Vote for the Socialists. Make em flee to NH.

[Rebel Rob]

Wake up Liberty Lovers! You're voting for the wrong hacks and the
wrong bills and for all the wrong reasons!  Stop fighting your chains!
You are only make them stronger.  It's time to give the beast full
reign and let it run itself right off the cliff.  It's time to start
using those brains your mama gave you and vote stupid.

First you must examine where we've been to see where it is all
headed:
Since the New Deal, the Fed's Spending has increased 8 times as
quickly as the economy with the social spending portion increasing 14
times faster than the economy.  State and local government spending has
increased at about 3 times the rate of the economy.  And forgot
economies of scale.  The bigger the beast gets, the less efficiently it
spends every dollar.

Government last year spent 43% of the nations income and it added
direct balance-sheet regulatory compliance costs of at least an
additional 15%.  That 15% regulatory cost (up from 4% in 1947) is just
the direct regulatory compliance cost that makes it onto businesses'
balance sheets.  It doesn't even hint at the invaluable lost
opportunities and innovations that it mindlessly stomps out.

But the free market doesn't really have much of anywhere else to go
since, compared to the US, the other industrial nations have on average
gradually grown their governments into an even worse state.

So the government's now got its grubby claws on 58% of the nation's
massive income compared to 12% pre1930 and 22% in 1947.  It's gotten
there by growing dramatically faster than even the exponential growth
of the economy and the nation's exploding debt testifies to it.  This
vile decline has continued unabated through democratic regimes,
republican regimes, and even "divided" governments and all without
hardly a whimper from its serfs.  And it's occurred in spite of a
majority that professes to favor less taxes.

Yes there have been some minor wobbles in this trend up and down, but
nothing that has substantially altered the general decline in economic
and social liberty and definitely nothing that has stopped the actual
growth of the government.

Yes one could make the argument that we are approaching a government
burden ceiling as a percentage of the economy, but that still leaves
one with massive government growth and a government soon able to
finance a massive increase in its intrusion into its serfs' lives.

So now let's look at what's been done to try to stop it:

On the Federal level you have:

The national libertarian party has generally managed to raise a few
million dollars for its presidential candidate.  The number of votes he
garners is relatively inconsequential.  In the end the LP presidential
campaign just ends up being a comparatively expensive educational
marketing effort with typically poor results.  The few votes that do go
the LP presidential candidate are also more or less wasted as they add
very little to the above educational and marketing effort.  Besides,
the presidential electoral system is set up so that any third party
presidential candidate doesn't really have a credible chance anyway.
Also, there is significant uncertainty surrounding how much a
libertarian president would be able to accomplish anyway.


The republican liberty caucus has slightly better prospects, but the
odds of them achieving anything substantial is fairly remote.  With
broad super majority federal government control, they might be able to
bring the government's spending down into the 20% range at best
within a few decades, but that still adds up to a far larger and more
intrusive government than the one we have today.  The vast majority of
the country's serfs would currently be perfectly happy with that
level of taxation and I doubt that situation will change much leaving
little broad popular motive force for further improvements.  Besides,
is 20% anything to get too excited about anyway?  Is there really that
much difference between being a 58%+ current slave and 20%+ future
slave?

As far as I'm aware there isn't any credible democratic liberty
caucus.


On a State and local level:

The picture isn't much better due to the same general problems.  Yes,
occasionally a candidate is elected and some reforms do go through, but
none of them are really able to strike at the root.

There are only a few other credible strategies and they are all vastly
more credible than the prior alternatives.

1.  Continue doing the same things we've always done, hoping for
different results.  That includes continuing the LP AND Republican
Liberty Caucus efforts.  It might help the current situation, but do
you really think that such a failed strategy is going to lead to true
permanent economic and social freedom?

2.  A super wealthy individual(s) or a monarch somewhere could decide
to buy or set up a libertarian society that others can move to and
participate in, defend, and expand.  I haven't researched the
feasibility or probability of this much so I'll neglect it for now.

3.  Individuals within the current government distorted society
contract together to begin forming a non-localized libertarian
underground society and free market.  This option has many advantages,
the primary one's being a gradual transition and the opportunity for
participants to begin to understand how to construct and operate an
optimally functioning libertarian society and associated businesses and
practices.  However its expansion is likely to be very slow and the
physical benefits derived from it marginal due to the wide reaching
oppression of the governments under which it will be operating.
Nevertheless, it is an extremely crucial and viable strategy to pursue,
especially combined with this following third option.

4.  That option is the New Hampshire Free State Project.  The superior
features of this strategy are too numerous to list (see NHfree.com
freestateproject.org).  The structure of the state government even
seems to allow apathy to work in a libertarian candidates favor.  When
combined with the previous strategy, the free state project should be
able to show amazing strides towards real civil and economic liberty
within a couple decades.  In my opinion, the odds of a Free State
Project strategy achieving full liberty within our lifetimes are
magnitudes of order greater than any of the other options (with the
possible exception of the benevolent monarch possibility, which could
be pursued separately if the opportunity arose).  In addition, the
success of the free state project would virtually guarantee the earlier
arrival of freedom to the rest of the country and world by providing a
successful real world example of liberty in action.

Therefore, the only conclusion that can be drawn from this logical
exercise is that all other libertarian efforts should be framed in the
context of how they support or hinder the earliest possible realization
of the free state project's success, regardless of the shortterm harm
that may come to some.  If you truly value real personal liberty (and
utilitarian principles), there does not appear to be any other viable
alternative.

So let's apply this logic to the current situation:

The US is currently headed down the path to socialism.  The best one
can really hope to achieve with one's vote outside NH is to slow its
decline.  Even worse, you might end up propping up the government in
some feeble state way out into the distant future.  All the hacking at
the branches would only leave you stuck under an ever more burdensome
and unnecessary bureaucracy persisting on for much longer than it would
have otherwise.

A better approach would be to withdraw from the political system(s)
outside of NH and let it all just lumber away at its own leisurely pace
towards its virtually inevitable self destruction while those with
foresight look on from the comparative safety of NH.

But the best approach would be to give the socialist exactly what they
want!  Let them run the whole inept monstrosity into the ground as
quickly as they possibly can.  It's headed there anyway.  Why not
help push it along and guide it in a manner that will be most
beneficial to the free state project?

Objections:

But that means people will have to pay higher taxes and endure more
government oppression!

Great.  That will provide them and their businesses with all the more
reason to move to New Hampshire and learn how to operate under a
libertarian system. (See freestateproject.org for reasons why you
should move there anyway.)

But what about all the poor old people that won't live to see the
revolution?

They can't be helped much one way or another and they did little on
average to keep us from getting into this mess in the first place.  If
it ends up being too much for them to bear, they can and should move to
NH anyway.  Regardless, can we really be expected to allow the comfort
of the dying generation to steal the current and future generations'
hopes for freedom?  At least the older generation should be able to
take some pleasure in that prospect if nothing else.

But I love my state.  I don't want to see a bunch of socialists take
it over and run it into the ground.

If you really want to save it, you probably have to let it go.  This
applies even to the more libertarian states.  To do otherwise would
decrease the country's freedom differential, dilute the effort and
hinder the free state project.  I'm kind of on the fence about voting
the other really libertarian states into the ground (like Wyoming and
Montana) to generate a handful of new recruits, but that's probably
just due to my own emotional irrationality.  But if there is no chance
in hell that you would be willing to move to NH, then I suppose I could
support designating one other free state, but absolutely only for the
use of those stubborn few.  Such an arrangement might be helpful in
that it would tend to increase the social disparities between different
populations in the country.  I say that because socialist governments
with high tax burdens such as Norway seem to be more successful when
their people are as like minded and uniformly distributed as possible.

However, everywhere else there can be no compromises.  Every effort
must be made to create the greatest "freedom differential" possible
to drive liberty minded individuals to NH.  That means it is extremely
important to make the most socialist states even more burdensome and
inefficient, and especially the one's that are closest to NH like
Massachusetts.  That means libertarians will need to walk the delicate
line of getting the message of the free state project (and this voting
strategy) out to as many people as possible without simultaneously
improving the situation in those people's states lest they lose the
motivation to move and get active in NH politics.

On the federal level, this strategy becomes a bit more tricky.  As a
general rule, one should work towards increasing the ineptitude and
size of the federal government since it will generally fall uniformly
across the states and will usual increase the spread of the libertarian
message while providing further incentive to pursue the FSP solution.
It should also increase the incentive for NH dwellers to band together
and finally stand up to the federal thugs.  However, some federal
policy changes might fall more heavily on NH than most of the other
states and thus drive down the freedom differential and incentive to
move to NH.  One must also not vote for anything that would
specifically injure NH or excessively inhibit libertarians' ability
to freely spread the message of the FSP.

Is this a dangerous game?  Yes.  There is a chance it could go wrong
and precipitate an excessive crackdown on libertarianism and free
speech that would hinder the FSP, but there should be ways to minimize
that potential.  If the government system looks like it is starting to
become dangerously unpredictable and might collapse or react in a way
we are not yet prepared for we could always change course and try to
temporarily vote it back into more stable territory.  I'm willing to
take the chance in exchange for the possibility of seeing liberty
sooner.

Is this really a viable voting game?  Yes.  Just look at how close
votes have been lately and in the past.  Even if just a small
percentage voted strategically, it could help slightly accelerate the
machines decline and in the process dramatically advance the final
point of its rapid collapse.  The national debt will play a large role
in that process.

So lets apply this new mode of operation to the question of who to vote
for during the prior election:

Vote for Kerry?
If you had voted for Kerry the odds of passing any of the massive pork
barrel bills that went through Congress would have been dramatically
reduced.  The veto would have been the only power left to Kerry.  In
general, this is supported by the historical fact that divided
governments tend to grow slightly slower.  I doubt the new prescription
drug bill would have passed either.  Of course, there also wouldn't
have been nearly as much spending on the Iraq war if the invasion would
have in fact ever occurred at all.  There is now also probably a
greater possibility of the FSP garnering more participants from Iraq.
The Patriot Act might have also had less of a potential of getting
passed (and it tics plenty of people off).

Vote for Bush?
With Bush in place, the Republican's in Congress were better able to
go after their individual pet projects.  The Republican Congressman
were not yet savy enough to realize that their longterm future success
hinged on their ability to institute fiscal reforms.  This may have
been a little more difficult to see at the time, but it is quite
apparent now and hopefully this realization will stay above their
ability to grasp for some time longer.  One was taking the risk that
Social Security might be changed, but the proposed "fix" was
relatively inconsequential in its initial form and was offset by other
big government proposals.  Also, the increased defense spending as a
percentage of the economy is an opportunity that won't last much
longer due to the ever increasing size of the economy and the
credibility limits already associated with the ridiculous size of our
military.  One might as well take advantage of that spending
opportunity now while there's a united government in favor of it.

On the other hand, Bush's administration does look like it might be
successful in getting some reforms through the department of defense
which may end up causing it to operate more efficiently.  However, that
should become a minor concern in the long run as social spending begins
to take on a larger and larger piece of the pie.
Finally, electing a unified Republican government allowed millions of
conservative Republicans to wake up to the realization that they were
actually libertarians and that the Republicans were mostly hot air.  As
a result, many began to consider the FSP as well.    The ripples of
this discontent are really starting to be felt now and you can hear it
on the conservative talk show airways.  The danger is that this
discontent could cause libertarian reforms within the Republican Party
rather than a movement out of it towards the FSP.  This danger can be
mitigated by more strategic voting but it is still too soon to decide
how to vote in the next presidential election.


How important is this "new" strategy in comparison to other
FSP/libertarian efforts?

It's somewhat important.  You wouldn't want to see the government
partially correct itself and end up with a fairly stable bloated
government that refuses to go away?  If we don't get rid of it as
soon as possible, there's a chance we won't live to see the
technological advancements that will be critical for our extended
survival.  Of course, it will likely be far more important in the near
term to spread the libertarian and FSP message than to waste too much
effort trying to steer this abomination towards its own destruction.
Right now I think getting Freetalklive on every radio station in the country
is one of the absolute top priorities alongside getting peole to actually
move to NH.

But if you can find alittle time that won't cut into the recruitment efforts,
go ahead and take a minute or two to vote.  It doesn't take that much
effort to vote and it's worth studying the current issues anyway just to
help educate others.

It's not easy to apply this voting strategy to every issue, so talk
it over with others and when still in doubt, follow the consensus
formed by others employing this strategy. 


Regards,
A Defense Department Bureaucrat
who wasted thousands of your taxpayer
dollars composing this rant.  Have any
objections? 

[Michael Fisher]

Wow, never thought I'd see a paid pro-government propagandist on the NH Underground.

We must be doing something right.

[Michael Fisher]

Or it's just a sick, twisted joke.   ???

[Lloyd Danforth]

Too long to bother to read for me anyway. I seldom see any ideas on these forums that I have never heard before.

[Rebel Rob]

I'll try to shorten it somewhat for you.

Do you want to watch America slowly lumber down the path to its inevitable socialist implosion (as past history and present trends would indicate) or would you prefer to see it quickly destabilize and disintegrate as the country becomes more and more divergent with thousands falling back to the only state where freedom still has a foothold?
The only way forward is to get everyone to fall back to New Hampshire.  Is there anything else that even comes in a distant second?  If not, then all efforts outside of NH should be viewed from the perspective of how effective they are  in getting activists to move to NH, not the extra liberty they produce in each of their little communities.   

By all means support freetalklive and any other education/outreach work you are doing with every penny and second you can spare, but why not give others a little more incentive to move to New Hampshire by voting for whatever will cause the most annoyance to the fence sitters everywhere else?.  The socialists are taking us down their path of destruction anyway.   Why not speed them along so that the common man has less time to acclimate to his heavier chains?  Maybe we can help the socialists dig their own graves just a bit faster.  There are a few things one has to be careful of (see the mega post above), but altogether, it looks like it should give the FSP a boost and help dismantle big government a few years sooner.   

Sincerely,
The Beauracratic Leech

[Lex]

Bureaucrat - Are you saying there isn't enough support for statists in this country? Or that voters aren't voting for Repulicans or Democrats?

I don't think Reps and Dems need our help.

[Rebel Rob]

Bureaucrat - Are you saying there isn't enough support for statists in this country? Or that voters aren't voting for Repulicans or Democrats?

I don't think Reps and Dems need our help.

On some issues, yes, there are not enough votes to support the statists in their aims to grow government by leaps and bounds.  If they had just a bit more support, they would get their way more often and we could get this whole mess over with sooner.  I wasn't talking about voter turnout, but since you mentioned it, that would likely change in my scenario as well, and the one's that would show up to the poles will be looking for change.  We need to get to them and bring them to an understanding of this plan of action before they vote blindly for anyone (even the libertarian candidates). 

I think Reps and Dems do need our help.  They are screwing things up quite well on their own, but with a little more help, we could really quicken the pace and bring the whole house of cards down.

[AlanM]

As Clinton and his campaign staff always said, "It's the economy, stupid"
Bring down the economy, it will be quicker. Politics moves slowly.

[JonM]

I read this on the FSP forums.  I believe the theory is, if you vote for the socialists in the other 49 states, the libertarians will have no choice but to flee to New Hampshire.  So everyone get down to MA and campaign for the Democrat for governor, cause if a Democrat wins the governorship in MA, the whole commonwealth goes to hell.

[JonM]

Nah, Mitt Romney has done a decent job of holding the line against complete meltdown, had Shannon O'Brien won in 2002, the FSP probably would be at 14,000 partitipants <G>

[Lex]

I have a friend who voted for Bush last election following this exact reasoning...

[JonM]

Bush at least is appointing supreme court justices who do not appear to want to write their own laws.

[Lex]

Bush at least is appointing supreme court justices who do not appear to want to write their own laws.

Appearances can be deceiving...

[Rebel Rob]

As Clinton and his campaign staff always said, "It's the economy, stupid"
Bring down the economy, it will be quicker. Politics moves slowly.

Huh?  Politics does bring down the economy.  We can mess up both at the same time. 

I read this on the FSP forums.  I believe the theory is, if you vote for the socialists in the other 49 states, the libertarians will have no choice but to flee to New Hampshire.  So everyone get down to MA and campaign for the Democrat for governor, cause if a Democrat wins the governorship in MA, the whole commonwealth goes to hell.

I'm not talking about campaigning for the Democrats/socialists, just when it makes sense, vote for them.  Your time would be much better spent spreading the message of the FSP and freetalklive.com than wasting your time campaigning for the Democrats/socialists.

Bush at least is appointing supreme court justices who do not appear to want to write their own laws.

You're right.  Alito and Roberts could easily become a far worse longterm disaster than any temporary slowdown in the growth of the government that would have occured with a Democrat in office.  If they vote in a consistent principled manner as their records would indicate, they could potentially even role back some of the government's incursions and at least slow the march towards social slavery, but probably not the march to economic slavery.  And judging from their age and health, they both could end up hanging around for another 45 years.  It's a tough call, but I think I might have to change my mind on this one.  I'm starting to think it would have been a better idea to elect Kerry and let him permanently pack the court with a bunch of socialist loonies.  On the other hand, are there really that many freedoms left that a socialist Supreme Court could destroy?

Appearances can be deceiving...

I hope so. 

Regards,
Bureaucrat
           

[Lex]

I think you should start a poll to see what people think of your idea.