Decades-old libertarian plan to take over New Hampshire inches a little closer to reality: https://t.co/FSTVxop6xa pic.twitter.com/cqqABpOLxu
— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) February 1, 2016
Ah, a political splinter group which we can all agree deserves our mockery! From the Mother Jones article:
On February 18, hundreds of libertarians will flock to the Radisson Hotel in Manchester, New Hampshire, for the ninth annual Liberty Forum, a four-day conference featuring presentations on topics such as religious freedom, school choice, and “Anarchy: Dressing for Success.” A big draw will be Edward Snowden’s keynote speech, delivered over a live video stream. As the exiled NSA whistleblower speaks, conference goers may mull their own flight from government oppression—not to Russia, but to the haven of New Hampshire.
The Free State Project, which runs the Liberty Forum, has spent 15 years trying to recruit 20,000 libertarian-minded activists to take up residence in the Granite State. By accruing a critical mass of small-government advocates in a state with just 1.3 million people, the project seeks to exert substantial influence on state politics to create a utopia of social liberties and deregulated markets. Those who sign the Free State pledge promise to make the move to New Hampshire once 20,000 participants have signed up. Now, with 19,858 signers, the project’s organizers say they are finally recruiting the last of those volunteers.
However, the organizers readily admit they don’t know how many of the would-be Free Staters will actually come to New Hampshire. “That is the million-dollar question,” says Free State Project president Carla Gericke. “It’s all speculative at this stage.”…
I think that should be declared the official Libertarian motto: “It’s all speculative at this stage.”
Since [2003], 1,909 early movers have settled in New Hampshire, according to organizers. They have started a church, installed Bitcoin ATMs, and protested against an Uber ban. One Free Stater became a school board chairwoman and then used tax money to pay private school tuition for kids in her district. Free Staters in Grafton tried to declare their no-stoplight town a United Nations-free zone. In Keene, libertarian transplants upset old-timers by videotaping and challenging parking officers enforcing “the king’s tariff.”…
Still, it only became obvious recently that the project would hit its 20,000-pledge trigger. Last fall, after years of standing around conferences with clipboards and taking out advertisements in Reason magazine, the project’s organizers turned to Facebook. More than 2,500 new participants signed on during a four-month ad campaign targeting users who “liked” pages for Bitcoin, “voluntarism,” and George Carlin. In recent weeks, the group has ramped up its Facebook ad spending to $500 a day. Nearly 20 early movers have been arriving in New Hampshire each month—even in winter. “I really hope we can build something that’s historic,” Gericke says. “People are coming.”…
I’d like to hope that those Free State Projectors will spend the days between now and the NH primary harassing the media following the various GOP candidates, but I suspect they’re too busy screwing up the Sanders GOTV campaign. Nice enough people, individually, those Free Staters, but most of them could screw up a free lunch by asking for the change, as the proverb says.
Oatler.
Reason mag has a big article about it to cover up the lack of Flint MI stories recently.
p.a.
Tell them to choose B.
Mnemosyne
Always amazing to me how people can move to a state with 300+ years of existing infrastructure and declare that they’re creating something. I mean, I guess cannibalizing an existing society counts as “creating” a new one, right? It’s like smashing a glass and saying you’ve created a new way of drinking water.
NotMax
“Live free or whine” doesn’t carry the same heft.
Renie
OT I found this intro from New Yorker about the OJ TV story funny: “We are Kardashians,” Robert Kardashian (David Schwimmer) tells his four children, who bounce in a booth at L.A.’s ChinChin restaurant, giddy that their dad has been recognized from his appearances on cable news, sticking up for his friend O. J. Simpson. “And in this family being a good person and a loyal friend is more important than being famous. Fame is fleeting. It’s hollow. It means nothing at all without a virtuous heart.”
Guess the kids didn’t learn anything from Daddy.
amk
“Nice enough people, individually”
evidence?
fucking sociopaths.
redshirt
Are these idiots concentrated in a part of the state or spread equally around?
I’d like to see a breakdown of NH by type. For instance, I assume the southern border is all Massholes.
lgerard
LOL at Bitcoin ATMs
FlyingToaster
@redshirt: In my experience, there are clumps of Massholes* all the way to Laconia.
And I am one, but I’m doing everyone the courtesy of staying here in the people’s republic.
* emigrated to NH fleeing the MA income and sales taxes, and instead paying exhorbitantly high property taxes and fuel costs to get back to work in Boston. However, if they left certain of the high-property-tax burbs and exurbs (I’m looking across the river at you, Newton), it’s a wash. They always try to preach to the rest of us.
Tommy
At Esquire I love Charles Pierce’s definition of libertarians (well really the Paul family). If they start telling you what they think they seem to make sense for about 5:00 minutes. Then at exactly 5:01 they completely go off the rails and sound batshit crazy.
Warren Terra
@lgerard:
Yup. Bitcoin is probably toast – it may not have the staying power of Dogecoin. And it’s basically because of self-dealing and a bunch of poorly socialized asshats, so it’s a fitting fate for a Glibertarian obsession. If you haven’t read it, the Mike Hearn screed (at my Vox link) is worth the time.
Just Some Fuckhead
I got thrown out of this group years ago for offering to help them move with my truck.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Tommy:
Oh, yes, it’s one of Charlie’s rules about Crazy Uncle Liberty and his Aqua Buddha son.
(Esquire, BTW, not VF.) EDIT: Never mind, you caught it.
Is Rand still in the GOP pack? Did he make a dent in Iowa yesterday? I don’t recall hearing his name in the coverage….
Villago Delenda Est
Not ONE of these nincowpoops has read The Wealth of Nations, or they would know that free markets need a lot of help to be kept free, or the clever and ethically challenged (think the vile parasites that are the Pauls) will exploit the living shit out of the naive, which is what they are.
Anne Laurie
@Just Some Fuckhead: If you have one gift, it’s for pissing people off, my friend!
(/snark, for the bystanders)
amk
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: 5th place with 4.5% and 1 delegate. winnah!!!
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@amk:
Feel the Randmentum!
(Thanks for the info.)
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: Yeah made that edit. Brain freeze which is sad since I read him daily. I think Rand did about what the polling said or a tad better. Off the top of my head 4-6%.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: He once gave me a piece of good advice. It may have been accidental.
benw
Founding fathers: “Give us liberty, or give us death! You see, citizens, with our revolution we’ve freed you from the oppressive tyranny of colonial power, where corporations and rich lords held all the assets and worked you and your children to death. That’s not fair. We’ve established a government to serve the people with legal, legislative, and executive branches to offset each other, and empowered you to protect yourselves by voting for your interests! You can be better by working together!”
Libertarians: “Waaaah! Government is bad! Every man for himself! Give the power to the people who can grab it, like corporations and rich lords! That’s fair! Give us liberty, or give us death!”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Anne Laurie: Thankfully, I have the constitution for it. And honestly, my Baud pseudonym does make it easier. Everyone loves Baud!
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@amk: I think that was the northern equivalent of, “Bless their hearts.”
Eric U.
@Warren Terra: speaking of takeovers, an article I read recently by a former bitcoin insider says that the people controlling bitcoin now have refused to increase the bandwidth of the system to the point where it can actually handle the existing traffic. Transactions can take hours. To compound this, they recently allowed people to cancel a transaction after the fact. Seems like these two things will sink bitcoin.
jl
@Oatler.: So, there is a big deal in libertarian quarters because 19,999 or something people have made the pledge to reside in NH to make it a truly libertarian truly free state, and only 10 percent did so, producing exactly nothing.
And now one more, or a couple of hundred more, might soon take the pledge, producing over 20,000 people signed on for empty symbolism, producing exactly nothing?
Sounds like a great inspiring accomplishment in the great tradition of the US libertarian movement.
They should celebrate!
Joel
That dude’s picture reminds me of an old Will McDonough column on the Granite State.
ThresherK
They’re prepping for Galt’s Gulch in an off-ramp Boston-exurb chain hotel?
Wow.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Omnes Omnibus: The skin suit line was not advice.
Tommy
@benw: How about it. In my little rural town I live on the only block that isn’t incorporated, at the very edge of town (not sure why to be honest). I pay a fee to the city each month for our street lights. The area of grass just over the road before a 5,000 acre corn field isn’t really mine, but if all the people around me didn’t mow and maintain it, it would look like the African savanna by early summer. City snow plows get to us eventually, but if a few people on the block didn’t have plows on the front of their trucks, it might take some time to get out of the neighborhood after a large snow storm.
These are all little things in the grand scheme of things. The city does rework our road, barely two lanes, every few years with tar and gravel. When my city upgraded the electrical system, we didn’t do it/pay for it direct (but through taxes) because of course we are on the city grid.
But I shutter to think what it would cost of we had to do stuff like that ourselves. Those loons don’t get any of that it seems. Maybe they can rationalize it if you really live in the middle of nowhere with a well and dirt roads. But how many people live like that?
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: Oh. Never mind then.
ETA: Pity the poor squirrels who have sacrificed all.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Omnes Omnibus: Squirrels are just photogenic rats. Never apologize for making war on them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: There is the good advice.
Origuy
I heard today about a college student who thought he had a good thing. He listed his dorm room on AirBnb. Funny thing, Emerson College in Boston has a rule against subletting your dorm room. His dudebro buddies put up a petition at Change.org to try to keep him from being expelled.
Tommy
@Origuy: Please don’t laugh at me and clearly he should have read the terms and conditions of his agreement, but that is a pretty smart idea if you have a semi-nice dorm room in a large/expensive metro area. I guess my only concern would be giving your access card to somebody you don’t really know and allowing them access to the building as a whole. That is clearly an issue. Not sure it is something you punish the person for by expelling for him doing it once seems extreme. Just saying.
GregB
Every year the Free Staters have a Porc-Fest in the northern part of the state. They have chosen a porcupine as their mascot.
Someone went there and wrote a pretty funny news piece about how the libertarian way of governance can’t even sustain itself for one week at a campground full of friendly fellow travelers.
benw
@Tommy: you’re starting to sound like a socialist. That’s good! :)
NotMax
@Tommy
High on the list of things which drove the Venetians blind.
:)
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Let us draw the curtains on this incident.
Ken
@Warren Terra: From the link:
Isn’t that just the libertarian approach in a nutshell? The design is perfect, provided you don’t ask it to work in the real world.
(BTW, the “problem” being solved is that people might want to use bitcoin to make a lot of payments, like the way they use credit cards or currency.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Ken: Seventeen or 14 billion? Meh…
Tommy
@benw: Have we had a conversation where I didn’t sound pretty much like a socialist :)? I do say I am a capitalist, but I think there needs to be firm controls on “free” markets and rich people need to pay a ton more in taxes. I think bankers and maybe more than anything after reading The Big Short (not seen the movie) that the folks from the rating agencies should pretty much ALL be in jail. Oh I support Bernie.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: My spelling is so terrible I both love and hate Grammerly in Google Chrome.
Betty Cracker
I despise the libertarians and Paultroons for ruining the word “liberty” for me. It used to be a perfectly good word — a noble, stirring word even! Now when someone says it in conversation, it’s a signal to smile, nod and slowly back away.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Barely a shade of difference between us (and absolutely no jalousie), so am siding with you.
FlyingToaster
@Tommy: Downtown Boston isn’t that nice a neighborhood. Emerson is in the Theater District, which after hours is not somewhere I want to be wandering around. Your tolerance for altered-state homeless folks, belligerent drunks, and MS-13 may vary.
The dorms do not have doormen, and AirBnB doesn’t do any diligence on whether or not you’re renting to a mass murderer. So that is where the guy gets to go find some off-campus housing and T in. If Emerson doesn’t just kick him out altogether for being a menace to his fellow students.
seaboogie
@lgerard:
I recently purchased a “new to me” used car via beepi* – an online broker/dealer in low mileage high quality used cars, and payment options included cashier’s check, credit card or bitcoin – which cracked me up a bit – although in the SF Bay area, probably shouldn’t have been a surprise.
*I highly recommend this service – the whole purchase was absolutely painless from beginning to the end when they delivered the car to my home with a big ol’ bow on the hood.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: breaking a society is easy. Putting it back together, even in a new configuration, is very, very difficult and the results are always unpredictable.
Tommy
@FlyingToaster:
I didn’t know that to be honest. The two times I’ve been to Boston I was in plush hotels for conferences. I tried to get out in the town but didn’t really venture into what I’d call a “bad neighborhood.” I was thinking, my ignorance clearly, was that Boston University might be in a place much nicer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Too late. People are running with it. You need to put a stop to NotMax.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: They’ve read exactly one sentence out of a thousand plus page book. You know the one about the invisible hand.
benw
@Tommy:
Them’s fightin words around here. But us hippies got to stick together.
I’m hitting the sack, have fun y’all!
seaboogie
@Betty Cracker: and “Freedom” should send all alarm bells ringing like mad!
Omnes Omnibus
@FlyingToaster:
Am I off or is that more or less the old Combat Zone?
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: Not sure if they are “running with it.” Just making fun of a typo I made I should be smart enough not to make.
El Caganer
@Ken: The design is perfect, provided you don’t ask it to work in the real world. Hmmm……that applies to a whole lot more than libertarian thinking. Sounds like one of the standard complaints about academic economists.
Warren Terra
@Origuy: No sympathy at all. Dorm housing is subsidized and is student-only, by definition, and no subletting isn’t just some fine print in the contract, it’s practically self-evident.
More generally, most Air-BnB rentals are illegal in one way or another – either the tenant is violating their rental agreement, or the landlord is running an unlicensed hotel.
PS as has been pointed out elsewhere, “Air-BnB” is an absurd misnomer. Nobody’s preparing breakfast for the guest.
Origuy
@Tommy: People have had so many problems with AirBnb client trashing their places. I am not surprised he hadn’t known about the rule against subletting, but he should have thought about the consequences. My real irritation is for the people like this supporter, quoted in the article:
He wanted to make a few bucks, be honest.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Yes. That was the point I was making.
Adam L Silverman
@seaboogie: @Betty Cracker: The thing is that liberty and freedom didn’t mean the same thing to the Founders and Framers. They weren’t really interchangeable. Not only that but the libertarians all seem to miss that Liberty has both positive and negative aspects.
ThresherK (GPad)
@jl: Not that I pay it much mind, but can’t the aim at a bigger target than NH? It’s a hotbed of chintsy and fake low-cost (sic) low service government already, making it Libertyland is like making a low-fat pretzel: Really, not a big deal.
FlyingToaster
@Tommy: BU is in Fenway/Allston. A much safer place to wander around all night.
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes indeedy. The Zone’s been parceled out between the Downtown Crossing BID (now that there’s a tower in the Filene’s Basement hole), Chinatown, the Ladder District, and the Theater District. When I go to conventions at Park Plaza, I make sure I catch the last train out of Boylston so I stay out of range.
We just had about 40 MS-13 gangsters arrested this week, which might put a dent in some of the violence, but the drunk bros after closing time are still there looking for fights. Thanks, but no thanks.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Honestly, just a smidgen of overnight thread ‘sill-iness.’
No pane, no gain.
@Tommy
Thank you.
Origuy
I have stayed at college dorms while traveling. It seems common in Canada in the summer. But those are run by the residence halls. I’ve stayed at the Universities of Calgary and Edmonton; the College of the Rockies in Cranbrook, BC; and St. Mary’s in Halifax. Cheap, basic lodging if you don’t need a lot of amenities.
seaboogie
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I thought that sounded familiar, but the timeline didn’t match up. Then I remembered that I was trolling on Comical Conservative’s fb page (a hateful, ranty meanspirited bunch of motherfathers that my dear Mother seems to find a kinship with in what passes for wit there).
On one post there was a pick-up truck with a sign in the back window to the effect “If you don’t like this country, then move – we’ll help you leave), and I couldn’t resist the trolling…it were fun.
Tommy
@Origuy: Of course he wanted to make money. I’d say his first, second, and third goal. Now I get contracts. But if he was paying for his dorm and not scholarship, then it gets hard. Harder if he lived in this or that type of dorm.
I lived in one in the late 80s (1988 to be exact). Women were not allowed after midnight. I moved out of them after my first year. But many third and fourth year students lived in much nicer dorms (I didn’t have A/C in my dorm and it was 100 plus during summer school). Rooms they customized to be way cool.
They were co-ed.
I don’t see how I might not have thought to offer my room online.
Just Some Fuckhead
@seaboogie: Now that I think about it, the group I got thrown out of was trying to turn South Carolina into a Christian caliphate.
Didn’t mean to mislead. It’s hard to keep all the diasporas straight.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlyingToaster: Last time I was in Boston, I stayed at the DoubleTree by the Tufts Medical Center on Washington. The area seems so gentrified compared to my visits 20+ years ago.
FlyingToaster
@Tommy: And also:
You were almost certainly in either Back Bay or the Seaport (north Southie). Which are nice neighborhoods. I’ve stayed late for bands playing in both neighborhoods, plus Allston, and walked back to Somerville at 3 in the morning with no problems. But I didn’t walk through the Zone after about 10pm, unless making a beeline for the nearest T stop.
In Boston, the old Combat Zone, even divided up between several other neighborhoods, still has some problems that can affect the unwary. So do parts of Dot (Dorchester) and Roxbury and Mattapan. If you’re at a conference, you won’t likely get to any dangerous spots at a time of day when you’d be a target.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker:
Another casualty in the right-wing war on the English language.
ETA: I would also like to single out the Paultroons here as particularly responsible. They are distinct from Libertarians as a whole, albeit the most prominent current group. Left libertarians get forgotten because the Drs. Paul have been so successful in linking libertarian issues to Republican politics.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Awful dive bars?
ETA: My hotel was nice.
seaboogie
@Just Some Fuckhead: I wasn’t mizled, I just remembered the whole “if you don’t like it, leave” meme, and pick-up trucks and moving. It’s refreshingly fun to take the asshole-ish statement and get really literal and detail oriented with the particulars of what that entails as a seeming innocent.
Reminds me of my angsty teen years….lived in one house that had solid oak doors with magnets on them, so a door could seem to slam without even trying. Very satisfying. Then we moved to a new place that had some piffling little hollow doors, and I had to open them really wide and use a lot of force for just a little “booffftttt”. Pissed me off even more.
Tommy
@FlyingToaster: I was near the harbor or water front. Embarrassed I don’t know the name of the area of town. Sherdon each time. I took off a day each time and went to Faneuil Hall and walked the Freedom Trail. I know a total tourist thing, but I was a tourist. Maybe a rube the history wasn’t what I thought or what I was seeing in a tourist trap, but felt real at the time.
FlyingToaster
@Omnes Omnibus: It is. Chinatown is freaking expensive (that’s just north of NEMed); the whole once-barren wasteland of the north half of Southie is now renovated factories and wharf complexes, plus the ongoing insertion of glass towers around the convention center.
Though we’ve lost a lot of venues for bands to play (remember the Channel?). And Somerville, once the anthill of artists lofts and grad students, is ‘way out of my price range. Bayside Expo is no more — I have no idea what Columbia Circle will look like in 10 years.
Any underdeveloped land, like the distro centers at Widett Circle, are being circled by grifting developers like hungry wolves.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@FlyingToaster: You missed the axes and lead pipes? Smart man (or woman!)!
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who may be thinking another story of some other part of the world frequented by drunk Irish men…)
Omnes Omnibus
There are so many ethical violations depicted in the The Verdict that it infuriates me, but, at the same time, Newman’s character’s closing argument still affects me.
ETA: And I love the ending.
FlyingToaster
@Tommy: The Sheraton is next to the Prudential Tower and Hynes Convention Center in Back Bay. Walk down Boylston and that puts you into the Public Garden (Swan Boats), turn left at the end of the Garden onto Tremont, and across Charles St into the Common and the Freedom Trail.
Don’t be ashamed of walking the Freedom Trail — that’s what it’s for. I’m taking my daughter on part of it this summer (she’ll be 8.5, therefore actually able to understand what we’re talking about finally). Fanueil Hall and Quincy Market and going to get Cannolis in the North End is practically a requirement when you go into town. Well, now that Filene’s Basement is no more (you could go into town to get a bahgan at the Basement).
Everything in Boston is near the harbor or water. It’s a ~400 year old port. Our roads were laid out by cows, and our streets were named by Italo Calvino.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
There wouldn’t be a movie without multiple ethical violations by both sides (I’m assuming that the defense sending a honeypot to get information from Newman was an ethical violation).
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: It is weird. I have walked through the bad placesof many cities while [redacted] and the only place I ever got mugged was in a fancy neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio (at 7:30 pm while stone cold sober). Honestly, I deserve worse.
FlyingToaster
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I think the Vikings have moved on, taking their axes; it’s mostly switchblades and lead pipes and 8 teenagers mobbing you. Or two guys, one showing a piece, demanding your smartphone and your sneakers. Or a half a dozen guys tossed out at closing time, wandering around the Theater District wanting to know where the fuck they parked their car and why the fuck are you in their way and they’re crossing Stuart Street in traffic regardless of what color the light is and god help you if you catch their attention.
In Cambridge, ‘way weirder things happened. Like a car pulling up to a friend of mine about 4 am in Central Square, rolling down the window, and asking if he had a big dick. He thought for a second, said, “Sorry, no.” and walked away fast. Or being asked if one wished to help film a porno. Or if Polaroid had chemicals around good for huffing (no). Gentrification has ruined Cambridge.
Mike J
@efgoldman:
When I worked there in the early 80s, the Combat Zone was rally past its heyday. Never seemed that bad to me.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman:
Craigslist.
There’s a bust announced every week in suburban hotels; there was one in Watertown for a “masseuse” who gave happy endings. Every last one on Craigslist.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Dude, in those places, you buy bottled beer. It is the only thing that is safe. You put your “wallet” in one pocket and your cash and other stuff in others.
Kropadope
@Mike J: Forgive me, most of my Boston knowledge was attained as a child. What is this “combat zone” I keep seeing people refer to?
FlyingToaster
@Kropadope: Wikipedia is your friend.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: Who are these left libertarians, and what do they believe? I’ve heard tell of the tribe but have never met one in the wild. Are they anti-gubmint but pro-pot and abortions for all?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@FlyingToaster: That reminds me of a time in the mid 80s, shortly after I’d moved to Minneapolis from the Detroit area. I was downtown at a bus stop, and a guy came up to me and asked quietly, “Wanna buy a gun?”
I replied, “No, thanks.”
He said, “Okay. Sorry to bother you.”
All I could think was, ‘Even the hoodlums in this town are polite.’
PurpleGirl
@FlyingToaster: I’ve been to Boston only once — for Stu Hellinger’s Star Trek Convention, Easter weekend 1976. IIRC it was held at the Sheraton. I wasn’t able to do much sightseeing as I was manning David Gerrold’s huckster table. I did get to a Lutheran Church on Easter morning, though and took the train there and back to the hotel.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker: I think it’s mainly a question of focus. Right libertarians mainly are interested in “free” markets, low taxes, and firearm-related issues. Left libertarians primarily focus on social justice, prison reforms, personal freedoms. I also understand there’s a disagreement between the two factions whether government is the sole source of illegitimate power (right) or one among many (left).
Kropadope
@efgoldman: See? This is why I ask. Wikipedia gives me the cut and dry, but juicers paint a picture.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: I misinterpreted a comment you made last night. I am sorry that I said you suggested that HRC rigged the caucus. You clearly said that that was not your intent. My mistake.
FlyingToaster
@PurpleGirl: Before my time (’87 to now), but the Hynes, Sheraton and Prudential Center and Copley Place are all connected. All previous Noreascons (Boston hosting Worldcon) have been held there.
The Pru has 5 T-stops nearby (3 Green Line, 1 Orange Line, 1 Purple Line), but I have no idea where a Lutheran church would have been. The current one is at Back Bay near the Public Garden.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: Rigging a caucus, executing a succesful strategy to win the caucus, it’s a fine line. I understand the confusion.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Omnes Omnibus: What are you up to these days? Still judgifying?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: You may not like the rules, but they are the rules the IOWA Dems agreed on to pick their votes at the convention.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: Nah, I do other stuff.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: Eh, I don’t have an opinion one way or the other regarding the rules of an electoral process I will never participate in.
ETA: So we’re clear, I mean specifically the Iowa caucuses.
EATA: Thanks for the fix on your comment. I was trying to figure out what OWA was. I was guessing some sort of third party who has heavy influence in D politics, kinda like the DWFs.
seaboogie
Gosh – everyone seems so darn *nice* and bending over backwards to be polite and thoughtful on this thread….is it post IA caucus, absence of trolls, a planetary alignment, or are we practicing being Canadians?
Just Some Fuckhead
@seaboogie: I don’t know about everyone else but I’m a Christian.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Omnes Omnibus: Gonna have to update my mental image. Had you at bearded Richard Dreyfuss in black robe.
seaboogie
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Thank FSM I didn’t have any liquid in my mouth when I read that. Computer = spared!
Kropadope
@seaboogie: I too appreciate the tenor of the conversation on this thread, though I think it would be fair to point out that it’s easy for us to be nice to each other when the topics are libertarian hijinx and Boston…eh hem…culture…and geography.
PurpleGirl
@FlyingToaster: I don’t remember which train line I took or how many stops it was. I researched the churches near the hotel in the hotel’s in-room directory and copied out the directions. I was “conscripted” to run Gerrold’s huckster table about 3 days before the con. A friend was supposed to do it but he couldn’t get the time off from work, so he asked me to. I picked up the duffel bag of Tribbles from my friend, taxied home to get my suitcase and taxied to the airport where my ticket was waiting for me. I taxied from Logan to the hotel. Then didn’t break the surface until Sunday morning. David Gerrold was attending another con and then came to Boston on Saturday night in time for the Costume Call. A weird weekend because the whole weekend the hotel said they couldn’t turn on the air conditioning — it needed to be worked on or some other BS excuse. And the rooms were hot. And then Monday morning — the day of the Marathon which ended at the hotel — the AC was on and it was freezing.
Peale
@Origuy: “
Gag me. It’s like an employee of Burger King willing talking up the greatness of flame broiling. They think it’s edgy and libertariany, but They are really corporate shills. Shirts stuffed fuller than anything GE could ever produce.
Betty Cracker
@Kropadope: Thanks!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Kropadope: Fuck Boston.
Kropadope
@Just Some Fuckhead: Tried. You’d be surprised, there are a lot of people. Doubt I made it to 0.1%.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Dude, you complain when people fight with you.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: No, I complain when people misrepresent me.
ETA: I’ve managed to get into plenty of disagreements with others without us being disagreeable. FlipYrWhig, for example, I find to be a delightful debate opponent.
M. Bouffant
Alpine County’s the least populated in Calif., 1,175 in the 2010 census. It was probably under 1,000 in 1969 (120 in 1920) & is 738 sq. miles. Not much came of the idea beyond scaring the already resident, Alpine County being mountainous, on the Nevada border & far from civilization.
Good luck, glibertarians.
seaboogie
@Kropadope:
Reading my mind….
FlyingToaster
@Kropadope:
Well, it is actually a culture. Beats the “I got mine sucks to be you” culture that has arisen in the Midwest starting when I was growing up there. Or the “social services means a bus ticket to Boston” crowd to our immediate north.
@seaboogie: srv did turn up once. But not to troll, just to snark.
Mostly absence of trolls, plus none of us dare turn on a tv lest we be subjected to NH ads.
I heard a RightToRise SuperPAC ad on drive-time radio today; ¿Jeb? was attacking Kasich. I’m like, WHAT? If I were running for President and had Brinks Trucks full of cash, I’d be punching UP, not DOWN. I don’t understand either the campaigns or the SuperPACs. They all seem to be dumb as rocks.
Just Some Fuckhead
@M. Bouffant: I’m guessing Alpine County was full of steers.
Betty Cracker
God, Mona Charon is a stupid shill. (Watching CNN yapping head rerun because I don’t feel like searching beneath the sleeping dogs for the remote.) Rubio’s gonna win because GOP voters are askeert of The Terra, and he knows all about The Terra!
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlyingToaster: srv is not a troll. srv is a very long time Balloon Juice denizen.
FlyingToaster
@Just Some Fuckhead: If you insist, but just the city is like 700K. Metro is like 2.4 million. You’re gonna be busy.
FlyingToaster
@Just Some Fuckhead: The two are not mutually exclusive. He’s gone ‘way beyond “trump-curious”.
FlyingToaster
@Betty Cracker: He should come walk around the Watertown Mall parking lot and tell us how he’s going to protect us.
Seriously. He reminds me of Dan Quayle, only smarmier.
Kropadope
@FlyingToaster:
Your problem* is that you’re not thinking like a Republican primary voter. Punching down is the ultimate demonstration of strength.
*”Problem” might be the wrong word, but it explains your not understanding.
@seaboogie: It helps not being fussy about gender, but still, too many.
Anne Laurie
@Origuy:
That made the local tv news (of course). For context, Emerson College is for “communication and performing arts” students; over the course of the last couple property downturns, they bought some primo Boston theatre-district buildings cheap & turned them into dorms. I’m not surprised AirBnb clients would pay for a dorm room within walking distance of the Public Gardens… nor am I surprised that the kid selling his rack space would put on a major performance when he got busted for doing so. (And on the topic of this post, ook at this picture, and tell me Jack Worth won’t be at the Liberty Forum with his buddies… )
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlyingToaster:
Not a problem. After that AFC Championship
Game, I’ll be hard for months.
seaboogie
@FlyingToaster:
In our newfound spirit of comity, perhaps we should do a gofundme thing to send massive quantities of Viagra to JSF, so that he may complete his mission. I’m in for a fiver.
seaboogie
Oh, in moderation because I forgot and used the actual word for an ED medication…can you hep me, AL?
Fair Economist
@Betty Cracker: Left libertarians exist, but they’re a distinct minority. In addition, they don’t get the Koch funding which creates substantial organizations like Cato, so you’re not going to hear about them unless you travel in their circles or deliberately go looking for it.
PurpleGirl
@M. Bouffant: In the 1980s, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and 2,000 of his followers tried to take over a town in eastern Oregon. The ashram collapsed in several years as the locals resisted the political and social manipulations of the ashram’s members.
Just Some Fuckhead
@efgoldman: One man’s troll is another man’s bold truth teller. (Except Tim, my God, total fucking troll.)
FlyingToaster
@Just Some Fuckhead: Sorry to disappoint, but I’m a Chiefs fan. ChezToaster spent the time watching the Science Channel and checking in on the Denver game during commercials.
WarriorGirl (who is nominally a Pats fan) decided she liked the Chiefs better and watched that game with me. HerrDoctor — ‘Fins fan — left in a huff.
Fair Economist
I’m in moderation? What on earth for?
Kropadope
@Just Some Fuckhead: I think germane commentary and fair argumentation or the lack thereof factor in one’s troll-worthiness.
SatanicPanic
@Warren Terra: I don’t know why this makes me so happy.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Kropadope: I’ve been here for ten years now and the working definition of a troll is anyone who says something I disagree with and then says it again after that. (Except Tim, my fucking God.)
Just Some Fuckhead
@Fair Economist: You are in moderation until you change your handle to Unfair Economist.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: I moved to Watertown in June 2002. The old anchors got replaced.
Watertown Mall: Target, BestBuy, RMV
Arsenal Mall: HomeDepot/GolfSmith/OldNavyOutlet replaced Ann&Hope; Marshalls replaced Bradlees, and the Filene’s Basement space was carved up. It’s being renamed the Arsenal Project and given a further facelift (having escaped Simon Malls management)
It was notable during the Watertown lockdown for being the staging point for the searchers, Governor, yadda, yadda, yadda. Glad I was in Florida for April Break.
PurpleGirl
Good night folks; it’s been a nice evening remembering the trip to Boston. Will try to sleep now. Later…
Betty Cracker
Now Cruz’s communications director is on my teebee. He’s an evil man by definition since he’s trying to get a millenarian psycho in the Oval Office. But he’s not stupid, which is worrisome.
Frankensteinbeck
@efgoldman:
‘Cause people ate it up. I’m convinced his thing is just performance art trolling, trying to go Poe’s Law and find something insane and objectionable to say on any topic and seeing if anybody will buy it. What better friend does a performance art troll have than Donald Trump?
seaboogie
@Just Some Fuckhead:
As you are a recently self-professed Christian, I appreciate you sharing one of your particular gods with us. In the Hindu practice, there is Shiva – the destroyer, Ganesh – the remover of obstacles, et al. Tim seems kind of a lame name for a fucking god. Lance, or Armando or somesuch seems more appropriate. Good luck to you and Tim in Boston!
Anne Laurie
@ThresherK (GPad):
But that was the draw! These bold innovators wanted a state which didn’t have much government infrastructure to ‘disrupt’ — that would also provide plenty of jobs and access to “excellent” resources. New Hampshire, unlike most of the other states considered, doesn’t require a “freesteader” to drive 20 miles from the fourth-hand mobile home to a minimum-wage Walmart job, assuming they can find one. There’s plenty of crappy housing available (mostly seasonal rentals in tourist towns); if you don’t have the tech skillz for a job at one of the multitude of Rte 128 spin-offs you can patch together part-time gigs serving the tourists or the techies… and if (when) you get tired playing anarchist & “living off the grid”, Boston is within convenient reach.
Kropadope
@Just Some Fuckhead: I’m sure many of us have been in a position where someone somewhere considered us a troll. This phenomenon most commonly surrounds hot-button issues. It’s worth the risk of being accused of trollery, contentious issues are so much more fun.
M. Bouffant
@PurpleGirl: Oh, I remember that. Didn’t end well, as I recall, ‘though not on a Jonestown scale. Here’s a story, 25 yrs. on (from the Oregonian reporter who was in Burns for the most recent unpleasantness, Les Zaitz).
FlyingToaster
@Betty Cracker: You need to get up and turn that thing off. [Wags finger] Honestly, you’re going to put yourself into the hospital if you keep this up.
Speaking of which, I should have gone to bed two hours ago. But I am so happy to have a computer (this is the birthday present from a month ago), that is not randomly going dark or not responding to the trackpad or otherwise freezing up that I just had to keep going.
Morning’s coming, folks. Get some sleep!
toschek
I like how they’re hedging their bets by moving to a New Hampshire instead of an actual lawless place like Somalia.
Kropadope
@Betty Cracker:
He let Cruz get up and speak on TV for like an hour last night. He’s stupid.
El Caganer
@Betty Cracker: In my own observations, which sure as shit aren’t definitive, left libertarians are anarchists (communists, mutualists, socialists) and Paulistas and generic libertarians are neo-Confederates.
Just Some Fuckhead
@seaboogie: I fear if we speak his name once more, he could appear.
Kropadope
@El Caganer: Hmm, I don’t think communism and libertarianism are exactly simpatico. Tell me about this “mutualism.”
seaboogie
@Just Some Fuckhead: heh. But are we talking the FPer with the nice dog?
Kropadope
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Betelgeuse BetelgeuseTed & HelenAnne Laurie
@Origuy:
Here in the States, too — the Vermont Quilting Expo basically takes over Norwich University for a week every July, and in the past I stayed at residence halls for SCA / sf events. But those rentals are handled by the university, usually in a stand-alone facility, and not during term-time. Young Jack Worth(less) was giving randos access to a building full of trusting teenagers in a sketchy neighborhood. Emerson’s had occasional problems in the past with students getting assaulted in those dorms — they absolutely don’t want any of their kids (or the parents who pay their tuition!) ‘not feeling secure’ because some genius decided to freeload for his own profit. (In my day, there were pretty strict regs against letting your friends stay overnight in your dorm room, much less allowing a stranger to pay you for the privilege, but that was 40 years ago… )
Just Some Fuckhead
@seaboogie: Oh no.
seaboogie
@Kropadope: @Just Some Fuckhead: Betelgeuse Betelgeuse Ted & Helen
Spel won’t work if you are missing an *l*
seaboogie
@Just Some Fuckhead: I don’t have your issues there.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman:
Yup — Craigslist, or similar. Another profession the ‘toobz have “streamlined”, not necessarily to the benefit of the sex workers themselves.
Boston’s enough of a real city that its safe/unsafe areas can be very patchy. Just a couple years ago, I was at the back entrance of the MFA with my 40-something college-prof sister & her 30-something grad student. We were discussing the bistro grad student suggested for lunch, and my out-of-town sister insisted it was within walking distance. A museum guard standing within earshot hastily offered to get us a cab “because you ladies don’t want to be wandering around in that neighborhood”. The Fenway has some of the most-visited tourist sites & some very expensive real estate, distributed within high-crime poverty sinkholes.
One of many reasons we live 14 miles outside the city. Our battered little town has its own bad neighborhoods, but on the other hand, there’s not much reason to go wandering around here after 10pm anyways!
Betty Cracker
Oh Christ, now vacuous spokesmodel Don Lemon and cheesecake sculpture Hugh Hewitt are sharing a screen. Sorry, dogs — you gotta move!
El Caganer
@Kropadope: I guess it depends somewhat on what one expects from those terms, The problem is more on the libertarian end than the other parts – that is, what constraints can there be on personal freedom? AFAIK, a committed libertarian wouldn’t accept something like the US constitution because (s)he didn’t personally approve it. That person, assuming (s)he wanted to be part of a community, would join one with compatible principles. Communism really is an option, if you consider it in something other than the top-down, vanguard-party version we’re used to. Mutualism only caught my eye recently, as I found a FB site that was promoting the integration of Georgism (land value taxation) with mutualism ( a doctrine I’m not sure of, since it seems to promote ‘from each according to his abilities’ without the complementary ‘each according to his needs.) And I’m going to bed now, having gassed far too long about this already. Too many high-octane beers.
Schlemazel
@PurpleGirl:
Followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh went a little bit further than just showing up however. They actually tried to give the residence of the town food poisoning the day before the election. Their thinking was they might not have the votes to win so if they could sicken a few hundred voters not from the ashram it would improve their odds. I assume the swami was a Republican.
Schlemazel
@seaboogie:
Interesting. Even in polytheist regions I have never heard of a fucking god. They all have gods for various facets of life but none so crude as one specifically for fucking.
Kropadope
@Schlemazel: Does Bacchus count? Aphrodite?
Anne Laurie
@FlyingToaster:
Well, the theory (which is theirs) is that if Jeb can “force” Kasich, Christie & Rubio out of the race, then the “establishment” GOP will have nowhere to go but Jeb.
A similar theory seems to have worked for Cruz in Iowa — he sucked up all the “evangelical” lurve that might’ve gone to previous IA winners Sanctorum & Huckersterbee (who is now reduced to endorsing Cruz). But Cruz, if not a better campaigner than Jeb, is certainly a more energetic one, who hustled every storefront ministry in the state, usually more than once. For whatever lack, Jeb’s been dividing his attention between IA & NH; both Kasich & Christie have been pressing flesh & reminding every NH voter how much they respect the Famous Granite State Independence. And Rubio hasn’t been any more ‘present’ north of here than Jeb, but the anti-Rubio ads run in every commercial break, sometimes back-to-back. I swear, Jeb’s campaign’s determination that the eventual winner by Anyone But Marco is backfiring — people are getting the impression Rubio must be more important than he ranks, just because the Ripe-to-Rot people are so busy advertising against him!
Schlemazel
@Kropadope:
Well the big B is more into drinking & general partying and Aphrodite amorous love so they certainly are dancing around the topic.
seaboogie
@Schlemazel: A lot of the Hindu gods are also sometimes represented in the yab yum position (basically a lapdance), with the intention to incorporate both male and female energies in one deity.
Just Some Fuckhead
@El Caganer: I have a theory that communism (the real kind, not the red kind) can’t actually work for any period of time because guys are basically lazy shitbags.
Anne Laurie
@Fair Economist: Done.
The spam filter seems to be going into one of its occasional spasms of random comment-blocking, but in your specific case, I think the word ‘Cato’ got banned back when a certain paid ratfvcker was using it for a nym.
El Caganer
@Just Some Fuckhead: Definitely you should check out Henry George – he starts Progress and Poverty with the idea that people want the most benefit for the least work.
PJ
@Just Some Fuckhead: Having lived in a group house for many years, I can tell you that not everyone is a lazy shitbag, but if just one or two are, then everything starts to go to pot because no one wants to do lazy shitbag’s work on top of their own, and then lazy shitbag’s shit starts to pile up (not to mention unpaid bills, personal items destroyed or missing, and food and drink not paid for by lazy shitbag but entirely consumed by lazy shitbag.)
Anne Laurie
@Kropadope:
Smart enough not to get between Cruz and a media mic, at least.
I imagine that would be like getting between a hungry komodo dragon and a well-aged deer carcase.
PJ
@El Caganer: But George was emphatically a capitalist, he just thought that rentiers were parasites who consumed everything while adding value to nothing.
Soylent Green
If you are going to tell the story of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, at least tell it correctly. The Bhagwan himself was a very pleasant if somewhat addled guru with a highly commercial product, your basic westernized, easily digested form of Hindu spirituality and free love, which appealed to many New Age type people. His followers were thousands of benign and beatific hippie types, many of them well educated and from affluent backgrounds, mostly Americans and Germans. Besides building their own large, fenced, modernly designed commune on thousands of high desert acres in central Oregon (guarded by their own police force sporting Uzis), they also took over the government of the nearby town of Antelope by outvoting its residents. And for a couple of years they flourished, making a lot of money from donations and well-heeled visitors who would pop in for a week or two of quickie spiritual training. But they ran into constant trouble with Oregon’s statewide land use controls and other legal restrictions. One of the Bhagwan’s key lieutenants, a woman called Ma Anand Sheela, concocted a plan to poison hundreds of people in The Dalles (the county seat) to help shift political power to their community. Nobody ever thought the guru was involved. The plan was revealed, Sheela and others were arrested and jailed, the Bhagwan went on the lam all the way to North Carolina, was arrested and later deported back to India. For a few years, Rajneeshees were a common sight not just near their commune but in Oregon’s larger cities, identified by their colors-of-the-sun clothing (reds, yellows, purples, oranges) and the photo of the Bhagwan that they always wore as a necklace. The commune’s Harvard-educated landscape architect was once a guest lecturer in my urban and regional planning class at the U. of Oregon, nattily dressed in lavender sport coat, maroon shoes, purple pants, pink shirt, etc.
Now we will be known by these militia nitwits instead.
Origuy
@Schlemazel: The ancient Chinese had several gods for particular forms of sex.
The Ancient Randonneur
Free Staters? Hahahahahahaha! They’re a bunch Paultards with more ink and a bigger gun collection. If they were serious they would have worked on getting rid of the actual socialism in NH: State Owned Liquor Stores.
Joel
@FlyingToaster: The Theater District has improved quite a bit since its heyday. And the Emerson dorms face the Commons, which makes them pretty valuable.
Linda
@Oatler.: @Oatler.: ah, but they did have a Flint story. It was all the fault of the gummmit
Amir Khalid
@Origuy:
If ever a person deserved to be made God of Buggery, that would be the guy.
Zinsky
Libertarianism is a 16 yr. old boys wet dream of what society should look like. That way, they can smoke pot and drive their cars stupidly (refer to picture above). Show me one civilized, industrialized country where libertarianism has been the predominant form of government. I’ll wait…..
Matt McIrvin
@Just Some Fuckhead:
American conservatives would say that’s why liberalism can’t work, that any social support or wealth redistribution system whatsoever will be exploited to the destruction of society by lazy shitbags.
Of course, their proposed alternative is a system of strong property rights that immediately gets exploited for rent-seeking by rich lazy shitbags (sometimes not so much lazy as power-mad, since they’ll work their tails off to exploit the system, but their children will be lazy).
I think a problem that does destroy social-democratic systems is that human beings naturally have a resentment of freeloaders that actually goes beyond the point where it’s even socially optimal to resent freeloaders. And it seems to be easy to focus the resentment so that it mostly works downward. They’ll spend more on denying benefits to the non-working than they would have supporting them. Especially when the people they think are freeloaders are different somehow: different race, speaking a different language.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin:
Perfect example: FL’s mandatory drug-testing of welfare recipients, which cost more than it saved in denial of benefits and revealed that welfare recipients have a lower than average rate of drug use.
Matt McIrvin
As for left-libertarianism, I think the word “libertarianism” was originally a radical-left thing. The right-wing variety elevating property rights, contract and self-interest to the most sacred principles of society is just what became more popular in the United States.
gelfling545
A connection of our family was very interested in libertarianism in general & the NH thing in particular when he was in his mid-twenties. (Pointing out that his kid was getting SCHIP insurance didn’t seem to penetrate.) Fortunately he matured, finished law school, interned in some good places & is now doing labor law & spending his free time volunteering with legal aid. I’d guess some of those early NH free state volunteers might have had changes of mind as they matured as well.
ET
I see that Little Prince Rand is suspending his campaign as of Wednesday. But will anyone really notice?
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Matt McIrvin:
Actually, for many who yammer about being libertarian, it is about the liberty to order society in the way they prefer. This includes things like criminalizing homosexuality, huge penalties for drugs, mandatory worship, official racial oppression.
C.V. Danes
Presumably they will be traveling to New Hampshire on government maintained roads, government overseen air travel, and watching Snowden over a government created global communication system, in a hotel that was designed according to government safety regulations, and so on.
But whatever. Live free or die!
Matt McIrvin
In related news, Rand Paul is out.
Shell
“Louie brought his new girlfriend over, and the nicest thing I can say about her is all her tattoos are spelled correctly.”
kdaug
@seaboogie: what did you do with the bow?