#citizenweb3

Episode link:
https://www.citizenweb3.com/ericbrakey

Episode name:
Freedom, Liberty and the State with Eric Brakey

Citizen Web3 
Hi everyone. Welcome to a new episode of the Citizen Web3 podcast. Today I'm glad to have Eric Brakey with me from Free state Project. Sorry, a little bit of a skip the slip, skip. Well, what's going on with me today? But Eric, hi, welcome to the show.

Eric Brakey
Hey, Serge, I know this is a, we've been trying to schedule this for a while and time zones are, keep throwing us for a loop. So I'm really glad that we could finally connect and I'm looking forward to talking with you.

Citizen Web3 
we did it. was this was I must say this was the most difficult Find time finding that I had to do No, it was there was there was a mess up one that was with my PA one I think something with your PA and then something we couldn't do it, but we did it. We did it That's the main thing, right? Don't let the rumors fool you Eric, can I please ask you to introduce yourself for myself for the listeners?

Eric Brakey 
Now here we are, here we are. Some said it would never happen, but I believe the nuts.

Citizen Web3 
Please include in your intro your Web3 background if you think it's relevant or how you're connected to Web3 and what you're currently busy and working on in your life.

Eric Brakey 
Well, I'm the executive director of the Free State Project in New Hampshire, where we are working and the organization and all the people invested and involved in it have been working for a generation now to concentrate libertarians in the state of New Hampshire for the purpose of building a uniquely free society. It's a recognition that libertarians defined broadly may account for 5 % of the population anywhere, you know, being

being optimistic in any one place, but that's, that's not enough around the country. And if we want to build a libertarian free society, we need the numbers to do it. And New Hampshire is a uniquely libertarian state. And by bringing in, you know, thousands and thousands of reinforcements to not just vote and run for office, but to build culture and institutions, that is, you get a really awesome kind of networking effect of, of libertarians in the same, in the same place.

And of course, that has been a big contributing factor to the rise of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency at New Hampshire playing an early leading role in that and so much. But you asked about me specifically, and I went off on a tangent talking about the Free State Project, which I'm very passionate about. But I've only been with the Free State Project now for about a year and a half. I got my start in politics on the Ron Paul presidential campaign in 2012.

After that, I ran for the state Senate in Maine and I served three non-consecutive terms and made two runs for federal office over the course of 10 years. I decided to retire from Maine politics, moved to New Hampshire and and plant my flag here. But things that I'm known for from my time in office include...

passing constitutional carry in the state of Maine, a lot of welfare reforms, a lot of work on medical cannabis policy, right to try policy. But I also, maybe in the space, in the sphere that your audience may be interested in, also, I wouldn't say I'm an expert in any sense of the imagination on cryptocurrency and Bitcoin and all of that, but I did.

Eric Brakey 
I guess for politicians in Maine, was on a bell curve. I was very much an expert and sponsored several bills trying to advance the conversation there on on this new technology. So that's a short version of me. And I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Citizen Web3
Yes, I have a lot. Well, I'm going to dig a little bit. So I'm trying to to to think where to start from because there is two points to this. I'm going to try to to to pick one to start from. So I first heard about the Free State project somewhere online, I think, and the podcast that I do and the projects in general. But forget about the project, let's talk about podcast for a second.

is concentrated heavily on on such topics as privacy, on libertarianism, libertarianism, sorry for my foreign pronunciation here, anarchy and all the topics that surround it. of course, mainly, you know we talk to, as you rightfully noticed, you know, audience that is from working in Web3, but not only. And I was astounded when I heard about

Free State Project, you know, I was like, wow, such a place exists, you know, and of course, that calls out for a lot of ambiguities, right, and a lot of things. And I wanted to talk to you, to somebody who is building such a place in today, who has the balls, right, to build such a place in today's reality, because today's reality doesn't really pat on the back, right, people who are proclaimed to be libertarian or anarchists or anything else. So I guess there is no question right there, right. But

Let's talk a little bit about what made you move from politics to suddenly trying to, I mean, you just wake up one day and go, hey, screw with the politics. I'm going to go and build a free state. right I mean, how did this help and how did this work? Why are you doing it? What's the motive for you here?

Eric Brakey
Well, I think for me, Maine's right across the border from New Hampshire. And so I'd had a friendly competitive relationship, I think, some of the free staters. And it used to be, I think back in like 2012, when I was getting going, there was a friendly competition, who can advance freedom the fastest in Maine or in New Hampshire? And we had some actually some early success in Maine. Constitutional carry was a big part of that. you know and a number of other things that I was able to help architect and get through. but

I did feel like for every major step forward, we took on matters of individual liberty in Maine. we were, you know, we were making, we could make a big stride forward in one area, but we would watch all these other spheres kind of liberty die death by a thousand cuts because the bureaucracy is relentless. and a lot of the special interests are relentless. And at a certain point, things really started shifting backwards in Maine.

While in New Hampshire, things kept progressing towards freedom. And at a certain point, I realized that at least for New England, you know, region generally, New Hampshire has become the only game in town when it comes to kind of the prospect for a free society that respects individual liberties, your freedoms and your paychecks. And I felt like I could, you know, stay in Maine and keep

banging my head against a wall trying to turn things around, or I could go and try to reinforce the one kind of effort I see that is really working. And New Hampshire, think it is undeniable at this point that the free state movement has had a profound impact on the politics and culture here, and also had a profound impact on a lot of these innovative movements that have taken grip on the world, like like cryptocurrency.

So for me, just every step along the way, I've asked myself, like, what's the role that I can, you know, what role should I be serving in right now to best kind of advance the cause of freedom? And I felt like in Maine, there were some good new Liberty legislators who I had helped kind of raise up and train up who I felt like, you know, I could pass the torch to and they would continue doing the work there. I didn't feel essential anymore. And it seemed like I could have a bigger impact on Liberty by

Eric Brakey 
trying to make sure we do secure this one granite fortress of freedom in New Hampshire, where we can have one of the 50 laboratories of democracy in this US you know experiment. And we can actually have a libertarian laboratory where we can take libertarian policy ideas that have only existed in white papers for decades from the minds of Murray Rothbard and Milton Friedman, but they were just theories and ideas. Now we have a place where we can actually enact a lot of those ideas. and

and demonstrate that they work. So right now in the New Hampshire legislature, about a quarter of the state legislature are libertarians. They tend to run and get elected as Republicans. but if you look at how they vote, they're kind of in line with Rand Paul or Thomas Massey. And this has led to New Hampshire's poised to become the first state in the country with a strategic Bitcoin reserve. New Hampshire's leading the way on school choice with education freedom accounts.

New Hampshire is even challenging the federal government's war machine by the New Hampshire House of Representatives became the first lower chamber to pass a bill called Defend the Guard, seeking to call home state national guard troops from wars that haven't been declared by Congress. So there's a lot we can do if we kind of really have this granite fortress of freedom here. And so I wanted to come on board and help us continue to build in that direction.

Citizen Web3 
Before I proceed, there's something with some, I must say, I'm gonna dig a little bit into devil's advocate questions. But before I proceed with that, help me to understand here something because even though about 50 to 60 % of my audience are from the States and Canada, I personally haven't been to the States. Why? Because you mentioned New Hampshire and you build a light around it, which kind of like geographically says, hey,

New Hampshire is the place to do all of it. Why did New Hampshire become like that? Why did New Hampshire attract all these freedom movements or liberty movements or I mean, why not, I don't know, Illinois or South Dakota or whatever. Sorry, because I'm not American, it's gonna be very difficult for me to imagine. So if you could help me out.

Eric Brakey 
Yeah. Well, New Hampshire is a unique state. Historically, it's got a unique kind of history that has contributed to, you know, the state motto that it has right now, which it's had for the last half century, live free or die. Right. There's a unique libertarian culture and ethic that goes all the way back to before the American Revolution. I mean, it could be historically argued fairly well that the American Revolution in many ways started in New Hampshire with the pine tree riots, which we just celebrated the anniversary of.

this past month, which is when the people of where New Hampshire refused to submit to the British King's edicts about all the pine trees belong to him. this is kind of where the early brushfires of the American Revolution began. In fact, New Hampshire was the first state of the 13 colonies that established its own independent government. And it's the only state to the state that retains the right to revolution and its state constitution.

So there's some unique historic factors there that I think have contributed to kind of New Hampshire being much of what it is and why it was selected. But there were also some other more practical factors as well, right? The free state project, when it began, there was kind of a vote from different participants on what state should be the destination. And different ones were up for consideration. But a few factors were very important. One, it needed to be a small state, right? If you'd chosen a state like

Texas, for example, and the idea was what if you get 20,000 libertarians to move to a state, right? 20,000 libertarians moving to the state of Texas would be a drop in the ocean. It wouldn't have an impact there, least not in a measurable way like we, where you can see in a smaller state. New Hampshire is about 1.3 million people. You know, you go back a couple of decades, it was, you know, almost half that size too. So the individual impact of a single mover in a small state is much, much bigger.

then, then moving to a large state and, and you have that natural libertarian culture here, which is something that can kind of help, be, you know, we're kind of reinforcing what's already there rather than trying to create something totally new at a whole cloth, right? You could move to like a, a small state, like, I don't know, Delaware, which is kind of, or Rhode Island, which are small states, but very kind of progressive left.

Eric Brakey 
You're not going to really, that's going to be an uphill battle. You want to move to a place where the ground is fertile. The ground is fertile in New Hampshire for freedom. So you have the small state factor, you have the natural libertarian culture factor. And when I say small state, let me emphasize that not just population wise. So another state that was looked at was Wyoming. And some people to this day wish that the Free State Project had been in Wyoming. And Wyoming is a nice state and great, kind of has great libertarian ethic there as well.

I think the Liberty movement there is doing some great things. one thing that's unique about New Hampshire is because it's also small geographically, you can really get the benefit of the networking effect of all these libertarians, not just in you know the same political boundaries, but also within fair enough regional close proximity to each other that real libertarian communities are are are taking shape and forming in the physical space. So not just in, you know

Right now, libertarian community, you know, outside New Hampshire is mostly just like what exists on Twitter or online. And this is how these kinds of communities are formed. But in New Hampshire, we're able to form communities in the physical space and do really innovative things. So I think for all those reasons, New Hampshire was the right the right choice. Even if some days I wake up wishing they had chosen Maine.

Citizen Web3 
You know, it's not the first time, well, I guess anyone who's going to dig into libertarian communities and movements history will find out that small places tend to work better. I mean, it's enough to look at Dunbar's number, right? And then Parter and we get 147 and beyond that it doesn't go right. Well, at least though this theory says that it doesn't go and then we get lost and we need the automatization and centralization beyond that. So

It's an interesting it's an interesting point which brings me kind of the next question which is more general and less about I guess but again I would like you to use examples of the free state if it's possible. how I mean today if we look at it the crypto space and Web3 space whatever whatever you want to call it the blockchain space a lot of the

A lot of known people, and maybe not so known, are playing, I'm going to do this in quotations here, as if somebody can see me, in what you're talking about. They're playing into building some kind of small movements and small spaces. Some people, those are guys who've been into this space for like 12, 15, 13, whatever years, and they have money. And a lot of them are trying, like Balaji, for example, a quite renowned figure. And there are less renowned figures that are trying to do the same.

And how does one start to build a community that is libertarian? How does one, what does one focus on? What are the main aspects of such a place and such a community?

Eric Brakey
Yeah, I'm trying to think there's a lot of different ways I could try to tackle that question. I mean, how do you begin? I think the first thing to begin is you just, is you need the people. And that's kind of been the, you know, the prospect of the Free State Project is if you get the people here, and then you, and you try to do what you can to connect people and help them find, you know you know, the networks and communities that will help them build what they're seeking to build. I think the beautiful thing about libertarian community is that

no one's trying to centrally plan. I'm not trying to, you know, we're not, so I'm not trying to recruit all these people here and saying, okay, now here's how we're to do libertarianism. Right. first of all, libertarians would bristle at that and they would probably, you know, anyway, they would reject that. likes libertarians don't being like to told, but being told what to do. But I am telling people to move to New Hampshire and then beyond that, find your, find your people and, and build what you want to build.

and you want to build in a place with solid foundations and with great kind of human capital, people who kind of share the vision and, and that's uniquely what you, what you would have in New Hampshire. Now I will say that in New Hampshire, we do have like a, I would say in our community, a disproportionate amount of folks in the tech space. and I think that that's a factor of, New Hampshire is a great place to live. If you can work from anywhere.

We're kind of ranked, I think we're ranked number one in the country for internet connectivity, including in some of the rural regions. And so we have a lot of folks who, you know, if they could work anywhere, why not work in New Hampshire where they can be around a bunch of libertarians and they pay no income tax and no sales tax and a lot of other great freedoms that they get to enjoy. But let me circle back to the question, which is how do you build free society? So, so you want to get the people here.

I think kind of the big kind of question is, you know, how do you know who the right people are? I think that, we just try to ask, invite people who believe in the simple philosophy, I think has boiled down as simply as, Matt Kibbe once articulated it as if you believe that we shouldn't hurt people and we shouldn't take their stuff. Then that's, then if you can agree to those two agreements, don't hurt people, don't take their stuff, then, you know, then you're the kind of person that we want living here.

Eric Brakey 
And of course, that means that the government can't do it for you either. So that's what we're looking for.

Citizen Web3 
What about, I'm going to get deeper into that if you don't mind, what about the neighbors? Because I can imagine, I mean, let me understand because I was written about the free state and it's quite a big area, right? terms of, I mean, maybe for America it's not, right, but European standards, that's quite a big area in my opinion. you know, like, I mean, you have to have neighbors and because I'm an old, I'm older than a Look, so I'm an old anarchist. And I know that

You know, a lot of the time when you're as an anarchist or libertarian, you talk to people, let alone just your friends, not talking about somebody you don't know. They can be quite jumpy at your opinions. can react very depending on how far they've been, you know, let's say state educated. Let's just put it like that. But so how do the neighbors react to you? I mean, to the free state? mean, do they do you have people like?

I don't know, going there and saying, yo, anarchists, cut your hair and get a job or you libertarians, I don't know, go join Vietnam. I don't know, like anything like that.

Eric Brakey 
Well, I would tell some of my anarchist friends to cut their hair and get a job, but you know, in all seriousness, I go back to some good advice that a mentor gave me about 15 years ago or so. said, you know, if you are radical, you shouldn't look like a radical. If you want to actually advance a radical agenda, you should cut your hair and wear a suit so that people don't, it's like you can look like a radical or you can advance radical things. So you've to choose what's more important. Anyway, that's advice that I've followed.

But you know certainly there are left, maybe I don't want to pick on all left-wing people, but there are certain authoritarian progressive status who very much hate the free state movement. They're very outspoken about their hatred of the free state movement. they it's the only kind of, we're the only immigrants they ever complain about. And it is,

Yeah, those folks can be loud, but they're also. You know, what is it? What is it? The old saying, you know, first day ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. mean, we're somewhere between like stage three and stage four at this point. Like they're there, they're fighting, they're gnashing their teeth. but but people are listening less and less. I mean, as it is right now, again, like libertarians are control a quarter of the legislature.

We've become the libertarians have become one of the most dominant political factions within the Republican party of New Hampshire, which effectively runs the state right now with control of the house, the Senate and the governorship. And we're seeing a lot of libertarian ideas going to affect including school choice policies. You know, right out of the playbook of Milton Friedman.

And, and the whole last election cycle was basically a referendum on school choice. Democrats ran against it. Republicans ran for it and Republicans won the landslide. So I think it kind of goes to show that in fact, a lot of the Liberty ideas that we've been advocating for are becoming increasingly popular with, with, with, with people here, not just those who've moved in, but also with a lot of the native granite staters who, again, there there's always been kind of a natural libertarian, flavor to New Hampshire.

Eric Brakey
And all we've done is come in and help tip the scales. you know, where a lot of New England is slipping into this kind of kind of Elizabeth Warren style, Massachusetts progressivism, which I think is utterly destructive to, to human progress and flourishing, New Hampshire, because of the concentration strategy has bucked the trend and gone in the other direction. And I, and I think that there is a certain degree to which kind of the,

that the libertarian, the New England kind of libertarian, flavor of libertarianism, I think is like the best in the country because it's kind of very rooted in that kind of New England, Boston Tea Party, American Revolution spirit, the spirit of 1776. but outside New Hampshire, that's been very much drowned out by the Elizabeth Warren progressivism.

So New Hampshire, we're pushing back and to the progressives in New Hampshire who don't like it, we regularly remind them that Vermont is open to them. Massachusetts is open to them. I would not encourage them to move to Maine because I haven't given up on the people in Maine that I love and I hope they can turn things around. But there are 49 other states out there where if they want to live under progressive totalitarianism, then that's open to them.

They will not have New Hampshire, though.

Citizen Web3 
I'm curious. I'm going to start going with what I promised with the slightly, well, not slightly, but quite devil's advocate stuff. I want to talk to you about like core principles, right? Because I understand you just, you just, sorry, you just said before, you know, you quoted

Eric Brakey 
Matt Kibbe.

Citizen Web3 
Yeah, if you want to, you know, make a change, dress in a suit and sorry.

Eric Brakey 
no, that wasn't that Kibbe. That was actually my, I didn't say his name. That was from Nick Spanos, who's the founder of the New York City Bitcoin center, who was a mentor of mine, maybe 20 years ago.

Citizen Web3
Okay.

Citizen Web3 
And by the way, for the moment for the listeners, everything me and Eric mentioned, please find under the show notes some links, so whether it's people, projects, books, the free state or mentors or anything else, and please go and do your own research if you want. Sorry, Eric. But, you know, like, I want to talk a bit about core principles. And with

libertarianism and with anarchism and with many other, but they're not the same thing, course, know, uncap libertarianism. It's good, you know, we all disagree on things that that's how we find reality. but more or less the core principle of all of those, freedom based or freedom focused movements are more or less the same, right? They less government, more freedom, individualism, ownership, so on, so on, so on, so on.

How do those core prints, how do you maintain those core principles? Because obviously you're a man who, you I mean, you didn't just end up here just because you wanted to end up there. You know, it's obviously something freedom, shall I say, right? It's obviously something that interests and drives you from the way you speak about it. So how do you balance the reality and core principle of such movements? Because, you you mentioned, I'm gonna, before I let you answer, I'm gonna put you on the spotlight.

You said a couple of times, impact on liberty or grant freedom or revolution by constitution. Now those things and a lot of those movements might seem as putting sticks in the wheels. You don't impact liberty, liberty just is, right? And so on and so forth. Now I'm not going to dig it, but I want to ask you, how do you combine the core principles of freedom and of movements with the reality of bureaucracy, basically? That's the question.

Eric Brakey 
Yeah. Where to begin? know, I guess, mean, first, think the first thing is to certainly, you know, when I say advanced liberty, I mean, I will say, mean, advanced kind of a restoration or recognition or protection of liberty. You're right. Kind of liberty is an ideal. And I like to think of liberty. I think of it, I think a little bit of a balance, right? I'm influenced, I think, somewhat by the Stoics and by the Daoists.

Citizen Web3 
I can imagine.

Eric Brakey 
the Taoists in particular, kind of this idea of kind of opposing forces, that when balanced against each other, or kind of what you're seeking. And I think of liberty as kind of that balance between, you know, the freedom to do whatever I want with the responsibility for accepting the consequences of whatever I choose to do and not being able to shirk off those consequences and have other people, you know, pick up the pieces for you. so.

I think kind of working towards a society oriented around those principles, we have to have, I guess, start with a clear vision of what it is we're trying to work towards. What is liberty? And it's not this, right, the way I think a lot of leftists have taken these ideas over time and co-opted the language to pervert them to mean they're opposite, right? Not like when, you know, was it FDR, Woodrow Wilson, kind of the idea of the second bill of rights, you know?

where we, the first bill of rights was freedom from all these infringements, you know, the government would impose on you. And then they say, well, real freedom is freedom from want freedom, necessity freedom. So we've got to be clear and not let our language be subverted in a way that, that, that, that, that takes us off course. so, so, so that's important. also understanding, I mean, I certainly found for myself in politics that,

The there's a challenge inherent in that too, which is that the moment you have any degree of power, the temptation is to want more power and to become corrupted by that power and to start rationalizing, small compromises you might make on Liberty here, Liberty there, if it will help you, I guess, stay in power and you tell yourself that.

And me being in power means that I'll be in a position to advance liberty. But if you start, if you start compromising on those core principles, then, then you eventually become, I think what Thomas Massey calls, yeah, calls a zombie, right? You, you've been bitten and, and, and it's over. So I, I, I think that for anyone who is in politics, like I pursued, think that following the example of Ron Paul.

Eric Brakey
of that, of that having that clear vision of what is right and wrong and, having a stoic commitment to doing what is right, regardless of the consequences. You can't control the consequences. You can't control what happens. You can only control what you do. I think, I think those philosophies are very important for staying on the straight and narrow. And I don't know if I exactly answered your question or not, but hopefully that was somewhere in the ballpark of your question.

Citizen Web3 
I think the question is kind of like, it's a topic that can speak for two, three hours. So I want to get your perspective. Sometimes, I think it was an American poet who said, you don't ask a poet what he means, you tell him. So I'm kind of the same as questions. I ask a question, and I like the guests to answer in the way they understand. Of course, if it's unclear, it's a different thing. So I like your answer. I want to go a little bit more in that time. how do you, OK, in a different way, slightly different way.

Did you or do you still have a very deep moral conviction that has ever been shaken by the bureaucracy that you encountered? Of course, it's easy to say freedom itself, maybe feel free to say anything you want, but maybe something specific. And how was it shaken by the experience with the bureaucracy that you've been working with?

Eric Brakey 
Yeah, mean, I don't know that I would say that's the case. mean, specifically dealing with the bureaucracy, that shaken my kind of conviction in pursuing liberty? I don't think so. I mean, I certainly think that there's a, I think we want to take every opportunity to kind of question our own understandings and our own assumptions and we should.

But the bureaucracy itself, I don't find that they've ever made any compelling cases for why I should embrace their kind of statism over...

Citizen Web3 
Let's delete the red tape. Let's delete the bureaucracy. I mean, working in generally in politics and pursuing a career in politics. How, if ever, maybe it hasn't intervened with your molar conviction. So that's also, I guess, an answer.

Eric Brakey
Yeah, I mean there are certainly moments that

Eric Brakey 
You know, I think for me, I mean, it's more, more I I have struggled at times with trying to understand what was the best strategy to try to kind of advance this, this, this ideal. I've been, I feel like I've, I've managed to stay kind of fairly, fairly committed to this idea because I think that the idea of Liberty is one of the most beautiful ideas that mankind has ever conceived. we always.

fail to perfectly exercise it, but it is an ideal worth striving for. But you know, I mentioned that, so I left the state Senate in 2018. I had served two terms. I was elected at the age of 26 and I served till I was 30. And I left, I ran for the United States Senate against a US Senator named Angus King.

And, I didn't win that race. actually that's how I got in the Twitter files, which is a whole other story we could talk about if you're interested. But, and I ran for Congress again, two years later. And, you know, I used to think that, the way to achieve Liberty was, you know, we see that the, greatest tyrannies, come from this kind of Imperial system that's been created around us that.

is standing on the corpse of our constitutional republic. And I thought that, okay, if this is where the rot is, if this is where the tyranny is, then we need to charge in there and fight it from the inside. And I've become a little more skeptical of that approach because while I love seeing that we have a few good people like Thomas Massey and Rand Paul who are in there, like throwing a monkey wrench in the gears from time to time, what I've found is that

So many good people have tried to make a difference by running for Congress or running for the U S Senate. And most of those names have been forgotten because they got smoked. Like we are, we are at a strong competitive disadvantage against these, these, these very entrenched forces. These federal races in the U S cost millions and millions and millions of dollars to run. And our adversaries literally have access to a money printing machine.

Eric Brakey
So they print the money at the federal reserve, they allocate it to their special interest friends. Then those special interests come and make donations back again to their PACs and political parties and their campaigns. And it's like, it's a giant money laundering operation and that money's not coming to us. So I reach out to like, you know, donors around the country and I can raise a couple million dollars with a lot of people chipping in because they really care. And then like my opponent just will get.

Just get millions like it's nothing because he's hooked into that money laundering system. That puts us at a real structural disadvantage for getting the kind of critical mass of people that you need in Washington DC to change things. And on top of that, even when you do get good people in there, rare are the people like Rand Paul and Thomas Massey who don't become corrupted by that system and don't become part of the culture there.

So what I've come to the conclusion is that the Achilles heel of this whole imperial system is not this direct assault on the fortress. It is to capture the state legislatures around the country and to use the power, what we have in our constitution, the 10th Amendment, which says that powers not delegated to Congress are reserved to the states and the people respectively.

and use the power of nullification like has been done in the war on cannabis and several other instances to nullify and declare invalid on the state level federal laws that were there exercising powers that we never delegated to them. I think that that's the vulnerability of this system. And that is a unique way that New Hampshire can help lead the way by being one of the first legislatures that is.

overtaken by libertarian thought leaders who are willing to use the sovereign power of the state to push back against the federal government.

Citizen Web3 
I definitely tend, well, first of all, amen. Second, I tend to agree with you that the fish rots from the head. That's what they say in Russian, right? I don't know if, I'm sure that makes sense in any other language. but you know I've personally, the reason I'm asking those questions is not just because we are as a podcast focused on those things. I I personally went through through 10, 15 or so years of

enterprise work and understood that, you know, that is not something I want to do because regardless of how high I get, which I was in my niche, it's soulless. There is no soul. is, is no freedom. There is no liberty. And, you know, it feels like the higher you get, regardless of the direction of the enterprise, unless you are, like you say, willing to be

not exposed by coat in the money laundering machine, you're not going to make a change. The higher you go, realize that you're either lying to you. One day you look at yourself and you have to admit, okay, I'm lying to myself first of all. It's okay lying to others, but I'm lying to myself believing that I'm crazy. So this is, guess, why I'm asking. mean, I'm curious of how does one combine that because so many examples in this life, you know I mean, I like, because I read a lot about the free state.

And this is why I wanted to talk to you so much because I would love for what you're doing guys to succeed. But judging by the history, know, the first next person who is going to come, they have, you know, the legislation or any other tools to just come and say, hey, you know what, we don't like what you're doing. We don't care about what you do anymore. Are you not afraid of that, that, you know, you're going to dedicate so many years to building?

whatever it is that's going to come out of it. And then in the next 10, 25, whatever years, one guy is just going to come and ruin it all with the snap of his fingers just by changing a couple of letters in a book.

Eric Brakey 
You know, I think that what we're building here in New Hampshire is uniquely resilient against that. You know, I look at, you know, so in the, in the U S one of the, you know, the state of Florida recently put up a sign kind of going into their state. said, welcome to the free state of Florida. said free state, they're stealing our branding. but you know, it is interesting to watch what Florida has done in recent, in recent years, particularly during, during COVID.

in terms of the pushback and that was all because they had a single governor and Ron DeSantis who was willing to use executive power to push back against the COVID nonsense and not, shut down society. And that's commendable, very commendable. But what happens when Ron DeSantis is not governor, right? He won't be governor forever. One day they will elect another governor. Maybe it's even a Republican, but is that person going to be uniquely?

focused on on on those freedoms in the same way, or will that person just be another Republican governor like all the other Republican lockdown governors who were terrible along with all the Democrats? So I look at freedom in Florida is actually very fragile because it's dependent on this one person in this one role. Whereas in New Hampshire, the freedom strategy that we have is

I'll tell you, I mean, we don't have a, we have a Republican governor. We don't have a libertarian governor. There's much we disagree with her on, but the libertarian kind of revolution is taking place in a decentralized bottom up fashion. It is it is through the takeover of the more, the institutions like the House of Representatives and the Senate, where we continue gaining numbers every election cycle.

And that is more robust and sustainable and is not something that can be easily washed away by a single election. so you know, we're the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance. we're, we're, always going to have to be ready to defend what's been built, but, it's better to build something that is, that is stress tested for resilience than, than, uh, um,

Eric Brakey
Knowing that the next Ron DeSantis or even a Javier Malay the next person could come in and wipe all that progress out

Citizen Web3 
Yeah, it's an interesting point. guess, you know, there is this, I think they are Russian or they are Ukrainian. I don't know. But I think this is Russian punk band. And they have a line in one of the songs. And it's something like, I'm going to try and translate it straight away, of course, something like, the tanks have no place as toys. Even as toys in a museum, are

useless to our kids. they're basically implying that the more we as a society print guns and tanks as toys, the more it educates the next generation to use tanks and guns. Kind of makes sense. Question is, does liberty need a state? This is the short question. mean, if we keep on educating everybody that we need to have a legislation, we need to have a state, da-da-da-da. And we said, both me and you just said 20 minutes ago, so that you get caught up. are individuals who are good.

And it's great. But does liberty need a state or should we just you know let it go and it will all happen by itself?

Eric Brakey
Hmm. I mean, I certainly, you know, I do wrestle sometimes with the, you know, the, contradiction in the terms, right? The free state, right? It's like, well, if you're free, why do you have a state? Right? Shouldn't it just be a total and Capistan with, with no legislature, all that? I mean, I'd love to get to a point where, right in New Hampshire, right. We elect a legislature and they go to conquered every year. I mean, our legislators are paid like a hundred bucks a year as it is, you know, you could probably raise all that.

funding for them voluntarily, right? Without taxation, all that. And they can go and they can like name the state dog. They can like choose the state snack, right? They could do all these like ceremonial things that don't actually impact people's lives in a negative way. You know, it's just pure, pure ceremony. You could have a ceremonial state that doesn't actually, you know, wield central planning force over, over the market or, or use violence against people. so maybe for, you know,

Maybe maybe in a generation or two, we'll be at that point where the state is just a vestigial limb of our society as we have kind of diminished its power to next to nothing. you know But at least as far as I think that right now, practically speaking, within the context of kind of the United States, so long as we are part of the union,

which there are many people who want to succeed and, and that's a conversation that's always ongoing, but as so, so long as we are, I think it is valuable to have a, an actual formal state that we can use the power of that to push back against national power. I am not opposed to using state power if it's to defend against, you know, outside,

state actors, whether it's the national government or other governments that are trying to encroach upon our freedoms here. But what we should not be in habit of doing is using state power to to push down on people who are in the state. It should be purely defensive, like firearms.

Citizen Web3 
You know, considering, I'm going to go against what I've been saying here, but considering that closeness between digital blockchains and the reference to nations rather than to stocks companies or anything else. And the more as blockchains grow, the more kind of more and more people tend to understand, yeah, they are more similar to the way the behavior of digital nation currencies rather, sorry, national currencies rather than anything else.

It's interesting what you say that you have to start with the state. There was some years ago, I believe it was two years ago, so A16Z, their research team, did an article into success of applications and protocols decentralized by protocols, mean, blockchains like Ethereum or Bitcoin, for example. And they came to a conclusion that if you want to succeed in what you're doing, if you're making an application, then you should start

with a state in a centralized way. If you are trying to build a protocol such as Ethereum, for example, or Cosmos or whatever, then the opposite, should decentralize straight away. Now, I'm curious whether what you said is a state in this example. Is it a protocol or is it an application? And I'm just curious whether the decentralization and the state, like you say, it will help the liberty and

push it front, or whether, like you said yourself, it will end up being used against the people who are building it because they can do something wrong or whatever and end up pushing them down. I know that's not a question, but feel free to comment if you want.

Eric Brakey
I mean, all I'll say is that right now in New Hampshire, I see the state shrinking and I see Liberty expanding. And I see, I mean, with libertarians kind of the state legislature or having a tremendous influence over the state legislature right now, you know, we're at a moment in time where there's some budget shortfalls, right? And

I know what would happen in the state of Maine when there's a budget shortfall, means taxes are going up. Instead, libertarians running the legislature see a budget shortfall and say, great, we have an opportunity to cut government and cut spending. And they're cutting like millions to the universities. They're cutting welfare programs. They're cutting a lot of these programs that the state should not be involved in obligating taxpayers.

taxpayer money to in the first place. yeah, so long as there is the presence of the state, there's always the opportunity that someone can take it and use it inappropriately. I mean, I guess it's designed to be used inappropriately. But right now, I think we have an opportunity to see kind of, you know, the state chiseled away at and freedom flow into the vacuum.

Citizen Web3 
I'm going to ask one last question from the other side before I jump into a blitz, a small blitz to finish us off. I'm going to ask devil's advocate question from the non-libertarian, non-anarchist side. But it makes sense to ask it considering your experience and what you guys are achieved or what you have achieved already. I think, I guess.

I was trying to think what would people who are not into anarchism and libertarians, what would they would say? And I think one of first things that came to my mind, even though, of course, like I said, I'm on the other side is, aren't you just creating a small bubble and you basically put in liberty in a bubble and of course on that bubble. Like I said, it's a devil's advocate question from the other side, but isn't like, you know, it could be argued that, you know, what you're doing isn't going to help liberty on the big scale because you are doing it on a small scale.

And of course, on that small scale, works. You guys are like 10, 20,000 people talking in between yourselves. You're closed off from the society. Well, not closed off, but you have your, again, in quotations, boundaries. And yeah, that's not an experiment because it will never work on any other large scale. I guess that's what I would ask if I was arguing with the Liberty side.

Eric Brakey 
Yeah, you I would say, you know, my experience kind of watching and participating in the Liberty movement for the last 15 years has demonstrated the opposite. It's demonstrated that, you know, you have, for example, a number of small states that were early, early adopters of constitutional carry laws. Maine and Vermont, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire were kind of in the mix there. Those

demonstrated use cases dispelled a lot of the myths and the fear mongering that the Michael Bloomberg anti-gun crowd would come along with and say, if you pass this law, there's going to be blood running in the streets. It's going to be the wild, wild west. Right. And then you get a few States that said, you know, we will be bold. We will be first and we will demonstrate, you know, that this works. And then when the sky doesn't fall and those States actually climbed the rankings to be.

the safest states in the country with the lowest violent crime rates. All the other states look around and say, wow, this actually does work. And it becomes that much easier to establish those policies around the country. That's why in the course of the last decade or so, we've gone from, you know, like five constitutional carry States to now a majority of the people in the country living in, you know, I think it's like 26, 27 States now don't have to get a license to carry a firearm.

So that's an example where you get a small state that's willing to lead, you demonstrate that it works and the dominoes can fall for liberty around the rest of the country. And in some cases, those examples can be modeled for the world as well. And we're seeing that in a number of policy areas. We saw that with cannabis policy. We saw it with right to try laws. We are on the verge of that starting to happen with defend the guard policies.

and so, and so many, and so many areas school choice, the school choice revolution is happening right now in the States because you had a few States like New Hampshire being one of the key early States in the, in the aftermath of COVID saying we're going to seize the opportunity with all this, how frustrated people are with the government schools. And we're going to, use the opportunity to push Milton Friedman style school choice. And now that's spreading around the country. It's because small States like New Hampshire were willing to lead.

Eric Brakey 
that you are seeing these revolutions decentralized around the country and the state capitals. So I would say to push back against that, yes, in a certain sense, we're creating a bubble. We are concentrating people together to do things here that other states are not able to do. but having a, right, it's like the original idea of America, right? The shining city on a hill. You don't change the world by invading everyone and trying to

You know, conquer and say, we're going to spread Liberty at the barrel of a gun, right? That's not how you spread Liberty. You spread Liberty by building up your own society, by demonstrating that these ideas work and being an example and a light to the world. And that's what we can do in New Hampshire. and it's, it's, it's something that is working. It's effective. We've been going for 20 years and I just want to invite you and your audience. if.

Folks would like to come and experience the free state and what's being built here. We have a great opportunity coming up in just a few weeks. It's the 22nd annual pork you find freedom festival, also known as pork fest, June 16th through the 22nd. and that's going to be, held in Lancaster, New Hampshire. If you've never been to pork fest, it's a truly unique experience, a week long outdoor libertarian camping festival. and, we get speakers from all around the world.

coming out and a lot of, I will say, this, this year, a lot, like all of our top sponsors are paying with crypto and Bitcoin. Like this is something that has, anyway, just, just if you are looking to connect with people who are working on these kinds of tech web three cryptocurrency blockchain technologies, you're going to find a lot of those folks. at pork fest and it's a great time to, know, you can always go to like a traditional conference and there's a great place for that. Go to the.

Bitcoin conference or something like that, but you know, it's kind of nice to actually be able to sit around a campfire and talk Bitcoin too. So anyway, you, you, you're invited.

Citizen Web3 
Absolutely. to thank you first of all and absolutely just to two things. First, you're going to put me on the spotlight to release this as quickly as possible so the invite works in terms of dates and to just to go to sort of highlight your words. I think the best event, technological event that I've been to in my life was it's called CCC, Chaos Communication Congress. I went in 2019. It's an event that happens for

last, I think, 20 something years. That hasn't happened a couple of years because of the, like you said, nonsense of COVID. it was in 18,000 people were self-organized without a single camera, without a single... And it wasn't like a typical event. It was really more about, you know, yeah, technology bonfires, songs, and it was completely different. yeah, so totally to... If anybody is near, guys, please visit and tell us what you think.

Just quickly to jump into a blitz and to finish us off with the conversation, three questions, nothing to do with what we spoke about, very different. First one, please give me either a movie, a book or a song that influences positively your work life.

Eric Brakey 
Go ahead.

Eric Brakey 
You know, a great book and actually I've been recommending to people is a book by my friend Andrew Heaton. It's called Tribalism is Dumb. I don't know if you're familiar with it. He talks about Dunbar's number in it, which you referenced earlier. So you had on my mind, but it's basically about kind of how human beings kind of have evolved with it. You know, truck, there's a tribal nature that's kind of wired into us and

we, we see it manifested in both healthy and unhealthy ways, particularly in politics. So that's a great book that I recommend. Actually, I just debated Andrew Heaton in a Soho forum debate. that's a whole other thing, but anyway, that's a great book that I recommend tribalism is done by Andrew Heaton.

Citizen Web3 
Second one, something motivational for you personally and by motivational I mean to your work. What keeps Eric every day getting out of bed, focusing on liberty, ignoring the red tape, ignoring the people who say you know anti things? What keeps you waking up every day, getting out of bed and focusing on liberty and what you are focused on?

Eric Brakey 
Stoicism has had a big impact on me the last couple of years and also looking at the examples of some individuals who I consider to be like stoic heroes of, and I think we all need role models to look at. think as Ron Paul of, as like the great stoic libertarian hero of our generation, but I also am very much impressed by the much more ancient model of Cato the younger railing against the rise of Julius Caesar in the

in the Roman Senate, I think that these are kind of examples of, of people who did what they knew to be right. and while recognizing you, you, you, can't control what everyone else is doing. So just do what you can do, what you know is right. And you got to leave the, leave the consequences to the universe to sort out.

Citizen Web3 
Last one, by the that was a very cool answer. Last one, not a guru. I don't believe personally in gurus. So a persona or a personage, real, dead, alive, existent, made up, book character, another politician, a family member. When you feel stuck in your work, you kind of like, I don't know what to do. Everything seems like a dead end. You think about that persona or personage and it helps you to progress.

Eric Brakey
Hmm

I mean, I feel like I've said Ron Paul's name so many times that it would be too obvious to pick him. But he certainly is kind of the greatest living role model for me. I mean, I guess maybe I just do have to go back there. I often look at how Ron Paul was basically a lone voice in the wilderness for 30 years. He never knew what his words and his actions, the kind of revolution he was going to spark.

and, and, his persistence and his, his tenacity and, and, and being willing to be the only one to stand up and say, the sky is blue and everyone else is saying the sky is red. You know, it is, I, anyway, if I ever get frustrated, I feel like I'm stuck. I just remember that Ron Paul put up with it for 30 years and, we can all push a little bit harder.

Citizen Web3 
Thank you for that. amen to the last one as well. But thank you for the answers. Eric, I want to thank you not just for the answers, for finding the time for us finally to connect. It's been a huge pleasure. Please don't hang up just yet. This is going to be a goodbye just for the listeners, for everybody else who tuned in. Thank you, Eric. Thank you. Bye.

Outro:
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