In 2001, libertarian political scientist Jason Sorens proposed the creation of a “free state.” He appealed to other libertarians to cluster in one small state, where enough of them would be able to eliminate laws and authority and “live free.” That state was New Hampshire, and the libertarians have joined hands with Republicans to impose their agenda on others who don’t share it. Earlier this spring, Free Staters proposed that New Hampshire secede and became an independent nation, but that proposal failed overwhelmingly, in part because enough people realized it was nutty and/or they didn’t want to give up their Social Security.
Dan Barry wrote in The New York Times about an effort by Free Staters in Croydon, New Hampshire, to cut the town’s school budget in half.
As is typical in many towns and cities across the nation, not many people show up for local elections, or in this case, the town meeting. One of the members of the Croydon board of selectmen, Ian Underwood, proposed cutting the town budget for schools by more than half, from $1.7 million to $800,000.
In pamphlets he brought to the meeting, Mr. Underwood asserted that sports, music instruction and other typical school activities were not necessary to participate intelligently in a free government, and that using taxes to pay for them “crosses the boundary between public benefit and private charity.”
The pamphlet did not note that its author was a 1979 graduate of the public high school in Chesterton, Ind., where he starred on the tennis team, ran track, played intramural sports and joined extracurricular activities in math, creative writing, radio and student government. Also: National Honor Society member, National Merit finalist and valedictorian.
One person not completely gobsmacked by Mr. Underwood’s proposal was the school board chairwoman: his wife, Jody Underwood. The Underwoods, who do not have children, moved to Croydon from Pennsylvania in 2007 in part to join the Free State mission; they are now considered a Free State power couple.
Underwood’s radical proposal passed by 20-14. It was a victory for the Free Staters. As the Underwoods did media interviews, they gloated:
Mr. Underwood asked what for him appears to be a fundamental question — “Why is that guy paying for that guy’s kids to be educated?” — and denied that he and his wife were “in cahoots.”
Many people in Croydon were “livid.” They realized this radical act was the result of their indifference.
But they were also chastened. They hadn’t attended the town meeting. They hadn’t fulfilled their democratic obligation. They hadn’t kept informed about the Free State movement. To some observers, they had gotten what they deserved…
From this muddle of anger, confusion and regret, though, a movement was born. It came to be known as We Stand Up for Croydon Students.
Conservatives, liberals and those who shun labels — “an entirely nonpartisan group,” said Ms. Damon, one of the members — began meeting online and in living rooms to undo what they considered a devastating mistake. They researched right-to-know laws, sought advice from nonprofits and contacted the state attorney general’s office to see whether they had any legal options.
They did: Under New Hampshire law, citizens could petition for a special meeting where the budget cut could be overturned — if at least half the town’s voters were present and cast ballots.
Ms. Beaulieu, 44, a project manager for a kitchen and bath store, helped to gather enough signatures for the necessary petition. Once a date in May was set for the special meeting, she and other volunteers spread the word, knocking on doors, conducting phone banks and planting lawn signs…
The crisis in Croydon generated a curious democratic dynamic. Since the law required that at least half the town’s electorate participate in the special meeting’s vote for it to be binding, those trying to overturn the Underwood budget encouraged people to attend, while those hoping to retain it encouraged people to do just the opposite and stay home.
On the chilly Saturday morning of May 7, Croydon residents filed into a spacious building at the local YMCA camp for their special meeting. The We Stand Up contingent needed at least 283 voters.
The turnout: 379.
The vote in favor of overturning the Underwood budget: 377.
The vote against: 2.
The We Stand Up crowd cheered and hugged, leaving Mr. Underwood to vent online with posts titled “Your House Is My A.T.M.” and “Possibly Dumbest Thing I’ve Heard Someone Say, Ever,” and Dr. Underwood to frame the moment as both an impressive voter turnout and a victory for “mob rule.”
“It felt to me like a bunch of woke people came to Croydon,” she said.
What happened in Croydon is a lesson for us all.
Get out and vote.
Do not let the neo-fascists, neo-Confederates, racists, and conspiracy theorists take over.
Fight for democracy or lose it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is an important story. But it’s also a warning. These folks were lucky. They had a mechanism by which they could overturn the horrific mistake made because of their former indifference.
I’m afraid that the U.S. as a whole won’t have a simple mechanism to deal with the horror that’s coming when the Republicans win both houses in November and the Presidency in 2024, and thus, with the current Extreme Court, sweep into total control and usher in the fascist state that they have been longing for, with dramatic curtailment of voting rights to keep them in power in perpetuity.
Last chance coming, folks. There’s not gonna be a do-over.
Unfortunately the best defense is a good offense. ” Moderate Democrats ” have not got the message. They are busy attacking Biden and his policy instead of the enemies of Democracy. And I am not refereeing only to Manchin and Sinema. My politically active friend says” if your splaining you are losing ” as he tosses Larry the Puke Summers at me who like the broken clock was right but for all the wrong reasons about inflation. It was only Progressives from AOC to Warren who questioned Powell about what raising interest rates will do to increase world oil or grain supply(production) . Powell answered nothing .Fed and treasury understood through the fall but the Fed especially is running scared ready to throw millions out of work to curb supply problems by reducing demand .
Anyone remember when Trumplestiltskin berated the Fed for raising rates when the economy was humming along.
This guy
“They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.”
held fireside chats weekly ” splaining ” to the American people. And was not afraid to attack the enemies of the people.
Speaking of which as Dean Baker notes today’s (supposedly Liberal ) WaPo ran this headline : “Workers are picking up extra jobs just to pay for gas and food”
That would be the same exact .03% of the workforce that did so in the height of the DOT.COM boom .
Forget Biden what Democrat is going to call out the Media and Republicans on inflation and crime. On a war in Eastern Europe aimed at Western Liberal Democracy not Ukraine.
Traitors and crooks I would like to hear something but feathers.
Oops referring
Yeah, there is an extreme double standard here. Republicans are able to give huge tax breaks to the rich, cause a huge deficit, keep wages low with high unemployment, and the media is blind.
But Democrats are supposed to have extremely low unemployment, high wages, very low inflation, no budget deficit, and keep interest rates shockingly low. (when I bought my first home during the early Bush/Cheney regime, I thought I got a great deal with a 7% mortgage.)
If Dems don’t achieve all that, they are extreme failures and exclusively to blame for the same problems that existed under Republicans that went unmentioned, that the Dems improved upon but did not make disappear.
Meanwhile, the Republicans are given carte blanche to criticize and pretend they have a secret solution that they aren’t going to reveal until they are completely empowered for eternity. And the media says it very important to present both sides equally: the first side is that the Republicans might have a super duper plan to make all problems go away and the Dems are all to blame, and the other side is that some partisan Dems are saying that the Republicans don’t have a solution.
Today’s journalists don’t need to see the Republican plan to know that it is important to inform readers that the Republicans may very well have a perfect plan.
The media stopped talking about Republican Rick Scott’s economic plan as soon as their Republican sources informed them that they didn’t want them to talk about it. So Dean Baker won’t talk about how the Republicans would just tell those 2-job workers their taxes will go up to “help” them.
CNN published details on Scott’s agenda which is the libertarian drowning the federal government including Medicare and SS in a bathtub of greed for the 1%. It would devastate the working class. BTW Scott is one of the thugs behind “Moms for Liberty.” https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/01/opinions/rick-scott-conservative-populism-falls-short-zelizer/index.html
Yes, the media publishes details of the Scott plan for a day or two and then reports every single story attacking the Democrats without mentioning that the Scott plan exists.
I would bet a large sum of money that the majority of Americans have never even heard of the Scott plan. In fact, I suspect most of the lousy journalists who cover Washington for the NYT and Wash Post have no idea what the details of the plan are.
I’d love to see Jon Stewart interviewing NYT reporters on his podcast.
“Maggie Haberman, tell us what is in the Republican economic plan”. duh, I don’t know but I know Trump says it will be great and partisan Dems disagree.
“Peter Baker, tell us what is in the Republican plan to fix the economy.” duh, I am far too busy parsing Biden’s every word to see how much of a liar he is to bother myself with that — suffice to say that the Republicans say they have a good plan and it is far more important for the public to know exactly how much of a liar Biden is than to know the details of the Republican plan. I know our newspaper mentioned it at least once.
“Maggie and Peter, tell us one of the things in the Republican economic plan that will be very popular”. Are you kidding me, Jon? I is NOT our job to inform the public of complicated things we know they won’t understand (because we ourselves are far too lazy and ignorant to understand the plan ourselves). It is our job to report what Republicans say about their plan and their criticism of Biden. It is so very difficult to be a stenographer/journalist and you can’t expect us to learn the details of a plan and inform the public of it. We linked to it in an article once.
Currently, the media is fixated on Biden fist-bumping the Saudi prince, not the best optic, but it isn’t a crime.
NYC public school parent
Actually Baker who was the Senior Economist at EPI at one time, along with Bernstein and Reich has a column called “Beat the Press “. Where he goes after false narratives with actual economic data. He has often stated that for a group of people who profess to hate Trump those at Wapo, CNN.the NYT are doing their best to get him reelected . And as I added that goes for so called moderate Democrats as well. Who run from rather than confront issues like inflation. It would be one thing if they lost their courage when inflation hit 9.1% . Even though it was probably significantly lower by the time they heard the number. But these cowards were running from the Biden agenda pre Russia when inflation was absolutely transitory. Tough to have a wage price spiral when wages from January to March were down to 4.3% and April through June 4% meaning the June number had to be under 4%
But where are the MODERATE Democrats attacking corporate greed. And the “Fake News” that enables them. You are not entitled to your own facts but the media has a responsibility to be factual . Which includes not showing pictures of $7 gas when the National average was $3.41 in January.
.
Something is very wrong with our so called “democracy” when just a few people can effectively “dictate” policies which can only be overturned by a vote from the majority of voters (a very tall order in any election)
On the national scene, we have just one guy (backed by the fossil fuel industry, of course) — Manchin — effectively overriding the will of millions of people .
We seem to have the whole “democracy” thing bassackwards. When did democracy come to mean rule by the minority? (and often a tiny one, at that)
The crux of the problem is the whole “representative democracy” issue, which is all too often neither representative nor Democratic.
Manchin has an ownership interest in a coal brokerage business. It pays him $500,000 a year. He can’t allow action on climate change.
Yeah. He’s not just backed by the fossil fuel industry. He is part of the fossil fuel industry.
Yes, I was aware of that.
Manchin is typical of the type of selfserving and selfdealing individual we so often have “representing” us.
Mr. Underwood …denied that he and his wife were “in cahoots.”
If they were not in cahoots, they are certainly in cakooks.
The schools of Croyden get half their funding from property taxes
But im sure reducing their own property tax rates had nothing whatsoever to do with the
votes of Underwood and other town selectmen to slash the school budget
Sure.
Grabbertarian: I got mine. Screw everybody else.
I am thankful that reasonable people in New Hampshire showed up to vote to counterbalance the right wing libertarians that want to dismantle a civil society. It is a lesson for all of us. We can and must exercise our right to vote, even when we have to wait in a line to discourage us from doing so. If our vote weren’t valuable, the right wing would not be scheming so hard to take it away from us.
Well said, RT!
Libertarianism at its “best,” is just gibberish and at its worst, (oh wait, it is the worst, period), it is a thinly disguised version of greed, avarice, selfishness and solipsism. Me, me, me and everyone else be damned. Libertarianism is toxic sludge and just pretends to care about some greater good. It is an extreme ideology which proposes that everyone is on their own, why should I pay for another kid’s education, that each parent is responsible for financing their own kid’s education and let’s get rid of the education tax and most other taxes. How about publicly financed police and fire departments? You guessed it, they should be privatized and not be supported by taxes according to the libertarian loons.
It is shocking to me how many Republicans have been hit by the impractical, unreasonable stupid stick. Libertarians used to be a fringe led by “grandfatherly” Ron Paul. It has now infested the mainstream Republican Party.
They key is a lot of knocking on doors to “woke” people up to the fascist-libertarian treat to our democracy as defined by the US Constitution our Founders wrote, a document designed to be flexible and adaptable through the amendment process, a document written to protect us from fascist-libertarians like Ron Paul and the Underwoods, (and the Trumps of the world) who think that they know what’s best for the rest of us and do not want to include us in their decisions that affect everyone, not just them.
Being “woke” is the biggest threat to fascistic-libertarianism. So, let’s start “woking” people up like “We Stand Up for Croydon Students” did for their small community. Some of us will knock on doors. Others will publish blogs and/or videos.
Do what we can to help spread “wokeness”. Wokeness will save our democracy and our Constitution.
Amen, Lloyd
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
“Woke” up! “Woke” up!
To save our public schools and our democracy, become a “woke” person. The more people that vote that are “woke” the safer we’ll be from the fascist-libertarian hate filled autocrats that want to make all the decisions for everyone while dismantling our culture, out country until nothing is left but a dystopian nightmare.
Woke and proud of it. The opposite of woke is brain dead .
When it comes down to it, most libertarians don’t believe in government.
At heart, they are anarchists.
If anarchy is what they desire, they probably should move to Libya.
But I suspect it might not be their cup of tea, after all.
The Free State Project is anarchism in principle, but goes beyond anarchism in practice. They are merely elitists. The president of the group says they’re not libertarians, but are “liberty lovers”. See, according to the FSP, they don’t have political beliefs. (They just love to hate their countrymen and women.) Their website says, “New Hampshire consistently ranks among the best and freest states in the nation. Those who move here experience the indescribable benefits of ‘finding their tribe‘“. Did you hear the dog whistle and catch the wink? New Hampshire is one of the wealthiest per capita, whitest states. They’re finding their tribe, alright. The Free State Project is the White Flight Project.
These morons might get a rude surprise if they actually succeeded in seceding.
“In April 2022 New Hampshire exported $597M and imported $758M, resulting in a negative trade balance of $161M.” –Observatory of Economic Complexity, MIT
Pentagon funding also accounted for 3.4% of New Hampshire’s GDP in 2020 and they are 14th highest on Pentagon dollars per capita among all the states (about $2200 per resident)
My guess is that would all go away if NH were secedesful.
In Texas , which also talks about seceding, Pentagon spending accounts for an even higher percentage of GDP (about 4.6%), about $2800 per capita. Texas actually gets more Pentagon dollars than any other state (over $80 billion in 2020)