My current situation: Twenty seven year-old software engineer with wife and 2 yo son (and working on the next one). Living in a condo and ready to move to a house next summer.
My background: Been a market anarchist / libertarian for about 8 years. I used to write a bit, then sort of dropped out of the whole scene. Worked on building family and career, now starting to be in more comfortable financial situation. Ron Paul's campaign has re-energized my political spirit (to the point that I, a former nonvoter, actually contributed money and am planning to register Republican to vote for him in the primary), now rereading some of the old sites I used to visit.
In person: Any libertarian get-together I've attended has been abject failure. Somehow I always end up in "who has the biggest libertarian cock?" contests. You know the type - always has to quote some Austrian economist or one-up someone else's point. And the thing is, around my family and friends, I'm not really like that. So if I've ever met you (which probably is not likely anyway), I apologize.
Why we are moving to NH: Though I plan to continue working my current job, it is within commuting distance of NH. We actually don't think there is THAT much difference in our everyday lives between remaining in MA vs moving to NH (we did live in NH for a couple of years while I did my Master's degree). But the following points push us to NH:
* Gun laws. I don't appreciate being treated like a criminal in MA.
* Homeschooling. We will be homeschooling, and although the laws in NH don't appear much better than for MA, we hope the culture there would make it less likely to get worse.
* Land / privacy. We hope to have at least a few acres in a small town. I grew up in a small town in CT on 28 acres, and I certainly want to provide my children with at least a yard and some trees.
* There is at least some culture of liberty in NH.
* NH is just so damn beautiful. We love vacationing in the Whites and around Bath/Lisbon (where some of my wife's ancestors come from).
Where we want to move: We weighed all towns in southern NH based upon the following considerations: distance from my current job, distance from general high-tech job markets, population (lower is better), population density, median income (lower is better), house prices, and property taxes. So the winner is: Mason! Greenville and New Ipswich also looked like possible landing spots.
We've visited Mason/Greenville a few times now (Parker's Maple Barn is awesome!), and if everything goes as we hope, we will be moving next summer or fall.
So, here are my questions:
* Is there anything about these towns we should know about that might influence whether we want to move there? For example, how do I know if there are crazy zoning laws or land use restrictions? I could not find anything on the town websites.
* Is the Union Leader worth subscribing to, in your opinion? When I got a copy last time I was in NH, there was a column by John Stossel which was pretty cool, and I think I remember some favorable press of the FSP.
* Anyone know of any local homeschool groups?
Jacob
