Dear Elon,
Without wanting to come across as too “boil-your-bunny-on-a-stovetop,” I’m a big fan. We share a common story. I too am from South Africa. I too was relegated to boarding school (Pretoria Girl’s High) and finished high school at 16. I too emigrated to America. In my case, after winning a Green Card in the Lottery. After having to take the California Bar Exam, I worked as in-house counsel at Apple and Logitech. I too am a crypto and Bitcoin enthusiast (I bought my first BTC for $6 and was the second person in the world to use the first bitcoin “ATM,” imagined and built right here in Manchester, the capitol of the Free State of New Hampshire). I too have big dreams (but I’m bad at math :P), and see what we are building in New Hampshire as complementary, sort of a base station of thinkers, for YOUR dreams.
Now, let’s dispel with the most confusing part first. The Free State Project in America has nothing to do with “Die Vrystaat” in South Africa. Yes, I admit, it’s kinda confusing–you should see my Google Alerts!
The Free State Project is a movement of thousands of individualists living in and moving to New Hampshire in order to build a Free State, a new, truly consent-driven society, based on voluntary exchange, free markets, and individual freedom.
We are the most successful mass-migration movement for liberty since the closing of the American frontier. We are apple-pie baking anarchists, hippies and hipsters with guns, farmers with the internet, sustainable food freedom fighters, and techies with big aspirations.
The Free State Project is a 501c3 educational nonprofit. We host a summer festival, the Porcupine Freedom Festival, AKA “PorcFest,” which attracts up to 2,000 attendees to the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. The 18th Annual Porcupine Freedom Festival will take place from June 21-27, 2021, and we would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it if you popped in! Come land a helicopter on the field!
At PorcFest, entrepreneurs run “free trade zones” where you can buy homemade ice-cream, bacon weaves, grass fed beef, BBQ, CBD products, and other goodies. Vendors accept gold, silver, barter, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, with FRNs being the least favorite mode of exchange. We encourage children to “free-range,” and to put their best entrepreneurial efforts forward. One year, a nine-year-old sold a beer to an NPR reporter. You know, it’s like that.
On the Main Stage, where you would appear, experts talk about their passions: what makes them tick, what matters to them, why? Across the campground, smaller “villages” offer workshops and informal talks on anything and everything: politics, homeschooling, cryptocurrencies, off-the-grid living, civil disobedience, energy policy, farming, etc. There are also nightly bonfires, music and bands, dance parties, daily hikes and ‘shrooming. As one attending professor put it, “PorcFest is Burning Man for rational people.”
I’m the former president and current chairman of the Free State Project, and an author, activist, and attorney. I’m confident you would have a remarkable and memorable experience with us, and we would be thrilled to have you. Past speakers at our events have included Edward Snowden (via video in 2016), John Stossel, Naomi Wolf, Ron Paul, Roger Ver, Rick Falkvinge, and more. Having you attend would, well, frankly, blow my mind, but it would also help elevate our mission and attract more like-minded, brilliant people to our cause. We are building it, but we need more people to come!
We “Vrystaaters” are pioneers and mad dreamers, but ultimately, pragmatists who are voting with our feet to build a better future without so much government meddling into every aspect of our lives–we are building our very own Wild, Wild East while we wait for you to colonize Mars. Come see for yourself!
I can be reached at cgericke@freestateproject.org or on my cell at 917-607-4353. I hope to hear from you.
Thanks for your precious time!
Sincerely,
Carla Gericke
More about the Free State Project: https://www.fsp.org
More about PorcFest: https://www.PorcFest.com
More about me: https://www.carlagericke.com/about/ and on Wikipedia