> > If and when the Free Staters who come here come to care about *New Hampshire* ...

> Do people come to the U.S. because they come here to care about it? Heck no. They come to improve their socioeconomic standing, or for the freedom to not worry about being killed. Maybe over time, they *do* come to care about the country, but they don't come here *because* they do.

1) I would think it's rather axiomatic--you love something because it's yours, not for any reason. Nothing anybody says or tries to shame you with will change it; you CAN'T love it until you can consider it yours.

2) I wonder if there's a cultural change that happens after a place has been populated many generations. Through most of the country, your land is the land that you own and live on. But in Europe, and New England to an extent, there's a feeling of ownership over the whole region. I asked a friend whose reasoning I trust if he thought there was inherent value in loving and preserving a homeland. He unhesisitatingly replied "Absolutely not!", which is probably the strongest reaction I've gotten from him in years.

3) "I'm not xenophobic, but ALL THOSE PEOPLE ARE COMING FOR THE WRONG REASONS!" From my perspective, this hardly sounds genuine. But my perspective may be skewed. "How dare they love what NH *offers* so much that they'd uproot their families! Only true lovers of *NH* should come! So what if it's impossible to love it first and have it later--then they won't come! Well, maybe they can come if they come for winter vistas, itty-bitty forests, the growing job market, expensive housing, maple syrup, quaint towns, or what-have-you--but certainly not for the culture that NHers have worked for centuries to keep!"

>"Here we come to your state! We're TAKING OVER!!!"

I've read all the news coverage as well as basically every official and semi-official thing ever written by the group or its members, and a very hefty proportion of the completely unofficial comments. I've seen *maybe* five or six comments by loonies in the recesses of long-gone forum threads with that attitude. The "taking over" meme has been falsely invented and propogated entirely by people who have only cursory knowledge of the FSP. It's simply never been an option. The whole grand sweep, for anyone who's bothered to read even one of the official or semi-official documents, is clear:

1) People who love freedom and are disgusted at the way things are progressing should vote with their feet. It's a more honorable way of voting than even regular voting.
2) They should move to the same place, so they can concentrate and be more effective than they were where they came from.
3) Insert maths and historical studies here to determine the number of people necessary to bother. That is, enough to have a significant influence. Only actual numerical superiority would be enough to "take over."
4) They should do as much research as possible, and find the place where they'd fit in best, where the population basically already agrees with them. It would be unethical to antagonize the residents of a place utterly opposed, such as Rhode Island or Hawaii, even though the populations are small. (Newcomers to the idea usually say "Why don't you go to X? They've got Y!" Several hundred variables were looked at; NH was mediocre on the objective factors but rocked on everything else.)
5) We're not conservative, so "Why don't you move to a heavily conservative state?" is a non-sequitur. Wyoming, Alaska, and New Hampshire may be called conservative, but it's an inaccurate label. (e.g. Wyoming allows physician assisted suicide, Alaska allows personal marijuana possession and use, New Hampshire routinely rejects federal funds if it doesn't like the strings. Nothing like this would happen in, say, Idaho.)