Keith and stuff
07-06-2012, 01:00 PM
The Free Staters Go Camping
What happens when you bring together politicos, voluntaryists, and off-the-grid farmers for a week?
Garrett Quinn | July 6, 2012
http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/06/the-free-staters-go-camping
http://media.reason.com/mc/2012_06/IMG_0787.JPG?h=263&w=350
It is a 2 page article so I will not post it all here. I'll post sections, though :)
Every summer since 2004, hundreds of people belonging to and interested in the Free State Project, an effort to move 20,000 libertarians to New Hampshire, gather at a remote campground in the northern part of the state for a weeklong event called the Porcupine Freedom Festival. The outdoorsy extravaganza, more commonly known as PorcFest, is one of the biggest libertarian gatherings in the entire country.
The libertarian stereotype of the nerdy, balding, middle-aged white guy goes out the window at PorcFest. The attendees are so diverse, one wonders how organizers managed to get everybody together in the same place without burning the forest down in a fit of rage. If you want to see what happens when you bring together libertarian politicos, voluntaryists, and off-the-grid family farmers that love raw milk for a week to celebrate one of the more quixotic elements of the libertarian movement, then you have to go to PorcFest.
The divide was certainly visible to anyone that took a stroll through the camp on the final full day of activities. Large families gathered in the back of the campground away from the action while younger people stayed closer to the fire and the merchants row, known as Agora Valley, where agorists hawked their wares to festivalgoers. In Agora Valley you could buy a wide variety of food, books, clothing, soaps, tapestries, and (of course) gold and silver. Farmers offered samplings of the fruits of their labor while promoting deals to Free Staters on baskets of fresh produce and meats delivered from their farm straight to their door. Some agorists, like George Mandrick, took a more direct route and set up shop in the main hall, the Shire Society Pavilion.
In a large tent next to the pavilion, New Hampshire Republican state representative Mark Warden holds court... Warden left Nevada, another state with strong libertarian leanings, in 2007 when the market took a turn for the worse. Warden says one of the reasons he moved to New Hampshire and joining the FSP was the natural beauty of the state. PorcFest, he thinks, is one of the ways to show that off because it is a large outdoor festival unlike other libertarian gatherings that tend to be held at large resort hotels (think Freedom Fest in Las Vegas).
“When you’re in Las Vegas at FreedomFest there are two parts: the liberty portion and investments. So you have a lot of people from Wall Street. Here we have more Main Street, more Austrian economics, people that are self-reliant, people that invest in metals, in real estate,” he says, adding that the crowd tends to be younger at PorcFest.
“It’s very diverse. You see some dreadlocks here, you see some Occupiers here, you see some Tea Partiers here, you see some straight laced non-drinking Christian businessmen here, you see it all,” he says.
Warden attributes the congenial nature of the event to the natural libertarian aversion to force.
“Libertarians tend to be pretty tolerant. Most people here think their way is the best or the right way but they won’t force other people to do it their way. They want the competition for ideas to flourish and for the best way to run things to be settled on the battlefield of ideas,” he says, as someone offered us cigars.
Despite the remoteness of the campground and nearly nonexistent internet access a web based radio station, The Liberty Radio Network, managed to broadcast from the site all week. The station’s program director, Ian Freeman, moved from Florida to New Hampshire as part of the FSP in 2006 after growing increasingly frustrated with Libertarian Party there and the level of activism. Freeman is one of the more unique individuals at PorcFest because he has participated in activism across the libertarian spectrum.
What happens when you bring together politicos, voluntaryists, and off-the-grid farmers for a week?
Garrett Quinn | July 6, 2012
http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/06/the-free-staters-go-camping
http://media.reason.com/mc/2012_06/IMG_0787.JPG?h=263&w=350
It is a 2 page article so I will not post it all here. I'll post sections, though :)
Every summer since 2004, hundreds of people belonging to and interested in the Free State Project, an effort to move 20,000 libertarians to New Hampshire, gather at a remote campground in the northern part of the state for a weeklong event called the Porcupine Freedom Festival. The outdoorsy extravaganza, more commonly known as PorcFest, is one of the biggest libertarian gatherings in the entire country.
The libertarian stereotype of the nerdy, balding, middle-aged white guy goes out the window at PorcFest. The attendees are so diverse, one wonders how organizers managed to get everybody together in the same place without burning the forest down in a fit of rage. If you want to see what happens when you bring together libertarian politicos, voluntaryists, and off-the-grid family farmers that love raw milk for a week to celebrate one of the more quixotic elements of the libertarian movement, then you have to go to PorcFest.
The divide was certainly visible to anyone that took a stroll through the camp on the final full day of activities. Large families gathered in the back of the campground away from the action while younger people stayed closer to the fire and the merchants row, known as Agora Valley, where agorists hawked their wares to festivalgoers. In Agora Valley you could buy a wide variety of food, books, clothing, soaps, tapestries, and (of course) gold and silver. Farmers offered samplings of the fruits of their labor while promoting deals to Free Staters on baskets of fresh produce and meats delivered from their farm straight to their door. Some agorists, like George Mandrick, took a more direct route and set up shop in the main hall, the Shire Society Pavilion.
In a large tent next to the pavilion, New Hampshire Republican state representative Mark Warden holds court... Warden left Nevada, another state with strong libertarian leanings, in 2007 when the market took a turn for the worse. Warden says one of the reasons he moved to New Hampshire and joining the FSP was the natural beauty of the state. PorcFest, he thinks, is one of the ways to show that off because it is a large outdoor festival unlike other libertarian gatherings that tend to be held at large resort hotels (think Freedom Fest in Las Vegas).
“When you’re in Las Vegas at FreedomFest there are two parts: the liberty portion and investments. So you have a lot of people from Wall Street. Here we have more Main Street, more Austrian economics, people that are self-reliant, people that invest in metals, in real estate,” he says, adding that the crowd tends to be younger at PorcFest.
“It’s very diverse. You see some dreadlocks here, you see some Occupiers here, you see some Tea Partiers here, you see some straight laced non-drinking Christian businessmen here, you see it all,” he says.
Warden attributes the congenial nature of the event to the natural libertarian aversion to force.
“Libertarians tend to be pretty tolerant. Most people here think their way is the best or the right way but they won’t force other people to do it their way. They want the competition for ideas to flourish and for the best way to run things to be settled on the battlefield of ideas,” he says, as someone offered us cigars.
Despite the remoteness of the campground and nearly nonexistent internet access a web based radio station, The Liberty Radio Network, managed to broadcast from the site all week. The station’s program director, Ian Freeman, moved from Florida to New Hampshire as part of the FSP in 2006 after growing increasingly frustrated with Libertarian Party there and the level of activism. Freeman is one of the more unique individuals at PorcFest because he has participated in activism across the libertarian spectrum.