Porcfest

the porcupine freedom festival

The idea of the Free State Project, started more than twenty years ago, was to persuade enough libertarians to move to one small state to shift its politics in a libertarian direction. Amazingly enough, it is working. Free Staters, libertarians who moved to New Hampshire as part of the project, are still less than one percent of the state population but libertarians are now, by one estimate, about a quarter of the legislature — including, as of a year ago, the (Republican) majority leader. It turns out that since most people are interested in politics at most every four years, a small number can have a surprisingly large effect. New Hampshire is not yet a libertarian utopia but it has been visibly moving in that direction.

Part of the reason it works is that it is a social network as well as a political project. If I ever move out of California, possible but not likely, it will probably be to New Hampshire; there are thousands of people there with whom I already have a connection and a good deal in common. The FSP’s summer event, the Porcupine Freedom Festival, is the only libertarian event in the US that I regularly attend.¹

The location for Porcfest is Roger’s Campground in Lancaster, New Hampshire. Many of those attending — there were about thirteen hundred this year — are in tents or RV’s, some in a motel on the site, some in a motel about half a mile away, a few farther away. The feel is casual, friendly, vaguely hippy, with a lot of children, dogs, people cooking and selling food. It’s a friendly mix of blue and red tribe culture — vegan gluten-free brownies, bitcoin, open carry of firearms. Conversations and talks are a mix of homesteading tips (my daughter’s round table on what fruit trees grow and bear in what parts of New Hampshire drew perhaps a dozen people), interesting and intelligent libertarian arguments, nutty libertarian arguments (two talks on how you can avoid paying income tax), classes on buying land or houses in New Hampshire, a shooting class for people new to it, talks on random history, several Renaissance dance classes put on by my wife and daughter, bible study at Liberty Ecclesia (a friendly site that doesn’t mind atheists attending), beginning knitting plus a daily “stitch and bitch,” … . There was at least one real estate agent helping people buy land in New Hampshire, another listing a property in Argentina (!). It felt as though everyone was doing something, more participant than audience. Which makes sense, given that the shared characteristic of Free Staters is that they have done something — moved to New Hampshire to create an intentional community in order to bring their political ideal into existence.

The event is largely, as one might expect of libertarians, decentralized. There were two performance venues scheduled by the organizers, each seating perhaps one or two hundred, plus lots of “hubs,” typically a big tent or at least a canopy, each scheduled by whoever’s campsite it was. I gave one talk in the largest of the venues, four more at the firesteel hub, run by a friendly and helpful lady who sells fire starters and schedules talks, probably thirty or forty of them over the week. She also provided cooking equipment — she is local — for a class/demo my family did on medieval camp cooking.

The male/female ratio at most libertarian events is high, about ten to one at some of my European talks where my wife counted the audience. At Porcfest it was more like three to two, largely married couples with children. About three years ago one of the camps was selling blowguns — PVC tubing elegantly wrapped in colored tape, several different designs of 3D printed darts. The creator/entrepreneur was ten years old; it was clear from conversation with him that it was his project, not his parents’. This year he and his parents were making and selling Indian food, my dinner for several evenings.

That was the example of the Porcfest kids that first struck me but there were lots of others, kids helping out their parents or running around without their parents, selling things, playing, attending talks.

After attending Porcfest last year I came across an article by someone who had attended both Porcfest and a rationalist/techie/NY/Bay Area event and was comparing them. He also was impressed by the kids.

His comment on my debate with Gene Epstein:

I was almost laughing at the humour of it, that 100-200 cantankerous rural whites from across the country, half of them with holsters and sidearms on their hips, had just watched two 80 year old Jews animatedly and unintelligibly sperg out about the relative merits of the neoclassical theories of Irving Fisher for an hour straight²…

Then I look over and two homeschooled 16 year old blonde girls are animatedly clapping and enraptured, seemingly having followed the entire thing.

…

This was the really remarkable thing about New Hampshire and Porcfest, sure the people weren’t as impressive or as connected as the crowd at VibeCamp… but the children were almost terrifying.

All of them were skinny, healthy, and they were all hustling and running little businesses more impressively than the adults. There was the 12 year old hustling poker, there were kids doing motorcycle repair on their minibikes, countless girls running food and lemonade stands doing very brisk businesses, and a whole host more doing all kinds of things…

…

… their children are consistently MORE impressive than a mere survey of the adult human inputs would suggest. It might be the mountain air, the lack of pollution, the paranoid hippy health consciousness, the “Free Range” parenting mentality, the town kooks actually having positive effects on local policy (I wish there were this many people obsessive about the quality local governance where I am), the homeschooling, or maybe it’s just this is how autistic white people are supposed to breed, in odd migratory fertility festivals and with the attendant selection effects…

But uniquely amongst ANY community or ethnic group that isn’t 40% convicted felon, these people seem to have a successful mating profile and maybe even something approaching replacement fertility.

More than replacement, judging by the number of kids.

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1. I have also, for some years, been attending the annual European Students for Liberty convention, this year in Prague

2. Neither of us at any point mentioned Irving Fisher.