What would a town run by libertarians look like? Wild, happy freedom? Prosperity for all? In Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling’s A Libertarian Walks into a Bear, the answer is much more uncomfortable. Libertarians have issues – with every one and every thing. They are miserable in their “freedom”.

Grafton, New Hampshire has always had a libertarian streak. Before they completed the US Constitution, Grafton was already trying to secede from the USA. Any hint of tax or authority set the residents off. It has been slashing budgets and avoiding services ever since.

In this century, libertarians were drawn to Grafton by the promise of turning “a stodgy and unattractive thicket of burdensome regulations into an ‘anything goes’ frontier where…citizens could assert certain inalienable rights, such as the right to have more than two junk cars on private property, the right to gamble, the right to engage in school truancy, the right to traffic drugs and the right to have incestual intercourse…the right to traffic organs, the right to hold duels, and the God-given, underappreciated right to organize so-called bum fights, in which people who are homeless or otherwise indigent are paid small amounts of money to engage in fisticuffs.” This was the Free Town Project, and the pitches are from its website. It promised no or minimal taxation and no interference by any authority, of which there would simply be none. After all, New Hampshire was the home of the “Live Free or Die” license plate.

The people pushing this policy had their own reasons, rather than a consistent political philosophy. They were not successful in life. Some were sexual predators trying to start over with no boundaries (or ID). They were not builders or entrepreneurs, but arguers. Freedom was about the only word they had in common.

They attacked Grafton with an aim to tear it down to nothing, requiring no taxes and providing no services. Freedom from participating in the community was the goal. Every home was a castle to its owner, and private property was all that mattered. The government’s sole role in their scenario was to protect property rights. Roads, lights, fire parks, social services and police held no places in their vision.

“Grafton’s municipal office deteriorated from a state of mere shabbiness to downright decrepitude,” Hetling says. Buildings fell well below code. The public library could open for just three hours, on Wednesday mornings. Its bathroom was a refurbished Port-A-Potty, bolted to a wall. Potholed roads received no attention. The volunteer fire department relied on nearby towns. Stores disappeared. So did the school. By the time this book was written, the last retail establishment was gone. Life in Grafton kept deteriorating, while the nearby towns of Canaan and Enfield, with triple the tax revenues, were blossoming, accommodating, comfortable and inviting. And growing. In Grafton, police chiefs had to work, interview people and store records in their own homes over a stretch of 82 years. The contrasts with real government were stark.

One long subplot in the book involves a man who bought the old church, announced he was the new pastor, and ran it into the ground. Every year he refused to pay taxes. Every year he applied for a non-profit exemption. But as a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, he refused to apply to the IRS for 501(3)C non-profit status. Without it, the town refused his applications. But not believing the IRS to be a legitimate institution, he would not lower himself to deal with it. Instead, he fought off annual seizures, lived like a hermit and eventually, penniless, died in a fire in the church. Such is the price of freedom, libertarian style.

The town’s budget kept shrinking, and it could not keep up with normal commitments. People sued the town over everything, driving up legal costs in a budget that never even covered the basics.

Grafton libertarians seemed to spend all their time griping about their freedoms, but they had none. They felt the need to be armed, overwhelmingly. They were always on guard for the slightest challenge to their so-called freedoms. One walked around with a video recorder always on to prove to one and all every little slight he suffered on a daily basis. Hetling shows how he taunted people into such situations so he could claim martyrdom. Libertarians are constantly on their guard.

Graftonites got into arguments and fights. For the first time in decades, there were murders. Police calls soared. When fire broke out, neighbors rushed to help carry belongings out of the house, but then others stole them out of the fields. Sex offender registrations more than tripled in four years. A tent city took shape. Anything that required raising money for the town got voted down. Angrily.

There were absurd arguments over everything. When the state recommended a tax holiday for the blind, voters in Grafton tried to shout it down, claiming every blind millionaire in the world would move to Grafton, take over and raise everyone else’s taxes. The motion passed, but no millionaires descended. Civil discourse and common sense seem to have little role to play in a libertarian society.

Hetling spent four years getting to know the locals. It could be a struggle at times. Often, they clammed up simply because he was a journalist. Others because they had things to hide. They lied to him, and he knew it. The hostility was palpable: “Knocking on doors in Grafton has left me with the nervous reflex of tensing up every time the door opens. You just never know when you’re going to get Friendly Advice,” Hetling said.

The tension level was far higher in the land of the free of Grafton, and with no services or infrastructure, and no prospects for work or success, residents left, making the problem worse. This also allowed the forest to reclaim it, bit by bit.

This is where the bears come in, literally. Grafton is in bear country, and it was always noticeable, without being a big problem. But recently, residents started to feed them or made it easy for them to feed themselves. Where other towns enjoyed seeing the occasional bear, in Grafton they were considered a plague. Every other chapter in the book is a standalone bear story.

The book tries really hard to weave a parallel story of bears into the main drama of libertarianism. But it doesn’t fit and it doesn’t work. The libertarian book stands on its own, without any reference to bears needed, or adding any value to the politics. The bear chapters make it bulky and balky.

Every chapter in the book begins with an epigraph quoting someone famous, most often Shakespeare, mentioning the word bear. It is as if Hetling went through Bartlett’s Quotations, and found two dozen quotes with the word bear, and placed them at the top of his chapters. None of them connects to the chapter ahead. And none of them has to anything to do with libertarianism. They have no relevance to the bear issues in Grafton, and certainly nothing whatever to do with the politics of American-style libertarianism. It is forced, off topic, and really only supports the jokey title – A Libertarian Walks into a Bear.

Hetling does a terrific job of getting under his characters’ skins. He makes readers understand where they’ve been and how they came to this place at this time. He even followed one to Arizona, where she was finally able to relax, regain her composure, confidence and strength, and surprised herself by becoming independent again and enjoying her new community.

His research back to the time of independence builds a solid foundation for the deterioration to come. And he does it with humor, setting up situations and cashing with a sly remark. He also likes subtlety. Sarcasm adds a laugh or two along the way, too. Hetling tells a good story. Or two in this case. Just largely unconnected and unconnectable.

The message is that Ayn Rand was very wrong. Given the total freedom they seek, Americans cringe in fear. They fear losing any part of their freedoms. They fear their neighbors. They fear any kind of authority. Their community crumbles before their eyes at their own instigation. There is no cohesion, only suspicion. The libertarian ethic is anti-everything, pro-nothing, and a horrible way to live.

David Wineberg

Who could tell it's possible to write a funny book about politics!?
'A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear' (I admire the pun!) is a funny-not-funny title that both made me laugh and taught me a thing or two about how the world works.
It's not a book for everyone but if you are even mildly interested in politics, you're gonna love this one!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and feelings are my own.

I found this book very informative. I learned a lot about the libertarian party and bears. However, I feel that the book is very repetitive.

There were several instances while reading this that I laughed out loud and had to tell my husband about it. There were also several instances where I skimmed pages at a time because I was growing disinterested.

Packed full of ursine-pun-laced schadenfreude, this reads like a cross between a journal article and a standup act. It tells the story of the growth and (inevitable) dissolution of an attempt at a libertarian settlement in New Hampshire. To put it simply and use a metaphor from Parks and Recreation -- the town would have worked if everyone who showed up was a Ron Swanson. Instead, they got a lot of Jean-Ralphios. (And hippies and sex offenders.)

In sum: living in a government-free utopia sounds great until you realize that no one is filling potholes, repairing bridges, putting out house fires, or controlling the surprisingly out-of-control bear population.

A fun read that could've benefited from more aggressive editing. Still recommended.

A unique premise, it's a reading adventure that manages to make you laugh and makes you think, both while sending chills down your spine at the same time. A rare and thoroughly enjoyable ride. Highly recommended.

*My thanks to the author and publisher (via NetGalley) for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. It's greatly appreciated!*

A honey of a tale!
The title of this book raised three expectations in my mind: I will hear about rather committed libertarians; I will learn something about animals, particularly bears; and I will have fun doing it. I am pleased to report that A Libertarian Walks into a Bear met all three expectations!
New Hampshire, with its motto of “Live Free or Die” and town meetings where all the residents make major decisions for the town, sounds like fertile ground for an experiment in libertarian living. Grafton, NH, a small isolated community of about 560 households, looked like a good choice for a group of libertarians, who moved to Grafton in 2004 to “’liberate’ it from the strangling yokes of government.” The “group”, if it can really be called that, each had their individual notions of personal freedom, and it was as interesting to hear the disagreements within the Free Towners as it was to learn about the clashes with other townspeople and authorities.
This book is thought-provoking, and I believe one of its strengths is that it lets the readers develop their own thoughts. This is not a book where the author tirelessly grinds his axe and portrays the situation as very black-and-white. The reader gets to see both the benefits and the warts of less government and more government, more freedom and less freedom. Many people could agree with the libertarians’ push to allow them to grow marijuana or own a gun but draw the line at allowing adults to have sex with young minors or telling people if they want the road in front of their house to be maintained they should do it themselves. At the other end of the spectrum the excessive bureaucracy of the government at times clearly stands in the way of helping the citizens.
New England people have a reputation for being colorful and quirky, and there are plenty of them in Grafton. Author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling portrays them with warmth and sympathy, no matter where they stand on the political spectrum. I was especially drawn to Jessica Soule, a Navy veteran and ex-Moonie whose kittens were snatched from her yard by a bear. And I was glad not to be in the shoes of libertarian firefighter John Babiarz, who is faced with the ethical dilemma of being called to put out an open fire built by a group of libertarians to cook hot dogs when the area was experiencing a severe drought and open fires had been prohibited.
So what about the bears? Some might feel the bear theme, which plays a major role in the book (Highlighted by the presence of wonderful chapter epigrams mentioning bears from people like Charles Dickens and Abraham Lincoln) is irrelevant to the main theme, but I felt it was a brilliant ingredient. Rural New Hampshire is full of wildlife that gives the humans joy and heartache and presents beauty and danger. It is not surprising that there are differences of opinion in how to deal with this element of life and that those differences can have significant consequences. Bears are a good example in themselves and a wonderful metaphor for the broader issues.
In the course of spinning the yarn of the Free Town of Grafton , Hongoltz-Hetling takes a number of side trips. Some were closely related, such as the story of how the elite community of Hanover, NH, site of Dartmouth College, handled its bear problem. Others seem less relevant, like the story of Nobel winner Charles Nicolle, a French doctor working in Tunisia who discovered the toxoplasmosa gondii pathogen. In the hands of a less skilled writer, I tend to get impatient at such deviations from the main storyline, but these were reliably both fascinating, informative, and relevant.
Who would enjoy this book? A major factor in helping me decide how much I enjoyed a book is how many friends I want to recommend it to, and in this case the list is long. My libertarian-leaning friends (No, I doubt any of them would have moved to Free Town. ), my liberal friends, history-loving friends, friends with a sense of humor. As a matter of fact, I would recommend this book to anyone who likes books that make you think without hitting you over the head with the author’s thesis. As a matter of fact, if I were not somewhat libertarian-inclined myself, I might even call it required reading.

This book – in which libertarians have literally a title role – was researched, written, fact-checked, edited, probably re-edited (if it's like most other books), and generally endured all the torturous gyrations that any book must go through, all long before the current COVID-19 pandemic came along to blight our lives. But now the pandemic is here, and, try as I might, I see now everything through the lens of pandemic. So, even though this well-written and entertaining book was formed without regard to pandemic, here is my pandemic-influenced view:

As there are allegedly no atheists in foxholes, “There Are No Libertarians in an Epidemic”, opined The Atlantic recently (March 2020). Libertarians replied (here, here, and here, among other places) that there were still plenty of libertarians in this pandemic, thank you very much.

The problem is: the (to be clear: NOT sarcasm) principled libertarian intellectuals who write closely-reasoned defenses of their conception of liberty – like those cited above – have roughly the same relation to the libertarians portrayed in this book as the singing bears in Disney movies have to the actual reality-based New Hampshire bears who, at best, are daily flinging your garbage around your property in search of a snack and, at worst, are snatching defenseless kittens from your back porch and ripping them open with their claws as you listen, helpless, to their anguished kitten death-throes. (This last actually happens and is described in disturbing detail early in this book.)

If I remember correctly, at least one of the principled libertarian intellectuals cited above includes law enforcement as an essential role of the state to which libertarians have no objection. However, this book says the actual rank-and-file libertarians who heeded a call to move to the village of Grafton, New Hampshire, to establish a model libertarian town, while perhaps not disagreeing to the idea of law enforcement in principle, invariably ended up being, according to the author's characterization a “small army” of “suffering victims of bullshit traffic tickets, alimony burdens imposed by unsympathetic divorce court judges, and school systems that were unfair to their kids” (Kindle location 2996). They also have no trouble with menacing the author with not-so-veiled verbal threats and possibly-illegal displays of ammunition and firearms when he snoops around persistently in pursuit of those suspected of illegal bear killing. The Grafton libertarian leadership also had a occasionally problematic relationship with the law, as it initially contained a man whose interest in liberty included “a long-standing belief that minors could consent to sexual relationships with adults”. To be fair, let me include the following: “When a 2010 audio clip of him stating that view – specifying that a six-year-old could give consent – was publicized in 2016, ...” he was disowned by his Grafton cohort “(though he remained a prominent figure in libertarian circles)” (location 3005).

In case you get the idea that this book is just libertarian-bashing, let me say that, although libertarians are definitely bashed in this book, the author also points out the shortcomings of non-libertarian New Hampshire-ites (Hampshireans?) as well, particularly, the prosperous, wildlife-loving, and more politically-savvy residents of Hanover, home of Dartmouth College, who successfully lobbied for the state to trap a garbage-loving ursine named Mink, and her cubs, and relocate them, at public expense, to a remote area close to the Canadian border, where they would be somebody else's problem. Kindle location 3149:

A bear's life in Hanover is threatened, and the state moves heaven and earth to find it and treat it in accordance with the wishes of the public. A bear threatens a woman's life in Grafton, and the state makes a halfhearted effort to capture it before the incident quickly fades from the public imagination.

Still, libertarians come in for most of the bashing in this book. Attempts to establish a community free of self-defined excessive state interference result in a community that cannot fight its own fires or deal with it bear problems any better than the pampered “statist” (a favorite libertarian form of derision) of university towns. Attempts to live “off the grid” are rendered laughable by the arrival of those who define “off the grid” as “not paying for the electricity to power the wide-screen cable television that I cannot live without”. Grafton becomes an impoverished and dysfunctional black comedy before the whole things collapses and is abandoned.

The writing in the book is generally very good, but I wonder what got into the author, and what the editor (if any), was thinking (at Kindle location 2148) when it was decided that citing scholarship by a real-life Oxford history professor named Daniel Butt was a good occasion for several closely-following occasions of the scholar's name paired, often after tortured syntax, with the words “wipe”, “cracks”, and “whole”. You can call me a humorless and pandemic-vexed grump if you wish, but I stopped thinking that puns of this caliber were funny when I graduated elementary school, which was some time ago now.

Returning to the book as a whole: movements and their philosophies should not be judged by their most embarrassing practitioners, but they often are. The pronouncements of vapid movie- and pop-stars are used to condemn US liberalism, and the public antics of morbidly-obese Confederate sympathizers stand in for people of good will who think the world is going to hell in a hat-box. For a long time, libertarianism seemed too much of a fringe movement to attract the critical mass of foolish hypocrites who bring shame to other political points-of-view. But no longer.

The pandemic has thrown into high relief the occasional need for whole-community action in a time of crisis. If a small group of people disregards government regulations installed to protect the weakest of us, the whole community can suffer. But some deliberately fail to understand. As a veteran of New Hampshire-libertarian inflighting says in this book, “They don't get the responsibility side of being a libertarian” (Kindle location 1636).

Read a May 2018 article that the author wrote about Grafton's bears and libertarians here. Most of the information in the article appears in the book, in a different form.

A wonderfully written book that provides insightful commentary on what happens when local and larger politics conflict in an American town and how everything can’t be planned, despite the best of human intentions. A refreshing read that taught me about libertarian ideals and offered some laughs along the way! Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I think the author did a good job at presenting this story and what they tried to accomplish but I found it hard to stay completely engaged.

Interesting Story, Superbly Written - Yet Too Much Conjecture. This is an extremely well written book that takes a look at the Free Town Project, an initiative that seems to have splintered from the main Free State Project. Indeed, it is this very point that shows Hongoltz-Hetling playing loose with the timeline, as throughout the text here the author tries to claim that FSP came after Free Town, even as he is quite clear that Free Town began in 2003 - *after the creation of FSP*. Instead, the author details an entertaining tale of a wild cast of characters in the New Hampshire wilderness while constantly belittling the very people he is portraying and ascribes to bears much more critical thinking capacity than he documents actual scientific research to support. When he does mention another major center of the FSP - Keene - it is only very late in the book and he tries to portray FSP's influence there as negligible at best, despite the wide prevalence of the Project there. Overall, the author's preference for the bears over many of the people he is writing about is quite abundantly clear, and it ultimately tarnishes the aftertaste of the book as a whole, even with the entertaining bear stories. Perhaps this would have been better suited as a novel, rather than the nonfiction it purports to be. Recommended.

This book was interesting but I believe that it added little more to the already wonderfully weird Atavist Magazine article " Barbearians at the Gate- A journey through a quixotic New Hampshire town teeming with libertarians, fake news, guns, and—possibly—furry invaders." Still a great read but I felt like I already read it because of having read the article. To those who are not already familiar with the story, this almost seems like an absurdist alternate reality. Funny and Insightful!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC.

This was an unexpected gem of a book.

A mix of natural history, small town ethnography, and politics, A Libertarian Walks into a Bear is about a village in New Hampshire suffering from two infestations: libertarians and bears. Gafton, NH already has a long history of tax avoidance. However, as the town becomes a libertarian utopia experiment, humans aren't the only creatures who come calling. The story serves as a fascinating microcosm for declining public services versus nature.

I can't convey how well written this book is and how it so skillfully weaves together multiple topics. The tone is broadly irreverent yet quite respectful to the various characters who makes appearances. I wasn't expecting this to be a page turner, but it absolutely was. (I found out later that Mr. Hongoltz-Hetling is a Putilzer-Prize finalist and a George Polk Award winner. Getting to observe a master at their craft is a treat.)

I thought the toxoplasmosis theory and its lead-up felt a bit indulgent, but this is a small quibble.

Highly recommended

I was fully engaged while reading this interesting story - well, really, many stories. I have always wondered what would happen with less local government, and now I know! I liked the unbiased review of the events from the author. I totally lost interest in one chapter and tried to figure out how it got in the book - the chapter about international events. Otherwise, a great read and one I would recommend!