Eric Brakey: The Free State Project
Eric Brakey joins the podcast to discuss the Free State Project, sound money, cryptocurrency, and strategies for advancing liberty. What is the best path to liberty? What makes the free state so free? Can decentralized alternatives defeat the old incumbents?
Additional Resources
Earn a yield on gold, paid in gold
The Case for Gold Yield in Investment Portfolios
Podcast Chapters
[00:00:50]: Introduction
[00:03:07]: Background and Liberty Movement
[00:06:40]: Free State Project Origins and Goals
[00:12:55]: Strategies for Advancing Liberty
[00:21:44]: Central Bank Digital Currencies
[00:25:23]: Decentralization and Alternative Solutions
[00:33:49]: The Overton Window
[00:38:11]: New Hampshire Liberty Events
[00:43:26]: Secession Discussion and Practicality
[00:47:37]: Lightning Round Questions
Transcript:
Ben Nadelstein:
Welcome back to the Gold Exchange podcast. My name is Ben Nadelstein from Monetary Metals. I’m joined by Maine state senator, Senator Eric Brakey, who is also the new executive director at the Free State Project in New Hampshire, and my favorite renegade statesman. Mr. Brakey, how are you doing today?
Eric Brakey:
I’m doing well, Ben. Thanks so much for inviting me on the program.
Ben Nadelstein:
I’m really excited. For those of us who might not know about you or some of your history, can you give us a little bit of a background? Where are you from? What have you been doing? And what are you up to now?
Eric Brakey:
Yeah, boy. Let me try to give you the short version as much as possible. But I’ve been in the Liberty Movement, like the Ron Paul Movement. Since the Ron Paul campaign in 2012, I was his state director in Maine. From that, I ran for the state Senate in 2014. I won. I’ve served three terms there, made two attempts at federal office, neither of them took. But I’m finishing up my third term in the Maine Senate after, I’d say, pretty successful run, fighting for all sorts of liberty from Second Amendment rights, constitutional carry, cannabis, freedom, and all that. But in my final term, I’ve had a real particular focus on monetary policy, which is not something you think too much about on the state level, but things ranging from simple things like trying to get rid of the sales tax on gold and silver, trying to get rid of the income tax on gold and silver, recognizing gold and silver as legal tender again. I even had a bill in to try to establish a state bank that would mint our own gold gold and silver coinage and allow people to deposit it. Anyway, there were a lot of interesting things I was thrown into the mix this past year.
Eric Brakey:
Sadly, with Democrats running the show in Maine, we got very close to eliminating the sales tax on gold and silver, but no go. They killed that in the end. Maine, sadly, a state that I love, the pine tree state, remains one of the worst when it comes to economic freedom around gold and silver. But at the end of my term, I’m moving to New Hampshire. I’ve already started my new job as executive director of the Free State Project. Our mission is to get liberty-loving people, whether you’re a constitutional conservative or a Ron Paul libertarian or however you identify. If you’re someone who loves freedom and liberty, we want you to move to New Hampshire and help us make New Hampshire the homeland for liberty. In fact, New Hampshire is currently ranked the number one most free state in America. There Not only is there no sales tax on gold and silver, there’s no sales tax, period, and no income tax to boot. Anyway, New Hampshire, I’m looking forward to moving there, making it my new home, and looking forward to working with so many great people in the free state project community to make the Liberty homeland right in New Hampshire.
Eric Brakey:
And to all your audience, they’re welcome to visit and welcome to move and join us, provided they love Liberty. If they love tyranny, they can to New York.
Ben Nadelstein:
All right. Well, I’ll tell that segment of the Gold Exchange podcast audience you might want to check out New York. So question here for you, the FreeState project. Let’s dive into that. Where did this idea come from? Who’s started this project? And what are the current goals? Have they changed? I think the main idea, like you mentioned, is to have people who think one way about liberty and life, to all move to one central location and see if they can really enact change, versus being scattered across the country. There might be the same amount of people, but it’s really potent when everyone’s in the same state. How has success been for the FreeState Project? What are the goals? And then how has changed over time?
Eric Brakey:
Yeah. Well, the organization has been around for a little more than 20 years now. It was founded by Jason Sorens, who basically, when he was a graduate student, wrote a paper just theorizing, what if a bunch of libertarians chose to move to a single state and have a disparate impact there? People chose the state of New Hampshire, and the rest has been history. Thousands of people have moved to New Hampshire under the banner of the Free State Project. It’s been very successful so far, but we still have much more progress to make. That’s a little bit of the history in the short version. But yeah, it is premised on this idea that there are millions of libertarians scattered across America, and that’s a lot of people. But But in a country of over 300 million people, a few million is a pretty small minority, and scattered across the country, we can be dismissed pretty easily, both in terms of the culture and in terms of the politics. But if you get even a fraction of those millions of people to concentrate in one state like New Hampshire, which is a small population state, about 1.3 million people with already a very strong libertarian ethic and spirit, The motto is live for your die for Pete’s sake.
Eric Brakey:
Even small things, I’ve always been amazed. Even something like, I’m all a fan of wearing seatbelts, but I’m not a fan of doing it with a gun pointed to your head. New Hampshire is the only state in America where if you’re 18 or older, it’s your choice. It’s the little things. It’s the little things that add up, as well as the big things like no income tax, no sales tax, and amazing school choice policies, education, freedom accounts, and so on. And of course, New Hampshire has been the cradle of cryptocurrency and Bitcoin. If it wasn’t for, I think, pioneers in the cryptocurrency movement in New Hampshire, we might not really have really Bitcoin as the dominating market force it is today. So a lot of good is happening in New Hampshire. And with the free movement, thousands of people are joining us to make New Hampshire more free. All of our ancestors, wherever you come from, this is a nation of immigrants. People packed up, they moved in search of freedom. Many times, they had to get on a boat and sail for three months to come to the land of the free. Sadly, I don’t think the 50 states overall can still claim that title of land of the free, but New Hampshire still can.
Eric Brakey:
You don’t have to get on a boat. You just need to get a U-haul and drive to New Hampshire. There’ll be friendly smiling faces here ready to help you unload, unpack, get into your new home. Or if you’re not ready for that yet, just come and visit. We’ve got great events like the New Hampshire Liberty Forum coming up. With some great speakers in March, and everyone’s favorite, the Porcupine Freedom Festival in June. Those are great opportunities to come visit and see what New Hampshire is all about and what the free state movement is all about.
Ben Nadelstein:
And why was New Hampshire specifically chosen? There’s other states, especially. There’s Florida, there’s Texas, there’s California, there’s New York. Of all the 50 states, why was New Hampshire chosen? And how is New Hampshire as a unique state, actually help this liberty movement along?
Eric Brakey:
Yeah. Actually, I had a fascinating interview with the founder of the Free State Project on my own podcast recently called The Porcupine Report, which you can find on all of our social media platforms and all your favorite podcasting apps. Probably the podcasting app that your audience is listening to this show on, they can find The Porcupine Report. But But yeah, there was a whole process, and basically, the first 5,000 people that signed up as pledgeers to move got to vote on which state would be the target state for the Free State Project. There’s a part of me, to be honest, that wishes that Maine, which is where I hail from, and I’ve been invested in politics for the last 10 years. It was on the list, but it didn’t make the cut. People voted for New Hampshire for a number of reasons. One, there’s already the libertarian ethic, the libertarian culture of New Hampshire, as we’ve mentioned, so live, free, or die state. You had a governor at the time who was very welcoming to the free staters and said, made the pitch for people to choose a New Hampshire. I know a lot of folks are moving to Florida right now as Conservatives, which I understand.
Eric Brakey:
But Florida, if you pick a big state like Florida or or California or Texas or something like that, you could get a million people to move and you might not have much of an impact. But a small state like New Hampshire, it doesn’t take a lot of people to have a really big impact. And of course, we’re not subverting the existing culture of New Hampshire. We’re not trying to change New Hampshire into something that it already wasn’t. Maybe some of our progressive detractors accuse us of that. But frankly, we are keeping New Hampshire free. And of course, in New England, there’s not a lot of freedom in New England, but New Hampshire stands alone, and it’s really becoming a great beacon for freedom in the entire country.
Ben Nadelstein:
I want to talk a little bit about strategy for freedom lovers and maybe even tyranny lovers, if they’re listening, maybe they’ll glean some insights as well. How do you think about either on the policy level, getting these policies enacted? Is it really just a question of numbers game? Hey, a million people in New Hampshire is a lot more than a million in Texas, or is there certain strategies saying, Hey, let’s try to change on the margin. If I run as a Republican and push these Republicans to be a bit more libertarian, that might be more effective than running as a third party. What strategies have you seen, either personally or for the free state, that have worked really well, that maybe other people can take on in their own, maybe less free states?
Eric Brakey:
Yeah, well, so I’m going to have to speak a little bit of my personal opinion here, because, of course, the Free State Project is a 501(C)(3) organization that does not get directly involved in politics. But the people we bring to New Hampshire certainly do. In fact, many free staters have run for the state legislature and have won. And in fact, depending on how you count it, nearly a quarter of the New Hampshire House of Representatives are libertarians. People who love liberty have a bigger voting block in the state legislature of New Hampshire than I imagine anywhere else in the country. That wasn’t always the case. I mean, that’s been a development over the last decade or so. A lot of the work here has come to fruition. But if you’re asking me personally, I mean, of course, I’ve run for office multiple times. I’ve even won a few races and served three terms in the Maine state senate. Of course, I’m a philosophical libertarian that I don’t want to hurt people and I don’t want to take their stuff. I want people to enjoy maximum both personal and economic liberty. But I didn’t run the Maine state senate as a libertarian party candidate because I would have lost, because the simple fact of the matter is the way that our political system is established.
Eric Brakey:
If you’re running outside of the two major parties, you’re at a significant disadvantage in that if you’re running as an RRD, you probably have a floor of about 30 % of the vote. You’re going to get 30 %. You just show up, you just get your name on the ballot. You’re getting 30 % no matter what because of that brand loyalty. And also the fear people have of throwing away their vote. And they’ll vote for what they perceive to be the lesser of two evils because they really want to stop Hillary Clinton or what have you. I’m a big believer that the Republican Party is the most effective vehicle for libertarians to run for office and win. That’s not to say that Dick Cheney or George W. Bush are people we should emulate. In I think they’re people that we should displace and we should take this political machinery away from the Neoconservative movement that’s run the Republican Party for so long. Thankfully, I think their grip has weakened over the course of the last decade. In New Hampshire, we’re really seeing that come to fruition with how many people have won election to the New Hampshire State House and those people pushing a lot of liberty policies like some we have discussed.
Eric Brakey:
But of course, It’s not enough to just try to get all of the great people elected, because anytime you’re just thinking the way we’re going to abolish tyranny and pass liberty policies, if we’re thinking we’re going to do that by trying to get majorities of all the people elected who agree with us, well, you’re going to be waiting around for a long time. As Morton Blackwell has said, and I think this is a great a way to frame it, is that sometimes it’s better to try to shape the political environment around the wrong people to make it politically expedient for them to do the right thing. That’s where having a culture of liberty around the political class makes a big difference. Because most politicians, it’s a self-sorting bunch. The people who love liberty have a natural, and I totally understand it, and I I feel it myself. We have a natural aversion to running for office. We’d rather run for the hills and be left alone. It is people who crave power, who love power, who are the natural people who are going to think, I want to run for office, so wouldn’t it be great if I got to boss people around and tell people how to live?
Eric Brakey:
There’s a natural selection there. That’s why, as Hayek has noted, the worst tend to rise to the top in those systems. But every politician has in the back of their mind a desire to win re-election and a fear of being thrown out of office. If you can make the case to them that voting for liberty is the best way for them to maintain their position, whether they believe it in their heart or not becomes rather besides the point. I don’t care if the politician genuinely believes in liberty as long as he’s voting for liberty. If it’s out of a genuine belief or out of self-preservation, I mean, a vote is a vote is a vote. When we passed Constitutional Carry, which was a big initiative that I led in Maine and has passed in New Hampshire and many other states around the country in the years since, I’m sure there were a lot of politicians who voted for it for that reason. Maybe they didn’t really love the idea of Constitutional Carry, but we got so many of their constituents to call and email and show up and basically made it very clear, you vote for this or you are going to face a tough re-election because you’re going to have all these angry constituents gunning for you.
Eric Brakey:
We employed a similar strategy When we came close to eliminating the sales tax on gold and silver in Maine, many Democrats in the taxation committee supported it because of how many emails they were getting from people who made it very clear they cared about this issue. In fact, they were surprised how many people cared about eliminating the sales tax on gold and silver. In fact, if it wasn’t for a Democrat leadership coming at the last minute and squashing it in the House, it probably would have passed. But these are, I think the two ways to have an impact is the direct path to power and the indirect path to power. The direct path is certainly running good people and getting good people elected. But the indirect path that we also have to focus on is getting people involved in the outside game to shape the environment around the politicians and holding them accountable in election season when they do bad or supporting them when they do good, when they’re in legislative season.
Ben Nadelstein:
And I think a good example of that would be the Uber model, right? I’m sure there’s lots of libertarians in New York, maybe even more just in pure numbers than almost any other state. But there’s people with libertarian leanings in New York. And I’m sure if you caught them in a bar and after a couple of drinks, they’d the taxi monopoly is so horrible. We got to get rid of this. And it’s not a free market. And competition would be so much better. And imagine a world where the government wasn’t colluding with these taxi companies to just keep this monopoly afloat. And that probably got nowhere, right? I don’t imagine that there’s many people voting down their politicians, saying, Oh, my God, how do you let the taxi medallian system stay on? But when Uber came around and Lyft came around, not only was there competition between these two different services and products, but it had a light shown on this taxi medallian system, how silly it was, it wasn’t necessary at all. Uber and Lyft, not only are competition to taxis, but in many ways, I think most people would agree, are a much better product and service.
Ben Nadelstein:
In a way, the free market just said, Hey, we don’t need to have you guys vote on this. We don’t need to have a legislator who’s pro free market ride sharing services. We can just create this product. It will spread like wildfire. And when our clients are constituents of a place like New York, or New Hampshire, or California, over time, it’s the policies and the politicians who will say, Listen, if I ban Uber, if I ban Lyft, people are going to be really bummed about getting around town. And that’s probably just not so politically viable. Regardless of whether they were in the pocket, a big taxi, or if they like taxis themselves, it probably just wasn’t politically viable in that environment to say, We’re going to ban all this stuff. Now, that doesn’t mean there’s no restrictions or that there might be unfair regulations. But at the end of the day, that cartel has been completely broken up, as has the hotel industry with Airbnb. Hopefully, other industries and other policy questions can be pushed in a better direction simply by these outside forces. Monetary metals is a good example, trying to fight the Fed with free market interest rates in gold and silver.
Ben Nadelstein:
Crypto, I think, is another example where people are saying, Hey, we can exchange value outside of traditional financial systems. Then there’s even things, regardless of whether you’re pro or anti guns, there’s 3D printed weapons, which now have to change the question about policy saying, Well, listen, Saying we’re going to ban all weapons is just impossible to do in a world where anyone can share a file, and next thing you know, you can be printing something. How do you see that interplay between working outside the system and working inside the system?
Eric Brakey:
I certainly think the case of Uber really demonstrates that if you are in a position where you’re having to ask for permission to get started on something, you’re in a very weak and vulnerable position because a lot of established power structures that would just say, No, who are you to think that you can challenge the system as it is? But they just went ahead and did it. By the time the established power structures realized they were in trouble, they had such a wide customer base, a consumer base, that it was politically unviable to try to ban it and block it. There’s many paths to liberty. You can get directly involved in politics or you get… I always think about in the aftermath of the Ron Paul campaign, because, of course, he’s my political mentor, and so many people coming to him in 2012 after it was all said and done saying, Hey, I want to keep working for liberty. What should I do? Tell me what I should do. Ron Paul, being no central planner, said, I don’t know. You got to figure it out. There’s a job out there for you, but I’m not going to tell you what it is.
Eric Brakey:
You got to find what your passion is and how you feel the best way to advance these ideals. And certainly for me, it was running for the state legislature and doing policy work. But if he had told everyone, run for your state legislature, and that’s the only way. Well, maybe we wouldn’t have had the homeschool revolution where people said, The way I’m going to advance liberty is I’m just going to raise kids, I’m going to homeschool them, and I’m going to teach them about liberty and raise the next generation. Or you had people who literally took Ron Paul’s message of ending the Fed. And rather than trying to pass a bill through Congress, which God knows we’ve tried to even just audit the damn thing, they went out and they pioneered and they invented cryptocurrencies, like from Bitcoin through everything else. And boy, they might actually just end the Fed. I mean, good on that. Or, of course, what Monetary Metals is doing, which is creating a to save in gold and silver and to do some more traditional banking operations with it, even just earning interest on it, which I’m a proud customer of Monetary Metals, and I really appreciate the model you guys are developing.
Eric Brakey:
I think it’s something that really should be supported and people should benefit from. I mean, so, yeah, they’re There’s a job out there for everyone. If you care about liberty, you got to find out what that is. So maybe you pioneer a new path to do it, or you look at what someone else is doing, and you go and you follow them and help them build what they’re doing. But certainly, I’m not going to say That politics is the only way. It is the way I’m most familiar with. Maybe I’m not talented enough for some of these other things. But yeah, I think the decentralization of this movement is what makes it so unstoppable. There’s no one central figure for the government to take out. There’s no one central thing to squash. We’re just going to keep going, keep building, keep pursuing liberty. These old centralized power structures, I don’t think they’re going to be able to hold on in the long run.
Ben Nadelstein:
I think that is a good point, which you don’t hear often made, which is actually the decentralized nature is the power. It’s It’s difficult to squash because there is no king pin or lynch pin that you could say, Well, if we just take out your Internet access, or if we just take this person and make them go bye, that everything goes away. There is actually opportunities for each individual to say, Yes, I’m going to homeschool my child. I think that’s a better idea. I’m going to earn interest on gold, not interest in dollars. I’m going to transact in cryptocurrencies, or I’m going to protect myself with something that I made at home. And all these options are much, much more difficult to enforce or regulate or tamp down than someone saying, hey, everyone, let’s join my party or let’s all do this one big thing at this one big company. I think that is probably understated the ability of people to come up with, like you said, decentralized solutions. Not everyone’s going to want to homeschool their kids, and that’s fine. But some people are going to get into crypto, and some people are going to get into monetary metals and all these different things.
Ben Nadelstein:
After a while, you’ll have a full ecosystem of healthcare products, to banking products, to crypto products, to self-defense products, to security products, to all these different things where someone can say, listen, there’s the traditional option and then there’s the better option, probably from the market, that I’m going to choose for myself and also as a global nature as well. I’d like to jump on something we’ve discussed offline, which is central bank digital currencies. While the people are worried about these? I’ll take the devil’s advocate position, which might be, hey, listen, we already have digital currencies. The central bank is the one who controls these dollars. So in a way, we had a central bank digital currency. In Canada, they shut off those truckers payment systems and they said, All right, that’s enough of that. How close or far do you think we are from this central bank digital currency? Do you think we’re already there? Do you think there’s stuff that’s still coming down the pipe? Or do you think that these other alternatives from crypto to earning interest on gold and silver have already put a wedge in these plans of central bankers?
Eric Brakey:
It’s an interesting question. I don’t know how close we are to it. I know there’s been a lot of discussion by a lot of central bankers across the world, including at our own Federal Reserve, I think, who desire to have that level of control and ability to spy on every single transaction we all make. Certainly, it is scary to think that rather than it being something that they just unveil one day, Hey, we want you to adopt this, it is scary to think that if there’s a path for them to just incrementally move us there and they’ve boiled the frog before we realized that the heat was being turned up. So that is concerning. But I think as long as we have, I mean, certainly so many things are cash, and we still have physical cash, even if it’s backed by nothing. So long as we can still transact in actual cash, then I don’t think that we have a CBDC because you can step outside of that electronic system. And of course, right Now, certainly, the Fed is in control of a lot of things, and a lot of things are centralized with our US dollar.
Eric Brakey:
But you still do have the private banking system. I mean, I guess if you could call it private, it’s all hooked up to the Fed. But there is a degree of separation of these banks acting as intermediaries between the end user of the currency and the Federal Reserve, the issuing authority. And so we aren’t all on one big centralized ledger system that is controlled by the Fed, where they can just program your money and say your money is going to expire. If you don’t spend it, how we want you to spend it, or Hey, the government’s decided you’re overweight and we’re putting you on a diet so you can’t buy donuts with your money or what have you. I mean, things that… It was a great piece by Edward Snowden, Your Money and your Life, I read a few years back, where I think he outlined some of the dangers of this pretty darn well. It’s a good read. I don’t think we’re there yet, but I certainly do think there are the ambitions of many in central banking for that level of control. I think that we have to resist it in all sorts of ways.
Eric Brakey:
I know there’s been a big fight around the states around… Actually, this just came through the Judiciary Committee in Maine, which I serve on, on the Uniform Commercial Code and these amendments to Uniform Commercial Code, creating a framework for digital assets and digital currencies, which overall is an overall positive. We want to have some clarity in the laws so people can use these things. But a lot of people were concerned about this definition being put in for electronic money, which is basically creating a legal definition in state law for central bank digital currencies, making it potentially easier if a central bank digital currency was to be unleashed on America, that the legal framework would exist for it to be adopted more easily. In Maine, we’re not adopting that definition, and several other states are doing the same So I mean, that’s one way to resist is to watch out for the creation of a legal framework to make a transition to a CBDC that would make that transition easier. I don’t want it to be an easy transition. I want it to be a very difficult, messy transition if they try to push it on us.
Eric Brakey:
But then also, I mean, just creating alternatives and trying to, if we can build up the alternative systems faster than they can establish a CBDC, I mean, by the time By the time they get there, people might just say, why do I want to use a CBDC? I’ve already got Bitcoin, and Bitcoin is working great for me. Or I don’t know. Or I’ve got this cryptocurrency that’s backed by gold or silver or what have you. I mean, whatever the alternatives are, I think building up those alternative systems, I think is essential so that we’re not vulnerable to being in this monopoly currency system that we’d lived under for at least all my lifetime until the last decade.
Ben Nadelstein:
Well, I like Michael Malice’s quote, which is, We don’t need a majority, we just need an alternative. I do think that, especially on such complex issues like central banking, monetary policy, currency reform, these are really complex issues. And for someone who says, listen, I’m already homeschooling my kid. I can’t take another five hours to learn everything about central bank digital currencies, let alone learning it and then causing change in policy. I think that alternative strategy is much easier for someone to say, listen, it’s in my own private benefit to earn a yield in dollars. But compared to earning a yield in gold and silver, that’s just way better. And so I’m going to stick with the alternative. And so by the time, like you said, that worse option comes around where people say, well, we’re going to tax you on your meat purchases or what have you. But they could say, well, at this point, I’m just I’m going to switch everything over to crypto or monetary metals is going to be my way to save and continue to grow my wealth. Do you see that people in general are becoming more libertarian over time?
Ben Nadelstein:
I was pretty surprised during COVID to see how authoritarian people could become at the flick of a switch. Do you think that over time, Americans are becoming woken up to all this stuff and saying, wow, this is really insanity. Inflation is in crazy. We’ve got a guy who can barely spell his own name, who’s the President. And of course, all these crazy wars where we’re messing with Russia who has nuclear weapons, as do we. Do you think people are waking up to this, or do you think in general, libertarians are in a bubble saying, oh, trust me, everyone’s going to become libertarian tomorrow? Where do you think the country in the United States stands in terms of their leanings? Do you think people woke up after COVID?
Eric Brakey:
I wish I could tell you I was confident the country was becoming more libertarian. I did think that maybe a decade ago when we were like, Hey, are we having a libertarian moment? It looks like Rand Paul might become President or something. It didn’t materialize exactly how I’d hoped. I think that there are aspects or there are certain aspects or certain policy areas where people are becoming more libertarian or things that libertarians would identify with. I think that certainly it’s a positive that I think in the aftermath of COVID, in the aftermath of the Trump administration, and so many folks, I think on the political right in this country, have become much more skeptical of establishment institutions. For example. I mean, you hear commonly on the right now people really questioning the FBI and the CIA and the Federal Reserve, and you go back to the George W. Bush years. I mean, it was the right wing that was celebrating certainly the CIA and the FBI and all these intelligence agencies and, of course, the wars. So on the right, I am somewhat optimistic that in some respects, people… I guess I’d like to think of it, distinguish between People have become much more against a lot of the things that I am against.
Eric Brakey:
It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve become for the things that I am for. We can both be against the FBI, but if you think, Well, I’m against the FBI, but what we need to do is reform it, or what we need to do is we need a better FBI, or something like that, I think that as principled libertarians, we have a real opportunity right now to meet people in these moments where they’re waking up about the corruption of these institutions and provide the intellectual framework that leads us in the path to more liberty answers. But it’s not an automatic. Sometimes when people are against something, they might be running to an even worse alternative just because that’s the alternative that presents itself. So we’ve got to present the better alternative and the framework there. But as far as convincing a majority of Americans to love liberty, I don’t know. We’re so addicted to the welfare state. We are so addicted. We are so propagandized still by so many… I mean, I guess the mainstream media propaganda machine is losing its grip on a lot of America, and that’s a good thing. But I don’t know about convincing people.
Eric Brakey:
I could try to convince people one-on-one as best as I can. I’ve convinced a few people. But I guess these days I’m more and more thinking that the country as a whole, I’m concerned as a sinking ship, and I don’t see us persuading hundreds of millions of people to their mind until things get perhaps as bad as they got in Argentina. But we can find those libertarians that are out there around the country, and we can concentrate in one state like New Hampshire. Rather than persuasion, I’m pursuing concentration. Let’s concentrate in one state where we can create a liberty homeland that serves as an example for the rest of the country. If we want to change minds, we can show how prosperous New Hampshire is and will continue to to be and be even more so as we pursue and establish policies of freedom. And by being that lighthouse, that beacon, then perhaps people living in the states of tyranny might wake up and say, Well, those policies are really working out in New Hampshire. Maybe those are things that we should be looking at, adopting here and demanding from our politicians in our states.
Eric Brakey:
But you need a good working model of an alternative for a lot of people to buy into the idea that And this alternative system of freedom will actually work.
Ben Nadelstein:
In that vein, I really do like that model, because if you ask someone who disagrees with you on some policy or some point, you can say, hey, listen, all the people who believe in this can go to this state. You guys test it out over there. I’ll go to my state. We’ll test my ideas out over here. Listen, I could be wrong. It could be that 100 % income tax is the great idea. Okay, we’ll all end up going to a free and prosperous nation. Go to Vermont. Yeah, go to Vermont. But if, on the other hand, maybe no income tax, you’re saying, oh, my God, everyone’s going to starve to death and we’re all are going to die. Well, why don’t we test it out over here on the guys who like the idea? And if it works out great, maybe your grandkids will end up moving to New Hampshire. In that vein, do you see this more secession movement? A lot of people are saying, Well, maybe Texas will secede, or Texas wants to build a border wall, but the feds don’t want it, or New Hampshire wants to legalize marijuana, but it’s criminalized at the federal level.
Ben Nadelstein:
Do you see there’s a push towards states saying, Hey, we want to assert our domain, assert our rights? Or do you think that in a way, the federal government has put their fingers everywhere, and the states are becoming all one big blob onto the United States government.
Eric Brakey:
I think that it’s healthy that we’re having a conversation and dialog about it in the country more than I think was ever permissible when I was growing up. As far as is now the time for states to break away and secede? Some people say yes. I have a lot of questions about the practicality of how that would actually work. I do think that states a right to secede. I think that that’s what our country was founded on, right? The Declaration of Independence is the best secessionist document ever written.
Ben Nadelstein:
By the way, if you haven’t read it, it is really cool. Try not to swear on the Gold Exchange podcast, but it is a bad document in all the good ways. It’s really cool. If you haven’t read it, I do recommend reading it because like you mentioned, it’s this really interesting document all about, Hey, sing. We get to get out of here if we want to. I wonder what you think if Americans, in general, are having this more secessionary moment.
Eric Brakey:
I suppose the question is, when are we at a point where we recognize the system is not reformable and it’s time to just do something new and break away and do our own thing? I know that’s going to be on the Republican primary ballot as a sentiment of Republican voters in Texas. There is a lot of talk about it within free state communities in New Hampshire. Not everyone supports the session, but some people do, and they’re very vocal about it. I think the conversation is healthy. I’m much more of a radical, like 10th Amendment person, and I appreciate that my radical 10th Amendment position seems a lot more moderate because of the secessionist talk. I think that’s healthy. It’s odd for me to feel like a moderate when I’m saying we need to nullify all these unconstitutional policies from the federal government. It’s good. It means the Overton window is shifting in the right direction. I suppose that’ll be something people have to decide in their own states. But I think it is hard to get… I guess one of the stumbling blocks for me is as tyrannical as Washington DC is and as tyrannical as these policies are that are destroying so much, we still really benefit from things like free trade across the 50 states.
Eric Brakey:
And I do worry if a state like New Hampshire were to secede, I mean, are we going to be able to remain those, retain those free trade relationships? Are we suddenly going to be having tariffs and trade barriers put up against an independent state from the tyrannical ’49? What does that look like? So I guess the devil’s in the details there. I’m not closed-minded about it, but I am a skeptic. That we’re at that point right now and what a transition like that would look like. But the dialog is healthy, and I don’t know, I’ll be curious to see where things continue to go. I do think it is a healthy symptom of people realizing that so much of the federal government is not reformable. Frankly, I guess my ideal scenario would just be like all the 50 states to secede together from Washington, DC. We’ll just quarantine them, build a wall around Washington, DC, and the rest of us can go on living our lives.
Ben Nadelstein:
Well, and for people who are thinking, oh, my God, this is crazy. This is radical. What are these guys talking about? I mean, think about France, Germany. Lots of Europe used to be one big blob. And over time, the Austria-Hungry Empire became lots of little states. And the fact that the French speak French and the Germans speak German, everything’s okay. The Portuguese and all that stuff. And everything’s fine. They have their own currencies, they have their own trade agreements. Obviously, there’s things that could be much better. But it’s not like the end of the world happened when one big state become lots of smaller ones. And in some ways, you got the benefits of all these different policies like we mentioned before. Maybe France says, hey, we’re going to use nuclear reactors. We think that’s the best way to power our country. And Germany would say, oh, my God, nuclear weapons, like something, something, something. We need to do, solar power. And then at the end of the day, you’ll see, oh, my God, the Germans are freezing to death and the French are actually doing okay. So you can have this test case.
Eric Brakey:
Yeah. And here in America, if any state wants to to explore nuclear power, you got to get sign off from all these federal bureaucrats that block everything. So, yeah, if we’re going to have radical decentralization again within our current system, that would be ideal. But if we’re going to keep seeing power concentrated in Washington, DC, We got to look for different strategies.
Ben Nadelstein:
A couple of final questions here as we start to wrap up. What are some books, some resources? Obviously, checking out the free state in New Hampshire would be a good one, just visiting and maybe chatting with Eric and some of his friends. But what are some books? What are some resources that people can check out just to say, Hey, I want to learn more about this. I want to learn more about alternatives. Maybe I do want to homeschool my kid. What are some options? What are some resources you might recommend to someone like that?
Eric Brakey:
Well, if you want to learn about the FreeState project, first, I would say go to fsp. Org. You can learn more there or follow us on social media, like on X or Facebook. But really, beyond learning about it online, the very best thing you can do is just come visit. And we have great events. I mentioned earlier this March, I’m going to put a little plug in here. We have our annual event, the New Hampshire Liberty Forum, which is a conference. We’re talking about there’s going to be a huge sound money presence at the New Hampshire Liberty Forum this year, both on cryptocurrencies and gold and silver. We got some great keynote speakers who are coming, including Brian Kaplan, an economist from George Mason University, Glenn Jacobs, the mayor of Knox County, Tennessee, and the WWE superstar, Cain, right? Probably the only person in America who can body slam you while he quotes Mises and Rothbard. Tulsi Gabbard is joining us. We’re very excited to have her. And apparently, Donald Trump mentioned recently, she’s on the shortlist for vice president. So that’s very interesting. I’d be curious to see a rematch between her and Kamala Harris in a VP debate.
Eric Brakey:
We’ll see. But anyway, she’s going to be speaking with us at the New Hampshire Liberty Forum, and that’s going to be from Friday, March 15th to Sunday, March 17th. People can get tickets for that at nhlibertyforum. Com. Great time to come out, meet folks in New Hampshire, and see some great speakers. But then there’s also this summer, which is an event that has really become very popular. People from all around the country come to join us for this, which is the Porcupine Freedom Festival in June. This is a family-friendly freedom festival. It’s the largest liberty Festival in America. It’s going to be from June 17th to the 23rd. Ron Paul is going to be speaking with us. He’s joining us virtually. He doesn’t travel as much as he used to for understandable reasons. But we’re also going to have Scott Horton, Jean Epstein, Jeffrey Tucker, James Bovar, David Friedmann, many more folks. People can get tickets for that at porkfest. Com. That’s pork with a C, not a K. Because if you go to porkfestwithake. Com, you might get some great barbecue tickets or something. Might be delicious, but it’s not going to be the family friendly Freedom Festival that you’re looking for.
Eric Brakey:
Those are two great events that You can come out. You can join us. All your audience can. And come experience New Hampshire. Let me ask you, have you ever been to the Porcupine Freedom Festival?
Ben Nadelstein:
No, but I’m definitely thinking of coming this year after that quick promo.
Eric Brakey:
Well, you absolutely should. We’d love to get the folks from Monetary Metals to join us. And of course, it’s a great audience for you guys. All these libertarians gathered in one place, everyone caring about sound money and ending the Federal Reserve. And you guys have one one potential answer. So we’d love to have you guys at any of our events in the future.
Ben Nadelstein:
Now, I want to do a quick lightning round with you. I just asked you some fun ones. You give me the yes or no. I’ll start off easy, and of course, you can always pass on any question. You can even send it my way if you’d rather not answer. All right, so we’ll start with a really hard one, which is, who would you rather choose to have an hour long lunch with? You get Mises or Rothbard. Hour long lunch, you get to ask many questions. And of course, they both speak perfect English. And they I’m not going to start to think about crypto and everything that’s going on. You get to ask any questions you want for one hour. Who do you pick? Mises or Rothbard?
Eric Brakey:
I pick Rothbard because I think I’d be able to understand them better. I think Rothbard was just better at communicating things more on the level of the common man. So both brilliant in their own right, but I worry that Mises would talk over my head a little too much.
Ben Nadelstein:
Okay, next one. You have an option. You can only choose gold or silver. And I know you’re inclined to monetary metals. I don’t know what metals you’re interested in, but you can only choose gold or silver. Which one would you pick?
Eric Brakey:
I’ve been inclined towards silver, mostly because it’s got… It seems to have a lot more industrial purposes that I see a high upside on demand for silver. So I’ve mostly been between the two, I’ve mostly been investing in silver.
Ben Nadelstein:
Okay, now here’s a tougher one. You can’t live in New Hampshire. You either have to start living in California or in New York. Where do you pick?
Eric Brakey:
Oh, man. I can’t pick Maine. If I have to pick California or New York, I did live in New York for about a year and a half, and I did love it, except for the tyranny because I was a professional actor in New York City. So though, I guess, I don’t know, after COVID and everything, they really screwed up the theater scene there. I guess I would choose New York because it’s close enough that I can travel to New Hampshire.
Ben Nadelstein:
Okay. And then final one So a lot of people are worried about the Fed raising rates if there’s going to be a recession. In your opinion, do we see a recession this year? Do we even get a backfilled recession maybe? And they say, Oh, my God, we’ve been in one this entire time. Or do you think the Fed says, Hey, we’re going to keep papering over this until election season and everything actually smooths out okay.
Eric Brakey:
I don’t know. I’m not a fortune teller. I would guess… I don’t know. I don’t see them really being able to really effectively shut off the money spigot. So I guess we’re between a rock and a hard place. I would guess that they continue inflating because it’s hard to say no, especially in election season.
Ben Nadelstein:
Okay, and then truly final one, this is just a phone one for me. Do you think Biden is the nominee, or do you think he gets replaced?
Eric Brakey:
I do think he’s the nominee because I think that they’re really backed into a corner where it’s going to be very difficult to take Biden out without putting Kamala Harrison because she’s the second in line, and there’s all the identity politics surrounding her, but she is tremendously popular. So I think Biden’s probably the nominee.
Ben Nadelstein:
Okay, where can people find more of you? Where can they follow you in social media if they want to hang out? Chad, maybe even message you to hang out in New Hampshire, where’s the best place to follow you and find more of your work?
Eric Brakey:
Where I’m most active is on X, you can follow me at Senator Breakey. You can see floor speeches I’m given in the Senate about gold and silver or all the other liberty issues. You can see my random thoughts and musings about liberty. You can see what I’m doing, what we’re doing with the New Hampshire Free State Project. So check me out there. And it has been an honor, Ben, to speak with you for this hour.
Ben Nadelstein:
It’s been so fun. I can’t wait to meet you in person. Hopefully, I get to see you in PorcFest. Shake your hands, take a cool picture, maybe in exchange some gold and silver while we’re there. And thanks so much for listening. If you liked it, make sure to subscribe, follow Mr. Brekeon on X, Twitter, LinkedIn, anywhere you can find the guy. You just got to be listening. Thanks so much. And thank you for the fun interview.
Eric Brakey:
Thank you, Ben.
Additional Resources for Earning Interest in Gold
If you’d like to learn more about how to earn interest on gold with Monetary Metals, check out the following resources:
In this paper, we look at how conventional gold holdings stack up to Monetary Metals Investments, which offer a Yield on Gold, Paid in Gold®. We compare retail coins, vault storage, the popular ETF – GLD, and mining stocks against Monetary Metals’ True Gold Leases.
The Case for Gold Yield in Investment Portfolios
Adding gold to a diversified portfolio of assets reduces volatility and increases returns. But how much and what about the ongoing costs? What changes when gold pays a yield? This paper answers those questions using data going back to 1972.
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