Once upon a time in a land far, far away… That’s how fairy tales typically start. But the story you are about to read is not a fairy tale. It has no happy ending, either. And it didn’t happen long ago in a faraway land. It all actually started close to home in 2001, when a group of libertarians embarked on the so-called Free State Project (FSP). By 2005, as planned, some hundred FSP members had moved to Grafton, New Hampshire, a town so small that it didn’t even have one traffic light. 

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           New Hampshire was a state that the FSP perceived as having an individualist culture, which resonated well with their ideals. It also seemed like a logical place because it already had several weird laws, including the prohibition of picking up litter, repairing benches, or raking leaves on the beaches without a special permit issued by White Mountain National Forest. Anyone caught doing so would be fined US$150. 

           But first of all, who are libertarians? For one, they are the people who misappropriated the Gadsden flag: a coiled snake on a yellow background and a legend that says, Don’t tread on me. Libertarianism (from Latin “libertas,” or freedom) is a political philosophy that upholds individual liberty as a core value. Libertarianism prioritizes individual freedom over all other values, including some basic human rights. They believe the government is fundamentally wasteful and unnecessary, and personal autonomy takes precedence over everything else, from sexuality to education to drug use.

           Libertarians also optimistically trust that people can base all interactions on voluntary accords. They advocate allowing things if there’s no reason to forbid them. It all sounds awfully progressive and fantastic if it weren’t for the fact that it applies to humans. And, as history has repeatedly shown, for the children of the species Homo sapiens to agree on anything unanimously is a truly unworkable task. As the saying goes, if you put two people together, they will have three opinions.

           In 17^th-century Poland, the principle of liberum veto (free refusal) was a fine example of old libertarianism. It referred to the legal right of each member of the Polish parliament (Sejm) to null and void any measure under consideration by his vote alone. One vote could even dissolve the assembly and invalidate any act passed during the session. In other words, it was enough to bribe one parliamentarian to overturn any decision, which, in turn, led the legislature to achieve absolutely nothing for years on end! Or rather, it did accomplish the destruction of Poland, a once mighty nation, and its subsequent partition by Austria, Prussia, and Russia, its three neighbours. 

           Obviously, Jason Sorens, founder of the FSP, then a PhD student at Yale University, had yet to learn about Polish history. And if he did know a little bit, he didn’t learn anything from it. He arrogantly thought that FSP would become the “boldest social experiment in modern American history.” In hindsight, it was not the boldest but the weirdest, and it failed sorely. If only he had heeded the Polish experience! 

           To become a member of the FSP, people were asked to sign a Statement of Intent (SOI).

           I hereby state my solemn intent to move to the State of New Hampshire within five years after 20,000 participants have signed up. Once there, I will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of civil government is the protection of individuals’ life, liberty, and property.

           More than 20,000 people signed it quickly, although initially only a tiny proportion moved to Grafton (original population: 1,200). 

           By 2006, the project was well underway. Grafton was to become a poster town that would change the way people viewed libertarians and the concept of individual freedom. It was a town whose motto was “Live Free or Die,” whose battle cry was “Nobody tells me what to do,” and where pizza delivery boys had to obtain a warrant to enter someone’s premises. In other words, it was a libertarian utopia. 

           But it looked good on paper, just like the original Utopia described by Thomas More in his 1516 book of the same title. Alas, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and this pudding came out of the oven grossly undercooked. 

           Between 2005 and 2015, the libertarians joined forces with like-minded locals. They managed to pass a 30 percent cut in the town’s US$1 million budget, slashing spending on municipal luxuries such as streetlights, firefighting, road repairs, and bridge reconstruction. They also fired the town’s one policeman. Some brilliant ideas, such as pulling Grafton out of the local school system or declaring Grafton a “United Nations free zone,” failed. 

           They agreed to resolve all disputes through communication. You know, like people normally do before they take out their guns and shoot each other. 

           However, it took a lot of work to agree on things when roads, whose repair depends on taxes, were full of potholes, and the nonexistent streetlights led to a soaring crime rate. But above all, Grafton’s inhabitants were inherently (and unfortunately) human—even before the bears appeared!

           Lyman Tower Sargent, a US academic who studied utopias throughout his life, argues that the nature of a utopia is fundamentally contradictory because people’s desires clash and, therefore, cannot simultaneously be satisfied. If one resident wants peace and quiet while another wants to play his trumpet, that’s where the conflict begins. And with the motto “No one tells me what to do!” and no law enforcement to intervene, the battle of wills must get out of hand at some point.

           So, how do bears fit into this story? The blurb of Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling’s book titled “A Libertarian Walks into a Bear” says it all.

           “The anything-goes atmosphere soon caught the attention of Grafton’s neighbors: the bears. Freedom-loving citizens ignored hunting laws and regulations on food disposal. The bears smelled food and opportunity.” 

           Graftonites, living in their cozy woodland abodes, were practically on a first-name basis with bears and loved to swap stories about their furry encounters. While they weren’t exactly best friends,  there was no mention of open hostilities. But the bears who descended on the libertarian utopia were different. They were bold. They didn’t seem afraid of noise. At first, they just watched. Then, they started hanging out on patios in broad daylight.  Chickens and sheep started pulling a vanishing act, and household pets went missing, too. 

           Some pointed fingers at the “Doughnut Lady,” who adored “nature” to the extent that she threw regular parties for the animals on her lawn, complete with doughnuts on the menu. She was in her right, of course. Liberty is a core value, remember? It wasn’t her fault that the same bears couldn’t resist her goodies and then went on a house-hopping spree, hoping for more of the same. Instead, they were met by garbage cans sprayed with cayenne pepper, firecrackers, booby traps, or loaded guns. So they got mad. 

           Seven years after the libertarians moved in, the first ever bear attack on a human registered in Grafton’s history occurred. First, one attacked a woman in her home. Two other bear attacks took place in the area. While the three people survived, they suffered severe injuries.

           A few remaining level-headed locals proposed specific measures to reduce the bears’ impact on the town, but they failed to pass any legislation. A bill to install bear-proof protections for all trash cans, which the libertarians considered government overreach, was voted down 14-0. After all, it required money, and libertarians were dead against “unlawful” taxation.

           Soon, other misfortunes, apart from bears, fell upon Grafton. A poor town to begin with, and with tax revenue dropping and the population expanding, things got even worse. Streets in disrepair multiplied, domestic violence soared, and heating fuel for public buildings like schools and churches became scarce. 

           Fast forward less than twenty years, and the settlers finally get around to making the promised changes. But instead of turning the town into a booming success story, they ran an experiment that went so wrong it could have been a plot twist in a bad sci-fi movie. It was supposed to be the golden ticket for New Hampshire that would eventually spill over to the rest of the state. And beyond. Needless to say, it didn’t. 

           By 2020, the FSP was basically on life support. Two years later, a survey in New Hampshire revealed people barely knew it existed. And the opinions? Let’s just say they weren’t the best. Nowadays, only a few of the original settlers still hang around, and everyone else has moved on to greener pastures. Some packed their bags and headed to other towns in New Hampshire, while others threw in the towel on the whole Free State Utopia.

           According to legend, they blame the bears.

_{(Non-Fiction from The Hemlock’s Issue 6, Winter 2024)}

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