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Oct. 13, 2021

349: Why is New Hampshire Becoming a Sanctuary for Liberty? -with Carla Gericke

349: Why is New Hampshire Becoming a Sanctuary for Liberty?  -with Carla Gericke

How has the Free State Project taken such hold in New Hampshire?

Why is New Hampshire Becoming a Sanctuary for Liberty? In short, it's because of people like today's guest and the rest of her team at the Free State Project!

 

Carla Gericke returns to the program outlining the recent wins the FSP has experience, plus we discuss Carla's brand new program, "The Carla Gericke Show".

 

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Transcript

Brian  
Trust the experts we're all in this together. If it saves one life, raise your hand if you've heard any of those tiresome phrases over the past year and a half I know my hand is firmly raised millions of people across. Dozens of industries were labeled on essential and forced the lockdown with livelihoods and futures crushed in an instant and as government has continued to expand its power and leverage fear to turn neighbor against neighbor a group of filmmakers have taken a stand and are determined to help set the record straight on the importance of following the actual science of the pandemic follow the science on lockdowns in Liberty from the sound mind create a group is a brand new docu series highlighting the stories of those negatively impacted over the past year and a half by ineffective government policies enacted in the name of following the science with noted experts like Nick Hudson from panda the pandemic data analytics organization healthcare policy advisors like Scott Atlas and telling stories of business owners families and just your average everyday person harmed by these government mandates follow the science on lockdowns and liberty has given us a chance to make sure the true stories of the pandemic are told so please help us at The Brian Nichols Show in supporting the sound mind creative group with noted figures in the Liberty movement like Dr. Tom Woods donating 1000s of their own dollars to this project you know just how important this project is. So head The Brian Nichols show.com forward slash follow the science to donate and catch their brand new trailer to the docu series one more time. That's Brian Nichols show.com for slash follow the science we can become great at doing the the things that we do well the things that we focus on like I'm I think our audience is great at selling Liberty I think we have been amazing at doing that. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show Your source for common sense politics on the we are libertarians network as a sales and marketing executive in the greater telecommunications cybersecurity industry. Brian works with C level executives to help them future proof their company's infrastructure for an uncertain future. And in each episode, Brian takes that experience and applies it to the Liberty movement, you start to ask questions that pique his interest and get him to feel like okay, this guy's actually got something that maybe you can help me out. And then you're asking him questions and trying to uncover the real problems build that natural trust. I know it wasn't a monologue there man. Instead of focusing on simply winning arguments or being right, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and their application in the world of politics, showing you how to ask better questions, tell better stories, and ultimately change people's minds. And now, your host, Brian Nichols. Well, Happy Wednesday there, folks, Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on today's fun filled episode. Of course, I am your humble host. And before we get started on today's amazing episode, it's so much fun, special shout out to the amazing Magdalene rose she filled in for all of us here on the network yesterday, instead of doing a Saturday, solo short with one of our past guests, we decided to have Magdalen do her solo short here on Tuesday. So thank you, Magdalene, for joining us on yesterday's episode and Yes, she is helping keep the GOP in line if you missed yesterday's episode, make sure you swing back and check it out. But on today's episode, the one and only Carla Garrick she returns to the program after a few years of not being on the show because they've been busy building some stuff up in New Hampshire. What stuff? How about one of the freest states in the entire United States? Yes, Carla Garrick joins the program to discuss all things that are happening in terms of the Free State Project up in New Hampshire and actually getting Liberty policy in to action. Also, Carla has a brand new show the karlik Eric show where we get to learn a little bit more about Carla like her story of coming to America. So a great conversation to be had and Oh yeah, a special guest appearance by a pesky little Woodpecker. So with that being said on to the show, Carla Garrick here on The Brian Nichols Show.

Unknown Speaker  
Thank you so much for having me.

Brian  
Absolutely. Carla, you are in fact hailing from the freest state in the entire United States One Free State Project home based New Hampshire and I'm so glad to have you back in the program because you guys have been doing the Lord's work and that is building up solutions outside of my goodness, what's ever happening outside of my door here in the northeast, you guys are a shining beacon of hope. But also you've been doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes but let's kind of go back because I think you were first in the program if I'm correct in my looking at the dates 2018 so it's been a hot sex since you were last on the program. Carla, what's new over in the life of Carla Garrick and yes, over on your new YouTube show the Carla Garrick show where the first question which answered my question I had beforehand, how do you actually say gag?

Unknown Speaker  
Thank you so much for having me again. I can't believe it's been that long to be honest. It's It's crazy, but I'm delighted to be back. Yes, I just started a new show called The Carla Garrick show and it is on my YouTube channel. karlik Eric, I, you know, I've been doing a little media here and there and I thought, you know, the time is right, these do not seem to be going in the right direction. not a huge fan of censorship. So I was like, you know, let's let's make sure we get the message of liberty out there. So basically the karlik Eric shows going to be a a weekly show, I'll probably start to do it more frequently. But let's start with once a week and see how that goes. And the idea is to really present New Hampshire local news from a Liberty perspective. So you know, really just taking whatever is in the news and talking about that I really want to highlight free staters who have moved you know, as you mentioned in the intro, the Free State Project is this movement of libertarians and liberty lovers to the State of New Hampshire. And we have a incredible community and so I just want to highlight those people you know, I think we're in a information war and so you know, the naysayers gonna say nasty things and I kind of want to come back with well really here we are we like really that awful No, no we're not right. So I'm I'm super excited to launch it gonna have guests news from a Liberty, Liberty perspective, and all of that good stuff. And then the other aspect of it that I really want to emphasize and that's sort of part of my personal journey is just that you know, I I've sort of switched to this real growth mindset and this idea of, you know, we have to fail in order to succeed and so instead of getting on our own way, we got to be doing projects we got to be pushing, we got to put things out there and then just keep iterating and I want to inspire other people to really do that in their own lives. So so that's it in a nutshell,

Brian  
man, I'd love to hear it because one of the things we've been trying to build up here at the program has been this idea of not only encouraging people to go above and beyond try new things get out of their comfort zones, but also to embrace and celebrate greatness. And let's be real Carla in in a past year, in almost two years. At this point, it's hard to imagine we've been under semi kind of locked down state where we're in this constant influx of weather we're living life kind of normally or we're going back to massive restrictions and mandates I'm in Philadelphia, PA I see it outside it's a different world than what you're experiencing up in New Hampshire and I think to celebrate the greatness and truly the importance of not only what you're doing at the Free State Project in New Hampshire, but the entirety of those who have taken the step is say we're done we're not going to play by these just insane rules we're just going to go and we're going to start building solutions in a an area where we can be a community and work together and show the value of our ideas not just in the group chats or on the Facebook platform, but rather actually going out and showing it to real people and then they can say oh wow, look at that those libertarians they're making people's lives better and they're standing up against these crazy mandates they're standing up against these these vaccine passports there we just got banned from YouTube probably like the fact that these libertarians are actually fighting back for your rights and people are appreciating that it's gonna be such a great an empowering feeling for I would say what, how many years have we had any wins really at all? And we can look to New Hampshire as a solid not just win, but you guys are a saving grace right now, Carla?

Unknown Speaker  
Yeah, you know, you never want to be the one who's like told you so except apparently I am the one who wants to be told you. So in fact, my first foray into all of this was a podcast with my neighbor cold told you so. And that's still available on pod bean, we actually started doing it when COVID happened, you know, we're sort of on different sides of the fence and we wanted to maintain our friendship. So we just kind of put that on a hiatus and haven't brought it back. You know, there's nothing more validating than when you go, Hey, I have these ideas. I'm going to do this thing and then over time, you're proven right? So you know, I moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. I'm a Oji at this stage. That's a big call. That's right, the original against earth. And I moved out in 2008. I bought my first crypto you know, Bitcoin for $6. I'm at the stage where I'm kind of saying Hey, guys, you know, we we've shown the value proposition of what New Hampshire can offer. We've shown the value proposition of what can happen when you put a community of like minded people together. I think for so many people. They were frustrated over the last year because You know, we're you know, and other states people feel like they're alone or they feel like because their their their natural inclination is outside the mainstream you know, we're being bombarded literally bombarded with propaganda 24 seven, telling us, you know, one perspective and so if you have this like, I don't know, a little liberty and individualism notion and kernel inside you, I think it's probably been really lonely. I will tell you this, we, you know, I was, I think I my first march in April last year, I was on the record against the lockdowns against any kind of mandates, and all of that. And life for free staters in New Hampshire, pretty much just went ahead, as it had always done, we were having gatherings, I was possibly the only person in the world who simply said, I am not canceling pork fest. So we held pork Fest in 2020, we had over 1000 people who showed up, I told the public and the governor and all the folks that this was a first and second amendment protected assembly, and that we would go ahead and do what we wanted to do. There were no negative health consequences. And you know, life just simply went on, I think one of the biggest challenges we're going to see as we're trying to navigate our way out of 2020. And you know, just this insanity that we've been dealing with, is to try and compassionately kind of let people know,

Unknown Speaker  
who are kind of on the wrong side of this, but it's okay. And look, all these other people were just behaving normally, and nothing awful happened. Like, you know, you've been told one story, but that isn't the reality of what happens for the people who just genuinely went on with their lives. And so, you know, I feel I do feel validated. After all these years, the Free State Project is growing in leaps and bounds. We are getting, you know, so many new people, we have a monthly new movers party, and it's always on the first Tuesday of the month. So on Tuesday, I was at that one at our Community Center here in Manchester. And there were I think, 10 or 12, new Movers. There were it was overly packed, you know, like, we're like, oh, no, we're gonna have to start doing these twice a month, because we have too many people coming in. So these, of course, are all good problems to have. I highly encourage people, anyone who is really interested in solution based futures, right? I say this all the time. And I will continue to say we build the futures we want. So if people want some kind of dystopian totalitarian future, yeah, agree with the mandates, yes, give up your rights, do all of that, that is not what I want. And there are 1000s, if not 10s of 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people who agree with that. So New Hampshire will remain the value proposition, right, we have low taxes, we have a really, really great quality of living, it's just as like sort of secret little states, I almost take pleasure in it at this stage, when you see people talking about Florida or South Dakota, and, and kudos to those governors, they did a good they did a good job. But really, the secret that no one knows about is what we're doing up here in New Hampshire. And it you know, if you want a quality life with a community of people who get you and who are going to say no, at the right times, then then people should check it out. fsp.org You know, our governor, you know, he did a fairly good job given what could happen. So there were definitely things where, you know, it was, here's, here's a, here's a mandate, but here are 20 outs, you know, so that kind of game was was the way they played it here.

Brian  
I want to go back to something you said about empathy, because he didn't say the word empathy. But it was the answer, I think, to the question that people were saying, and that was to Well, how do you tell somebody I told you so without telling them? told yourself? And I think what we're finding is that you have to give people the opportunity to to say I was wrong, but do it in a way that they can say, Okay, well now, I just can't feel bad. You have to give them that path towards redemption. So what I'm finding is that if we're able to have these conversations with people and say, hey, let's go ahead and show you that path through the solutions we're

Unknown Speaker  
building. Okay, right, right. And you know,

Unknown Speaker  
They did this really evil thing. So I'm not sure what's up with the I'll just call them cupcakes so we can stay, we can stay YouTube free, I'm having a lot of my content removed. I'm not sure what's up with the cupcakes and you know, that is an individual choice that everyone needs to make for themselves. But we're in this catch 22 where I know for me, my parents, for example, you know, my dad is actually having some some health issues as a result, I believe of, you know, his choices. And now I'm in this like, difficult situation where you really don't want to scare someone who can't reverse the decision they made. And I do think, you know, as we as we navigate these next six months, or the next year, or maybe even the next couple of years, we are going to have to be mindful about that fact, we are going to have to be sensitive to the fact that, you know, you don't actually want to take people who possibly are already. I mean, we know everyone's scared, right? They spent all that time scaring everyone. I gave a speech at a health freedom rally on Saturday. And one of the things I said is I liken it to an air raid siren going off, right? So in the Second World War, if you were in London, they would put off the siren, you'd know the bombs are coming right, you'd spike your journal and your cortisol would go off. Like there's all these physiological reactions, what they've done is they've basically taken an air raid siren and they turned it into a 24 seven experience which has an incredibly negative effect on your health, because we shouldn't be primed and we shouldn't be in this constant you know, fight or flight and they they're doing that on purpose to people. So people are scared at effects or miglia and then they become really pliable and I said where we can add value is to acknowledge that right? So to take the science of neuroscience and to say, okay, we know these are the things that have happened, how can we with empathy and compassion and sensitivity really try and dial some of that back? I think it's going to come from people realizing that if we're going to live in a medical terney you have to actually take charge of your own health and so I'm optimistic that over time people this this will actually hopefully at least start to influence how people choose to live how they feel their bodies what they're eating, you know if they're getting enough sleep, like all the things that we know that we've heard 100 times I personally went through that journey and I made all those changes so I know it can be done and that doing it is worth it because your quality of living becomes so much better when you are when you're healthy

Brian  
alright yeah, we just took a little break there um, I don't know if you guys see the audience or that we thought that we had paranormal activity there Carla, but just a woodpecker. So if we do hear that knocking again, don't worry, folks. It's not It's not the ghost trying to get out Carla's closet. It's a woodpecker just trying to get our attention. But we go back yes to empathy. Empathy is so important. Jeremy Todd and I did an entire series here on the show is about two months worth of episodes digging into why empathy is important not just in sales, but specifically as we apply it to the Liberty world because right now, we are seeing and I'm seeing this in my own life and I'm seeing it in the people I talked to a lot of overtly non political people who were kind of on that, you know, hey, 15 days of slow spread, like okay, I know it's weird, but we'll do this. And they kind of went along with I don't want to kill Grandma, you know, hey, I'm on board for these restrictions for now, I guess. But as they've started to see what's transpired especially over the past year, since we kind of knew that things were wrapping up, but as the vaccines were coming down the pike, you know, the discussion was, hey, these will be available coming soon. You have the choice. You want to take your first vaccine, your second vaccine, your booster shot your boosters, booster shot, whatever it may be, go for it, you have that option. But once that was there, I think a lot of people kind of said, okay, it's over. And now they're realizing that it was originally letting that kind of that first slippery slope start off, it turned into my goodness, a ginormous tsunami, and now they're trying to look for that opportunity to get some almost redemption right to say, Listen, I left up what can I do to help fix this? And I think that's right now where people are in that mindset. I just watched it was a debate between Ana Kasparian from the Young Turks and Ben Shapiro. And one of the reoccurring themes throughout the entirety of that conversation that they were having was the difference in solutions. And Ben did not say at once and I'm Just going crazy, because the problem is that the inherent solutions that we've embraced for the past 250 plus years have been top down approaches to these solutions. Now granted, was that the intention at the onset, no, but it did increase those incentive structures to point us more towards this top down approach. And instead of saying, we need to just kind of acknowledge that these incentive structures themselves are broken. And no matter who's in charge of this Leviathan of a government, it's not gonna get better. It's just gonna be used one side versus the other. So let's start building real solutions outside of the political environment, just like you did I mean, the governor and his law enforcement agents, they didn't come in and disrupt pork fest. Why? Because they were kind of assuming a little weary of going and disrupting a first and second amendment sanctuary event. And that's something that we need to be more confident in is is saying, Hey, listen, we're just gonna do our thing. Like, if you want to come play this game, we don't want to play this game, but just Can you just let us live our lives, please. And I think you're starting to see more and more people embrace that, like, Just leave me alone. Don't hurt people don't take their stuff, live and let live. What's wrong with that? And truly, Carla, as you're having more and more people come into the Free State up there in New Hampshire, I'm sure you're hearing the same thing is that they're escaping areas that are wholeheartedly rejecting the ideas of personal autonomy of freedom, individual responsibility, and actually letting you live your life as you see fit. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker  
mean, I cannot overstate how awesome community is, right? I mean, we all we've all heard the cliche safety in numbers. I think it's true. It's true for several reasons. And of course, just simply, as you said, no one really wants to like, like, I don't want to front in the sense where I'm like, yeah, you know, I wanted them to come at me, I really don't want the state to come at me. I think when the state comes at you, it's a nightmare. We know that based on, you know, what we've seen happens, people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Ross, Ulbricht, you know, the whole gamut of that kind of thing. So that's not the energy I want to put out there. The energy I want to put out there, if I had to summarize it in the sentence would be Mind your own business. You know, I was laughing. there's a there's a Facebook account called it's God, right? So it's a god account, and he posts or she posts your funny questions, and people can respond. And it was like, What is one tenant everyone should follow. And I said, mind your own business. And it was like, hugely popular, like it had 1000s of likes. But then I was also very surprised that the, the sort of, you know, the comments under that we're people, we're just not on board with that notion anymore. So I do think we have our work cut out for us in terms of messaging, but then I think the value proposition also of the Free State Project is the ability to lead by example, and to show people, right. It's always nice if someone goes first, so you can see how that works. And so I think that's what we've done, you know, the Free State practice has been around almost for 20 years now. And again, we're growing, and we're attracting people who are solution based and actually want to build a better future. And so that's exciting as well, right? You know, crypto is huge up here. We'd love to see more crypto people and more crypto businesses come in, we've had a lot of successes politically, you know, the Speaker of the House is a free state or the, or I'm sorry, the majority leader. You know, the, we've made these massive inroads. And so it's, it's, it's like, Hey, guys, we've done a lot of the work for you, there's a lot that still needs to get done. But if people come, you know, again, the freedom for freedom program, which is when people bring their families and really build out their families here, there's off the grid, there really is a little something for everyone. But we've put in the work, and now we need reinforcements. Right? I will say this, based on on, you know, my gray hair and my experience at this stage, things aren't really moving in the right direction. And so we know that there's this trend towards world decentralization, you could take something like comparing, you know, I think and the 1800s to the 1900s. There were I don't know if it was like 63 or 83 countries now we have over 200 countries. So I think what we're going to see hopefully, because this I believe is the most peaceful way that we can solve a lot of these problems is simply to say, why not allow people to band together based on their values, right? New Hampshire is the Live Free or Die state. I mean, it's right there in our motto, right. And the other part of that statement, of course, from general Stark is Live Free or Die. Death is not the worst of evils. Now I've wanted to try to shift that because, as I said in the speech at the health freedom thing, Live Free or Die, doesn't play well on a pandemic, right? When people are chanting that you're like, we don't really want anyone to die. So So for me, I've kind of tried to turn that into live free and thrive, to people who are curious, that's sort of I think that the voice or the note that I want to put out there, because we know that when people do live free, we do create more prosperity, more economic prosperity, more personal growth, more of all of those things. And so I want to create a society and I want people to come and join us to create a society where we respect, you know, individual freedoms, we respect property rights, because that's an important part of that equation. But where we really respect those things, because we believe it's going to create a better future where people can thrive. You know, I saw this thing I was horrified on Facebook this morning, it is covered. And I shared it on my wall is a photo which I will describe right now. But it is covered with a violent contact graphic content warning. So it comes with a warning, even my dad was like, What is up with this? The picture is a picture of a little Daisy coming out of the cracks of the ground. There are some people on the distance, and it says,

Unknown Speaker  
you know, stand up alone, stand up for what you believe in, even if you have to stand up alone. And I say, Yeah, there you go stand up for what you believe in, even if it means standing alone. And that shocked me because I'm like, wow, why are they doing that? And then I was hopeful, I don't know more people clicked on it, because it had the warning on there. So maybe someone's helping us. But that's kind of where we are. And I think for people that come who are confused about these notions. So that warning came because they said that meme stand up for what you believe in, even if it means standing alone is against the community standards. Now I will posit what is a community if not a bunch of individuals. So you know, we've all seen the means that say they're conditioning us to view and, you know, independence or individual rights as selfish, we're being told, oh, you can't you can't refuse these things because but of course, they don't want us to refuse these things. Because it's going to be very clear if we're going to end up with with you know, different medical outcomes as a result of this, you know, autoimmune diseases, whatever, you know, what the outcome is going to be. I think they don't want too big a control group, where we can very clearly say x and y so who knows, I just want people to move here. You know, I believe in individual freedom and and, and choice. So you know, it's not like, you know, everyone's anti backs or pro backs or any of that. I think the one thing that is uniting is, if you're, you know, principled libertarian, you should be anti mandate. Now, sadly, you know, places like the cato institute have lost the plot on those issues. But our community knows that, you know, we have to stand together, we have to be healthy to do it. You know, we all try and help each other. There's a lot of social and the social is important, because I think that was really one of the damaging things over this last time. And so fsp.org Carla garraf.com people should buy my book, The ecstatic pessimist, which I do not have a copy of to show you. So that's shockingly bad of me. And, you know, and subscribe to my social and all of that good stuff. Follow the message, follow the Free State Project. And then please come to our events. We have Liberty forum coming up in March, we have pork Fest, they'll be next June as it always is. And it's a great way to meet the community to see if this is going to be a good fit for you. And then come join the fun because that's the other thing when you live your principles and you live your principles forward in a good and balanced way. It's fun, and you feel good. And it's nice to be surrounded by people you

Brian  
the importance of shared values, that is today's episode title. Because at the end of the day, it is important to not just have shared lived experiences. But yes, those shared values because at the end of the day, that's what we're building upon. We're building upon those shared values. If you want to learn more about those shared values up in Yes, the Free State of New Hampshire, head over to the Carla Garrick show we've already answered The question of how you say Garrick but you get to go ahead and hear her coming to America story as well. I will include the link there for the YouTube in the show notes as well as all the audio transcription for today's episode Carla Garrick from the Free State Project. Thanks for joining The Brian Nichols Show.

Unknown Speaker  
Thanks for having me.

Brian  
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Carla Gericke Profile Photo

Carla Gericke

Author, Activist, Attorney

After winning the Green Card lottery, Carla Gericke left the plains of Africa for a better life in America. Before then, she finished boarding school when she was sixteen years old, and law school when she was 21, working as an attorney in South Africa and California.

Carla is author of The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly), now available on Amazon or directly from Carla (personalized and shipping included). Says Nick Gillespie, Editor-at-Large for Reason Magazine: “It’s a fantastic package of writings that veer from fiction to autobiography and memoir to political polemics…. I highly recommend The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly).”

Carla has appeared on WMUR, CNN, and Fox News, been featured in GQ and Playboy, been quoted in The Economist, and has discussed libertarianism on the BBC. She has visited more than 40 countries, hiked to the base camp of the 10th highest mountain in the world, lost a shoe in a taxi more than once, had her passport stolen in Goa, got kidnapped in Vietnam, and has noshed on more “mystery meat” street food than she cares to admit. Carla once spent an entire summer while working as in-house counsel at Logitech eating tuna fish sandwiches with Doug Engelbart (the Mother Of All Demos dude), she worked on Apple’s acquisition of Steve Job’s NeXT, and bought her first Bitcoin for $6.

In 2010, Carla was arrested and charged with felony wiretapping for filming police officers during a late night traffic stop, and four years later, she won a landmark First Circuit case affirming the First Amendment right to… Read More