Conservatives discover “Ron Paul plot.”

For some years we have been hearing about the New Hampshire Free State Project, which aims to persuade liberty lovers to move to that state. Its aims are stated here:

Their mission statement says:

The Free State Project is an agreement among 20,000 pro-liberty activists to move to New Hampshire, where they will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property. The success of the Project would likely entail reductions in taxation and regulation, reforms at all levels of government, to expand individual rights and free markets, and a restoration of constitutional federalism, demonstrating the benefits of liberty to the rest of the nation and the world.

National Journal has picked up on it and published a report, in which it notes that Ron Paul can expect to gain some traction there in the primaries, if he stands.

Social Conservatives, who have a tendency to see themselves as the heart of the Republican Party tend to view libertarians and the Tea Party with deep misgivings, and are concerned about what they see as a libertarian or Paulist plot to hijack the election. The fact is that the FSP has been going for around ten years and long before Paul stood for President, unless you count 1988 in which he stood for the Libertarian Party.

There are only around 1000 free staters who have moved there, and 10,000 who have committed to do so within five years if 20,000 people commit to doing so, which indicates that with those numbers they will at best be a support group for his campaign, if he stands. Ron would probably approve of the project, but I have yet to see any evidence that he is directly involved in it.

SoCons tend to be alarmed and irritated at the massive and enthusiastic support Ron gets from young people, and do not understand it. What they fail to realize is that big government is oppressive and based on the illogical assumption that the state is there to rule the people rather than merely protect their rights to be free and do what they like, free from coercion. Ron Paul is a straight talker, (which is also a factor,) who exemplifies this.

There is really little other than this to understand, the man is 77 years old, and it is not about young chicks having the hots for him. Their enthusiasm is in some ways a double-edged sword. Their tendency to rally supporters to even the scent of a straw poll may give a great deal of encouragement to supporters, to the eternal angst of the organizers of these, causes him to win them. Unfortunately though, these false results tend to cause unrealistic expectations.

It would be a great thing to see a strong showing for Ron in New Hampshire, as that would be a great encouragement to some of the new candidates in the field this time around, and might convince some of the repeat performers who couldn’t beat McCain last time that they are flogging a dead horse.