I grew up on the border of Maine and New Hamp­shire and have always had a lot of respect for New Hampshire’s gen­eral phi­los­o­phy on gov­ern­ment. Their state motto is “Live Free or Die”, and they usu­ally put their pol­i­tics where their mouths are.

I believe in what I call the “Bubble Philosophy”. Every­body has their own bubble, in which they can do what­ever they damn well please, as long as it doesn’t punc­ture anyone else’s bubble. What you do with your life is none of my concern…as long as you take the same atti­tude towards me.

I used to con­sider myself as some­what of a social­ist. But as I get older, the Bubble Phi­los­o­phy, increas­ingly tilts me toward Lib­er­tar­i­an­ism. An odd combo that leads me to call­ing myself a socialist-​libertarian.

Anyway, back to New Hamp­shire, land of Lib­er­tar­i­ans. Those New Hamp­shire folk seem to also live by the Bubble Phi­los­o­phy. They’ve recently passed a law to allow civil unions for gay cou­ples. Regard­less of anyone’s per­sonal feel­ings about homo­sex­u­al­ity, I can’t see any legit­i­mate reason to say that this law harms anyone. It only affects gays.

New Hamp­shire also just rejected a law to make seat belts manda­tory. This is one of those things that is just so silly. To be clear, I always wear my seat belt. I even wear a helmet when I ride my bike. If that was the law to do so (as I believe it is in Mass­a­chu­setts where I live), it doesn’t really bother me. I’m not storm­ing Beacon Hill to demand my right to be an idiot. But, on pure prin­ci­ple, I dis­agree with the idea of leg­is­lat­ing such per­sonal choices. Decid­ing not to wear a seat belt or helmet does no harm to anyone except the person who made that deci­sion. The gov­ern­ment shouldn’t be pro­tect­ing people from them­selves. Go New Hampshire.

Lastly, New Hamp­shire just passed a law to ban smok­ing in bars and restau­rants. This is where the bub­bles inter­sect. A person should have the right to smoke where they want. Unfor­tu­nately, in a closed public space, a person’s right to smoke where they want infringes on another person’s right not to inhale second-​hand smoke. This is espe­cially true for employ­ees of said estab­lish­ments. As a smoker, it kind of sucks to always have to go out­side to smoke, but it’s really not that big of a deal. Hon­estly, at this point I’m so used to it that a few years ago when I went to a casino in Dead­wood, I actu­ally got laughed at by the door­man for putting out my cig­a­rette before going inside.

So, I say give one more point to New Hamp­shire. Long live the Bubble Phi­los­o­phy in the “Live Free or Die” state.

Many thanks goes to my Socialist-​Libertarian New Hamp­shire pol­i­tics infor­mant elf. She keeps me updated.

Update

It occurs to me in ret­ro­spect that in regard to the rejec­tion of a manda­tory seat belt law, New Hampshire’s motto could be more appro­pri­ately stated as “Live Free and Die”. Just a thought.