NHPR The Exchange, June 23, 2004

NHPR The Exchange
hosted by Laura Knoy
topic: Free Town Project
June 23, 2004 9:00 - 10:00 AM.
Listen to the Real Media or Windows Media audio stream.

some of the transcribed dialog is below. Notice how Tim Condon, Mike Lorrey, and Amanda Philips all describe the FTP very differently.

Tim Condon:

"A group of us, some of us in the free state project, said, gee, wouldn't it be great if we could do on the microcosmic scale what the free state project is doing on a large scale with New Hampshire. That is say, find a town with a good cultural feeling to it, friendly people, a lack of overly restrictive controls, preferably few busy bodies, and a very much live and let live attitude, and let's trumpet that as a good place in New Hampshire a good place to go and live. The result was Grafton."

Laura Knoy:
"Tell us more specifically, Tim, what it was about Grafton that attracted you."


Tim Condon:
"Well, there are several things. One is its south of the notches, so we can at least expect it is somewhat warmer then if we were north of the notches. It doesn't have any Zoning. And libertarians tend to believe that zoning is more a tool for local political power structures to exercise their power over property rights than to actually protect the land or the environment. Plus the chairman of the Libertarian party of New Hampshire, John Babiarz, and his wife, lives there, and we talked to him about the town and he said it's a very live and let live place. What more could you ask for then a small town, where people respect each others privacy, have a live and let live attitude, and don't want to control necessarily what you do with your life, or your property."



Laura Knoy:
"I want to ask you more about the role of Mr. Babiarz, the head of the New Hampshire Libertarian Party, and who has run for Governor twice. How much of a role did he play in attracting you to Grafton, since that is indeed his home town?"


Tim Condon:
"Not very much. I mean, he wanted us to come there, and understandably so, because libertarians tend to like each other, just like liberals tend to like each other, and conservatives tend to like each other. We went through several towns, including Dalton, and Lempster, we also looked at Bristol and Ellsworth. As we went to these different towns, we took care to talk to the people we met along the way, and talk to the town clerk if we could. And of course, Babiarz, being the chairman of the New Hampshire Libertarian party was already a friendly face, so we specifically met with him in Grafton to ask him 'what is your town like?', 'Does it have a live and let live atmosphere?', 'Do they believe in protecting peoples privacy, and letting people do what they want to do with there own lives as long as they don't hurt anybody else?'. And he responded, that very much that kind of a town."


Laura Knoy:
"Last week there was a town meeting in Grafton to talk about the Project. Where you there Tim?"


Tim Condon:
"Boy, was I ever."


Laura Knoy:
"How did it go?"


Tim Condon:
"It was quite a scene. I don't think that I exaggerate too much when I say there was somewhat of a mob atmosphere there. Quite a large crowd, a couple hundred people. We were informed after we got there that someone had sent out an anonymous letter that hit every address in Grafton. All we knew was the people of Grafton had some questions about the Free Town Project, about these people that wanted to move into Grafton, and what are they about, and who are they. The letter that was anonymously sent out was really quite nasty. And, so, there was some bad feeling there already before we went up. There where a bunch of people there from out of town. The people that where yelling and jeering at us, that was what is was like when we tried to talk, were predominately democrats, we were told. And a substantial portion of the crowd did not join in the mob like atmosphere. They didn't jeer and cat call. What we expected when we went there was to stand up and have a question and answer session where we could explain ourselves, and explain and questions or problems people might have, particularly any fears, because there were some people associated with the free town group that where taking these ridiculous positions, and that was being trumpeted around town. Again, thankfully, I don't think the crowd that was there was really representative of what Grafton is all about."


Laura Knoy:
"You mentioned one member of the free town project who has been making outrageous statements, as you said. What types of outrageous statements, and second part of that question, how do you disassociate yourself from that person and those statements?"


Tim Condon:
"Things like we are going to legalize all victimless crimes. We are going to legalize prostitution and gambling and pornography, and just that's not what we are about, and in fact that person has been expelled not only from the free state project, but also he is not part of the free town group any more either."


Laura Knoy:
"Well, Mr. Condon, where do you go from here?"


Tim Condon:
"Well I think that recognition that there are good nice people in Grafton, and that crowd that we met on Saturday was not really representative of Grafton is a good first start. I intend to buy some land up there prepatory to moving up there. It'll probably be as much as 5, 6, 7 years from now before I can actually move up full time. But I'd like to buy some land now, and perhaps have a summer place that I can go to in the summer to get out of this hot Florida sun."


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Laura Knoy:
"What is your definition of what the free town project is all about?"


Mike Lorrey:
"Um, there've been a lot of distortion about what it is all about. Really the core of it is for members of the free state project and people that sympathize with the free state project, who want to move to New Hampshire, and want to find a small town that may be similar to where they came from, in the rest of the country, or what there town may have been like originally. It's primarily economic in interest is in southern states and western state property values are much lower than they are here in New England. And people, you know, we have a lot of productive, entrepreneurial people that are members of the free state project, they would like to come here with the same quality of life as they have. You know, someone living in Dallas Fort Worth, there home there may be worth $150,000, if the same home were here in New Hampshire the same home may be 300 $400,000 in value. So they would like to come here, find some place to buy or build a home were they are going to be able to preserve there quote quality of life and their equity."


Laura Knoy:
"So it's an economic thing mostly?"


Mike Lorrey:
"That is what it started out as, and there are some that saw it as having political aspects as well. That's not really what the aim is of the project."


Laura Knoy:
"And I have to say, it's been hard for me as a reporter to get a handle on what the goals of the free state, excuse me, free town project are because some people say it is to create libertarian social change, other people say it is to sort of influence town government on a small scale, your saying it is about property"


Mike Lorrey:
"Well People who move here are obviously going to be getting involved in the town. Grantham, Grafton, sorry, is an extremely volunteer oriented town. There isn't a lot of paid staff in the town government. The reason that Grafton wound up on the top of the list is just like any of these list you see in the magazines of the most livable town in America, you know, we set our list of criteria, and went thru all the towns in New Hampshire, and Grafton naturally wound up at the top of the list. And, you know, if some town is voted, lauded, awarded most livable town status some place, they typically want to promote that and say, hey this is a great thing, Grafton is the freest town in the freest state in the country, and that is something people should be proud of."


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Laura Knoy:
"And if you could just could just clarify for us, Amanda, how the free town project is affiliated or not with the free state project."


Amanda Philips:
"The free town project has nothing to do with the free state project. They're separate organizations, with separate goals, separate leadership, separate everything. The only connection between the two groups is that some people who are members of both, who consider themselves members of the free state project and the free town project. So that’s the only connection between the two groups. The free state project, and you can find all the information about us on the website its freestateproject.org. The free state project is focused on state level, it's not even really even focused on state level politics. What the free state project is, is a migratory movement to get 20,000 liberty oriented people, 20,000 pro-liberty people, to move to New Hampshire, and see what happens. And, so, you know, we do not tell or ask our membership to any specific place within the state of New Hampshire. And I have to tell you that even if I tried to tell our people where to move, they wouldn't listen to me anyway."


Laura Knoy:
"Well, I'm curious Amanda, why the free state project isn't linked at all to the free town project, because it seem to me you share the same goals of getting more, as you put it, liberty-oriented people in New Hampshire."


Amanda Philips:
"Well for one, the free state project does not support or endorse any organizations. And the free town project, as they stated their goal, the free town project actually has, they have specific legislative things that they wanted to do, and the free state project is not about that. We don't support specific legislation, or endorse any candidates or parties. And so that was the big difference between the free town project and the free state project. The other one is that, and I realize that this is one individual, one individual’s website had state that they were about quote unquote taking over a town, and that is not at all what the free state project is about. We don't want to take over anything. We are just about getting some pro-liberty people to move to the state of New Hampshire, and that is all we are about. And we have this very clear, we have this laid out very clear on our website, if anyone wants to check it out what we are all about."


Laura Knoy:
"Won't those pro-liberty people, as you call them, once they move to New Hampshire, correct me if I'm wrong; isn’t the goal then to create some type of social and political change, otherwise why bother?"


Amanda Philip:
"Well, for one, pro-liberty people, we're moving for more freedom, in the first place. I think all of us all the 49, I like to call them the 49 slave states and the one free state, we're all moving, as soon as I cross the boarder into New Hampshire I have a measure of freedom than anything I know in any of the other states, so that's part of it. But the other thing is that we're all individual people with individual goals, and so some people might choose to get involved, you know, in anti-tax movements, some people might choose to get involved, you know, in property rights movements, some people might choose to get involved with, you know, advocating for more local control instead of state control, other people might chose to get involved with gun movements, with the gun rights movement. And so what are people do when they get to New Hampshire is completely up to them, and we expect that they will work for pro-liberty causes in the state of New Hampshire. But I don't know what those causes are going to be until the people actually get there."


Laura Knoy:
"I see, and you could say that about anybody actually. I mean, any person moving to New Hampshire is going to decide whether he or she wants to participate in public life, and what issues he or she is going to tackle."