The 2013 New Hampshire Liberty Forum will be happening in a month. If you want to see about 500 libertarian types overflow the second-largest conference center in the state of New Hampshire, you’ll want to be there. I’m impressed with the speaker lineup this year, which reaches beyond traditional libertarian circles:
- Tom Woods is a keynote speaker. Popular LVMI-associated historian, bestselling author.
- Declan McCullagh – now chief political correspondent for CNET, long associated with Wired
- Jeffrey Albert Tucker – publisher of Laissez Faire Books
- Thaddeus Russell – history prof & author
- Steve Cooksey – that paleo guy in NC who was fined by the dietitian licensing board for advocating the paleo diet
- ESSAM – that NYC artist who punked the NYPD with his anti-drone artwork
- Julie Borowski – TokenLibertarianGirl
- Mike Yashko from FEE
- Aaron Day from the Atlas Society
- Lots of Bitcoin folks
I would be particularly interested to hear Jody Underwood, a Free Stater who chairs the school board in Croydon, NH. Last year she talked about their efforts to implement school choice at the town level.
Sadly, I won’t be there this year, too busy. (I will be going to the Porcupine Freedom Festival in summer, however.) Here’s the link for more information and registration.
I wish they had invited more academic libertarians to speak, like, ah, James Otteson!
Yes, every year I make that suggestion to the organizers, but they’ve gone a different direction.
Roughly speaking, what would you say is the Cosmo-vs-Paleo-vs-Anarchist split?
I’d love to see people with anarchist sympathies who, nevertheless, are not-exactly-libertarian, e.g., James C. Scott, Crispin Sartwell, A. John Simmons, Vallentyne, etc., etc.
I know for a fact that James C. Scott was invited to this year’s forum. I guess he declined, which is too bad. Would love to see the others you mention as well.
Definitions of “cosmolibertarian” differ – I always thought it meant a libertarian who was sympathetic to humanitarian intervention, but a lot of people use it to refer to “liberaltarians” or libertarians with liberal social values. Anyway, I’d say the FSP is about 50/50 anarchist/minarchist, with a very strong majority (of both camps) in the populist libertarian camp of Ron Paul. That’s where I see all the energy in the movement these days. Many fans of Judge Nap, Tom Woods, & Lew Rockwell, but also of Radley Balko & others who take a strong stand on police abuse and civil liberties. On the other hand, Cato’s work is widely respected too, and I don’t see a lot of the sectarianism between Cato/Reason and LVMI types that I have seen online.