An Open Letter to All Libertarian Party Members

The Following Open Letter is from Shuvom Ghose. Posted here on FreeStateBlogs with permission of the author. -Denis

Dear Fellow Libertarians,

Hello, my name is Shuvom Ghose, and I'm a Libertarian who formerly lived in North Carolina. You don't know me and I don't know you, but I bet we have a few things in common.

Like our rush of excitement at first discovering the Libertarian party and thinking, "Wow, finally! A rational, pro-freedom party that actually doesn't want power over me! Finally, a party I can put my mind and heart behind!" And then searching out a Libertarian candidate, donating to his campaign, maybe even spending hours putting up signs, knocking on doors, and telling hundreds of people about this great, freedom-first politician... only to see him get 3% of the vote.

Or meeting another local Libertarian or two, getting excited about having a "local chapter", finding a meeting place, and telling all your family, friends, neighbors and co-workers about it... only to have the same three Libertarians show up month after month.

And even when I heard about the Free State Project, which is an effort to concentrate 20,000 liberty-loving folks in a small state so they could be a major political force for the first time, I thought I'd still be a lonely Libertarian after I had moved. After all, New
Hampshire (the chosen Free State) has over a million people in it, and 20,000 out of a million isn't that much. And only 400 or so Free Staters have moved there yet! So I was prepared for many more lonely meetings. Until the first weekend I lived in NH, and went to a casual "meet and greet" barbeque posted on a Free State webpage... AND 40 LIBERTARIANS SHOWED UP.

In two years of asking our co-workers, advertising in the paper, cajoling friends, canvassing on the street and the radio, I believe the record for our local meeting in North Carolina was 5 Libertarians at once. And there were 8 TIMES that to a casual barbeque in New Hampshire! I'm sure someone out there can relate to my shock and joy at seeing that many Libertarians outside of a state convention.

Not because Libertarians in your state care about freedom less than those in NH, or that you're not trying as hard (heck, you're probably trying much HARDER than we are up here), but simply because of the relative density of liberty minded people in the two states. And this brings me to the point of this letter.

In eastern North Carolina, when Libertarians asked city council members to hear our proposals on a bill, they used to look at the three of us and laugh. But in southern NH, when city council members introduce a bad bill, we PACK THE NEXT COUNCIL MEETING WITH LIBERTARIANS AND YELL AT THEM UNTIL THEY REMOVE THEIR BILL. Southern New Hampshire politicians FEAR Libertarians at their meetings, because there are so many of them in such a small area.

In North Carolina, neither main political party considers the liberty aspects of their floor votes because they know enough voters aren't watching. In NH, a group called the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance ranks EVERY bill in the State house as pro-, neutral or anti-liberty and why, records EVERY representative's vote on important bills, and maintains a "liberty scorecard" so respected and widely read the NHLA office gets anxious phone calls from many state reps when they slip in their liberty grades, asking how they can do better. This group was founded by native NH Libertarians, but only the tens of Free Staters who have joined since then have given them enough manpower to be a truly alert, aggressive watchdog.

And we all know that in two years, the "Real ID" program is coming, where each person must have a Federal-government-approved, biometric, ID card to walk out his door. Native NH Libertarians, along with the Liberty Alliance, along with a standing army of Free State volunteers, got a bill introduced in the NH House which said NH would NOT comply with the Federal "Real ID" program. And our pressure got it to pass the House. And our pressure kept it from being summarily killed in the Senate, and kept alive in a study committee, which prevents the state from spending Real ID funds. And our pressure will keep the issue on the Senate agenda until it is passed. What will it do to the program to suddenly have one state not comply with a mandatory Federal Homeland Security initiative? How many other states will be given the courage to follow? What could the anti-Real ID group accomplish with just a 100 more Libertarians? And that's my point.

This isn't another condescending letter from another New Hampshire resident saying, "Move up here when you get tired of wearing seatbelts and paying state income taxes, har har har!" No, this is a letter saying: We are close, very close! And we need you, now! Close to having enough liberty-minded people in one area to create a critical mass. 1000 more would put us over the top. 500 may do it. Even 100 more, if they were sufficiently active, would let us do things the world has never seen. Like win. Not make a political statement with an "outsider's campaign". Not be noticed by the local paper for our "unique political views". But WIN. Win issues and elections.

Free Staters have successfully passed bills to increase the rights of home-schoolers, repeal mandatory smoking bans, and are now running 12 people for the NH House of Representatives. And those are just from the Free Staters who have moved here in the last two years!

Don't get me wrong- I know you are doing great things to advance freedom in your state. Things to be very proud of. Things which will truly affect people's lives. All I'm saying is, how often do you think, "I'm so busy, if only we had ONE more activist to help organize this rally?" Or write the letter you meant to, given one more hour? Or find that bit of research which prevented you from convincing the town council? In no way am I saying that we are doing things better in NH than you. All I am saying is that we need to CONCENTRATE OUR EFFORTS. Let us be the "one more activist" which puts your project over the top, and you be the same for us!

If you have a job change coming up, ask for a position near New Hampshire!
If you are getting married, why not start life together in New Hampshire?
If you are selling your house, make your next property in New Hampshire!
If you are graduating college and starting a career, do it in New Hampshire!
If any reason comes up making a move necessary, move to New Hampshire!
And even if it doesn't, make one up!

I know it may be very hard to leave where you live now- it was for me to leave North Carolina. I had a great paying job, lived miles from a beautiful beach, and had solid friends. But none of that mattered when they raised our income tax rate again. When they regulated yet another private leisure activity (fishing). When they kicked the LP off the state ballot. When I finally got tired of being a lone voice yelling in the wilderness.

If you go to the Free State Project website, you'll see a link to a brochure listing the "101 reasons to move to New Hampshire". A booming high-tech economy, access to both beaches and mountains, a very low tax burden, a generally pro-freedom public, and a small state government. Those are great perks of being in NH, but none of them is enough reason to come here.

The reason to move is density. Density of people who think like you. Because decades of smart, tough, resourceful people working in your state have not been able raise the LP to critical mass. Where one person's efforts multiplies another's multiplies another's, until it becomes an unstoppable force.

Like every organization, the North Carolina Libertarian Party had a few inexhaustible members who did most of the work and came up with most of the ideas. One was named Barbara Howe, who was our state chair for many years, ran for governor a few times, and was always a calm, steady, prime mover at the root of most everything the party did. Your state party probably has someone like Barbara Howe, or if you're lucky, two.

Imagine having 15 Barbara Howes. In your state party. At every meeting. At one barbeque.

We have a handful of Barbara Howes now in southern New Hampshire- what would it be like if you moved here? And the you from the next state over? And the next state over? One Einstein working alone changed history. What could 50 Einsteins alive at the same time have done?

From the bottom of my heart, I swear to you that New Hampshire is close to being the beachhead of freedom that you have always imagined. A place where Libertarians are taken seriously by elected officials, where our proposals actually become bills in the State house, where there are not 12 but 120 Libertarian candidates running for state offices, where we have the manpower on the streets to sway an election one way or the other. This is where we can win.

So this letter is an urgent call for help. Everything here is not rose petals- NH Libertarians are involved in a political war to keep the state income tax-free, to expand freedom for home schooling parents, to fight eminent domain and to defeat Real ID. And we are not winning all those battles. We need back-up. We need your help. We need your fountainhead of unique ideas, of energy, of action. Not the person next to you. Not all those other people on LP message boards. Not "someone", "somewhere". You. We need you!

Imagine if, after establishing the Normandy beachhead on D-Day, American troops got a telegram from Washington: "No reinforcements are coming. Take Berlin on your own." That is how some Free Staters feel. That our back-up is not coming. That all the work we do to win freedom here will be erased if we let up for one second, because there is no one to take our place in the line.

Imagine picking a rock up off the ground, throwing it in any direction, and hitting 10 Libertarians. Imagine 500 Libertarians picking up a rock in unison and hitting the wall of the state capitol in Concord. Imagine 20,000 Libertarians picking up a rock and hitting Washington. Density is what the Free State Project is about.

Density. Density of Libertarians is our path to freedom. Our political system only rewards density. And we need you to increase our density. To inspire each other. To watch each others' backs. To work in greater numbers than we ever have. To increase your own freedom. To finally breakthrough and win.

Please distribute this letter to any Libertarian you can find, anywhere, and tell them to contact me with any, any, any questions or help they need about the Free State Project. Getting a job, looking for a place, whatever would help them. Also, once again, http://www.freestateproject.org/ is the official project website.

Thank you for you time, and I hope by my liberty and my love of it that I see you soon.

Sincerely,
Shuvom Ghose
shuvom (at) comcast.net