theory, then guns are completely unregulated in that state. If the state loses, thus disproving the “states rights” theory, then an “individual rights” theory is the only alternative.
Anyhow, I think it’s an interesting and exciting project.
For a little bit of context, I’ve historically been sharply critical of all such utopian schemes, to the point of openly mocking some people. One guy on Atlantis wanted everyone to move to some crappy secret valley in Nevada — no thanks. Other nutcases have talked about building islands in the ocean, or leasing land from foreign countries, or...
But this project seems sensible. I mean, suppose they go through with it and *fail*? What’s the worst thing to happen? People move to Delaware, let’s say. Well, fine. It’s a nice enough place to live.
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