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(Snip)
Over the last year or two, a small subculture of anarchists, has emerged in the Free State Project. Specifically, a group of mostly younger people in the Keene area. Most of them have said they will not vote because they don't want to participate in the government (they're not helping to lower taxes or reduce the size/scope of gov't). They instead attempt to influence government through civil disobedience (which they call civdis). They seem to have chosen three key issues to focus this civil disobedience on: marijuana legalization, public alcohol consumption, and public nudity. So far, their civdis activities have included drinking cans of beer in the town square and the lobby of the town police station, smoking marijuana in the town square every day at 4:20PM, and walking around town partially or fully naked. Other antics have included standing outside a middle school with signs encouraging other people's children to drop out of school (while open caring firearms) and videotaping themselves in court for refusing to pay child support or fines. Of course, they're also doing the Timothy McVeigh/Ruby Ridge type crazier stuff like refusing to register their cars or pay their federal income tax. They're indifferent to the cost to tax payers of their regular arrests and jail sentences.
To paint a clearer picture of these people, they're basically poor, drug addicted, have no steady jobs, no real skills, mostly live in rooming houses, and some are homeless (aka "camping"). They aren't necessarily interested in economic freedom or smaller government. They primarily want the freedom to use marijuana and freedom from anything that prevents them from affording it (like taxes). They seem near totally focused on drugs. They basically just have no ambition in life other than getting high.
They're lowering everyone's quality of life in Keene. They've worn out their welcome in the town. They've been called "idiots" by local politicians and invited to leave in many editions of the local paper. They're also eroding the FSP's goodwill fast enough that recruitment efforts are slowing down - especially among the kind of people that should be recruited (entrepreneurs and professionals). FSP participants who've been elected as state government representatives often hide their involvement with the FSP because the brand is becoming so negatively associated with the Keene people's activities.
These anarchists are also dominating all the forums and websites used by FSP participants calling anyone who's not an anarchist inconsistent and shouting others down with their radical views. A common response is to suggest they go to Somalia if they want anarchy. But, of course they won't. Because, they don't want real anarchy. They just want to rebel against a government that keeps them safe, clothes them, feeds them, and educates them, by shouting anarchy while using recreational drugs - like a bunch of 15 year old punk rock fans. I'm not sure if they just don't understand that poverty and widespread violence are the end results of not having an entity to enforce contract law, or if they just don't care.
Regardless, they're the kind of people I've worked my whole life to get away from. They're the kind of people I resent having to support financially with my taxes and through things like higher interest rates. Their presence in NH and the FSP is making me realize how hard it will be to get the kind of exclusivity that made Rand's hidden valley work to exist in NH. The thing I liked most about Gault's Gulch was the exclusivity of it - that everyone there was a high performing/high value individual. I liked the local culture of the gulch.
I don't see how such a cultural community can be created in NH through the vehicle of the FSP.
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