How to Stage a Coup, American-Style

Libertarian activists are moving to a state where they'll have maximum clout.

If Ron Helwig can join the revolution, then so can you. All you have to do is believe, as Helwig does, that the government has gone way too far in regulating your personal life, taxing your income and invading your privacy. And, of course, you have to move to New Hampshire.

That's exactly what the affable computer programmer from Minnesota did this year. He's a new member of the Free State Project, a group of like-minded libertarians from around the U.S. whose goal is to come together in the tiny New England state in sufficient numbers to create a libertarian showroom for the rest of the country.

source

NowPublic

Tags: sufficient | regulating | like-minded | affable | Helwig | American-Style | TAXING | showroom | Revolution | PROGRAMMER | privacy | NUMBERS | member | Libertarian | INVADING | Income | Government | goal | Computer | stage | project | New Hampshire | Minnesota | england | Coup

Sphere: Related Content

How to Stage a Coup, American-Style

NATHAN THORNBURGH

Libertarian activists are moving to a state where they'll have maximum clout.

If Ron Helwig can join the revolution, then so can you. All you have to do is believe, as Helwig does, that the government has gone way too far in regulating your personal life, taxing your income and invading your privacy. And, of course, you have to move to New Hampshire.

That's exactly what the affable computer programmer from Minnesota did this year. He's a new member of the Free State Project, a group of like-minded libertarians from around the U.S. whose goal is to come together in the tiny New England state in sufficient numbers to create a libertarian showroom for the rest of the country.

The Free State idea was the brainchild five years ago of Jason Sorens, then a grad student in political science at Yale. Card-carrying libertarians make up just under 1% of voters around the country, a number that has made them achingly irrelevant in national politics. Sorens argued in online forums and later at political events that if 20,000 libertarians would move to the same small state, they would no longer be in the electoral wilderness. They could finally make a difference and show the rest of America what real liberty looks like--the kind where you don't have to wear seat belts or register your guns and nobody passes laws about what the neighbors can do in their bedroom.

By 2003 thousands had agreed in principle to make the move once a total of 20,000 had signed on. They settled on New Hampshire as their destination. The state's motto, after all, is LIVE FREE OR DIE, and its low taxes and high regard for minding your own damn business proved irresistible. Republican officials were delighted. "Come on up," Craig Benson, the Governor at the time, told them. "We'd love to have you."

At a recent Free State Project meet-and-greet in Deerfield thrown by Helwig and his two housemates, also Minnesotan émigrés, it was clear that 20,000 is an ambitious goal. No more than a few dozen movement members from around the state showed up for the beer and pizza. In all, fewer than 200 have moved to New Hampshire in the past three years. "Getting libertarians to do anything together is like herding cats," groused a partygoer.

It would be wrong to write off the Free Staters entirely, though. Those who have moved have been putting on a display of rambunctious, representative democracy. Some prefer civil disobedience and street demonstrations: one was recently arrested at a local IRS office handing out pamphlets that said, "Hitler had a revenue service too." Although the Free State Project doesn't endorse political candidates, some members have been making competitive runs for local office, including some staunch home-schooling advocates who have been elected to local school boards. With one state legislator for every 3,000 or so citizens (the best ratio of any state), New Hampshire has a proud tradition of hyper-representative government, but as in the rest of the country, many of its citizens are apathetic about politics. By simply showing up and speaking out at public meetings, the Free Staters are filling the participatory void. They helped block a statewide ban on smoking in bars and restaurants and joined forces with elements of the two main parties to pressure the statehouse to vote down a pilot program for a national ID card.

If the Republican establishment was expecting the movement to deliver loyal conservative voters, the libertarians--who want to lift controls on both guns and narcotics--are proving more complicated creatures. Cathleen Converse used to be a by-the-book conservative in South Carolina. But she says that the free-spending, prying Bush Administration sped up her defection from the G.O.P. and eventually brought her husband and her to the Free State Project. "As Republicans showed their true colors," she says, "we had to choose the side of liberty." She adds, "Back home, most of the people thought we were crazy. But here, when you talk about real freedom, people actually nod their heads."

Moving to New Hampshire has given Helwig a new faith in politics. "Democracy isn't really ruled by the majority," he says. "It's ruled by the vocal minority." With more Free Staters driving their U-Hauls north each month, the vocal minority may slowly be growing a little louder.

Sphere: Related Content

Britney and K-Fed: Fun While It Lasted

The pregnancies, the reality show, the parenting lessons - their marriage is over, but we'll always have the memories.

Kevin Federline, A.K.A. Mr. Britney Spears, is exiting stage left. And... cue applause. After two years of Cheeto-fueled, paparazzi-dogged, chronically underdressed wedlock, Spears has filed for divorce from her background dancer/rapper husband, citing "irreconcilable differences."

source

NowPublic

Tags: underdressed | paparazzi-dogged | irreconcilable | Cheeto-fueled | YEARS | WEDLOCK | stage | reality | PREGNANCIES | Parenting | marriage | lessons | HUSBAND | filed | exiting | DIVORCE | citing | chronically | background | applause | spears | New York | lasted | K-Fed | Federline | Britney | Angeles

Sphere: Related Content

Britney and K-Fed: Fun While It Lasted

REBECCA WINTERS KEEGAN

The pregnancies, the reality show, the parenting lessons - their marriage is over, but we'll always have the memories.

Kevin Federline, A.K.A. Mr. Britney Spears, is exiting stage left. And... cue applause. After two years of Cheeto-fueled, paparazzi-dogged, chronically underdressed wedlock, Spears has filed for divorce from her background dancer/rapper husband, citing "irreconcilable differences."

Court papers filed Nov. 7 in Los Angeles list the date of the couple's separation as Nov. 6. Spears, 24, hardly seemed despondent on that day, showing off a newly slim figure and chic blonde bob during a surprise appearance on Late Night with David Letterman in New York City. Federline, 28, was also in town, promoting his debut album, Playing With Fire, and surprisingly reflective single, America's Most Hated. Spears has requested custody of the couple's two sons, one-year old Sean Preston and two-month old Jayden James, with visitation rights for Federline. The couple signed a pre-nuptial agreement (thanks, Mama Spears!), and so divvying up the singer's bubble-gum-pop millions should not be an issue.

The pairing of the midriff-baring star and white-undershirt-and-stubble-clad dancer began in 2004 with all the hallmarks of a relationship meant to last just until Federline's first album release party. Spears and K-Fed, as he was dubbed, started dating months after she annulled a quickie Las Vegas wedding to childhood friend Jason Alexander and before Federline's ex-girlfriend Shar Jackson gave birth to his second child. At Spears and Federline's September 2004 wedding, the groom gave his attendants white tracksuits with the word "Pimp" written on the back, and revelers dined on chicken wings. The newlyweds shared home videos of their courtship on a reality show, Britney & Kevin: Chaotic. Spears talked in often icky detail about her sex life to reporters and was frequently photographed barefoot in public. Before long, she was pregnant, too.

The young mom soon grew tired of the media attention, however, when it seemed to focus on her parenting ineptitude — driving with baby on lap, tripping with child in hand — and her husband's single-guy-style partying. Federline seemed to spend more time on apparently unproductive pursuits, like hanging out in Las Vegas, serving as the celebrity advocate for the preservation of the penny and challenging the occasional rival to a nightclub dance-off. In an interview with Dateline in June, belly full with her second child, Spears told Matt Lauer, "I feel like I'm a target." When asked if she thought people were rooting against her marriage, the weepy mother said, "If they are that's sad. I think everybody should be 'pro love.'"

Pro love or no, Spears will be joining a growing group of powerful celebrity women who have recently split from their less successful husbands, including Reese Witherspoon (from Ryan Phillippe) and Hilary Swank (from Chad Lowe). Federline, meanwhile, has plans to write an autobiography. Something tells us the last chapter will be the one worth reading.

Sphere: Related Content

Time's Invention Of The Year 2006

Traveling First Class

A sexy hybrid, a solar powered catamaran and a submarine for two are a few new ways to get around land or sea

Home Sweet Home

A floating bed, a manpowered snow plow and a gadget to find those gloves (or anything else) you misplace

The Future of Food

A kinder way to kill a lobster and other gastronomic marvels that will change the way you cook - and eat

source

NowPublic

Sphere: Related Content

Today in history - Nov. 8

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 8, the 312th day of 2006. There are 53 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 8, 1923, Adolf Hitler launched his first attempt at seizing power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, the "Beer-Hall Putsch."

On this date:

In 1837, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, a college exclusively for women, opened in South Hadley, Mass.

In 1889, Montana became the 41st state.

In 1932, New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent Herbert Hoover for the presidency.

source

NowPublic

Tags: Molotov | Beer-Hall | seizing | launched | failed | ELECTED | defeated | days | Coup | became | attempt | ROOSEVELT | president | nov | New York | Munich | Montana | Massachusetts | hoover | holyoke | Hitler | Germany | george | Clinton | Adolf

Sphere: Related Content

Today in history - Nov. 8

The Associated Press

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 8, the 312th day of 2006. There are 53 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

On Nov. 8, 1923, Adolf Hitler launched his first attempt at seizing power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, the "Beer-Hall Putsch."

On this date:

In 1837, Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, a college exclusively for women, opened in South Hadley, Mass.

In 1889, Montana became the 41st state.

In 1932, New York Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent Herbert Hoover for the presidency.

In 1933, President Roosevelt created the Civil Works Administration, designed to create jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.

In 1942, Operation Torch began during World War II as U.S. and British forces landed in French North Africa.

In 1960, Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard M. Nixon for the presidency.

In 1966, Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California.

In 1966, Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts became the first black to be elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote.

In 1986, former Soviet official Vyacheslav M. Molotov, whose name became attached to the incendiary bottle bomb known as a "Molotov Cocktail," died at age 96.

In 1988, Vice President George Bush won the presidential election, defeating Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

Ten years ago: Three days after his re-election, President Clinton said at a news conference that there always are "a lot of hard feelings" after elections, but he urged Republicans to put aside politically charged investigations and work with him to balance the budget and enact campaign finance reform.

Five years ago: In a prime-time address, President Bush called on Americans to defy acts of terror by strengthening their communities, comforting their neighbors and remaining vigilant in the face of further threats. U.S. jets struck Taliban targets across northern Afghanistan and fierce fighting was reported around the Taliban-held city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Tropical Storm Lingling continued to batter the Philippines; the storm left more than 200 dead.

One year ago: French President Jacques Chirac declared a 12-day state of emergency to halt France's worst civil unrest in nearly four decades. Gunmen assassinated a second lawyer in the Saddam Hussein trial in Baghdad. At Campbell County Comprehensive High School in Tennessee, Assistant Principal Kent Bruce was shot and killed and two other administrators seriously wounded; a student, Kenneth Bartley, has been charged. Bartolo Colon won the American League Cy Young Award.

Today's Birthdays: Actress June Havoc is 94. Actor Norman Lloyd is 92. Jazz singer Chris Connor is 79. Singer Patti Page is 79. CBS newsman Morley Safer is 75. Singer-actress Bonnie Bramlett is 62. Singer Bonnie Raitt is 57. TV personality Mary Hart is 56. Playboy Enterprises chairman and chief executive Christie Hefner is 54. Actress Alfre Woodard is 53. Singer-songwriter Rickie Lee Jones is 52. Rock musician Porl Thompson (The Cure) is 49. Singer-actor Leif Garrett is 45. Actress Courtney Thorne-Smith is 39. Actress Parker Posey is 38. Rock musician Jimmy Chaney is 37. Actress Roxana Zal is 37. Singer Diana King is 36. Actress Gretchen Mol is 33. Actress Tara Reid is 31. Actress Azura Skye is 25. Actor Chris Rankin is 23. TV personality Jack Osbourne ("The Osbournes") is 21.

Thought for Today: "There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book." — Carson McCullers, American author (1917-1967).

Sphere: Related Content