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April 03, 2007

The Once and Future Republic of Vermont

A few years ago a group of libertarians got tired of being a sparsely dispursed minority and thought it might be a good idea to simply take over a state. Therefore they created the Free State Project, "an effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people" to a state of their chosing. In 2003 New Hampshire was selected in part because:

[New Hampshire] has the lowest state and local tax burden in the continental U.S., the second-lowest level of dependence on federal spending in the U.S., a citizen legislature where state house representatives have not raised their $100 per year salary since 1889, the lowest crime levels in the U.S., a dynamic economy with plenty of jobs and investment, and a culture of individual responsibility indicated by, for example, an absence of seatbelt and helmet requirements for adults.

All of those freedom-lovers must be infecting their neighboring state Vermont. Ian Baldwin and Frank Bryan published an op-ed in the Washington Post today asking that Vermont have "permission to leave" the Union and its vast "empire." Perhaps the zeal and geographic coziness of these freedom-loving states should give Unionists cause for alarm. Is it time to don the blue and grey again?

Posted by Joshua Claybourn at April 3, 2007 01:42 PM

Comments

Posted by: Loren at April 3, 2007 07:05 PM | permalink

Posted by: Mark Byron at April 3, 2007 10:55 PM | permalink

Posted by: Alan K. Henderson at April 4, 2007 06:36 PM | permalink

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