New Hampshire is in an abusive relationship, according to Carla Gericke, the President of Foundation for New Hampshire Independence. The Uncle Sam won’t let New Hampshire leave; he arrests the citizens for victimless crimes, he overrides the legislature for policy and regulation, and he takes her money.
The state is a net payer of federal taxes, meaning they pay more federal taxes than they get back. When it comes to education alone, New Hampshire gets 30 cents on every dollar back. If the government is meant to be for and by the people, keeping that money local is a step in the right direction towards a more responsive government tailored to the people is serves.
Gericke claims that if New Hampshire became independent, it would be the wealthiest country on Earth per capita. The relationship between New Hampshire and the United States is not beneficial to New Hampshire, and some in the state want to go their own way to form a freer country.
Donald Trump is the gift that keeps on giving, according to Gericke, because he made liberals open to a conversation about secession. In fact, she hopes California will secede first so that New Hampshire can watch and learn. The goal is to become independent without having the tanks roll in from the USA.
Independence is not a strictly libertarian issue either, it is a local issue. In general, it is a positive to have your food come from local sources, to eat at local restaurants, and drink local beer. The closer government gets to the local level, the better it is. Unity on a national scale only creates controversy, violence, and resentment currently among people who don’t agree and shouldn’t have to.
Carla Gericke was once the President of the Free State Project, which seeks to move 20,000 freedom lovers to New Hampshire in order to influence the politics of the relatively small state. The project is based on a paper by Jason Sorens, who said that roughly 20,000 dedicated activists could influence the politics in a region of around a million people. That is why Gericke sees New Hampshire as a natural place to fight for freedom from an oppressive overlord who has grown too large and powerful, violating its own laws about letting states conduct their own business.
New Hampshire also has a clause in their Constitution that specifically prescribes revolution (though not necessarily violent) if the federal government violates their contract with the state, which they have clearly done. By talking to neighbors over a beer, New Hampshire Independence thinks they can present their case without coming off as crazy guerilla fighters. That is not what the movement is about. The movement is about control over your own life, which starts by moving the governing structure closer to home.
Each representative in the New Hampshire legislature represents 3,000 people; it is one of the largest and most decentralized legislatures in the world. This means the government is already primed to be responsive to the needs of the people. Like all American states, New Hampshire already has a governing structure in place that would avoid any power vacuums in the event they became independent. It really wouldn’t be such an upset in daily life, unless the USA went out of its way to make it difficult.
But perhaps people of all stripes can now find common ground to have this conversation. Now that the left hates the President, suddenly the idea of secession doesn’t sound so crazy. Americans can actually find more common ground by going our separate ways. Then people can all try different governing structures and ideas, allowing for experimentation in government that will let the best institutions emerge. And what we will likely find is that different governing structures make a lot of sense based on the region, culture, geography, resources, and the natural diversity which makes a one size fits all approach to governing a quagmire.
Of course, this is a long-term plan, and the first step of the process is the nullification of federal laws to make the state more independent. Already New Hampshire has seen some progress in this direction and has historically refused to play along with federal mandates. For instance, New Hampshire refused to implement a seatbelt law when the federal government held highway funds over their head. Yet still, New Hampshire has some of the highest rates of citizens wearing seatbelts.
New Hampshire has a seaport, a border with Canada, and two neighbor states which each have an independent flare. In fact, Arcadia has been talked about as a loose confederation between New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. That way, the three states could enjoy free trade, safety in numbers, and open borders for easy travel.
Ideally, borders would remain open to the United States as well, but you never know how an abusive ex will react to emancipation. There is a precedent that those collecting social security can still collect their checks when living in foreign countries, and use American dollars, like Panama.
But Americans dollars are not sound currency, and New Hampshire Independence supports a free market of competing currencies. New Hampshire businesses were early adopters of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and the state is host to many high-tech jobs in the IT and web development fields. Silver is already relatively widely accepted among businesses in the state.
Once one state secedes, there will be a domino effect with at least a dozen movements within the United States to get whole states, or parts of states to gain independence from a larger political body that does not represent the best interests of the people.
And once the precedent is set that it is okay to go your separate way peacefully, there is nothing to stop independence at a local level, and finally down to the individual.
A woman shouldn’t be forced to maintain a relationship with an abuser, and nor should people be forced into a group where the dominant controllers abuse them.
The United States government is abusing people and running roughshod over more local governing structures. It is time for a great divorce, and New Hampshire might just have the right ingredients to make that happen.
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