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As I circulated around Grafton with a pen and journalist’s notebook, I came to know several residents, among them: Jessica Soule, a Vietnam-era veteran who became an acolyte of the controversial Reverend Sun Myung Moon;
A Moonie
Babiarz was shot once, not during his tenure with the US Air Force, but in his own front yard. A confused pheasant hunter shot him in the ass.
Soule’s village, centered on Wild Meadow Road, is called Bungtown, named for one or more barrel bungs that once popped out during a carriage transport and spilled a remarkable amount of alcohol onto the roadway.
Their first order of business was to completely ignore centuries of traditional Abenaki law by purchasing land from founding father John Hancock and other speculators. Hancock had bought the land from King George III. King George had gotten it from God.
But, coding aside, Babiarz belonged to a group of people who outdo even traders in their fidelity to logic: libertarians. Libertarians have a vision for America that includes lots of personal freedom, very little government, and a pure marketplace that will sort out societal problems like climate change, education inequality, and rising health care costs. Rather than religious values or a belief in a moral obligation to help the vulnerable, libertarians believe in rationalism. A 2012 research analysis of the personality differences between Republicans, Democrats, and libertarians found that
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Now I'm curious about that research and how they tested and defined things. And how, say, MLMs and ancoms would compare.
AFTER A STINT in Vermont, the Babiarzes quickly realized that New Hampshire was a better bet for those who wanted to “Live Free or Die”—a state motto so beloved that, in the 1970s, when a Jehovah’s Witness covered up the words “or Die” on his license plate because they offended his religious sensibilities, the state jailed him.
You can't do that because freedom!
One of the pernicious obstacles to the growth of the party has been its commitment to following logic chains into whatever dark place they lead, regardless of social mores. That’s why, in one true sense, the philosophy is deeply ingrained with America’s founding principles but, in an equally true sense, still engenders earnest debates over whether consensual cannibalism should be legal.
Many libertarians feel a deep kinship with America’s early days, which they view as a utopian golden age when government was small and people lived freely. The connection with that halcyon era felt particularly strong as they drove along, swapping stories of freedom. Just like the founding fathers, they tended to keep firearms within easy reach and were acutely aware of personal rights. And just like the founding fathers, they intended to father a new founding.
Oh, and also, Pendarvis sought to assert the right to traffic organs, the right to hold duels, and the God-given, underappreciated right to organize so-called bum fights, in which people who are homeless or otherwise indigent are paid small amounts of money to engage in fisticuffs. Logic is a strange thing.
So freedom for some, small American flags for others
In a country known for fussy states with streaks of independence, New Hampshire is among the fussiest and the streakiest. It’s one of only five states with no sales tax, one of two states that limit the governor to two-year terms, and the only state in New England that still allows the death penalty. (No one has been executed since 1939, but they like to keep their options open.)
It’s not clear whether, at this point, the Babiarzes fully understood that the libertarians were operating under vampire rules—the invitation to enter, once offered, could not be rescinded.
In much the same way Englishmen had once crashed through the bramble of what they thought was a New World, they were actually inserting themselves into a long-established community of natives who regarded them not as benign colonists, or liberators, but as invaders.
Libertarians are Manifest Destiny incarnate
One big problem was the Pendarvis website—when he called for Free Towners to overwhelm the “Authoritarians and Statists,” his strident tone was a rallying cry for devoted libertarians, and when it came to building bridges in the community… let’s just say it wasn’t helpful. Speaking for the project, Pendarvis explicitly said that Free Towners would overwhelm the “Authoritarians and Statists.” In libertarian circles, calling someone a “statist”—one who prefers a large and active government—is a real insult, one that ranks right up there with “racist” in its ability to provoke heated defenses.
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“I never knew till that point how Hitler could get people all riled up to support him in war,” John would later say. He called it a mob mentality. “It was interesting, because it was all emotion-based. Logic and reason was out the door.”
Yikes at Hitler comparisons
New England’s Eastern Gray Tree Frog, on the other hand, can survive being frozen nearly solid; all winter its organs sit like tiny hunks of beef jerky in an icy slurry of body fluids.
From a statistical standpoint, you’re more likely to suffocate in a giant vat of corn than be injured by a bear.
Kilham has seen more of the inner workings of bear life than anyone. In the book, his vivid description of their intricate society suggests that bears are even smarter than sign language–savvy apes.
I hate this assumption that gorillas that use signs are using a signed language. They are not. Signed languages have syntax and many movements other than hand shapes. Gorillas are using signs for concrete nouns and words like "eat" and "sleep." They are not conversing in ASL
“I personally, as a big fan of Native American studies, a little Native American blood in me and everything else, I’d like to get to that level,” he says.
Sure *eyeroll*
Franz believes that people who openly carry their guns undercut the very rights they’re trying to protect. It makes him furious (though, to be fair, so do a lot of other things). “These assholes,” he rants, “these idiots who walk around open-carry, when there’s no reason to be open-carrying. You’re making people uncomfortable. You’re making them anti-gun. You’re making them vote against guns. You’re costing us our fucking gun rights. You’re not being responsible. You think you’re a fucking cowboy who likes to walk around with a gun on his hip because it makes you feel like you’ve got a big
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I kind of agree here.
“The libertarian movement is more cerebral, if you will,” he said. “They lack the ability to deal with people at the human level.” And indeed, the same psychological study that found libertarians to be more logical than Democrats or Republicans also found that they are less socially connected and loving. “Libertarians have a lower degree of the broad social connection that typifies liberals as well as a lower degree of the tight social connections that typify conservatives,” wrote the authors, speculating that natural loners might be attracted to a political ideology that celebrates freedom.
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They were stymied in their efforts to withdraw Grafton from the regional school district, explicitly condemn The Communist Manifesto, and eliminate funding for the Grafton Public Library.
Ah public condemnation of a book with intent to ban is definitely freedom
In one notable town meeting skirmish, resident Rich Blair grew upset with the libertarians’ formal proposal to declare Grafton a “United Nations Free Zone.” Rather than simply voting against the idea, Blair submitted an amendment that replaced “United Nations” everywhere it appeared in the proposal with the name of a certain cartoon character. Thus, residents eventually voted on whether to protect the town citizenry “from taxation without representation, by forbidding the implementation within the town limits of any tax, levy, fee, assessment, surcharge, or any other financial imposition by
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Pendarvis advocated loudly for the rights of women, though he never seemed to get beyond a very narrow zone of empowerment that largely concerned itself with the right to go without bras and underwear and the right to sell sex.
His passenger, Sharon “Ivy” Ankrom, who owned the truck, was also carrying a firearm (for which she had a permit). The pair offered no public explanation for the firepower and body armor, other than to assert that it was legal under the US Constitution. Ankrom argued her traffic violations all the way to the state Supreme Court, in part on the legal theory that state requirements for a driver’s license unconstitutionally restricted her right to travel. She lost.
Tom Ploszaj, the firefighter who met a bear while hiking toward the Pinnacle, joined Free Towner Jeremy Olson and a couple of other co-plaintiffs in suing the town of Grafton for obstructing their proposals, among them: that the police chief be ordered not to enforce marijuana laws, that the licensing of dogs be abolished, and that town officials be instructed not to cooperate with the National Security Agency on anything. They lost.
Though the settler days were long gone, Grafton was clinging to those notions of personal freedom that would, one hundred years later, prove so appealing to a new generation of libertarians.
Libertarians are very into manifest destiny
Burrington didn’t know if the marauder was man, beast, or supernatural being, but she didn’t really care. Even sleepy and barefoot, she was not a shit-taker. She was a shit-kicker.
I love this passage
