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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Town That Went Feral - Grafton NH And Its Disastrous Libertarian Experiment (Now With Bears!)
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Nearly two and a half centuries later, Grafton has become something of a magnet for seekers and quirky types, from adherents of the Unification Church of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon to hippie burnouts and more. Particularly important for the story is one John Babiarz, a software designer with a Krusty the Klown laugh, who decamped from Big-Government-Friendly Connecticut in the 1990s to homestead in New Hampshire with his equally freedom-loving wife, Rosalie. Entering a sylvan world that was, Hongoltz-Hetling writes, almost as if they had driven through a time warp and into New Englands revolutionary days, when freedom outweighed fealty and trees outnumbered taxes, the two built a new life for themselves, with John eventually coming to head Graftons volunteer fire department (which he describes as a mutual aid venture) and running for governor on the libertarian ticket.
Although Johns bids for high office failed, his ambitions remained undimmed, and in 2004 he and Rosalie connected with a small group of libertarian activists. Might not Grafton, with its lack of zoning laws and low levels of civic participation, be the perfect place to create an intentional community based on Logic and Free Market Principles? After all, in a town with fewer than 800 registered voters, and plenty of property for sale, it would not take much for a committed group of transplants to establish a foothold, and then win dominance of municipal governance. And so the Free Town Project began. The libertarians expected to be greeted as liberators, but from the first town meeting, they faced the inconvenient reality that many of Graftons presumably freedom-loving citizens saw them as outsiders first, and compatriots secondif at all. Tensions flared further when a little Googling revealed what freedom entailed for some of the new colonists. One of the original masterminds of the plan, a certain Larry Pendarvis, had written of his intention to create a space honoring the freedom to traffic organs, the right to hold duels, and the God-given, underappreciated right to organize so-called bum fights. He had also bemoaned the persecution of the victimless crime that is consensual cannibalism. (Logic is a strange thing, observes Hongoltz-Hetling.)
While Pendarvis eventually had to take his mail-order Filipina bride business and dreams of municipal takeovers elsewhere (read: Texas), his comrades in the Free Town Project remained undeterred. Soon, they convinced themselves that, evidence and reactions to Pendarvis notwithstanding, the Project must actually enjoy the support of a silent majority of freedom-loving Graftonites. How could it not? This was Freedom, after all. And so the libertarians keep coming, even as Babiarz himself soon came to rue the fact that the libertarians were operating under vampire rulesthe invitation to enter, once offered, could not be rescinded. The precise numbers are hard to pin down, but ultimately the towns population of a little more than 1,100 swelled with 200 new residents, overwhelmingly men, with very strong opinions and plenty of guns.
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If the Libertarian vision of Freedom can take many shapes and sizes, one thing is bedrock: Busybodies and statists need to stay out of the way. And so the Free Towners spent years pursuing an aggressive program of governmental takeover and delegitimation, their appetite for litigation matched only by their enthusiasm for cutting public services. They slashed the towns already tiny yearly budget of $1 million by 30 percent, obliged the town to fight legal test case after test case, and staged absurd, standoffish encounters with the sheriff to rack up YouTube hits. Grafton was a poor town to begin with, but with tax revenue dropping even as its population expanded, things got steadily worse. Potholes multiplied, domestic disputes proliferated, violent crime spiked, and town workers started going without heat. Despite several promising efforts, Hongoltz-Hetling dryly notes, a robust Randian private sector failed to emerge to replace public services. Instead, Grafton, a haven for miserable people, became a town gone feral. Enter the bears, stage right.
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https://newrepublic.com/article/159662/libertarian-walks-into-bear-book-review-free-town-project?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tnr_daily
pecosbob
(7,541 posts)has it ever not failed? In my mind that's a lot like believing garbage is going to pick itself up or toilets will clean themselves.
brush
(53,788 posts)Turns out, there arent that many private-sector groups that go around repairing potholes and picking up trash 🙄
moose65
(3,167 posts)Theres not a single successful Libertarian-type government on the face of this earth. Youd think, if Libertarian ideals are so great, there would be plenty of examples to point to. 🙄
brush
(53,788 posts)of production socialism.
moose65
(3,167 posts)But absolutely no one is advocating for pure socialism. These libertarians would love to impose their ideas on everyone, though.
brooklynite
(94,598 posts)Never came to fruition.
https://www.fsp.org
mainer
(12,022 posts)This writer can really turn a phrase.
Hekate
(90,714 posts)...that was getting along all right without them. The Shree Rajneesh people in Oregon come to mind. SMH
NameAlreadyTaken
(978 posts)exactly the same thing here. Almost all Republicans (80%Trump), almost all misfits, very low taxes, no services, no private sector, most people are either county or state employees, or retired or just hiding from something. Domestic disputes, drug use, lightning-fast gossip netweork, poverty in the name of "freedom." They fight any attempt to improve or modernize. They beat back the National Park Service in 2009. They sit around all day talking about how much they hate government, then go to Tonopah to cash their government checks.
Hugin
(33,164 posts)I find it amusing.
Every time my SO is riding with me I see the words, "What a dump." mouthed.
Some of the highlights:
The only paved street in the village is the pre-existing socialist State road through the middle of town. Every lot has a crude trail carved through adjacent properties to this road. I can only imagine the caliber of negotiations required to establish one of these goat trails. Due to this the land locked properties have only been developed to two or at most three lots back from the road.
There is no municipal sewage (dilapidated porta-potties everywhere), power (it's the same ad-hoc structure as the 'streets'), or garbage collection. There's a burning garbage pile on every lot.
Even though there are a couple of eateries, I would never eat there.
The church in the center of the berg does seem to garner some unity and respect. It's limited though.
Yup, Free Market. It strikes me that living in a Trump property would be the same. Except, you'd be called upon to form an audience now and then.
And thats freedom to them? The freedom to burn your own trash and smell your own excrement?