The Free Staters no doubt are running for the proverbial Tylenol as they suffer their after-party hangover. Voters in Grafton sent a clear message to the Free Staters that their anti-government anarchism is not welcome or wanted. As reported on Wednesday, March 13th (yesterday) in the Valley News, voters in the town of Grafton roundly rejected the Free Stater attempt to take over their town by slashing their budget by 13%.
At the town deliberative session the spending cuts passed by only one vote (33-32). Those who watch the Free Staters and their antics may recall how the Free State Project adherents did everything short of dance in the streets and declare their colonization of New Hampshire near complete over this vote. Of course the natives took note and took up their ballot pens in defense of the town and culture they have built.
In other votes the town voted down the Wild Meadow Wind Farm proposed by Iberdrola, a wind turbine company out of Spain. Although this won’t stop the process of wind turbine approval, which is far more complex (involving the SEC), the town’s voters used the ballot box to express their lack of support for turbines on their highly prized ridgelines. The vote tallied 160 for the wind turbines against 366 opposed. This vote also sent a message that the town of Grafton questions the SEC approval process as it stands at this time.
Please see the full article in the Valley News for complete story. Grafton: Free Stater Bid to Slash Budget Rejected; Wind Farm Fails.
For more information on the Wild Meadow Wind Farm proposal and its argument against the value of wind power generation in New Hampshire. We encourage all people to study wind energy generation, its return for energy consumed, the negligible to zero effect on reducing greenhouse gas production and most importantly and the environmental costs that result from the infrastructure development required for wind turbine placement.
Iberdrola Wild Meadow Wind Farm Industry Summary as presented to the town of Danbury, 10/2012
Progressive Action New Hampshire 
The vote at the deliberative session meant that the two budgets on the ballot were $825,956 and $940,366 instead of $940,366 and $954,523. The article claims that the smallest of three possible budgets was “roundly rejected”, in fact, it failed by 14 votes.
There are only about 20 freestaters in Grafton so 90% of the people voting for the smallest budget were natives in keeping with New Hampshire tradition.
Also, you forgot to mention that the proposed multi-million dollar renovation of the indoctrination camp was, in fact, roundly rejected.
The “multi-milion dollar” renovation of the “indoctrination camp” is in fact what we in democracy call education. Not all towns voted against the renovation with Enfield for example voting by a very high margin to fund the school improvements, which would bring the school in line with the typical standards of most secondary educational facilities. But we know that public education isn’t a priority with the Free State Project, who just as your comments suggest, display on average an odd hostility toward education on all levels, excluding the bizarre idea of open, unregulated home schooling. In other words, its quite apparent that Free Staters have no problem with citizens having little to no education. The quality of American education is already the laughing stock of the developed world and the Free State Project adherents never fail to provide a shining example of what even the lack of a middling understanding of civics will result in.
As for the votes on the budget, your team lost, the people of Grafton know full well that funding moves things forward.
My, my, what ignorance displayed by a Regressive in NH. The problem with public education in America is precisely (1) that it is controlled by the government, government employees, and government employee unions, and (2) that it has been in the hands of political Regressives (they call themselves “progressives,” but they are the opposite of “progress”) for more than the past half-century. Now, when new, original thinking about education is needed more than ever, we have this fellow…name-calling. Always a sure sign that you can’t win the argument on facts, knowledge, or rational thinking.
Hey Tim, just so you know, education in America has been public for most of its history, no one else has ever been willing to jump up to the plate–no corporation, no mercantilists, no bankers, no entrepreneurs…no one but the public themselves. Because you see, like most ‘public services’ education isn’t a profit inducing enterprise. Its purpose does not exist to fill someone’s pockets with money, but to bring humans into a realm beyond that of clawing animals. Even the beloved Adam Smith was all for public education.
I can understand the frustration with today’s public educational system, when its fraught with having to pull funding out of selfish people who can’t see the public interest beyond their own and who could care less about anyone else but themselves.
As a result we have people who have learned through the public educational system to read, write and compute mathematics on enough of a level to at least be able to subsist, but they cannot deduce anything critically and truly are lost when it comes to the irony of their very claims against public education. Indeed, what pity.
Education would tend to lead one away from magical thinking, which is undoubtedly why the Free Staters are opposed to it.
@PANh: Greetings, PAN, and thank you for the comment. However, I think you may find that you are in serious error. The early “common schools” in America were overwhelmingly private. Only after they had become quite successful did political-class operators step in to take over control of education to benefit their preferred vehicle-to-power, government. I know, I know: We’ve all been taught in our public schools from the very beginning that education is a natural government monopoly established to “do good” for everyone. It is not. In fact, the opposite has occurred, as is the case so many areas in which the government monopoly intrudes. For alternative views, I recommend Prof. Murray Rothbard’s “Education: Free and Compulsory,” and Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld’s “Is Public Education Necessary?” Now I know that many readers on this blog will shy away from alternative views about education. But I urge you all, don’t be afraid of diversity! Especially diversity of opinion and thought, an area in which Progressives generally (and unfortunately) tend to mandate and enforce uniformity.
Tim: The problem with your “alternative views” of education is that they all involve going against the larger community’s interest, which of course is the problem with the entire Free State ideology. Our public school system is by and large very poorly run and has in fact served to indoctrinate young fragile minds with propaganda that supports the survival of the corporate-capitalist system we have today. I say, the capitalist-corporate system we have today that is slowly and increasingly more rapidly destroying our planet and has been killing us for centuries since it started in earnest with mercantilism.
I really have no interest in reading Murray Rothbard, I’m familiar with his writings which like all libertine points of view always distills down to the simple formulae: “I can do whatever I want with my money and property and if you don’t have any too bad for you.”
I’m sorry but that just doesn’t build lasting community on any level, nor does it foster human happiness, peace and all that other stuff that everyone wants so badly but can’t seem to get — because mostly around here we’re taught that being a selfish pig and leaving the social care taking to someone else works. It doesn’t.