Free from MA!

NH Underground ^ | 01/17/05 | Kat Dillon

[bookish_lass]

Jim Perry in "Escape from Massachusetts"

Fed up with high taxes and the Massachusetts nanny state, Jim Perry joined the United States' fastest-growing freedom movement, the Free State Project, and publicly broke his bonds from big government. To symbolize this event, Jim chained himself to a pole in Massachusetts at its border near Nashua. Freestaters at the event witnessed thousands of cars pouring in to New Hampshire from Massachusetts for sales-tax-free shopping. Jim remained chained for about an hour, holding a sign urging people to "Cut the chains of statism. --freestateproject.org". Compatriots in the Free State Project handed out flyers explaining the project and held signs:

"Escape to NH. --freestateproject.org"
"Honk if you love NH. --freestateproject.org"
"Now escaping Massachusetts"

Freestaters who had already made the move to NH then broke his chains, allowing him to make a mad dash to his freedom. Once there, he celebrated some of the freedoms one immediately gains when crossing the border: he destroyed a MA income tax form (NH has no state income or sales taxes); he drove a car without a seatbelt (NH is the only state without a seatbelt law for adults); and he openly carried a handgun, reveling in the freedom to protect himself and his loved ones.

Not all who attended the event were Freestaters. Two assisting in Jim's break for freedom were NH natives who welcome the Free State Project. They admitted that before they began working with the Freestaters moving to NH, they were ready to leave New Hampshire. Now they've decided to stay and be a part of Liberty in our Lifetimes.

Event Photos

[An Old Marine]

Voting with their feet. Eventually some of the socialist states may learn lessons the hard way.

[FormerACLUmember]

Not many posts, but this is hysterical.

[Jmouse007]

Yes, they are voting with their feet alright, moving to NH and bringing their liberal politics and views with them. Now we have another democratic govenor. The last one DOUBLED the states budget (in one term she doubled the entire budget, an amount which took the entire history of the state to reach!). John F'n Kerry bumper stickers abound here as well. This state is no longer what it once was. It is quickly becoming Mass 2.

[Pondman88]

Awesome...I have a dream, a dream to escape the liberal Northeast, a dream of freedom and hope....New Hampshire, I hear your beacon of hope!!!!

[coconutt2000]

Voting with their feet. Eventually some of the socialist states may learn lessons the hard way.

LOL, I can see Massachusetts now... in my imagination they try and pass a law to try and force former Mass. residents to continue to pay their state income taxes to MA.

[talosiv]

Don't think it can't happen. Watch them tax NH residents who commute to MA on income earned there.

-R

[Dr. Thorne]

Eventually some of the socialist states may learn lessons the hard way.

"I doubt it," said the Carpenter
And shed a bitter tear.

[whd23]

Watch them tax NH residents who commute to MA on income earned there.

That's the current situation. I hope Jim Perry doesn't have a job in Mass., he'll need that tax form!

[An Old Marine]

Hence - virtual commuting. The solution when the Peoples Republic of New York tried taxing New Jersey and Conneticut residents in that way. Its estimated by the New York Association for Business that New York has lost more than $5 Billion in tax revenues a year through virtual commuting, business migrations caused by such taxes, and job exports.

[theDentist]

Congatulations on your successful escape. I escaped 2 years ago (currently residing in a Virginia safe haven). Have been trying to get my parents and siblings out. No luck so far though.

[mvpel]

Yes, they are voting with their feet alright, moving to NH and bringing their liberal politics and views with them.

The Free Staters who are Massachusetts escapees aren't the ones who are bringing left-wing politics - we're the ones who are going to help you fight against it!

Now we have another democratic govenor.

The margin of Lynch's victory was 14,413 votes, 14,960 of which were cast in Merrimack county, and 13,778 of which were cast in the city of Concord.

Lynch also won significant margins in Cheshire, Sullivan, and Grafton counties, along the Vermont border.

Look at the vote results in towns near Massachusetts - Merrimack had a Republican sweep, for example, and Hillsborough and Rockingham counties, along the border of eastern Massachusetts, both returned strong margins of victory for Benson.

Pelham, the town closest to Boston along I93, posted 57.7% for Benson. Proceeding northeast up the border, Salem was 56.1% Benson, Atkinson was 59.6% Benson, Plaistow was 57.3% Benson. Further up, you start into the Hampton/Portsmouth leftist enclave and the margins get smaller - Newton was 50.8% Benson and Seabrook was 50.9%, but he lost South Hampton by 21 votes.

Our problem isn't the people escaping from Massachusetts' leftist tyranny, our problem is granola-eatin', tree-huggin', sandal-wearin', patchouli-stinkin' tax-and-spend Vermonters coming across the river, and state employees who think they have a God-given right to a cushy government job and a comfortable pension regardless of the financial health of the state. That is, the same state employees whose featherbeds Gov. Benson was overturning on behalf of the productive citizens of this state.

Instead of looking south, look west - Sun Tzu said that if you know yourself, but do not know the enemy, for every victory you will suffer a defeat.

To turn this around and put a stop to the Mass 2 slide, you should vigorously support and promote the Free State Project. How much of a difference would 20,000 activists - not just voters, but activists for limited government, personal freedom, and individual responsibility - have made in the last election?

[bookish_lass]

Thank you. I escaped from the People's Republic of California. We've been going wild up here with all the pro-liberty activity. I'm kind of exhausted, actually :) Next week we've planned a zoning protest in Hampton, NH. The big bad bureacrats are harassing a 95 year old woman and her family who are trying to care for her. They're facing a ~$180,000 and having to tear down their garage for made up zoning violations. If anyone's interested in more information, just go to the NH Underground: nhunderground.com and visit the Zoning Protest page, or visit the forum.

[andy58-in-nh]

Yes, they are voting with their feet alright, moving to NH and bringing their liberal politics and views with them.

You've got that right. The number of Volvos and Subarus with JFK stickers on I-93 last fall was depressing. We need more conservative refugees and fewer leftist pilgrims.

[RobRoy]

I was on a business trip to Concord about five months ago. It is the farthest east I have ever been. Charming place, and cop cars everywhere. It was the fuzzyest place I've been in the entire country.

It also seemed a little economically depressed. Oh, and lots of car dealerships.

[andy58-in-nh]

I can see Massachusetts now... in my imagination they try and pass a law to try and force former Mass. residents to continue to pay their state income taxes to MA.

Well, they already do this, sort of. If you live in NH and work in Mass., you pay "non-resident" income tax to Massachusetts (at the same rate as residents of the People's Republic). So if you're planning on moving here - get a job here first, or you'll be subsidizing Kerry Country.

[LFOD]

I missed this last election over here in Iraq - however I log onto the newspapers daily.
My absentee ballot arrived 10 days after the Sept. primary. Typical Democrats in Concord. My wife hand delivered the ballot for the big one in November in person when I met her for R&R.

I remember when Jean Shaheen was elected & witnessed the state's budget skyrocket for "the childrens" good. We also had to put up with all of that "Bridge to the 21st Century" drivel - after all she was a Clintonoid.

It's true - Massholes bring the politics and the liberal train of though with them.
We are moving to another state to escape the sky-high real estate taxes and home prices.
Goodbye New Hampshire, suburb of Boston.

[leftee]

Left MA 12 years ago .Live in AZ now and loving it. 53 years was way to long.

[mvpel]

We need more conservative refugees and fewer leftist pilgrims.

Sounds like you're a friend of the Free State Project!

[andy58-in-nh]

I'm a friend of Liberty, though not necessarily morality-free libertarianism. I'm hopeful that folks who move here in search of freedom will distinguish between liberty and license.

[mvpel]

I'm a friend of Liberty, though not necessarily morality-free libertarianism. I'm hopeful that folks who move here in search of freedom will distinguish between liberty and license.

How do you make that distinction? If someone else's exercise of their own individual liberty makes you uncomfortable, then does it become "license?" Or do you have a different standard?

[andy58-in-nh]

Here is the difference:
Someone else's exercise of "liberty" can, at the extreme, cause physical harm to others or render their property uninhabitable. Human behavior does not occur in a vacuum - that's why we have laws and government to enforce them. The fact that we've gone far beyond the proper limits of law and government (and we have) does not mean that law and government are unneeded. Negative third party effects of human action (such as noise, pollution or narcotics distribution) are best dealt with by the police power of a government under clear standards of fault and liability - but they still must be dealt with.

[mvpel]

I don't think you'll find any libertarian who will say that polluters or anyone else should be immune from liability for the harm they do to others.

That's what the courts are for, and it's only the anarchists who say we don't need a government-run court system. Most libertarians aren't anarchists, though.

With respect to narcotics distribution, yeah, I know what you mean... the local CVS has had a really significant negative impact on traffic in the area, and our taxes have to pay for the maintenance signal that went in at the entrance to its parking lot.

[andy58-in-nh]

...the local CVS has had a really significant negative impact on traffic in the area, and our taxes have to pay for the maintenance signal that went in at the entrance to its parking lot.

Cute, Michael. But are you suggesting that street dope peddlars aren't a problem, or that crack ought to be legalized, regulated and sold by CVS? I'm as much in favor of the 2nd Amendment as I know you are, but you'd need an arsenal to protect you from the results of legalizing drugs. I would probably make an exception for marijuana (whose only serious negative effect seems to be to hinder coherent thought and cause people to vote for Democrats), but other than that, regulation won't work for drugs whose sole purpose is abuse. CVS sells narcotic-based drugs, but only those with demonstrable pharmaceutical value. Crack, on the other hand, is what's in demand on the street, and if you've seen what that stuff does to people, well, no amount of libertarian theorizing can excuse it.

[mvpel]

Crack itself is a byproduct of the drug war. Compact, easy to smuggle, high profit margin, low cost to value ratio, etc. Much more economical than powder cocaine.

I think it's safe to say that if tobacco or coffee were banned, we'd be decrying the scourge of crack nicotine or crack caffeine.

We're already starting to see a violent criminal element get involved in cigarettes in states like NY and CA where the taxes are high enough to make smuggling extremely lucrative.

The problem people seem to have is that when it comes to drugs, any rational understanding of market forces, unintended consequences, and simple economics goes right out the window in the face of emotional appeals on behalf of people who made their own free choice to ingest the drug in the first place.

And besides, they can't even keep drugs out of prisons, where on-demand body cavity searches are de rigeur, so what makes you think that they'll ever be able to keep recreational drugs out of society as a whole? The word "police state" doesn't even begin to describe would would be necessary.

[mvpel]

Posted a bit too soon.

Basically, Andy, I think that we have a much better chance of fixing the drug problem in the US if we stopped treating it like a criminal issue and started treating it like a public health issue, which is what it really is.

[Dada Orwell]

LFOD wrote:

"We are moving to another state to escape the sky-high real estate taxes and home prices.
Goodbye New Hampshire, suburb of Boston."

LFOD please stay!!! We need folks like you so bad, but the threat is not Mass. immigrants overall, most of them are conservative according to stats the Union Leader researched last year. The threat is the NH public schools which has driven Live Free or Die out of our kids' minds.

Stick with us please; it's still the freest state in an unfree Union and the tax burden is lower here than everywhere else. If there's something you don't like here please help us change it; just come over to www.NHunderground.com to see what we are doing to fight the tax and spenders...there was nothing like it when you left unless you just left!

In any case thanks much for your service and keep safe so we can have you back!

[andy58-in-nh]

I agree that treating drug abuse solely as a criminal issue has not worked, and, in fact, cannot work. But it is more than simply a "public health" issue. It is a morality issue. And this is where libertarians lose their bearings, joining forces with all manner of Utopian ideologies.

Bad behavior (such as drug abuse) is not caused by bad incentives - it is caused by a lack of virtue: which is to say that it is a human failing. People are not perfectable. Ideologues of the Left believe that they are - and that Government ought to be the agent of perfection. Ideologues of the Right (insofar as many exist these days) demand that State power be used to impose morality by criminalizing "bad" behavior, or any behvior of which they disaprove .

Our Founders rejected these extremes because they knew that a free people could maintain their freedom only through the practice of Virtue. The role of Government in this regard is to promote such virtue, in part by protecting citizens from damage to life and property caused by poor behavior and by directing the mediating institutions of society (families, neighborhoods, churches, synagogues, businesses) to police themselves and their members. In the absence of self-corrective action, however, Government must act where threats to life and property become imminent and irreversible. John Locke (for one) recognized this police power as a necessary evil in a democratic Republic, but one that must be exercised for the purpose of maintaining public safety and and an orderly society.

We have today a substantial number of people living in this country who do not possess the personal responsibility, much less the knowledge, to live productive lives. That problem cannot be solved by Government alone - after all, it was Government that helped cause it. And having assisted in the development of such pathologies as drug abuse, the Government must now shield the innocent from them - at least until Virtue is rediscovered by those in most in need of it.

[bookish_lass]

"LFOD please stay!!! We need folks like you so bad, but the threat is not Mass. immigrants overall, most of them are conservative according to stats the Union Leader researched last year. The threat is the NH public schools which has driven Live Free or Die out of our kids' minds."

Hear, hear!

[bIlluminati]

I'm booking me a moving van to New Hampshire, likely sometime in late 2007 - just in time for the Presidential (silly) season. Timing dictated by how big a posse we bring.

I seriously doubt I'll be going with less than 4: my son estimates 15, but that could be optimistic (or pessimistic; Ohio has more young people leaving than any other State in the Union; their taxes are exceeded only by Maine and New York).