The founder of this movement, Jason Sorens, has written and said some very radical things. Radical to me, anyway. The Free State Project itself understands that explaining and persuading the masses of their righteousness is a lost cause, which justifies their efforts to infiltrate the NH GOP, disguise their ideology, co-opt issues, and push an extreme agenda. Foolishly, I mostly ignored these folks when they first started, and mocked them when I wasn't ignoring them. It's pretty hard to read this: Once we've taken over the state government, we can slash state and local budgets, which make up a sizeable proportion of the tax and regulatory burden we face every day. Furthermore, we can eliminate substantial federal interference by refusing to take highway funds and the strings attached to them. Once we've accomplished these things, we can bargain with the national government over reducing the role of the national government in our state. We can use the threat of secession as leverage to do this. and not mock the movement. A big mistake, as they have been quite successful at pushing the extreme agenda here in NH. It will take us years to undo the damage done in the past year, and we have another 12 months left before we can make any electoral changes.
So, back to Mr. Dittmer and his interview. I no longer ignore the Libertarians who hold these contrarian views because I now realize that with their true intentions hidden or disguised, they are quite able use the system against those unwilling or unable to spend the time needed to wade through and see them for what they are. Here in the second part of Dittmer's interview, his subject (using a pseudonym) lays it out (text in red indicates exact quotes from Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s 2001 book “Democracy: The God That Failed.”:
ANDREW: Even if you do it secretly, convincing the masses that they are inferior sounds tricky.
CNC: That’s true, but you don’t have to convince Joe the Plumber that he is a brute. You can convince him instead that he is a hardworking, productive individual, and that other people are brutes who are making it so Joe has no control over his life.
ANDREW: I see.
CNC: Still, you’re right. Convincing the masses of the superiority of the natural elite is not the most important part of our communications strategy. The central task of those wanting to turn the tide… is the “delegitimation” of the idea of democracy… [103] It is not enough to focus onspecific policies or personalities… Every critic and criticism deserving of support must proceed to explain each and every particular government failing as an underlying flaw in the very idea of government itself (and of democratic government in particular). [94]
It's been my position that the idea of delegitimizing government is dangerous to democracy. Little did I know that that is exactly the point.
