New Hampshire Begins Open-Data Efforts 164
Plugh writes "The Free State Project was created to move 20,000 small-government activists to New Hampshire (here's the Slashdot story from 2002). IT people, with our ability to work anywhere, were some of the first to move. Now, with over a dozen Free Staters elected to the NH legislature, these geeks are starting to affect government data-sharing policy."
Free Staters? (Score:5, Informative)
I remember a quote about them, something like "they confuse freedom for corporations with freedom for people". Corporations aren't people, and so the tax rate for corporations (one of the reasons to pick New Hampshire I think) should be either irrelevant, or, a place with high taxes for corporations should be better (if it translates to lower taxes for real people).
Ahem, back on topic:
I think it is wonderful that at least one government is providing information in open formats (ahem, 'nerd-friendly, "pipe-separated" files'). I can't see the connection though between the "New Hampshire Liberty Alliance" (the group that seems to promoted the change according to the article), and the Free Staters.
Indeed, The Free State website [freestateproject.org] says:
Re:Free Staters? (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, some Free Staters are working to explicitly rule that corporations are not people:
HCR1 - establishing that human beings, not corporations, are entitled to constitutional rights [nhliberty.org]
I say "some" because while all Free-Staters agree with the general goal of reducing the size and scope of government, the specifics and tactics differ widely.
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In fact, some Free Staters are working to explicitly rule that corporations are not people:
HCR1 - establishing that human beings, not corporations, are entitled to constitutional rights
I have a big problem with that bill, "In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eleven". Now that may sound like a trivial objection but I still recall having a ruler forcefully applied to one of my hands for not reciting the pledge of allegiance with "Under God" in a public elementary school.
Falcon
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That's boilerplate, of course, and not related to the bill itself or any particular bill.
"In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eleven" does not need to be there, the only reason it would be there today is because someone wants to force their religion on others.
Falcon
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Corporations don't pay taxes, their customers do. And with corporate tax rates at 0%, consumers end up spending much less for the things they need and businesses find it easier to expand and hire more employees.
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Wrong. Corporations pay taxes (on profits). I know, it's a cute (and completely false) thing to claim that corporate taxes are passed on to customers, and therefore consumers actually pay the corporation taxes. That is nonsense circumloqution, though: we could just as easily say that my employer pays my income tax, or that all taxes are paid by miners, lumberjacks, and others who take resources directly out of the ground. All of those arguments would be nonsense.
If corporate taxes were zero, then other tax
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Corporations don't pay taxes, their customers do. And with corporate tax rates at 0%, consumers end up spending much less for the things they need and businesses find it easier to expand and hire more employees.
If corporations pay no income tax but people do corporations get a free ride. Sole Proprietorships and Partnerships also hire employees yet their owners still have to pay income tax. Not only do owners have to pay tax they are also financially liable, for instance in case of an accident, whereas stock holders are not. The first corporations granted charters were given charters just because of this. The British East India Company [wikipedia.org] was granted a charter in 1600 [answers.com] and the Dutch East India Company [wikipedia.org] was grante
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Reading comprehension FAIL on your part. Corporations simply pass the cost of taxes on to their customers. You could set the tax rate on corporations at 100%, all it would do is push the costs for goods and services up by a comparable amount, forcing consumers to spend more.
Reading comprehension FAIL on your part. (Score:2)
You've got that wrong, reading comprehension on your part -100%.
Just to try to educate you and improve your comprehension, all businesses pass on the cost of taxes, but by giving corporations limited liability you're giving them an unfair advantage against other forms of business ownership.
Maybe now you understand, but I doubt it.
Falcon
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So what's to stop any business owner from incorporating their business? NOTHING. Only a fool would not do so, in the first place. So if you're arguing that fools are at a competitive disadvantage, then yeah, I can't disagree with you there.
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So what's to stop any business owner from incorporating their business? NOTHING.
Nothing? Nothing but state laws. Each state [quickmba.com] makes their own requirements corporations have to meet. Some states do not allow all of a corporation's stock to be owned by one person. Some states require corporations to have 3 executives. Other states have other requirements. There are also disadvantages [allbusiness.com] to corporate forms of business. Of course you can register an offshore corporation [offshore-companies.co.uk] but they have their own disadvantages.
So before you make a fool of yourself again research what you will post about before
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A Corporation is not capable of spending money for consumption purposes, only the individuals who make up the corporation are, so why tax the entity at all?
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A Corporation is not capable of spending money for consumption purposes, only the individuals who make up the corporation are, so why tax the entity at all?
Because corporations have an unfair advantage over other forms of business ownership. Say two businesses have their roofs collapse because of the weight of the snow on the roof, which has happened a number of tymes recently, and employees are injured. Say some are even killed. One was owned by a corporation and the other was owned by you, as a Sole pr [wikipedia.org]
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I think it is wonderful that at least one government is providing information in open formats (ahem, 'nerd-friendly, "pipe-separated" files'). I can't see the connection though between the "New Hampshire Liberty Alliance" (the group that seems to promoted the change according to the article), and the Free Staters.
The New Hampshire Liberty Alliance [nhliberty.org] is about preserving and expanding liberty. The Free State Project is about getting enough people who care about liberty to move to New Hampshire and run as a candidate or vote for a candidate who will cast votes to hold up liberty. The initial hope was that enough people would move there to impact politics there. While there may not be any official connection between the two organizations they may share members. I'd be surprised of they didn't.
I thought of moving there
Re:Free Staters? (Score:5, Insightful)
Less true with each passing day.
In fact, it is possible and plausible that we'll have many billion dollar corporation with less than a dozen employees within the next 10 years.
It's called "capital intensive". Lots of machines and automated processes. A few short term jobs setting it up. Some slave wage offshore labor.
But otherwise a nearly pure pump of wealth from the mass market into the hands of a few people. Even out of that dozen, probably half of them will just make "good" salaries while almost all the benefit of the corporation is gained by a few people.
That's really the pattern now. Multi billion dollar corporations where most of the profits go to a few employees-- not even to the shareholders.
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That's really the pattern now. Multi billion dollar corporations where most of the profits go to a few employees-- not even to the shareholders.
[Citation needed]
No, seriously, if this is not just an occasional occurrence but in fact "the pattern" now, can you cite multiple examples of this, where the majority of profits - not equity but profits as you say - goes to a few employees and not the shareholders?
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Oprah, Tiger Woods, JK Rowling, Tom Cruise
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And yet, it is as the GP poster said: The majority of profits going to a few on top.
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I said both.
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thanks.
Wish I could have found those private companies
FYI, right now robots that can do simple human labor 24 hours a day currently run $15,000 a year. That's pretty low.
Diapers.com is using "hundreds" of warehouse robots. I've read articles where other companies have bought a couple dozen.
My billion dollar company has not had a human receptionist for 8 years.
I think somehow this is a tax issue. I'm just not sure where or how to phrase the taxes.
I mean, it would be great to have a billion dollar profit
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How about this? Eliminate all taxes on income, individual or corporate. Place taxes on assets and capital appropriate to cover the costs of the government (we aren't looking for behavior modification). Eliminate the rules and fees that make hiring people such a chore, like Social Security, Medicare taxes, and minimum wage. Simplify excessively bureaucratic or complex regulation. This removes the perverse incentive to invest in capital rather than hire more people.
Well the claim is that people would then tak
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Bankers?
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CHK
$953M net income.
$113M Compensation to CEO (salary $975k, base compensation 18M)
$?50M Compensation to COO (Salary, ???, base compensation 9M so 50M total?)
$?50M Compensation to roughly a dozen more executives (Base compensation about $4 million each for those with a visible base compensation).
1% Dividend to shareholders ($0.075 share)
-20% to -50% Return to Shareholders over the last 5 years
(There is a return from 6 years ago.. but no net return from 1996-1997 when it was at the same price).
Most of the re
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The rest are private companies... hard to dig out .. but from the recent census..
There were 17M companies with no employees which produced 770B income.
Limiting it to companies with 10-19 employees or less was 1.8 trillion dollars.
companies with 500 or more employees only totaled 2.3 trillion.
and then this...
http://sierravoices.com/2011/02/terrifying-truth-american-business-no-longer-needs-american-workers/ [sierravoices.com]
But even that article misses the basic premise.
Diapers.com, instead of having 400 workers has 89 worke
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Yes, and nations ruled by dictators are made up of people, too, but that doesn't mean the "decisions" of the nation reflect what the common people want.
Corporations are not organizations of equal members. Their decisions are made by upper management. This means they reflect the business interests of the rich and serve to perpetuate the corporation. In fact, the whole reason unions exist is so that the common employee can
Re:Free Staters? Separation of State and Dogma.... (Score:2)
‘Separation of State and Dogma...’ was (I believe) the intention of the USA Founding Fathers and Authors of The USA Constitution.
Political, religion, corporate dogma (script-beliefs) must be kept separated from ever becoming governance of The People by the leading plutocrat/oligarch of a special-interest dogma (Tokemata, Falwell, Jim Jones, Pope, Hitler, Stalin, Ms Mao, C*Os, Democrats, Republicans).
‘Organizations of unequal membership are carelessly dogmatic. Professionally trained dogma
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So what? They're also voluntary organizations which means that a) they have to pay you in order to keep you, and b) you can leave at any time, if you don't like what's going on.
No, because they control the access to a scarce resource. Jobs.
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Corporations are made up of people... just thought you might like to know.
People who, when acting under the aegis of the corporation, have certain powers and privileges which they do not have when acting as individuals. We, the people, grant these powers and privileges conditional on good behavior, and have both the right and the duty to revoke them when the people exercising them break the rules. The rights of the individuals who make up the corporations are in no way affected by this.
Short version: corporations aren't people, and it's damn well time we stopped acting as thou
Made of people (Score:2)
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Corporations are made up of people... just thought you might like to know.
Not true. In a legal sense, corporations are independent entities; in most jurisdictions the only "person" requirement is that the company have a Director and Secretary, and often these can be the same person. That person is often a lawyer acting on behalf of other corporations, and he is contractually obligated to not have any free will to make any decisions on behalf of the corporation. These corporations may employ no one, and exist physically only as "brass plates" [bbc.co.uk] at the lawyer's place of work or post
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corporations might be just like soylent green, but they're also a real-world artificial life that operates on algorithms that are at times profoundly indifferent to human welfare (at best) and even actively inimical to our welfare. they are not our friends, or our pets, or even our servants, they are a competing (artificial) life form. they use loopholes in our legal and financial "operating systems" to serve their own interests, not ours (and those interests include entrenching those loopholes and creati
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But a corporation acts in its own interest, for the sole goal of producing wealth. It may actively undermine the peripheral interests of its shareholders or employees, so long as it generates a return on their investment.
Between two individuals who have inherent rights. Arguably, marriage and its recognition is a human right and thus not a valid comparison.
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Corporations are simply groups of individuals who freely enter into an agreement. A marriage is a corporation of sorts,...
Um, no. "Corporation" is explicitly defined in law. If you have been registered with the government as a corporation, you are a corporation. Otherwise, you're not. There is no informal sense of the word. Is your marriage a legally recognized third person that shields you and your spouse from any debts incurred by the "marriage" person? Then it is nothing like a corporation.
New Hampshire
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In the southern areas (Manchester, Nashua, Portsmouth), where a vast majority of the population actually lives, it's no more cold than any other New England state. In fact, in the Nashua area, winters tend to be slightly milder than our neighbors in central Massachusetts to the south, largely due to the way the weather systems flows through & around the mountains here.
OH NOES. TEH MOUNTAINS, THEY DESTROY BUSINESSES. I guess California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Colorado, and the
Re:Free Staters? (Score:4, Insightful)
What nonsense. That's like saying everyone who lives under a dictatorship approves of the leadership because they could've emmigrated elsewhere. Corporations reflect the attitudes and desires of the upper management and the stockholders. If corporations were merely an agreement between equals then there should be no such thing as unions. Unions exist to protect the 'common employee' against the upper management, which is another way of saying that they know their interests are not always aligned.
"New Hampshire actually still has the highest business tax rate in the nation [watchdog.org], which is what's keeping it from being the wealthiest place in the world"
So, what you're saying is that New Hampshire has the highest business tax in the US, and the fact that it's the 6th richest state in the US is a complete mystery to you because it "should be" the 50th richest state based on having the highest corporate tax?
* Source: http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/28/real_estate/wealthiest_states/index.htm [cnn.com]
Re:Free Staters? (Score:4, Interesting)
Corporations are simply groups of individuals who freely enter into an agreement.
If you truly believe that's all corporations are, you are too ignorant to have a meaningful opinion on the subject. People acting as agents of a corporation do not act solely "on the basis of their rights as individuals," and anyone who pays any attention at all is well aware of this fact. Now, if the people of New Hampshire decide to stand up for themselves and start granting corporate charters which grant only the same powers and privileges as those possessed by any married couple or "charity, club, community Web-site, etc.", I'll cheer them on ... but I'm reasonably sure that weak-minded propagandists like you won't be the ones to do it.
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Corporations are simply groups of individuals who freely enter into an agreement.
Well, sort of. Corporations are legal agreements whereby a group of people are given exemptions from legal responsibility for their actions as a group, in order to promote business ventures. But, since anyone who passed Ethics 101 knows that responsibilities and rights are linked, the removal of one should naturally lead to the removal of the other. When a group of people form a corporation and that corporation does something negligent and people die, we don't throw all the shareholders into prison. Since t
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I can agree to this, there are certainly abuses in the current setup for corporations that could be resolved by closing loopholes in the tax and legal code that allow the abuses to continue.
Impractical and misguided, without sweeping tax overhauls. You have a janitor who makes $18 an hour, and a CEO who makes $5 million a year. What's your corporate tax rate?
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with the express purpose of shielding these people from losing everything they own in event of their business failure.
Which is unfair to others.
Corporations are no more evil and dehumanizing than any human organizations, including governments, political parties, ideology activist groups, etc.
Actually because of the law, which treats them specially, they are. In particular, they insulate many people from risk that they should be responsible for and distorts the market. Risk doesn't just simply disappear,
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Corporations are neither created nor run by robots or space aliens or zombies. They are created and run by people, with the express purpose of shielding these people from losing everything they own in event of their business failure. Corporations are merely a legal device for lowering risk of entrepreneurial activities by people.
Corporate shield suffers from the same problem as anonymity on the Net, and for the same reasons - it brings out the jerk, or worse, the sociopath in the person, as they do not suffer consequences for their decisions.
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Which makes them free to cause as much destruction as they please. After all, your tax dollars [wikipedia.org] will clean up after them.
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You remind me of Al Franken as the chemical company spokesman on an old SNL skit. "Here you are, enjoy this nice, refreshing glass of H2SO4!"
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where's the harm in that? it's got H2 and O in it!
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Corporations are neither created nor run by robots or space aliens or zombies. They are created and run by people
So are governments, but that doesn't stop people from complaining about the absolute evil that is government.
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Corporations are merely a legal device for lowering risk of entrepreneurial activities by people.
And regulations are merely a legal device for lowing the risk to the rest of us from the agency issues created by corporate officers being shielded from the free market by the nanny state.
I have no beef with corporations--I own one myself. But I have a big problem with people who claim that corporations ought to be unregulated, when in a free market no corporations would exist.
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There is only one race. We call that race "Earthlings".
Grasshoppers, tigers, you and I, all of us, share a common fate, a common home. All of our survivals are intertwined.
When you start looking at yourself as seperate and express a will to put your group above the rest, you have become the enemy of the rest of the world.
My money is on the rest of us and I beg you to reconsider your position on this issue of "
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Labor unions have a history of extortion, bribery, arson, murder, and a host of other nasty behaviors.
Such as picket lines.
Opposing labor unions is a sign of bravery, civility and free thinking.
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Opposing labor unions is a sign of bravery, civility and free thinking.
So is being a member of a union, but I see your point.
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And businesses had as big of a history of violent, extortionist behaviors as well. Its why unions were formed in the first place.
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"I'm sure you realize that your "real choice" is just racist bullshit ..."
"American Third Position Party ... defines its principal mission as representing the political interests of White Americans."
OMG! RACISM!!!!!! :-0
We have the NAACP which represents the interests of African Americans. The National Council of La Raza (The Race) represents the interests of Hispanic Americans. You can find a thousand other organizations large and small specifically representing other races and ethnicities. We call al
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Actually, I think relative to the makeup of NH, the makeup of FSP movers is roughly the same. We have plenty of 'minority' participants. In fact, compared to pretty much any Libertarian convention or gathering, we have FAR more women involved in the FSP. If you are a geek woman with libertarian tendencies, you will still have your choice of menfolk here, and yet have a large group of like-minded women to hang out and be friends with - you won't be a rare 1% (the usual mix in libertarian circles), more li
Small government? (Score:2)
In New Hampshire they'll still be living under the large federal government. If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether. Although they won't find many first-world countries where the government isn't significantly involved in the regulating society and running public services.
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Well, there's always the option of secession. Remember, New Hampshire shares a border with Canada, and has coastal access to the Atlantic ocean. It could do very nicely for itself as a small nation in it's own right. I believe those were some of the reasons the Free State Project chose it.
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He said -
Although they won't find many first-world countries where the government isn't significantly involved in the regulating society and running public services.
You said -
Well, there's always the option of secession.
I say -
~~~Woosh~~~
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He also said
If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether.
Which was the point I was responding to.
Whoosh, yourself.
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The point he made is that you could, if you want to live in Somalia, for example, which is apparently a libertarian paradise.
Selective cognition is selective.
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The point he made is that you could, if you want to live in Somalia, for example, which is apparently a libertarian paradise.
Secession? (Score:3)
Some Free-Staters (again, not all) actually have been working hard on the notion of State Sovereignty; see the FSP page [freestateproject.org] on this topic.
Also, a new bill has been introduced this session:
HCR19 - Affirming States' powers based on the Constitution for the United States and the Constitution of New Hampshire. [nhliberty.org]
There are also a few bills in play this session asserting the NH manufacturing shall not be regulated by the federal government. Longshots? Well, with over a dozen Free-Staters elected to the NH House of Rep
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Some Free-Staters (again, not all) actually have been working hard on the notion of State Sovereignty; see the FSP page [freestateproject.org] on this topic.
Also, a new bill has been introduced this session:
HCR19 - Affirming States' powers based on the Constitution for the United States and the Constitution of New Hampshire. [nhliberty.org]
There are also a few bills in play this session asserting the NH manufacturing shall not be regulated by the federal government. Longshots? Well, with over a dozen Free-Staters elected to the NH House of Representatives, maybe less long-shot than in other states....
Or even http://www.nhliberty.org/bills/view/2011/HB324 [nhliberty.org] which is having a hearing today.
AN ACT relative to lawful commerce in goods and services sold, made, and retained in the state of New Hampshire.
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No, it's not currently a realistic option in the United States of America. OTOH, nothing last forever, including large powerful nations. See "Soviet Union" for example. Six months earlier, not much of anyone expected their breakup, either.
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I'm not sure invading a seceding state would be politically viable for the federal government. Its entire legitimacy comes from the fact that it governs with the consent of the governed. You describe it as a fantasy, but it's a very common fantasy. Even among people who have no desire to secede from the USA, they like the comforting belief that they could, if they wanted to, and that they are only staying part of the USA because they choose to. Can you imagine the uproar if Fox News and CNN are showing
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The states nullified the Real ID act which shows that it works if the people are politically active enough in their states
In point of fact - Free State Project early movers were largely behind NH nullifying Real ID. The other states followed NH's lead.
Nullifying RealID is a point of pride in the NH legislator and you hear them refer to it over and over again in committee hearings.
Now pardon me, I've got to get back to work writing Drupal Feeds plugins to parse that nerd friendly data dump so citizens can get cell phone alerts for every move their Representatives make. With their reps email and cell phone number, of course.
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NH has two large airports (Manchester and Portsmouth [and several smaller ones]), a power plant (Seabrook), and is not likely to be attacked on it's on if it adopts a foreign policy of non-interventionism and free trade (you know, like America was INTENDED to) - in addition we see $0.71 worth of services for every dollar we ship to DC, 47th out of 50 in the country (source: Federal Spending Received Per Dollar of Taxes Paid by State, 2005 - http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html [taxfoundation.org]) - we no longer
Re:Small government? (Score:4, Funny)
The GAME. Those assholes have been looking for something, anything, to bring back to Quebec City for years. And you know what? If New Hampshire secedes, the Quebecois are coming. They're marching straight down the I-93, trashing Concord, and laying over in Manchester. The airport? Nope. The Manchester Monarchs. Bingo. Is the Republic of New Hampshire prepared to defend the Monarchs franchise? I think not, and now you have the best AHL action this side of Glens Falls going up North to the Democratic People's Republic of Quebec. Now you've fucking done it.
So the Monarchs are gone, and we've been driven back into Northeast Delta Dental Stadium - if it's even called that, since a fine organization like Delta Dental might not want to do business with a brand new foreign country. After all, we'd have no credit rating. Anyway, the Monarchs are gone and our problems are just beginning. After all, the LA Kings franchise trusted us to develop and guard that team. Implicitly, we agreed that their AHL affiliate would not just up and go to Quebec. And LA has a lot of firepower, as well as the ability to overwhelm us in other ways - Anze Kopitar, Paris Hilton, gangs whose names with which I am not familiar.
So New Hampshire wants to secede, huh? Are you willing to risk Quebec becoming independent, stealing the Manchester Monarchs, and triggering war with LA over that? I thought not. The Fisher Cats just aren't that good.
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They can have the Monarchs (who play in the Verizon Wireless Arena), the University of New Hampshire Wildcats are better anyways.
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How much of New Hampshire's economy relies on it being part of the United States?
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Do the satellites still trade with Russia?
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In New Hampshire they'll still be living under the large federal government. If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether.
Why should those who believe what the USA's Founding Fathers believed be forced to leave because others have mangled the Constitution Of the USA? Because socialists and other big government types say they have to?
Falcon
Scraper (Score:2)
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The scraper used by the NHLA (referred to in the original article) is homebrewed for NH's website. It's actually in it's 3rd generation of code, and powers a complete bill review system, used by the pro-liberty activists to track all 800+ bills each year. See nhliberty.org
There are other scrapers out there... I just came across a site the other day that attempts to scrape and track all 50 states worth of legislation (I won't plug them though), and had a few nice features (like facebook and twitter linkage
An outcome of the Free State Project? (Score:2)
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In an case, the Free State Project does not officially support or propose legislation. Representative Seth Cohn is the primary sponsor of the bill. He is a Free State Project participant. (See here http://freestatenow.com/ [freestatenow.com]).
Re:An outcome of the Free State Project? (Score:4, Funny)
What he said. Of course, what do I know, I'm only the guy he's talked about, and sponsor of the legislation?
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An elected Representative posts on Slashdot (with a five-digit UID, no less!) Maybe New Hampshire is calling my name, after all.
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As mentioned in my sorta-sibling post, the wonderful thing about NH's state government is that the legislature in particular is made up of motivated ordinary people rather than professional politicians. The entire professional political class in NH generally consists of:
1. The governor.
2. 2 US senators and 2 US representatives.
3. 5 executive council members (a check on the power of the governor).
4. 24 state senators, who generally also hold other jobs.
5. A few mayors in major cities like Manchester and Nash
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Yes, I have a 5 digit UID, and remember a time before the endless September. I was (in part) responsible for the SPISPOPD cheat code in Doom. Ich bin ein Nerd.
Re:An outcome of the Free State Project? (Score:4, Informative)
As someone born and raised in NH, this probably has very little to do with the Free State Project. There a bunch of other reasons NH would implement this kind of thing:
* The Republican base in NH are generally very libertarian-leaning. That's a major reason why the Free Staters picked NH as the place to go in the first place.
* The NH Democrats agree with the Republicans on personal liberty issues and ensuring that the citizens control the government rather than the other way around.
* The state takes great pride in its citizen legislature, and there's very few professional politicians. To give you an idea, the Speaker of the NH house spends a lot of her time running a day care center, and another state rep works as an elevator operator. Each rep only represents about 3000 constituents. That means they really need to listen to even small groups of citizens.
* The longtime secretary of the state of NH, Bill Gardner, is probably one of the most non-partisan public officials in the country. He has a well-deserved reputation for fairness and competence, and as a result has been kept in office despite several changes in both the legislative majority and the governor's party affiliation. He knows a good idea when he sees one, and has a lot of trust from both Republicans and Democrats, so if he supports a good common-sense proposal it's likely to get implemented.
The state has its flaws, but its state government is very responsive to good ideas.
Re:An outcome of the Free State Project? (Score:4, Informative)
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In a lot of state legislatures, 2 reps with a good idea go nowhere. For comparison's sake, in Texas they're too busy playing chicken with the state budget to get anything done. In Rhode Island, most state official's primary concern is ensuring that there's a high-paying job for their no-good brother-in-law. In California, the ballot initiatives mean that there's absolutely no way to balance the budget within the bounds of the state constitution.
Kudos to you (assuming you were one of the two reps), I'm just
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I was not one of the reps in question -- though one of the two (Seth) has posted on this thread.
And the NH Constitution is pretty amazing. Among other things, they hard-coded [nh.gov] the elected legislators' salary at $200/biennium. So it would take a constitutional amendment to raise the politician's salary. Ain't gonna happen. I love it!!
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Texas they're too busy playing chicken with the state budget to get anything done.
As an ex-NH resident, and now a resident of Texass, I would like to point out they are also passing emergency bills having to do with requiring photo ID to vote, "santuary cities", and requiring women who need abortions to see/hear the fetus before the abortion.
Nothing will actually get done on the budget until a special session is called after the normal legislative session expires. That is the way it is in Texass, the politi
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Even within New Hampshire, you hardly ever hear about the Free State project. They were completely inconsequential in the recent election, even though the statehouse ended up packed with small-government Republicans. About the only thing anyone's heard from them lately were some ornery demonstrations [concordmonitor.com] to legalize marijuana [wikipedia.org].
The Sponsor speaks... (Score:4, Informative)
Glad to see Slashdot pick this up...
The actual bills:
Open Data: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2011/HB0310.html [state.nh.us]
Open Source: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2011/HB0418.html [state.nh.us]
I'd love to see this legislation copied in every state... patches are welcomed, btw. I can't grant commit access, but bug reports are always welcomed.
I'd also be glad to answer questions, if anyone has any.
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On the Open Data bill:
Section 3-I-g: Non-proprietary -- This one gives me some issues.
First, a data format that is an ANSI, ISO or IEEE standard technically is under the control of a single entity. The standards body is a single entity, even though the body may have members from other organizations. You might want to clarify to explicitly mention national (ANSI) or international (ISO, IEEE) published standards.
Section 3-I-h: License-free -- it says the DATA must be license-free, not the format. An exampl
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Good points, I'll try and clarify those better.
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While focusing mostly on Federal Government, you might want to get in touch with Open Source for America [opensourceforamerica.org].
Also: approval voting (Score:2)
A reminder that New Hampshire is also considering approval voting [slashdot.org]. Is this a result of the same geek culture?
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A reminder that New Hampshire is also considering approval voting [slashdot.org]
That is one of the Condorcet methods [wikipedia.org] of voting.
Falcon
their motto was prescient (Score:2)
live_free() or die();
BREAKING NEWS!!! (Score:2)
One of the Free State project members (at least, I think he's an FSPer) just posted an RSS feed from the State's data, and pulled it into this Facebook [facebook.com].
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So you're saying law is not government? (Score:3)
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Good luck with your economy when there is no civil or criminal law relating to it.
Because reducing the extent of government power in society can mean only one thing: complete elimination of all government presence and the dissolution of the society into anarchy. I hope you do realize there is a huge false dilemma here?
Just because the US has a regulation banning the sale of incandescent lightbulbs past the year 2014 or so, IIRC, doesn't mean that if we got rid of that regulation, then there'd be no civil or criminal law left.
Countries with no tradition of Government-made and enforced civil law - China, Iran
That's nonsense. They have a long history, going back at lea
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Yeah! Government shouldn't be in the economy! It should be left free, so people on Wall Street can do whatever they want! Bond issuers cherry-picking ratings organizations based on who would give them the best rating, regardless of the actual quality of the bond! Credit Default Swaps! Betting against your investors!
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Texas has a sales tax over 6%. Looking at your article, it seems that a large part of Texas's problem is social welfare programs. It is ironic that you chose the word "working", it's precisely those who don't work that are "society"'s problem.
In the 1950's, Connecticut had no income tax and a sales tax of only 3%, and had no budget problem. High taxes aren't needed to keep a place pleasant and civil, high taxes encourage people to try to grab some of the booty rather than work.
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Yeah. They just had to take a shitload of federal funding.