Texans showing support for their favorite state - New Hampshire
or, They're crazy, don't the have the Weather Channel in Texas?
from AP

DALLAS - Everything's bigger in Texas, including government and taxes, according to a group of residents who want to show support for their favorite state: New Hampshire.

The Lone Star State doesn't promote enough freedom and individualism anymore, say members of the Free State Project. They say they have nothing to lose but their Texas roots.

"I would say Texas is independent, very individualist, but it seems Texas has changed in the past few years," Mark Coleman, a 35-year-old multimedia developer from Plano, told The Dallas Morning News in Monday's online edition. "Our government has gotten way too big. You think we have no income tax, but if you look at the other taxes, it's gotten way out of the control."

Yeah, when I lived there the legislature passed a law forbidding driving with an open container of alcohol. Fascists.

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Texans showing support for their favorite state - New Hampshire

Monday, January 12, 2004

AP

DALLAS - Everything's bigger in Texas, including government and taxes, according to a group of residents who want to show support for their favorite state: New Hampshire.

The Lone Star State doesn't promote enough freedom and individualism anymore, say members of the Free State Project. They say they have nothing to lose but their Texas roots.

"I would say Texas is independent, very individualist, but it seems Texas has changed in the past few years," Mark Coleman, a 35-year-old multimedia developer from Plano, told The Dallas Morning News in Monday's online edition. "Our government has gotten way too big. You think we have no income tax, but if you look at the other taxes, it's gotten way out of the control."

At least 286 Texans have pledged to move to the more libertarian state of New Hampshire, joining a group of thousands from elsewhere in the country who hope to use their influence to create the most freedom-oriented state in the Union.

Fans of the Granite State meet monthly at a Dallas steakhouse to review reasons to head for the border.

"Let's look at the past two legislative sessions and look at how many new laws they passed that restrict the freedoms of the people of Texas," said Devera Morgan, 34, of Royse City, who uses her computer skills to design the organization's monthly newsletter, The Quill. "Last session it was what - 1,800 laws? That's just unacceptable."

Morgan, a native Texan, became pregnant with her son in 1997 during an 18-month quest to live in Mississippi, but she insisted to husband Bruce that any child of hers must be born between the Red River and the Rio Grande.

"I'll move to go to a freer place," said Morgan, who intends to trek northward with her family next spring. "But I'm not thrilled about leaving Texas. This is a big deal for me."

Already, about two dozen Free Staters have made the move since Oct. 1, when New Hampshire was chosen over nine other states in mail-in balloting among members. The nominated states all had low populations and low costs to finance elections, important to a fledgling movement looking for influence.

But the only state to welcome the Free Staters outright was New Hampshire, where a 400-member House of Representatives enables each seat to represent only 3,000 residents.

"We can sit in our armchairs and complain about the world, or we can go there like people before us did and say, 'It's time for a change, and it's for us to make the change,' " Coleman said. "You just don't have the opportunity much in the world today to be part of a real political change."

Billed as effort to recruit 20,000 liberty-loving people to move to New Hampshire, project organizers estimate that it will take more than six years to reach that mark and trigger the pledges' mass movement to the Northeast.

"I think the people behind this know it's a long-term thing," said Joe Hill, an Irving resident who has yet to pledge, "that maybe it'll take 20 years to privatize the schools or whatever."

posted by prof_booty | 11:48 AM