The Free West Alliance (FWA) was an organization attempting to organize the migration of

libertarians Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's enc ...

and the like-minded into the

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

states of

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

and

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

, in order to influence local political policy toward libertarian ideals. It also sought to mobilize residents of the states who had libertarian politics.

History

FWA was created shortly after the selection of the state of

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the nor ...

by an earlier American

political migration Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

movement, the Free State Project (FSP). FWA founders were predominantly either former members of FSP who had "opted out" of New Hampshire in that organization's state selection process, or others who had associated with FSP but not signed up. The reasons for the creation of FWA are many, most prominent being the dissatisfaction many westerners felt over the selection of an eastern state, for geographical reasons and for the cultural split that became evident in the Free State Project discussion forums between "westerners" and "easterners". Note, some in the "western" faction actually lived in the east, and vice versa. The Free West Alliance was associated to some degree with similar

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

movements, and with the Free State Wyoming (FSW). The Montana and Wyoming branches of FWA were the most active. Evidence of prior, small freedom migration movements to Wyoming turned up in discussions on the various email lists associated with FWA. Montana and Wyoming are often viewed as states with strong anti-authoritarian traditions, and have a history of informal individual migrations for that purpose.

References

External links

Most recent archive of FWA Official Site
Politically motivated migrations Libertarian organizations based in the United States {{US-org-stub

History

See also

References

External links