2015年经济学人 豪猪自由节和自由州项目 无政府主义者组织起来了

（单词翻译）

PorcFest and the Free State Project

Anarchists¹ get organised

The plot to liberate² New Hampshire

A YOUNG man in a leather loincloth saunters past a woman dressed like Alice in Wonderland.

The tang of pot wafts³ through the air, and a small remote-operated drone buzzes overhead

(“Bought it in China,” says the proud owner; “I'd use it to follow chicks,” marvels⁴ one chap).

Guns are everywhere; Bitcoin is the currency of choice.

The Porcupine⁵ Freedom Festival, which ended on June 29th,

saw more than 1,500 libertarians and anarchists descend⁶ on Lancaster, New Hampshire.

The event's mascot⁷ is a porcupine, which, though well-armed, only causes pain when attacked.

New Hampshire is a natural stamping-ground for freedom-lovers.

It has low taxes, lean bureaucracy and some of the loosest gun laws in America.

Grown-ups can ride around without seat-belts or motorcycle helmets.

The right to rebel when public liberty is “manifestly endangered” is enshrined in the state constitution.

This is why it was chosen as the site for the Free State Project (FSP),

which aims to lure⁸ at least 20,000 like-minded people to this small state (population 1.3m) and make it even more “liberty-loving”.

Since 2002 nearly 16,000 have pledged to come and help slash⁹ state and local budgets,

limit government meddling¹⁰ and legalise choices that do not harm others, such as drugs, gay marriage and maybe prostitution.

It will be a “Yankee Hong Kong”, says Carla Gericke, FSP's president.

“The one place in America that is economically free, like a beacon¹¹ to the rest of the country—or even the world.”

More than 1,600 “Free Staters” have already made New Hampshire their home.

They are beginning to have an effect.

In 2012 the Granite¹² State became the first to allow lawyers to tell juries they may acquit¹³ a defendant¹⁴ if they believe the law is unfair.

In 2011 the state stripped away much of the red tape that kept home brewers from selling their wares¹⁵, spawning¹⁶ a boom of “nanobreweries”.

And in January the state House was the first legislative¹⁷ body in the country to vote to legalise marijuana for recreational use,

although lawmakers backed down when Governor Maggie Hassan, a Democrat¹⁸, proved reluctant.

Some locals feel that the anti-government agitators¹⁹ have gone too far.

A group in the small town of Keene tops up parking meters that have run out to stop traffic officers from issuing penalty tickets.

The traffic officers complain that activists²⁰ sometimes harass²¹ them; a charge the activists deny.

Other protesters are accused of provoking cops into arresting them so they can film the resulting altercation²².

An anti-libertarian group called “Stop Free Keene” grumbles²³ about the public pot-smoking and rude street art that the newcomers bring.

In the jovial²⁴ atmosphere of PorcFest, where idealists bond over their shared mistrust of rules and big institutions,

the prospect²⁵ of a future New Hampshire that can do without such things seems far-fetched.

Tech geeks (who still dominate the Free State movement) enjoy home-made “bananarchy” ice cream while prattling²⁶ on about the power of crypto-currencies.

“Bitcoin can topple governments and end war,” gushes²⁷ one fan.

Others are more realistic. “I'm an incrementalist,” explains Jason Sorens,

the subdued²⁸ intellectual who dreamed up the Free State Project while he was getting his PhD from Yale.

Now a lecturer at Dartmouth College in Hanover,

he is eager to use New Hampshire to test libertarian theories about enlightened self-interest and reciprocal altruism²⁹, small government and large networks of voluntary institutions.

“We don't have all the answers,” he says, “but it's worth the experiment.”