Nashua to host seventh annual Liberty forum

NASHUA – Nashua will once again become the center of the libertarian world this weekend when the city hosts the annual New Hampshire Liberty Forum. The four-day event, to run Thursday through Sunday at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, will bring together hundreds of people from around the state and across the country to discuss issues of limited government and individual liberties, among others. “We have an interesting range of topics, everything from alternative currencies to art. But obviously at the heart of the conference are espousing and promoting the ideas of freedom and liberty,” said Carla Gericke, president of the Free State Movement, which is hosting the event. “That’s behind everything we do.” The Free State movement, a campaign to bring 20,000 libertarian-minded activists to New Hampshire, first launched the forum in 2007 as a way both to encourage dialogue about liberty issues and to promote the Granite State to prospective members. Project officials settled on New Hampshire as their base in 2003 due largely to its small population, favorable tax structure and culture of individual freedoms, among other considerations, said Gericke, who moved to New Hampshire in 2008 from New York. “Initially, I thought (the state motto of “Live Free or Die”) was just lip service, but the longer I’m here, you realize there is a culture of rugged individualism,” she said.