Mantra: Act on excitement to the best of your ability without expectation of outcome.
Video
Bitcoin and Real Estate in New Hampshire (Manch Talk 09/03/25; Day 246 of MLX)
Matt Ping, the visionary behind Ledgeview Commercial teams up with Carla Gericke to dive deep into the sizzling intersection of Bitcoin and real estate! Discover how New Hampshire is blazing a trail as a crypto pioneer with its groundbreaking legislation, unlocking new frontiers for decentralized finance. They’ll unpack the revolutionary rise of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), explore cutting-edge developments shaking up the industry, and reveal why the Free State is the ultimate launchpad for the future of property and blockchain. Don’t miss this discussion packed with insights that’ll redefine how you see your future!
This post doubles as MLX 247
Just got back from Boston where I attended @brownstoneinst Supper Club with Unshrunk author Laura Delano… Tired & dialing this in https://t.co/aTgjx7fDCG
— Carla Gericke, Live Free And Thrive! (@CarlaGericke) September 3, 2025
New Month, new MLX design, now with incoming Fall colors.
Not one word of this screed about me is true, and other news from the @FreeStateNH https://t.co/CkIevoxAFh
— Carla Gericke, Live Free And Thrive! (@CarlaGericke) September 1, 2025
Musta done something to piss off the Tech Lords because none of the tools are working again. See below for the Restream version on Youtube.
My thoughts in the last hour of my 72-hour water fast… https://t.co/gXUEmtJa49
— Carla Gericke, Live Free And Thrive! (@CarlaGericke) August 31, 2025
Downsides of alcohol vs. cannabis, how my fasting is going (53/72 hours), and more! Join me now… https://t.co/HTg8paoCzd
— Carla Gericke, Live Free And Thrive! (@CarlaGericke) August 30, 2025
Per GROK:
Table: Downsides of Alcohol vs. Cannabis
Aspect | Alcohol Downsides | Cannabis Downsides |
---|---|---|
Annual Deaths | ~2.6M global deaths/year (4.7% of all deaths), including 1.6M from cancers/heart disease. In the US, ~178,000 deaths from excessive use; top preventable cause for ages 15-49 (9% of deaths). | Negligible direct deaths; no fatal overdoses recorded. Indirect risks: doubled heart disease mortality, 20% higher stroke risk, but far fewer deaths. Use disorders affect 23.8M globally, minimal mortality. |
Health Effects | Highly toxic/addictive: causes liver cirrhosis, cancers, heart disease, brain damage. No safe level; moderate use impairs cognition, immunity, increases depression/anxiety. Severe withdrawal. | Impairs driving, cognition short-term; potential psychosis risk in vulnerable users; respiratory issues if smoked. 25% higher heart attack risk, 42% stroke risk with daily use. Lower addiction/toxicity. |
Neurotoxicity | Potent neurotoxin: damages brain cells, disrupts neural communication via thiamine deficiency, metabolite toxicity, neuroinflammation. Causes cognitive decline, hippocampal atrophy, brain shrinkage. | May affect brain structure in chronic users (cannabinoid receptor areas); some cognitive changes in heavy use. No significant neurocognitive effects in therapeutic trials; lower neurotoxic potential. |
Safe Consumption Levels | No safe level; light drinking damages DNA, raises cancer risk, harms brain. 2025 research debunks protective effects, confirms premature aging, organ damage. | No fatal overdose threshold; heavy/high-THC use may impair cognition/driving. Therapeutic doses benefit pain/spasticity; minimal irreversible adult damage, though adolescent risks unclear. |
Cancer Risks | Group 1 carcinogen: increases risk of 7+ cancers (breast, liver, colorectal) via DNA damage, acetaldehyde. No safe threshold; occasional use elevates lifetime cancer odds. | Smoked cannabis may pose lung cancer risk (weak evidence, tobacco-confounded); non-smoked forms show minimal cancer links. Some cannabinoids studied for anti-cancer properties; lower carcinogenicity. |
Other Organ Damage | Toxic to most organs: liver (cirrhosis, failure), heart (cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias), pancreas (pancreatitis), immune suppression. Linked to 200+ conditions; accelerates aging, multi-organ failure. | Affects lungs if smoked (bronchitis); temporary heart rate increase in heavy users. Minimal direct toxicity; low links to severe damage. Potential neuroprotective/anti-inflammatory benefits in medical use. |
Societal Damage | Drives reckless behavior, violence, accidents; drunk driving causes thousands of deaths yearly. Most dangerous drug, surpassing heroin, due to violence, economic costs, health burdens. | Linked to motor vehicle accidents, occupational injuries, but fewer deaths. Less violence/recklessness; lower societal costs. Rare risks from contaminated products (e.g., strokes). Less severe harms. |
Alcohol’s “Low Vibes” and Drunk Behavior vs. Cannabis
What Are “Low Vibes” or “Negative Vibes”?
“Low vibes” describes the heavy, chaotic, or unpleasant atmosphere alcohol creates due to its emotional and social effects. As a depressant, it amplifies negative emotions (sadness, anger) and disrupts group harmony, unlike cannabis, which often fosters “higher vibes”—relaxation, creativity, or connection. Cannabis can cause mild anxiety or lethargy at high doses but is less socially disruptive.
Typical Drunk Behaviors and Their “Low Vibe” Impact:
Alcohol suppresses judgment (prefrontal cortex) and boosts emotional volatility (amygdala), leading to behaviors that create negative vibes:
- Recklessness: Poor decisions like drunk driving (~10,000 US deaths/year) or risky sex create danger, making others uneasy. Cannabis impairs driving (1.5-2x risk increase) but rarely leads to extreme recklessness, often making users passive.
- Aggression: Linked to 35-60% of violent incidents, alcohol turns minor issues into fights, creating threatening vibes. Cannabis rarely causes violence, often promoting calm or giggles, though high doses may cause anxiety (10-20% of users).
- Emotional Volatility: Mood swings between euphoria, sadness, or anger (common after 4-5+ drinks) feel draining or unpredictable. Cannabis causes milder mood shifts, often relaxing users or enhancing introspection.
- Motor Impairment: Slurred speech, stumbling (at 0.08%+ blood alcohol) make interactions awkward or pitiful. Cannabis slows coordination but keeps users more socially coherent unless heavily intoxicated.
- Inappropriateness: Oversharing or ignoring social cues (20-30% of drinkers regret actions) creates discomfort or cringe-worthy vibes. Cannabis users are less likely to violate boundaries aggressively, often staying self-contained.
Why Alcohol’s Vibes Are Worse:
Alcohol’s neurotoxicity, lack of safe consumption levels, and role in 2.6M global deaths (violence, accidents, disease) make it a massive burden. Cannabis, with no fatal overdoses, lower social disruption, and therapeutic benefits (e.g., pain relief), aligns with your pro-pot view as a safer, less “low vibe” option.
Prominent leader of the Free State Project, Carla Gericke gives a talk, “The Good Girl’s Guide to Self-Ownership,” delivered at PorcFest, where she explores the concept of self-ownership by likening each individual to an independent country (1:50). She emphasizes that true liberty begins within oneself, asserting that the dreams of building a libertarian homeland in New Hampshire stem from individual self-ownership (2:05).
Gericke breaks down self-ownership into three core components:
- Body as Infrastructure (6:06): Your body is your homeland. She encourages mindful attention to what is allowed in (food, love) and establishing boundaries. Your immune system is your primary defense (27:37), and managing inflammation is crucial for health. She also highlights the importance of emergency protocols for personal well-being (29:19).
- Mind as Government (29:51): The mind functions as the government of your personal country, with legislative, executive, and judicial branches. She stresses defining your value system (30:09), developing effective decision-making processes (31:12), and being aware of who controls your mind, especially in an age of constant propaganda (33:01). She candidly discusses her personal journey of quitting alcohol to achieve a clearer mind (35:03).
- Soul as Culture/Identity (37:19): This aspect focuses on developing your personal culture, constitution, and national identity. Gericke advocates for embracing the desire to be “good” and striving for wholeness. Key tools for accountability include journaling (39:09), setting goals with quarterly reviews (40:19), monitoring health through blood tests (40:27), and building a strong community network (40:47).
She connects individual self-ownership to broader movements like the Free State Project’s efforts to achieve independence for New Hampshire, highlighting the importance of freedom, decentralization, and unity as guiding principles (42:47). Gericke concludes by reiterating that fostering individual self-determination leads to a more voluntary world where communities can overcome challenges like resource scarcity and instability by banding together as self-owned humans (44:50).
Lotsa good advice in this one!
Hour 26 of 72-96 fast, but my PJs and my glasses match! Join me LIVE for today's ramble! https://t.co/mgfVqrQSaB
— Carla Gericke, Live Free And Thrive! (@CarlaGericke) August 29, 2025
I didn’t realize I was nervous about this coming out until it did. But… know what? It’s pretty good for the first time out of the gate with this framing. If you’re a man, just pretend the title says, The Bad Boy’s Guide to Self-Ownership.
PS: DALLE-generated fake book cover placeholder, not the real deal.
Opening & Audience Invite
Thank you for coming—especially this early. Although this talk is called The Good Girl’s Guide to Self‑Ownership, it applies to men too. Welcome to the first‑timers and local New Hampshirites who came for Joel—glad you’re here.
Our mission: build a libertarian homeland in New Hampshire. Many people said we’d never do big, impossible things (like helping free Ross Ulbricht), but history moves when humans act. My aim today is to share a personal framework for claiming self‑ownership so we can scale our impact.
The Core Frame: “You Are Your Own Country”
What if each of us treated our body‑mind‑soul as an independent country? The more sovereign we are as individuals, the more capable we are of building a free culture together.
The quest: discover who you are, then live unapologetically—with mindfulness and self‑control. The only good nation is imagination—so let’s imagine a simple, relatable model to help people translate the idea of self‑ownership.
The Trap of “I‑Am‑Right‑ism”
In the liberty world, we often suffer from certainty addiction. That can be movement‑killing. Ross Ulbricht’s mantra at Bitcoin 2025 captures the balance: freedom, decentralization, unity. Today, we zoom the decentralization lens all the way down to the individual.
The 3‑Part Model: Body • Mind • Soul
1) Body = Infrastructure (Terra Firma / Homeland)
Your body is your country’s roads, energy grid, borders, and defenses.
- Borders & Boundaries: What’s allowed in? Food, media, relationships, love. Choose inputs mindfully.
- Maintenance: Who “builds your roads”? Sleep, nutrition, movement, sunlight, nature.
- Defense: Your immune system is national defense. COVID showed that metabolic health and a clear mind are shields against fear and propaganda.
- Inflammation: Think of inflammation as cellular “hellfire.” Reduce sugar and toxins; avoid voluntarily lighting your body on fire.
- Emergency Protocols: Prepare responses for relapse triggers (e.g., call a sponsor, text a trusted friend, walk, breathe).
Personal note: I quit alcohol in 2017. Alcohol is a neurotoxin; there is no truly safe level. Clarity changed everything. Picking poisons is real—just be honest about costs.
2) Mind = Governance (Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Foreign Affairs)
Your mind runs the institutions of your country.
- Constitution (Values & Beliefs): Write them down. Aim for alignment between thoughts, words, and deeds.
- Executive Function (Decisions): What’s your decision playbook? React or pause? Escalate or defer? Name your leadership role—CEO/Queen of You.
- Judicial (Self‑Review): How do you adjudicate mistakes without self‑sabotage? Write, reflect, amend.
- Public Affairs (Narrative): Who controls your mind? Be deliberate about propaganda detox—limit screens like they’re addictive stimuli.
- Foreign Relations (Diplomacy): Practice voluntarism with neighbors (other “countries”). Use words, not force.
3) Soul = Culture (Identity, Traditions, Meaning)
Cultivate a personal culture that makes you whole—your relationship to God/The Source/meaning. It’s okay to want to be good and wholesome in a world that often rewards cynicism.
- National Identity: What do you stand for? What do you refuse?
- Traditions & Rituals: Prayer/meditation, nature time, family dinner, gratitude—design the culture you live in daily.
Tools for Accountability & Growth
- Eat Right: Whole, low‑sugar, anti‑inflammatory foods; cook with love.
- Move Daily: Walks, lifting, stretching—“who builds your roads?” You do.
- Journal: One year daily; it will stick. Journaling clears the mind, releases resentment, and creates a record.
- Quarterly Reviews: Set goals; check metrics (labs, weight, sleep, HRV). Track in simple spreadsheets.
- Community: Build a circle that keeps you honest. New Hampshire is that scaffold—sovereign individuals in a voluntary network.
Barriers to Self‑Ownership (and How to Handle Them)
- External Influences: Media cycles, propaganda, conflict bait. Solution: intentional inputs, time in nature, real conversations.
- Internal Division: The “Pringles can” problem—learn your triggers, don’t keep them nearby, design your environment.
- Resource Scarcity: Lean into community—trade, share, mutual aid, skill‑swaps.
- Violence/Instability: Healthier, voluntary communities de‑risk conflict by choosing diplomacy and consent over coercion.
New Hampshire Independence Work (Context for the Frame)
- Pathway: In NH we’ve used constitutional amendments (requires 60% House/Senate, then 67% voter approval). Hard, not impossible.
- Iterations: First CACR was simple (“peaceably secede”). 13 votes out of 400. Next version added a trigger (national debt at $40T) and doubled support to 23—listened and refined.
- Study Committee Proposal: Answer public questions (Social Security, passports, border pacts, family across state lines). There are practical, peaceful solutions.
- Media Anecdote: Dr. Phil experience—brought arguments rooted in non‑aggression and self‑determination. The long social clip never aired—telling in itself.
Moral: Personal sovereignty scales into civic sovereignty. Individuals who own themselves create freer towns, then a freer state.
The Cult of One (Next‑Step Concept)
People sometimes call us a “cult.” Running a cult of individuals? Do not recommend. The Cult of One means: focus on your own country (mind‑body‑soul), then practice diplomacy with others. Freedom → Decentralization → Unity.
You come whole to me; I come whole to you. We solve problems with words and consent, not force.
Closing Invitation
Yes, a lot of this is what your granny told you. Good ideas endure because they work. If this resonates, watch for the book: The Good Girl’s Guide to Self‑Ownership. And, for the other half of the campground, The Bad Boy’s Guide may exist too.
Thank you for being here. Let’s build sovereign selves—and a sovereign New Hampshire.
Transcript of talk:
Hi guys, thank you so much for coming. I know it’s early in the morning and everyone is just here waiting for Joel
0:06
who I too am very excited to uh to hear. Uh if we are broadcasting on the
0:14
campground, I would like to let everyone know since about 70% of the campground is male, even though this talk is called
0:22
the good girls guide to self ownership, it does also apply to boys. Um, so I
0:31
think I’ll start there. I was going to ask people, uh, who here has never been to Porkfest before? Do we have any right
0:38
back there? Wonderful. Yay. So, I had the fortune of talking to these ladies
0:44
before I got up here and they are locals from New Hampshire who have come who
0:50
have never been to Porkfest before. They’re just here for a couple of days. They came to see Joel and that is part
0:57
of our mission, right? We are building the libertarian homeland here in New
1:04
Hampshire. And if I have my brothers and I will say everyone said we would not
1:11
get Ross Olrich out of prison and we historically and truly did that. So if I
1:19
have my brothers, we’re going to create an independent country here in the great
1:26
state of New Hampshire. It starts with the free state and it starts with our human action. So I’m going to talk today
1:33
a little bit about my personal journey sort of against a
1:39
landscape of a framing which I think could work for many of us on our quest
1:47
to claim self ownership and the idea I came up with is what if each one of us
1:54
treated our units our body as our own independent country Because the dreams
2:02
and the aspirations we have and the things that we want to create here in New Hampshire all stem from
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self-ownership because if you are not in control of yourself, mindful of
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yourself, know yourself from a stoic perspective, then it becomes actually very difficult to navigate
2:26
uh the larger world in a way. I believe each and every one of us is actually the
2:32
steward of your own life. And if we focused more on ourselves
2:37
and paid a little less attention to the numbnuts out there trying to destroy the world, we can actually scale up faster
2:46
because we’re going to be uh better humans, I suppose. So I want to talk
2:52
about how you can rewrite your life, how you can rewire your brain and how you
2:59
can become the sovereign ruler of your own life. So the quest is to find out
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authentically who you are and to live your unapologetic life but with
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mindfulness and with actual control. So I wrote this joke that says the only
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good nation is imagination and I think that uh we should all you
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know spend some time today sort of imagining right so this is going to be a bit of a journey in terms of who you can
3:37
be what the different breakdowns is of this notion of you as a country but the
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idea is that if we come up with a simplistic framework to explain these
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ideas, it makes it easier to translate and the more relatable ideas we can
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spread, the easier it becomes to spread our message because I think sometimes
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you know we have this especially libertarians but I would say most people in the the liberty sphere you know
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whether you’re anap or whatever label you want to give self uh we we we suffer
4:17
from I am rightism in a way that is actually
4:22
dehabilitating. It is very hard to create a movement in the words actually of Ross Olrich and I hope he’ll say them
4:29
here on Saturday at 1 p.m. when he does his speech. Um I was at Bitcoin 2025
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which was an insane conference by the way. You can tell Bitcoin’s up because uh there were 35,000
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attendees. It was bananas. My background is I was a
4:50
corporate lawyer in Silicon Valley for a long time and I watched Sailor on stage
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and I was like, you can tell this is a very frothy bull market because as a
5:01
lawyer I was like I wouldn’t let someone get on stage and talk that way. like it’s only upside upside upside no risk
5:08
right and you’re like wait a second but I do think we have three years here where it seems like crypto is being
5:15
adopted more but at that conference Ross used this what I’m now calling almost a
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mantra where he said um it’s about freedom decentralization
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and unity and so maybe the the the area I want to focus on today is that sort of decent
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centralization down to the individual, right? So if you’re your own country,
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maybe we should think about this as almost a gamification, right? So there
5:49
are ways that we can think about things now. And that’s sort of how I’ve learned to hack my life as well. Um, so let’s
5:57
let’s use our imagination. So the way I broke it down for me is
6:04
basically body, mind, soul, right? That’s kind of
6:09
how I view my unit, right? So we have our bodies, we have our minds, and then
6:15
we have our spiritual side, whether it’s your relationship with God or a maker or
6:20
something hopefully that you have in your life that is external to you that
6:25
gives you meaning in a way that makes you uh holistically whole, authentically
6:31
you. And so if if you think about the body
6:37
as your infrastructure, so it’s the infrastructure of your country, right?
6:42
So it’s your terrairma. It’s your homeland. So
6:48
over the years, I’ve done a lot of independence work here in New Hampshire. And I don’t know if people are familiar
6:54
with this, but we’ve actually introduced two secession bills in New Hampshire.
7:00
Woo. and um and yes, they haven’t done as great as they could, but I one would
7:07
recommend if you haven’t watched the Dr. Phil episode in which I uh represented
7:14
our position. Um and actually it’s a good one to watch in in any event, but you know, he he Dr.
7:22
Phil had us on, uh, a guy from Texas, me from the New Hampshire Exit Movement,
7:29
um, and then, you know, a couple of people who were there as, as sort of ringers. And I think the
7:36
pro-independence people actually made the most compelling arguments and were really the most persuasive because what
7:43
you’re talking about really is is self ownership. You’re talking about self-determination,
7:49
right? And when we talk about self-determination in the context of
7:56
nation building, then you know if you ask Grock, it’ll be like, sure, this
8:02
country in Africa that was colonized should totally have self-determination rights. And it’s like, okay, Grock, so
8:10
if that country is allowed to have them, why isn’t New Hampshire allowed to have them? Right? And so our arguments are
8:17
actually very compelling. So much so that when we were finished with the
8:22
episode, and I’ll just tell like a little story because it’s like one of the weirdest or fanciest things that’s
8:29
ever happened to me in my media landscape. Um, they take you uh it was
8:35
like a weekend. They fly you out. They put you up in a hotel and then the recording was the Monday morning, but
8:42
they only record at like 1 in the afternoon, but they put you in a green room from like 800 a.m. that morning.
8:50
And I was like, is this supposed to be a stew room? Like, are they working me?
8:57
Are there hidden cameras? Like, what’s going on? I’m just doing my breathing exercises and texting people and being
9:03
like, “Don’t up. Don’t up.” Right. And uh and I hear the producers
9:09
through the walls talking to the other uh guests and he’s like, “So remember
9:15
you want to hit this point and this point and whatever.” And I’m a very ad hoc in the moment. I live in the now.
9:21
I’m present here. So sometimes I have cards, but everyone who knows me knows
9:26
that’s not always the case. and and I’m hearing him give all these um notes to
9:33
the other guests and I’m like, “Oh, please don’t come into my room and tell me I need to remember to say these
9:38
things because if you tell me I need to remember them, I’m going to forget them. That’s just how my brain works.” And the
9:45
guy comes into my green room and he goes, “So you we just want you to bring
9:51
it.” And I was like, “Okay, that I could do.”
9:58
And so I brought it. And when when the episode was done, you know, we get our
10:05
photos with Dr. Phil. Side note, that man’s hands are so soft. He has not
10:13
touched like a door knob in 20 years. Like I was like, “Wow.” I mean, I shook
10:20
it and all I could think was, “It’s like touching silk.” It was amazing. So, we
10:26
get our photos and then we’re done and the producer comes running out of the
10:31
box and he goes, “Oh my god.” He was like, “That was great.” I was like, “Yay.” Um, and and of course, like while
10:38
it’s happening, you’re like, “Oh, like, you know, I hope I’m not screwing up.”
10:44
And they’re like, “We’d like to do a a second interview with you.” um in in
10:49
their like little thing for social media and they interviewed me for over an hour
10:55
and I laid out all the steps what we’ve been doing why it’s a compelling
11:00
argument what the reasoning is and let’s remember part of our reasoning for many
11:07
many of us is actually that we are anti-war like people forget libertarians are the
11:16
original anti-war people and I came from the left and I’m like, where are our
11:22
people? Where did they go? What is wrong? Right? Like, libertarianism at
11:28
its heart has the non-aggression principle. You don’t use force first. And I’m sorry, I’m
11:35
going to go on a little side note here, but you can’t be like, “Hey, I think you might hit me one day, so I’m going to
11:41
punch you in the face first.” That is not actually a valid foreign policy. Um,
11:48
so that long speech or interview I guess that they did afterwards that has not
11:56
seen the light of day and I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting and very very
12:04
telling.” So with the independence work,
12:09
um what we’ve done here in New Hampshire over the past five years is we’ve
12:14
introduced two bills to secede. The first bill was two lines and it just
12:20
said um New Hampshire will have a it’s a constitutional amendment. So in New
12:27
Hampshire, folks who aren’t familiar, we don’t have referendums. We don’t have
12:33
props. So the way if you want to do something crazy and radical is you use the constitutional process. So in the
12:40
time that I’ve been in New Hampshire, which has been since 2008, I moved uh
12:47
during a blizzard in February, do not recommend, but 10 people I did not know
12:55
showed up at my house in a blizzard to help unload the truck. I was from New
13:00
York City. My husband and I were kind of like new to this whole thing. In fact, we rented a brand new duplex on what I
13:08
fondly refer to all my friends as I live on a lake now. And then one of my
13:13
neighbors was like, “That’s a pond.” I was like, “Noted.”
13:19
Um, one of the guys who came to unload the truck was like, “Hey, you want to see my hand grenade?”
13:28
And I was like, I am not in New York City anymore.
13:33
Um, so, uh, I forget why when when we moved, right? So,
13:41
why did I bills? Thank you. Um, so the
13:46
constitutional amendments we introduced. Oh, so, okay. So, I moved in 2008. In
13:52
the time I’ve been here, we have passed two constitutional amendments in New
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Hampshire. One had to do with standing for taxpayers because they were doing this like nonsense argument where they
14:05
were saying, “Oh, you can’t sue in this town because you don’t have standing.” And it’s like, “No, no, but you’re
14:11
taking my taxes, so I should be able to let you know what I think about this
14:17
issue.” And the other one was um to do with privacy. So, it’s article 2B and
14:23
what that says is that our our right to privacy in New Hampshire is inherent and
14:29
essential. And there hasn’t been a lawsuit on that issue yet. But I do
14:36
think that that is actually a really good uh area where we can maybe start to
14:41
expand some liberties. So my point is it’s not impossible to get a
14:47
constitutional amendment passed in New Hampshire, but the bars are quite high.
14:54
So it has to pass the House and the Senate by 60%
15:00
and then so the House in New Hampshire has 400 legislators.
15:05
Um they represent on average about 3,300 to 3,700 people. Legislators in New
15:13
Hampshire get paid the vast sum of $100
15:18
a year. Um and then generously they give you toll money, too. Um so, you know,
15:26
they’re all they’re all just ripping us off on the tolls, you know. Um and so
15:33
with the the constitutional amendments 60% and then it goes on the ballot for
15:40
that election and that on the ballot has to pass at 67%.
15:47
So this is a high threshold. What does that mean? It means that um if granite
15:55
stators if all of us who live here actually if 67% say yeah actually our
16:01
right to privacy should be inherent and you know they shouldn’t be spying on us and doing all these things um then you
16:09
can get so-called radical things done right and when we introduced the
16:16
original CACR so that stands for a constitutional amendment Um, it’s it went to the House and that
16:25
one, as I said, was just two lines. You want it to be really simple because you have to put the language on the ballot.
16:34
And so what we’ve seen in the past is sometimes people will have a good idea, but they’re I am rightism and we’re too
16:42
smartism leads to, oh, I’m going to put in everything. And then it’s like a wall
16:48
of one page of wording and people are like, I don’t know what that means. I’m not going to read all of this. No.
16:54
Right. So, you want it to be crisp and clear and short. And so, that one was
17:00
just, you know, uh if the if we pass this constitutional amendment, New
17:06
Hampshire will peaceibly secede from the Union and become its own country. All right. So, did we get 60% in the House
17:14
and Senate? No, no, we did not. But we did get 13 legislators out of 400 to
17:23
vote for it. Now, there were 13 original colonies and you have to start
17:30
somewhere. So, people were like, “Oh, you should be so embarrassed.” And I was like, “What? As long as we didn’t get
17:37
zero, I’m winning.” So, um, you know, I was like, “You got to
17:42
start somewhere.” So the first year we got 13 out of 400. The next time we came to the state house
17:51
we um we listened to what people were saying and what they were sort of uh
17:57
criticizing and we really tried to address those issues. So to the
18:02
language, we actually added a um qualifying event which was a triggering
18:09
event that said if the national debt reaches $40 trillion,
18:16
then it goes on the ballot and then we can decide. So the idea was let’s tie it
18:21
to something concrete that helps people actually understand
18:27
what the concerns are, right? Because yes, it’s anti-war, but it is also we
18:33
all understand our own household budgets. And if any of us were running
18:38
our households the way the US government is running their budget, we would be
18:44
divorced and probably in prison. So, so the question becomes why do we think
18:50
it’s okay to keep ratcheting up these this this debt, right? And at the time
18:57
when we put in the bill, and this was in 23, the national debt was at 34
19:04
trillion. It’s now up to 36 trillion. The big beautiful bill that needs an S
19:11
at the end of that last B for a BS um is talking about an extra four to five
19:17
trillion. And so we know this debt is not sustainable. And if you’re a if
19:24
you’re a a student of history, right, empires fail when they become overextended.
19:30
And I mean, candidly, when I saw this nonsense with with Iran, I was like, we
19:36
must be incredibly close to a dollar a collapse for them to be like, we got to
19:42
go make war and a big one, right? Because that is at this stage almost the
19:47
play in these scenarios. So we said, “All right, if the national debt reaches
19:54
40 trillion, we can put it on the ballot.” And I thought that was going to give us 10 years to do, you know, good
20:01
grassroots work. I mean, I think we’re going to reach 40 trillion in the next
20:06
two years easily. So that’s kind of terrifying. That bill got 23 people to
20:15
vote for it. So we basically doubled with CarlaMath our support, right? And
20:22
so that is telling because it was like we listened, we caucused a little bit
20:28
and we did actually see our support double.
20:33
Then we introduced a bill to say, hey, why don’t we have a study committee that
20:40
can actually address these questions? Because all of us
20:45
have maybe grappled with these ideas because we’ve grappled with the ideas of self-ownership of individualization
20:52
of community within you know groups of people with you as an individual all of
20:58
that but a lot of our ideas actually sound really radical right so grandma or
21:06
I always use Connie Thompson she lives across the street from me she’s 89 years
21:11
old she is a smoker. She made it through co
21:18
um I was like, “Okay, you know, she’s she’s she’s a strong New Hampshire woman
21:23
and they’re here and they’re everywhere, right? Because they you see them still in the winter on their roofs doing their
21:29
Christmas lights and you’re like, should you be on a ladder?” But good for you, right? So, I’m always
21:36
like, “Okay, what would Connie think about this?” Right? what can I can I talk to her and be like, “Hey, Connie,
21:42
this is why I think this.” Right? So, you always want to be almost addressing
21:48
someone’s uh uh barrier or criticism or there’s a word for it, I’m not going to
21:53
come on it, but before it even starts. So, the questions in that study
21:59
committee were things like um what would happen to my social security? Right?
22:04
That’s a real one that everyone asks. The reason that video at Dr. Phil never
22:10
went anywhere was I was like, well, you know, Americans in Mexico and Puerto
22:15
Rico and everywhere else in the world still get their social security. So, why
22:21
can’t granite stators in an independent country still get their social security? They paid in, right? Um, that’s a
22:30
concern. People ask things like, “How would it work with passports and border
22:36
control? Half my family lives in Maine.” Someone might say, like Eric Brady, right, our new executive director here
22:43
at the Free State Project. He moved from Maine, but his parents are still in Maine. And they’re like, “Would I have
22:49
to get a passport to come over?” And I’m like, maybe, but maybe we could just do
22:55
like you would do with the EU, say, and you would just have, you know, deals
23:01
with the surrounding states and you could have some kind of pact, some kind of movement pact. Um, maybe you could
23:08
voluntarily opt in to a tracking device on your car that just knows when you’re
23:13
going in and out, right? like there are solutions to things that we resist
23:20
because it’s from the state, right? So, it’s creating centralized control that
23:28
since we’re not in a trust circle with the state, we’re like, “Oh, I don’t want you to know that.” But if it was a
23:33
private company and you had actual contractual terms, which by the way are
23:39
not terms and conditions online, because can I just say as a lawyer, I’m like,
23:45
how like we do not have rule of law anymore because how can you
23:51
retroactively go into a contract that we apparently have both agreed to and
23:57
change the terms, which is happening all the time. And so I don’t know what you
24:03
guys are doing with Grock, but basically what I’m doing with all the AI models I play around with is I’m playing I am
24:10
writism with them too, right? But you can you can play the game of explain
24:15
this paradox to me and it’ll be like, yeah, you’re kind of right, you know?
24:22
And so that’s that’s interesting to see. Um, and total side quest here. I would
24:29
love to see someone write a screenplay. Maybe I’ll do it with the AI where think
24:34
about it who is looking at what questions we’re asking the AI because I
24:40
think whoever is seeing what people are curious about like that is a
24:47
lot of power that is a lot of like what like like you’re you’re you’re
24:52
understanding things at a next level right so I think there’s some intrigue there and we can write some kind of
24:59
thriller Um but all right so that’s the that’s the independence work. So we said
25:04
okay with the study committee let’s actually start to answer some of these questions that people have. So that’s
25:11
sort of the the background of where we are with independence in New Hampshire. But I think the way to think about
25:18
things or the way at least I think about it is I think about the cosmos right our
25:23
galaxies and our universe and then it gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller until it’s in us. Turns out
25:30
apparently our hearts are vortexes, not muscles. Um, which I think is very
25:35
interesting. And and so if we’re down to the smallest us, how do we go about
25:43
creating that best us? So if you think about the the um mind, well I I always
25:52
say mind, body, soul, but I think the order for this is actually body, mind, soul. So the body is the the unit
26:01
and sorry I got to put my glasses on for this part. So that’s your infrastructure
26:07
right so as I said it’s the homeland the terrairma. So when you’re thinking about your body that way then the questions
26:14
you should be asking yourself is what are my borders? What is allowed in? What
26:20
is not allowed in? What are my boundaries? How do I set my boundaries with people? So if you think about your
26:28
border as something like, oh, what is allowed in? If you’re mindful about your
26:33
health, then you start to think about things like the food I’m nourishing my
26:38
body with. Um, the love that I invite into my life or not, right? We are in
26:44
such a conflict driven dynamic now with
26:51
humanity and it’s I’m sorry, but it’s gross. It’s not healthy. And it’s like
26:56
why would we want to spend all of our time I mean at this stage we’re fighting
27:02
our own friends right back to that idea of I am rightism instead of being like let’s focus on the state how do we
27:09
decentralize and how do we make New Hampshire and ourselves free. So a way
27:16
to also think about the body is sort of like what do you need for your maintenance, right? Like we as
27:22
libertarians like to say who will build the roads? So like who’s building your roads, dudes, you know? Um and then what
27:31
is your defense? What is your defense to your body? Um and that honestly is your
27:37
immune system. And all of us went through COVID. All of us saw what
27:44
happened. Um, all of us hopefully had the realization that your health is your
27:51
number one defense because not only a healthy body but a healthy mind allowed
27:59
people to stand against an onslaught of scops that was like unbelievable. Like
28:07
never in the history of the world because never in the history of the world has everyone had a direct
28:14
propaganda gadget in their pockets making them
28:19
crazy. And that is where we are now. So when you think about your defense, you
28:25
should be thinking the defense of your body. You should be thinking, how do I hone my immune system and what goes hand
28:35
inand there is in is inflammation, right? Like really getting a grip on
28:42
inflammation. Why? Because one, I I mean, they like to call it
28:48
autoimmune diseases, but I’m like, where do they come from? Could they possibly
28:53
be coming from the thing that you inject into people to up their immune
28:58
systems? Could that be it? I don’t know, but it seems kind of likely to me. So um
29:05
so figuring out how to keep your corpus, your terrairma, your body as healthy as
29:12
possible will help you become more self-independent.
29:17
And then you want to with the with your body as well be thinking about your emergency protocols. So that’s kind of
29:24
like oh what do you do when something happens? Maybe there’s a flood in the metaphor. But then you know uh you your
29:32
emergency protocol might be if you’re an AA might be like call your sponsor or
29:38
you know call that trusted friend right take action so that it doesn’t fester
29:43
and then become a bigger problem later then if we think about our minds as sort
29:51
of the the government I know that’s very status but work with
29:57
me here then your mind basically basically has you know your legislative branch, your executive branch, your
30:03
judicial branch, your public affairs and your foreign relations. So you should be
30:09
thinking about for your own mind you’re like what is my value system? Like these are things we
30:17
should actually actively be monitoring and deciding and mindfully writing down
30:23
and going okay what are my values and beliefs? Um so for me a core value is
30:30
actually trying to achieve alignment between my thoughts, words and deeds. Um
30:36
and that is why I try not to be conflict driven. I’m
30:41
like you know it’s a lot easier to be nasty on the internet and get way more eyeballs than to try and be as they
30:48
fondly refer to me in every article the cheerful the cheerful lady. And I was
30:55
like, okay, you know, I mean, I guess there worse things to be, but but figure
31:00
out for yourself what those values are that actually drive you as a human. And
31:10
then when you look at your executive branch, you should be thinking like what are my decision-making processes, right?
31:17
Like how do I uh deal with a decision? Do I immediately react and then I’m in a
31:23
reactive s uh cycle or do I take a moment? Do I like to like step away and
31:30
be like I can’t do this right now. Let’s circle back in an hour. But whatever those executive functions are, you
31:36
should have your own game plan. And when you think about the executive, you
31:42
should also like come up with a title for your life, right? be like I am CEO
31:48
of you know my unit or you know I mean I didn’t come up with the title but they
31:53
call me queen quill right and it’s like maybe you’re a king no kings maybe
31:59
you’re a queen only queens u someone did ask me before this talk they were like
32:05
can boys come to this talk and I was like what do you mean and they were like well it said the good girls guide to
32:12
self ownership and I was like so men I don’t think they can get advice from
32:17
women. Okay. I was like, “Oh, note to self, when you do the book, do exactly the
32:23
same content, but call the other one the bad boys guide.”
32:29
See, and you could probably sell them and you would probably get away with it because honestly, I I mean, that’s the
32:34
future, right? just you can tailor you can just tailor content to
32:40
I mean it’s it’s bananas which is also why it is so important to actually know
32:46
what you personally believe and what you personally drives you and what your
32:52
personal values are. Um, so when you’re thinking about
32:59
your executive functions, I think it’s really important to ask yourself who controls your mind.
33:06
And all of you are going to be like, I do. But I’m like, do you?
33:12
Because I I don’t think given what I saw through COVID mania that that is
33:19
necessarily the case. Now many of us here are different to maybe the entire
33:24
world out there. But the reality is you should
33:29
mindfully be thinking about how to detox yourself from propaganda.
33:37
And if you are spending a lot of time on your screens like the gentleman over
33:42
there, then then you should you should know that,
33:48
right? because it is a addiction like other addictions. So
33:57
you you you actually need to to limit
34:02
screen time like it’s crack. I mean I’m not kidding. And and back to that sort
34:09
of body idea like if you want to regain your health, the work lies in what
34:14
you’re eating, how much sugar you’re consuming. People don’t want to hear this, but sugar causes cancer. Like if
34:20
you eat a lot of sugar, it makes your cells ferment. So sugar, like you should
34:26
be very careful about how much sugar you’re consuming. And you should be
34:32
thinking about regular exercise and all the things granny told you and all the
34:37
things the good girl is going to tell you. So now I’m gonna veer off again because by now you guys see what kind of
34:43
speech this is. It was so funny because I’ve been doing a lot of personal work
34:49
over the last five, six, well, I quit drinking in 2017. I quit drinking.
34:56
Anyone who came to Porkfest before 2017 knows why I quit drinking.
35:03
And uh and it was a very liberating in the true sense of the word decision
35:10
because alcohol is a neurotoxin that rots your brain. There is according
35:16
to actual scientific studies no safe level of alcohol to consume. I know
35:24
people don’t want to hear that but that’s the truth. Now the reality of life is also you can pick your poisons.
35:31
So maybe that’s the poison you pick. But having a clear mind now has helped me
35:38
see that voluntarily inducing and bringing
35:45
poisons into your life actually makes your mind
35:50
susceptible to propaganda, to conflict, to things. When you say neurotoxin and
35:58
you say things like inflammation, I want you to understand I believe what
36:04
it is is inflammation is hell on a cellular level. So you are on earth and
36:13
you are choosing through your choices to make your body burn.
36:20
And it’s like well if you look at it that way it’s like why would you do that? Why would you induce hell in your
36:27
own body? That seems very counterintuitive for people who want to have the best ride on earth that they
36:34
can. And so part of my realization when I became clean was, and this will explain where the
36:42
good girl part comes in, was I think I always wanted to be a bad girl.
36:50
But what I realized in my earnest self is I’m a good girl.
36:56
And what that means is like you have to go and you have to like say these obvious things that your grandma told
37:02
you. But it’s like if no one’s willing to get up anymore and say these things,
37:07
then we’re not going to change the world and we are not going to empower the next generation to truly take that sense of
37:16
self ownership. So the last one in this, so we’ve done mind body. So this is the
37:21
soul part, right? Is figuring out what your culture is, what
37:29
your constitution, your personal constitution is, or what your national
37:36
identity is. Right? So I’ve come to the realization I’m I’m like on the cusp of
37:41
classical punk at this stage. And I was like, isn’t that cute? like a classic punk that’s almost an oxymoron.
37:50
Um, but also that that it’s okay to want to be good. And I feel like that’s a
37:57
weird thing to have to say, but I think we live in a society where it’s like no
38:03
one values striving to to be wholesome or striving to to to truly excel at
38:12
being healthy and then translating and giving that to the next generation. And
38:18
so I think it’s very much our duty to do those things. And so what are some of
38:24
the tools for that? Right? So ultimately self ownership is is a relationship with
38:30
yourself and then it’s how are you accountable to yourself? Because if
38:35
we’re talking about alignment of mind, body, and soul, we also do a lot of weird self-t talk and we do a lot of
38:42
stories we tell ourselves and we’re like, “Oh, I don’t drink a lot. I only drink two glasses, two bottles a night.”
38:48
You know, like like those things, right? Those excuses. And so how or what are
38:54
the tools that you can use to make yourself more accountable? And these are
38:59
simple things that we know that we just have to do. It’s eat right. It is
39:05
exercise daily. It is um maybe maybe start a journal. Honestly, if I can
39:11
encourage you guys to do one thing and I know so many people including myself who
39:18
were so resistant to this for so long. But the beauty of journaling of writing
39:23
down your thoughts on a daily basis is twofold. One, if you decide you’re going
39:29
to start journaling and you make that promise to yourself and then you just keep that one promise, maybe you just
39:36
say to yourself, I am going to journal for one year every day and then I can
39:42
assure you after that year you will do it for the rest of your life because there will be value to it. Why? because
39:48
you are taking the time in a meditative space to figure out stuff. Sometimes I
39:55
just write about my day and then sometimes I veer off into, you know, La La Land or whatever. But it’s always,
40:02
you know, and then honestly a lot of times when you get it out, you’ve let it
40:08
go. So whoever you’re mad at or whatever, it’s like a it’s a release. So
40:13
it’s a gift to yourself. So, I would recommend do journaling and
40:19
then I would say, you know, set your goals and then do a quarterly review. Actually check in with yourself. If
40:26
you’re doing health on a uh very granular level, start doing blood tests
40:31
and then keep them. Create spreadsheets, measure things. The nerds love that stuff. My husband does all our
40:38
spreadsheets. Um, and I do the cooking and the nourishing and the bone broths
40:43
and the, you know, that stuff. And then make sure you have a network or a
40:50
community, right, of trusted people that can help keep you on track. So what are
40:56
we building here in New Hampshire? We are building that support system to support you as an individual nation
41:05
because now if we’re all little nations and we’re coming together, what do we have to do? We have to do diplomacy
41:13
because we don’t actually get to uh to to blow, you know, your neighbor up just
41:20
because you disagree with him, right? You actually have to use your words. And
41:27
what is that? That is volunteerism, right? Because you’re one country, so you can’t write a law for his country.
41:34
But I’m like, but I want to negotiate something. So, we got to figure out a way to do that. And that puts us on
41:42
track for a much more voluntary world and not one where it’s this top-down
41:48
control because maybe when I finish this book, I think my next book is going to
41:53
be called the cult of one. And here’s the idea, right? Because people will say
42:00
sometimes people will be like, “Are you a cult leader? Is the Free State Project a cult? Is it, you know, that’s cultish?
42:05
That’s weird. Why do you guys move there? What’s going on? And I’m like, have you tried to run a cult of
42:12
individuals? Do not recommend.
42:17
And so the cult of one is truly that understanding that if we can create one
42:24
individual and one unit and your focus is mostly on you, your life, your
42:30
family, your friends and how we are literally on a localized level making
42:37
our personal lives better by banding together as individuals. But we have the
42:44
strength in numbers. So back to what Ross was saying about freedom that is
42:50
our north star decentralization that is each of us as an individual
42:58
following these rules and other rules to become more uh self-determined but more
43:04
self-owned. And then we have unity in all of us
43:12
agreeing that this is how we navigate the world. You come holy to me, I come
43:19
holy to you. And therefore, we have to work together with our words to figure
43:25
things out. So, if it sounds like I’m telling you what granny told you when you were in the sandbox, you know, 40
43:33
years ago, yeah, that is actually what’s going on. The good ideas stick around
43:38
because they’re good ideas. So, um
43:44
there are some barriers to self-ownership or self-determination and I’ll probably do a talk on this later,
43:51
but these are the things to think about, right? What are the external influences that make this hard? Um, do you have
43:58
internal division in yourself? And what does that look like? Like I like to eat healthy, but I also love me a can of
44:06
Pringles and I won’t have them in the house. So
44:12
in South Africa, where I’m originally from, if you want to catch a monkey, this is how you do it. You put nuts in a
44:19
tree that has a null or a hole in it and the monkey will stick its hand in the hole and then it’ll grab the nuts and
44:26
then it won’t let go. So it’ll get stuck in the tree and then you can catch a monkey because they’re like, “I have the
44:32
nuts. I’m not going to let go of the nuts.” So that’s me in a Pringle can.
44:38
So, you know, if you have those things that you know are triggering, just don’t have them around. Um there’s also you
44:46
know uh um resource scarcity but of course in a community that is something
44:52
we can overcome and then um there is a a threat of sort of violence and
44:57
instability but again I think the healthier in the true sense of the word
45:03
a community is the less and less those threats become because we have as a
45:09
community sort of decided this is the way we are going to navigate our energy
45:15
fields as individualized, self-determined, self-owned humans. So, I think I’m going
45:22
to leave you guys there, but thank you very much for your time and uh if this
45:27
sounds interesting, please like follow up when the book comes out. Get the bad boys guide if that’s your flavor or get
45:34
the good girls guide if that’s your flavor. And in about five minutes time
45:39
we will have the wonderful Joel Salatin wh
o will be giving us his keynote remarks. But thank you all very much for
45:46
coming. [Applause] [Music]
Day 240 of My Living Xperiment: NHLA Summit… https://t.co/sMuG7fif5S
— Carla Gericke, Live Free And Thrive! (@CarlaGericke) August 28, 2025