LIVE FREE OR DIE - Perhaps in New Hampshire

UNSCATHED BY THE INSANITY OF OUR TIMES

By: April Shenandoah

We all talk about freedom, but do we really understand what it is? Most of us could at least say what it is not.

– Freedom is not: telling Mothers and Fathers how to raise their children - or educate them.

– Freedom is not: putting American citizens in fear of their own police force (we were told they are our friends).

– Freedom is not: enforcing rules and regulations that make it almost impossible for good citizens not to break the law at some time.

– Freedom is not: having our privacy invaded with cameras, wiretaps and home invasion with out a warrant.

– Freedom is not: confiscating our homes and generational-family-farms for corporate development.

This entire column could be a list of things that infringe on our freedoms - and the list grows longer each day. If you are fed up with said loss of freedoms perhaps you can move to New Hampshire.

The Live Free or Die state is the location voted on in October, 2003, by the Free State Project (FSP) where folks are demanding "Liberty in our Lifetime." The words Live Free or Die were generated by General John Stark, the state’s most distinguished hero of the Revolutionary War, July 31, 1809, in a volunteer toast which he sent to his wartime comrades. It became the official motto of the state in 1945. Stark’s toast said in full: "Live Free or Die; Death Is Not The Worst of Evils."

Founded in 2001, the FSP is attempting to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people - aiming to preserve one bastion of freedom in the age of intrusive government, to migrate to NH. They are looking for neighborly, productive, tolerant folks from all walks of life, of all ages, creeds, and colors who agree that government exists at most to protect people’s rights - and should neither punish them for activities that interfere with no one else.

These Libertarian types who are migrating to the Granite State will have no general income tax, nor sales tax. It is second only to Alaska for the lowest poverty rates, and the lowest crime levels in the U.S. The economy is booming with plenty of jobs and investment, and a culture of individual responsibility - there are no seatbelt or helmet requirements.

Get this - since 1889 NH legislators have earned a paltry $100 a year for their services. The state maintains the only Constitution in the country that protects its citizens the ‘right to revolution.’ One hundred (perhaps more by now) of NH residents have signed up for the FSP, and ex Republican Governor Craig Benson stood behind them. However, NH has since voted in Democratic Governor John Lynch to the mix.

Though the aforementioned sounds almost too good to be true, taking up residence in a warmer climate is best suited for survival for what we may face in the future. However, after the interested parties did their research, NH won out from among Montana, Wyoming, Delaware, Vermont, Maine, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska (all cold-climate states). The runner-up state was Wyoming, which defeated every other state but fell to NH by a 55 per cent to 45 per cent margin.

As Tim Robbins tells Meg Ryan in the 1994 movie IQ, "Question Everything." The FSP movement may have been started by freedom loving purists with the best of intentions. Or could it all be a ploy to round up like-minded "enemies of the state" (nation state) to put the squeeze on them? It will be most interesting to watch and see if the "elite powers" actually refrain from imposing present day rules and regulations on the good people of the FSP.

The average American citizen willingly follows sensible laws, and wants to live peaceably among his fellow man. But due to the strangeness of today’s world events, there are those playing with the idea of how to escape the horrors of living in a socialist police state.

The human race simply does not do well when being told what they can and cannot do, especially when there is no logical reasoning behind it. We are slaves because we have allowed it - and - we have no right to complain about what we allow!

More research is needed to find why NH appears to be unscathed by the insanity of our times. May God Bless and protect those who want to Live Free or Die - what ever state they live in.

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