Featured Speakers for PorcFest XXI

Featured Speakers for PorcFest XXI

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Dr. Ron Paul will join PorcFest virtually to deliver a candid look at the dysfunctional American political system. Using anecdotes from his 23 years in Congress, he highlights the need for a limited government and more personal liberties. Dr. Paul captures audiences’ attention by relating the occurrence of current national issues such as debt, privacy, and freedom to the government’s neglect to follow the constitution. His unwavering passion leaves audiences motivated to speak out, wake up, and let politicians know what they want. Since his retirement from Congress, Dr. Paul has continued to work for limited constitutional government through organizations he founded, including the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (FREE), Campaign for Liberty, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. In addition, Dr. Paul recently launched The Ron Paul Liberty Report, an online network airing original programming on today’s most pertinent issues. Dr. Paul, the author of several best- selling books, most recently released Swords Into Plowshares, offering a personal refection on America’s history of war, foreign intervention, and prospects for peace. (Note: this is a VIRTUAL EVENT that will be aired at the Pavilion)

Spike Cohen is a successful business owner, Libertarian activist, and media figure. He is the Founder and President of You Are The Power, a nonprofit focused on using solutions-oriented activism to grow the Liberty movement. Spike started a web design company as a teenager in 1998. In 2017, he retired from web design to focus on effective political messaging, entertainment, and activism. This culminated with him becoming Libertarian candidate for Vice President in 2020, where he traveled across the nation by plane and bus, meeting countless Americans and sharing the message of Liberty with them. Spike is a tireless advocate for freedom with a commitment to help grow the movement at the grassroots level, training candidates and activists in positive and principled messaging to explain libertarian ideas to everyday Americans, and working with elected officials to implement common-sense reforms to improve people’s lives. Since the 2020 election, Spike has become a regular guest on cable news networks, nationally syndicated radio, international media outlets, and podcasts across the globe.

Dr. Naomi Wolf has been a fighter for freedom for decades, having written many bestselling works. She was one of the earliest to warn the world about the implication of the so-called war on terror. She wrote at the time that this war would come home and become a war on all. Trained in literature of the Victorian era but also broadly learned in many disciplines, she combines scholarship with a fiery passion for ideas and changing the world. As with most people in the freedom movement today, she is variously denounced as both too left wing and too right wing. The theme that sums up her life and literature is pretty clear in fact: it is about freedom and human dignity. Naomi will be joining PorcFest for a speech on the main stage and stay around after for an autograph session for her classic and important book, The Bodies of Others. No book better captures the terrifying philosophical presumptions of our times and what we have lived through. This is a grand opportunity to meet her and hear her speak. Her presence at Porcfest is made possible by Brownstone Institute, which is the top sponsor of this year’s event. 

Eric Brakey is the Executive Director of the Free State Project. He started in politics as an activist and eventual Maine State Director for the Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign. After taking the Maine Republican Party by storm and winning the state for Dr. Paul at the Maine GOP Convention, Brakey then won a seat in the Maine State Senate, becoming the youngest state senator in America at the age of 26. Across his three terms of office, Senator Brakey led successful efforts to pass Constitutional Carry, Right to Try, welfare reform, market reforms to Maine’s medical cannabis program, and a variety of other policy initiatives. Senator Brakey ran as the Maine Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018 and Secretary of State in 2021. Eric Brakey is completing his final term of office in the Maine Senate, after which he has declared his intent to move to New Hampshire.

Gene Epstein will join us for a major update on economic data and what it all means. He’ll also be participating in two Soho Forum debates at our Pavilion. He’ll take the affirmative and David Friedman the negative, on the debate resolution, “The Austrian economics of Mises and Rothbard contains economic intuitions that are important, correct, and missing from Chicago School economics.” Also, Gene will take the negative and Dennis Pratt the affirmative, on the debate resolution, “A better way to persuade more people of libertarianism is to convince them of the ethics stemming from self-ownership and the non-aggression principle, without relying primarily on consequentialist/utilitarian arguments.” In 2018, Gene stepped down from a 25-year stint as Economics & Books Editor at Barron’s Financial Weekly, where he wrote a widely-followed weekly column called “Economic Beat.” Since then, Gene has been actively directing his debate society, http://www.thesohoforum.org Gene maintains an active Twitter account @genesohoforum, writing articles and doing frequent interviews on many libertarian podcasts.

David Friedman is an American economist, physicist, legal scholar, author, and libertarian theorist. He is known for his textbook writings on microeconomics and the libertarian theory of anarcho-capitalism, which is the subject of his most popular book, The Machinery of Freedom. Friedman has also authored several other books and articles, including Price Theory: An Intermediate Text (1986), Law’s Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters (2000), Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life (1996), and Future Imperfect (2008). He has taught at UCLA and Santa Clara University, and a has been a contributing editor for Liberty Magazine. He is the son of Rose and Milton Friedman and continues their legacy as an influential figure in the liberty movement. Check out his new substack at https://daviddfriedman.substack.com.

William Ruger serves as the President of the American Institute for Economic Research. Ruger earned his Ph.D. in Politics from Brandeis University and an A.B. from the College of William and Mary. His scholarship has appeared in a number of academic journals including International Studies Quarterly, Review of Political Economy, Economics of Governance, Civil Wars, and Armed Forces and Society. His most recent scholarship examines the relationship between military service, combat experience, and civic participation. Ruger is the author of the biography Milton Friedman and co-author of two books on state politics, including Freedom in the 50 States (now in its 6th edition). Ruger is a veteran of the Afghanistan War and was awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, among other decorations. He remains an officer in the U.S. Navy (Reserve Component). Ruger was nominated to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and was a prominent advocate for ending America’s participation in the war there. Ruger was appointed by the president to the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board in 2020.

James Bovard is the author of ten books, including Public Policy Hooligan (2012), Attention Deficit Democracy (2006), The Bush Betrayal (2004), and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994). He is a 2023 fellow of the Brownstone Institute and a Libertarian Institute junior fellow. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Washington Post, New Republic, Reader’s Digest, and many other publications. His books have been translated into Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and Korean. He is a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors and a frequent contributor to the New York Post, the Future of Freedom Foundation, and other venues. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard “the roving inspector general of the modern state,” the New York Times tagged him “an anti-czar Czar,” and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a “one-man truth squad.” His 1994 book Lost Rights received the Free Press Association’s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism and Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner Award for the Best Book on Liberty in 2003. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought, and the National Rifle Association’s Freedom Fund Award. His writings have been publicly denounced by the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the chief of the Transportation Security Administration, the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, U.S. Agency for International Development, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by the Sierra Club, American Federation of Government Employees, American Civil Liberties Union, Washington Post, Washingtonian magazine, Washington City Paper, Huffington Post, and numerous congressman and other malcontents. The Justice Department covertly pressured USA Today to cease publishing his attacks on the Attorney General in 2015.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is a senior advisor for the Quincy Institute and editorial director at Responsible Statecraft, where she also contributes reporting and commentary about the military industrial complex, war, and Washington politics. Previously she served as the executive editor, managing editor, and contributor to The American Conservative magazine. She was also a political reporter for FoxNews.com for 15 years and a regular contributor to Antiwar.com.

Peter C. Earle, Ph.D, is a Senior Research Fellow who joined AIER in 2018. He holds a Ph.D in Economics from l’Universite d’Angers, an MA in Applied Economics from American University, an MBA (Finance), and a BS in Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Prior to joining AIER, Dr. Earle spent over 20 years as a trader and analyst at a number of securities firms and hedge funds in the New York metropolitan area as well as engaging in extensive consulting within the cryptocurrency and gaming sectors. His research focuses on financial markets, monetary policy, macroeconomic forecasting, and problems in economic measurement. He has been quoted by the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Barron’s, Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC, Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, NPR, and in numerous other media outlets and publications.

Lily Tang Williams is a Congressional Candidate for the 2024 elections in NH District 2. She is Chair of the NH Asian American Coalition (which she helped to found), a member of the Advisory Board of USPIE, (U.S. Parents involved in Education), and on the Speakers Bureau of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in Washington DC. Lily Tang Williams is a survivor of Mao’s Communist regime in China. Her parents were from an illiterate working-class family from China’s western Sichuan province. Lily grew up during Mao’s ten-year Cultural Revolution as a child, experiencing extremely poor living conditions, food rationing, social chaos and oppressive Communist restrictions and indoctrination. A few years later while studying in university, she received a copy of the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence from an American student. From these two documents, she first learned about the individual rights and liberty as opposed to collective rights. After Lily became an Assistant Law Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, she, in good conscience, could no longer support the Chinese Communist Party (CCP.) In 1988, she managed to leave the oppressive regime by seeking, without her university’s support, graduate study in the US.

Chris Martenson is the founder of Peak Prosperity and author of The Crash Course book and viral video series of the same name.  He is a world class dot-connector, making several key predictions that have either already come true or, if true, should have your attention.  As an MBA and former Vice President of SAIC, he predicted the 2008 financial crisis and helped his followers stay out of financial trouble at the time.  Having a PhD in Neurotoxicology and experience working at Pfizer, he also predicted the spread of covid and the lockdowns that followed.  He called the lab leak more than a year before it became mainstream and became a leading voice against the lockdowns and questioning the safety of the mRNA vaccines. More recently, he has been helping followers protect themselves from the so-called Great Taking, as massive transfer of wealth he believes could be the endgame of the elites.  The next crisis, according to Chris, is “for all the marbles.”  Massive debt, resource limitations, an economy that relies on infinite growth on a finite planet, and a tyrannical ruling class are all converging on what could become the most important change in living memory.  Will liberty survive the next crisis?

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation (fff.org), whose mission is to present the principled case for the libertarian philosophy. His books include The Kennedy Autopsy; The Kennedy Autopsy 2: Regime Change: The JFK Assassination; The Evil of the National Security State; and, most recently, An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, which was featured on C-SPAN’s Book TV. 

FFF has also published JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board, and CIA & JFK: The Secret Assassination Files by Jefferson Morley, a former investigative reporter for the Washington Post. FFF has also hosted two conferences on the JFK assassination, whose presenters included Academy Award director Oliver Stone, and a video series entitled “Altered History: Exposing Deceit and Deception in the JFK Assassination Medical Evidence” by Douglas Horne.

Mike Ter Maat is an Austrian-school economist and former candidate for Congress who is running for President as a Libertarian. In 2021-22, he campaigned as the LP candidate in the January special Congressional election in Florida’s District 20. Mike served as a police officer in Broward County from 2010 through 2021, including as a field training officer for several years, all as a registered Libertarian. Mike’s prior career in finance and economics included work with commercial banks, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and international and federal agencies. He advocated for free markets on behalf of the American Bankers Association for nine years before starting a professional education and strategic consulting business for bank executives in 2002, which he ran until 2009. Mike has traveled in thirty-five countries, taught economics at three universities, and been a substitute teacher at dozens of Broward county public schools. He has one wife, two kids and two stepdaughters, two dogs, and one truck, a BS in Aeronautical Engineering, an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and MS and PhD degrees in Economics from The George Washington University.

Keith Ammon is a New Hampshire State Representative from New Boston. He is the Vice Chair of the House Commerce and Consumer Affairs committee. Keith is serving his fourth term in office and has previously served on the Municipal and County Government and the Science, Technology, and Energy committees. He has also held the positions of Assistant Majority Whip and Clerk of the House Commerce Committee. He served on Governor Sununu’s Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets Commission and was Chair of the Commission To Investigate The Implementation Of Next Generation Nuclear Reactor Technology. In addition to politics, Ammon is a software developer focused on data analytics and blockchain technology. He is also a recreational pilot and advocates for New Hampshire’s “Live Free or Die” tradition.

Tony Lekas is an NRA Training Counselor and Firearms Instructor and a three-term New Hampshire State Representative. Tony’s talk is a presentation on current New Hampshire firearms laws, a discussion of safe and polite carrying of firearms, and a Q&A for anyone new to carrying firearms and is interested in NH firearms laws.

Jack Hunter is a co-founder of Based Politics and the former Editor of Rare Politics. Jack has written regularly for The Daily Caller and The American Conservative and has appeared in Politico Magazine,
The Daily Beast, The Spectator (UK), and Washington Examiner. In addition, he has been a guest on Bill Maher, Fox Business, Michael Savage, and Glenn Beck, and served as a guest host on The Mike Church Show on Sirius XM. Jack is the co-author of The Tea Party Goes to Washington by Sen. Rand Paul and he assisted former Sen. Jim DeMint with his book Now or Never: How to Save America from Economic Collapse. Jack was also the New Media Director for Sen. Paul.

Jeffrey Hann is the author of the new book “COVID19 – SHORT PATH TO ‘YOU’LL OWN NOTHING. AND YOU’LL BE HAPPY.’: Welcome to the new Age of Tyranny” He is also the man behind Journalistic Revolution, an open source news organization focusing on political, economic, and social information mainstream media reports on with bias. The website focuses on activism, liberty philosophy, and honest reporting. Jeffrey describes himself as a principled libertarian, anarchist, voluntarist, writer, journalist, political analyst, vaccine risk-aware advocate, son, husband, and father.

Catherine Bleish-Bonandin discovered she was a philosophical anarchist while giving a Soap Box Idol rant at Porcfest in 2009! A long time liberty activist, Catherine has moved from the front lines of the Ron Paul campaign and police accountability movement, to behind the scenes working as the Producer of Anarchapulco, and board member for the Greenbriar Intentional Community. Catherine raises chickens, goats, and sovereign children in Central Texas with her husband Paolo. You can read about her homesteading adventures at TheHomestead.guru.com

Her seventeen years as an active an involved member of the liberty community has provided her with profound insight into the nature of coercive control. Catherine explains that, “It manifests in a societal level, a communal level, relational level, and even within our own psyche. Finding freedom in our lifetime will require each of us to identify and irridacate the ways in which we participate in, and perpetuate, coersion.  When we each make the needed shifts in our Way of Being to exist as the sovereigns we were born to be, we serve as the building blocks of a truly free society.” To read about Catherine’s experience overcoming coercive control, visit SovereignLiving.com.

Jodi Shaw is a mother, musical artist and reluctant activist who rose to prominence in 2020 when she blew the whistle on the racially discriminatory “social justice” inspired policies and practices she encountered as an employee of Smith College in a series of YouTube videos. Her actions resulted in public denouncement by the college and the loss of her job. She has appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight, Tucker Carlson Today, American Thought Leaders (Epoch Times), and has been featured (not always positively) in Forbes Magazine, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times.

In 2021 Jodi filed “Shaw v. Smith College” in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. In 2022, she was the subject of Fox News documentary “Jodi Shaw and the Racial Mask of Whiteness,” and received the Hero of Intellectual Freedom Award from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA).

Jodi sees social justice ideology (a.k.a. “woke”) as part of a highly-orchestrated attack bent on creating division and sowing the seeds of destruction, causing damage to a primary source of power for any population: the ability to connect, maintain meaningful relationships, and build strong families and communities. Jodi writes about the social and emotional consequences of whistleblowing in her online blog “Diary of a Dissident” and in her forthcoming book: “Skin Deep: The Battle for the Soul of Smith College” (working title). Read more about Jodi at www.jodishaw.com.

Joshua Fallenstein has had a lifelong fascination and involvement with financial markets and finance. From a very early age he was reading the Wall Street Journal and charting stock prices on graph paper. He majored in Business with a minor in Finance at Ithaca College and graduated Cum Laude in 2000.

He worked in the world of finance as a tax preparer, proprietary trader, educator of technical analysis, and stockbroker representative. He became an independent insurance agent and tax preparer in 2014. In 2018 Joshua started his own business and passed the Enrolled Agent exam to facilitate his goal of helping people reach financial freedom through education and comprehensive tax planning. Now with over 10 years of experience, he has helped hundreds of clients simplify their finances and pay less tax.

Kitty Michelotti began working in alternative education settings on a 200-acre educational dairy farm in New York. At Sprout Creek Farm, Kitty learned to supplement and support the curriculum students were studying in the classroom with hands-on experiences she provided in the barns, gardens, and fields. Kitty earned Bachelor’s Degrees in Animal Science and English from Colorado State University (CSU), returned to Sprout Creek for two years as an AmeriCorps Volunteer, then received her Masters in Cooperative Extension Education at CSU. Her thesis project was a science-based summer camp (before STEM or STEAM were a thing), and it solidified her commitment to inspiring learning in kids in engaging ways they would retain. was appointed by the NH Education Commissioner, Frank Edelblut to serve as a homeschool liaison on the Home Education Advisory Council as a member, and elected Chairwoman. Kitty was on the administrative team and newsletter editor for Granite State Home Educators, the largest homeschool organization (over 5,000 members) in New Hampshire. Presently, Kitty is an educator at Chesterbrook School of Natural Learning as well as President of the Board and educator at Latitude Learning Resources in Derry, NH. Becoming a homeschooler was the ideal amalgamation of Kitty’s free-spirited teaching methods,  love of children, and of learning.

Franklin Einspruch is an artist in New Hampshire. He is also active in art criticism, comics, and alternative publishing. His art has appeared in 20 solo exhibitions and 42 group exhibitions. He has been a resident artist at programs in Italy, Greece, Taiwan, and around the United States, and was the Fulbright-Q21/MuseumsQuartier Artist-In-Residence for 2019 in Vienna. Einspruch has authored 245 essays and art reviews for many publications including The New Criterion and Art in America. He is the proprietor of a publishing and exhibition project called Dissident Muse.

Martha Bueno has been a consummate entrepreneur. She started her first business with her mother at the precocious age of 17. By 32, Bueno’s company, PureFormulas.com made the Inc 500 list (#97) for fastest growing companies in the USA. Martha recently launched Our Good Products, a legal cannabinoid brand that is poised to revolutionize the edible marketplace. Our Good Products provide all the benefits of cannabinoids, in a formulation that guarantees rapid onset, greater bioavailability, and in a sugar-free, healthy alternative. Martha also ran for Miami-Dade County Commissioner in 2022, where she made national and International news for her innovative OnlyFans campaign. Martha has a passion for business and leaving the world a better, freer, place.

Matt Barney, Ph.D. is an Organizational Psychologist, serial entrepreneur and founder of XLNC, a startup that invented measurement guardrails for explainable, unbiased, ethical AI measurement, evaluation and feedback. Previously, he was the Founder and CEO of LeaderAmp, an award-winning platform for expert and Artificially Intelligent coaching and assessment until May of 2022. In his 30 year career in multinationals such as AT&T, Motorola, Merck and Infosys, Dr. Barney has innovated interdisciplinary science and technology resulting in four patents, ten books, 45 peer-reviewed works and over 200 keynotes.

In 2020, LeaderAmp won the AI Award for Human Capital Development. In 2018, his team won two competitive international awards from the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology and the Association of Test Publishers. Since 2014, he has served on the Business Affairs committee of the board of not-for-profit scientific publisher Annual Reviews. He holds a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from the University of Tulsa. To promote the Free State Project, he wrote his 11th book released in 2024 entitled “Growing Liberty: Nurturing personal and economic freedom in an unfree world.

Kate Wand is a content creator, podcast and video producer, and host of the Kate Wand podcast. She is also a musician, a mother, a partner, a writer; a curious and passionate autodidact student of macroeconomics, philosophy, psychology, ideology, humanism and history. She is passionate about liberty, and entered the public scene in 2020 to talk about what she recognized as the most egregious assaults on individual and societal freedom, a manifestation of a growing collectivism and spiritual malaise. Kate hails from Canada, and discusses the state of affairs there and lessons we can learn, while emphasizing that freedom is an inside job, and starts with the individual.

James Ostrowski is a trial and appellate lawyer and author from Buffalo, New York. He graduated from St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute in 1975 and obtained a degree in philosophy from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1980. He graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1983. In law school, he was writing assistant to Dean David G. Trager, later a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York.
He was a member of the Moot Court Honor Society and the International Law Moot Court Team. He attended Professor Murray Rothbard’s private seminar in the history of economic thought in 1984 in Manhattan.

He served as vice-chairman of the law reform committee of the New York County Lawyers Association (1986-88) and wrote two widely quoted reports critical of the law enforcement approach to the drug problem. He was chair of the human rights committee, Erie County Bar Association (1997-1999). He has written a number of scholarly articles on the law on subjects ranging from drug policy to the commerce clause of the constitution. He has handled a wide variety of criminal law matters including felony trials,
appeals, and post-conviction proceedings including coram nobis and state and federal habeas corpus. He has lectured to the bar on New York State habeas corpus proceedings.

He is the author of eleven books including Government Schools Are Bad for Your Kids (2009), Direct Citizen Action (2010), Progressivism: A Primer (2014) and A Crime Against Humanity: Essays Against the Lockdown (2021). He and his wife Amy live in North Buffalo and have two children. He was a long-time youth baseball and basketball coach. His hobbies include cooking from scratch, speed chess and hiking.

Melissa Creem is the Chair of the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. It’s Melissa’s belief that liberty lives in New Hampshire due in large part to the hard work, dedication, and maximum effort of many liberty minded, vigilant individuals willing to make the sacrifice of time and energy to keep New Hampshire as free as possible. She hopes you’ll join our efforts.In addition to being an NRA instructor, Melissa is a founding member of the Women’s Defense League. She moved to New Hampshire with her husband prior to the Free State Project.

Dennis Pratt, 43+ years a libertarian, Dennis was the #1 writer on libertarian topics on the competitive intellectual essay site Quora, writing 1800 essays over four years primarily on ethics before being deplatformed. He moved to the Free State six years ago to become the consummate volunteer, building our Libertarian Homeland, starting the famous SHELL libertarian clubhouse, opening and running the Free State “Independence Inn”. leading liberty bus tours, raising hell with the nefarious LPNH, leading medicine to ease dying bills, and tweeting about libertarian ethics and the Free State (@dennisPratFree)

For the last five years, Dennis coordinated, redesigned, and ran PorcFest, more than doubling its size,. He was NH’s Liberty Activist of the Year, Keynote Speaker at NH Liberty Forum. His background is new product design in emerging industries from MIT and Northwestern. He’s 43 years married to wife Carol with a daughter Vivian and a dog Ron Paw. This year is his first year not running PorcFest, so visit his Ethics hub, Site RV122 and say hi.

Sterlin Lujan is an author, futurist, public speaker, nomad, and crypto-anarchist. He has worked in the cryptocurrency industry for over eight years and has written about anarchist political ideas and technology for 15 years. He is the author of “Dignity & Decency: Rhapsodic Musings of a Modern Anarchist.” The book is a collected work that promotes absolute freedom, compassionate anarchy, and the abolition of governments. He has worked for and consulted with some top cryptocurrency businesses, including bitcoin.com and the Status organization. Sterlin has also spoken at many events on topics ranging from voluntaryism, communication, cryptocurrency, agorism, cypherpunks, and the future of technology. These events include the Texas Bitcoin Conference, Anarchapulco, and the Greater Reset

Dayna Martin has been inspiring others for over two decades by sharing her experience with natural birth, attachment parenting and Radical Unschooling. She is a mother, activist, birthworker, educator and author of, “Radical Unschooling: A Revolution Has Begun”, “Raising Rebels: Parenting Advice From the Girl Your Parents Warned You About” and “Freeborn: Birthing Outside the Matrix”. Dayna has been featured on The Dr. Phil Show, CNN, Fox News, Nightline, ABC’s hit show, “Wife Swap”, 60 Minutes and HBO’s series, “The Anarchists”. Dayna travels the world helping families through changing their parenting paradigm to bring more peace and connection to their lives with their children. She has been a keynote speaker at parenting and Unschooling events in China, India, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and throughout the United States. Dayna has set up powerful Unschooling and peaceful parenting communities online and has organized Unschooling conferences and events worldwide. Learn more at www.daynamartin.com / www.radicalunschooling.com

Joël Valenzuela works in business development and marketing for Dash. A cryptocurrency user and advocate since 2013, he has been living entirely on crypto since 2015. He is a mover for the Free State Project and creates content for Digital Cash Network.

Tom Mannion is a former Marine born and raised in Massachusetts, but he never felt like he fit in there. He had read about New Hampshire winning the title of the most free state and followed its progress on the personal liberty front for years. When 2020 hit and restrictions and lockdowns became the norm, he used New Hampshire’s libertarian spirit as inspiration to change his local community. Unfortunately, the people of Massachusetts were content living under the
security theater imposed by the State and he wasn’t able to make any progress. This prompted Tom to finally make the move to New Hampshire, a state better aligned with his beliefs. His new freedom has provided perspective on the failures of his home state and fueled his drive to keep New Hampshire moving toward liberty.

Derek Proulx is a Free State native, avid outdoorsman, a three-time finisher of the challenging NH 48 4000 Footer List, a nature photographer, beer brewer, and veteran Sergeant of the NH Army National Guard, where he served 6 years in Bravo Battery 3-197th Field Artillery as a HIMARS crew chief. Currently, Derek is the Grassroots Engagement Director for Americans For Prosperity—NH, a national liberty grassroots political organization. Outside of AFP, Derek has volunteered for several New Hampshire liberty organizations including the Free State Project and NHLA, and is the State Director of the New Hampshire chapter of BringOurTroopsHome which focuses on Defend The Guard Legislation.

Samantha Pilbeam & Greg Garrett: Sam is co-founder of The Quantum Questions and teaches their courses online, as well as running Silent & Transformational Retreats with Greg in the UK and worldwide. She is a qualified Rebirthing Facilitator with over 10 years of experience running groups and one-on-one sessions. Sam has been on a Tantric path since 2018, studying under Advaitananda Stoian and applying the teachings. She is currently training to be a Tantra for Women Teacher. Greg is an established entrepreneur, coach, trainer, and public speaker. For over 20 years, he has worked with clients and students, inspiring them to reach their potential in their business and personal lives. He has many years of experience as a top performer in financial services, with Board positions in other companies including property, merchandising, and technology. While maintaining his entrepreneurial activities, he challenges himself to bring new and refreshing ideas that challenge problems and transform lives. Greg has previously been a speaker and a consultant, working with many individuals, businesses, colleges, and politics. He believes there are many avenues of personal growth, but instead of scratching the surface, real transformation comes from keeping focused, digging deeper, and making profound inner connections. He integrates the Patanjali 8 Limbs of Yoga into his practice.

Ian Underwood an made national news when his proposal to institute a budget instead of the usual ransom passed at the Croydon, New Hampshire Annual School District meeting in 2022. He has been a planetary scientist and artificial intelligence researcher for NASA, a certified hypnotherapist, the director of the renowned Ask Dr. Math service, co-founder of Bardo Farm and Shaolin Rifleworks, a popular
speaker at liberty-related events, and author of the Bare Minimum Books series (BareMinimumBooks.com). He lives in Croydon, New Hampshire.

Jody Underwood moved to a large, off-grid property in Croydon, New Hampshire in 2007. Since then, she has served on the Croydon School Board for 13 years and shepherded a bill through the New Hampshire legislature to clarify the law to allow private schools to be included in town tuitioning agreements. Jody is a founding board member of the School District Governance Association of New Hampshire (sdganh.org), whose mission is to help school board members discover their powers so they don’t get overrun by administrators. In addition, Jody has written research papers and delivered presentations around the state about how New Hampshire uses tax dollars for private schools, how town tuitioning works in New Hampshire, and school choice. Recently, Jody retired from her day job where she conducted research and development of technology to support learning and assessment in the classroom.

Carla Gericke is the Author of The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly). She has appeared on WMUR, CNN, and Fox News, been featured in GQ, Playboy, The New Yorker, been quoted in The Economist, and has discussed libertarianism on the BBC more than once. She has run as the Republican candidate for New Hampshire Senate three times. Since 2008, Carla has been building a consent-based, voluntary society in the Free State of New Hampshire. Join FSP president emeritus Carla Gericke for a freewheeling talk about how to remain balanced in today’s wacky world. Discover tips and tricks to protect yourself against the onslaught of manufactured fear. Carla has lived and thrived in the Free State since 2008, and she knows exerting the fullest practical effort starts with your health and wellbeing: None but ourselves can free our minds. 

Ben Weir is the founder of the Libertarians Party Emo Caucus and nonprofit organization Punks For Liberty. Ben has spent over a decade recording music, playing shows, and touring all over the country to spread his love for Liberty and punk music through his band. His goal is to create a pipeline from the music scene into the Liberty sphere by reaching the people who are most vocal against the government… musicians and concert goers. The purpose of Punks For Liberty is to integrate the values and perspectives of alternative culture into the broader libertarian movement, advocating for personal liberty, emotional authenticity, and against state intervention. We are dedicated to promoting an understanding of the unique expression inherent in punk culture, and to ensuring these are respected within our libertarian principles. Our aim is to inspire and mobilize supporters by demonstrating how punk values align with libertarian ideals, encouraging a more expressive approach to political engagement and policy-making. We seek to be a voice for those who find resonance at the intersection of alternative subcultures and libertarian philosophy, fostering a community that values deep interpersonal connection, artistic freedom, and individual rights.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is a senior advisor for the Quincy Institute and editorial director at Responsible Statecraft, where she also contributes reporting and commentary about the military industrial complex, war, and Washington politics. Previously she served as the executive editor, managing editor, and contributor to The American Conservative magazine. She was also a political reporter for FoxNews.com for 15 years and a regular contributor to Antiwar.com.

Joshua Groth was raised in the Rocky Mountains above the town of Boulder Colorado, Joshua is an adventure athlete with an appreciation for flight, the mountains, rivers, and our co-existence with nature. Studying at Griffith University in Brisbane Australia, Joshua founded SkyDance.com.au and flew Outback Air Safaris as a commercial pilot for 10 years while also pioneering adventure expeditions around the world. As a semi-professional BASE Jumper, wingsuit pilot, alpinist, and all-around adventure-enthusiast, Joshua has a drive, passion, and curiosity for life. This has lead him to try and better understand the world, not only through physical pursuits and interacting with the elements, but in better understanding how the world works from a first-principles perspective. For the past 7 years, Joshua has studied Austrian Economics, History, and libertarian-mided subjects that empower individual sovereignty! Observing how the money that we use influences most every area of our lives, Joshua believes that bitcoin has the potential to serve as a foundation for peace and prosperity for the whole world. Because of this, Joshua has dedicated much of his life to developing best-practices for safe and confidence-inspiring bitcoin self-custody. Tying in a basic understanding of physics, incentive structures surrounding the transition to the information age, and his risk-management and systems-development skills from a career in aviation, Joshua Groth offers unique tools and best-practices for bitcoin self-custody and individual sovereignty. (Joshua Groth Currently is the CFO for Earth Coast Productions, the CEO for Sky Dance Adventure, and founder of NovaSapien which will launch this month offering a bitcoin self-custody kit & online course.)

Constance Spencer is the lead producer of PorcFest and a Realtor. Constance’s journey with PorcFest and the Free State Project isn’t just about attending an event—it’s about actively shaping the community she believes in. Her decision to volunteer her time and energy stems from a deep-seated passion for liberty and a desire to make a tangible difference in the movement. Attending for the first time in 2013 prompted her and her family to move to New Hampshire from Alaska where her life has consistently improved, and she wants others to have that same experience at PorcFest! She had been active in the home birth community, homesteading and permaculture, and has given her children education freedom which has included homeschooling, trade schools and charter schools. Since assuming the role of Producer last July, after Co-Producing PorcFest XX. Constance has been the driving force behind the scenes, ensuring that every aspect of PorcFest XXI runs smoothly. From logistics to coordination, her meticulous attention to detail and tireless dedication have been instrumental in bringing this event to life. Constance leads the Independence Realty Group which is a real estate team at Coldwell Banker Realty, a real estate investor a homeschooling mom of four kids, is involved in multiple organizations throughout NH and is a dedicated advocate for liberty in the Free State.

Olga Sorens is the PorcFest XXI Co-Producer, a prominent businesswoman in the photonics industry, and a proud porcupine mom and wife. She made the move to NH in 2020 and is focused on community building, education freedom, and volunteering for various organizations throughout New Hampshire and beyond. She is an avid supporter of the arts, and New Hampshire’s cultural life. Olga’s family immigrated from the former Soviet Union in the early 90’s, and she often speaks on the dangers of socialism, following in the footsteps of her father – an outspoken critic of the Soviet regime.

Paul Puey is CEO and Co-Founder of Edge, a self-custody exchange and security platform for cryptocurrency. Edge (formerly Airbitz) has won accolades including being one of the top 3 mobile apps for bitcoin in the 2014 Blockchain Awards, being voted in the ‘Top 50 FinTech Companies to Watch’ by AlwaysOn Inc, and receiving first place in the Inside Bitcoins 2015 and Coin Agenda 2016 pitch competitions. Paul held lead engineering positions with Nvidia and Chromatic Research.

Keith Bessette is a writer, podcast host, engineer, and punk videographer. His fact-based writing and podcast episodes show how following the philosophy of individualism and individual rights would resolve most of today’s ills. Keith has been researching, writing, and talking about secession since recognizing that all empires end eventually, the American Empire is the biggest in Earth’s history, and decentralization is key to liberty. Keith hosts the Rebel Civics show on Unsafe Space, writes for UncoverDC, and guest teaches the Constitution in local schools. Keith spent three decades designing communications systems in the Military-Industrial Complex, and got over it. His Liberty 101 room talks at past PorcFests include “Secession 101”, “Secession Movements Overview”, and “Convention of States: Pros & Cons”.

Miranda Animus is a passionate advocate for liberty and a dedicated participant of the Free State Project since relocating to New Hampshire in 2014 at just 19 years old. During her talk, she will discuss the many unique opportunities to contribute and get involved throughout NH, and opportunities for charting one’s own path. She has played a crucial role in various initiatives and events that promote freedom and community engagement. Miranda has volunteered in multiple capacities for the Free State Project over the years, showcasing her dedication and versatility. Her leadership and creativity were key in the success of events like PorcFest and Discover NH Weekend. Miranda has also been active in political action and community support efforts beyond her involvement with the Free State Project. As a full-time professional managing training content, a homeschooling parent, and active volunteer in various areas, Miranda’s unwavering commitment to liberty and her contributions to the Free State community are exemplary. Her expertise is sure to get new movers motivated and plugged into the action in New Hampshire! 

Aria DiMezzo is a financial privacy trans anarchist activist and founder of the Reformed Satanic Church of Keene. In 2020, she ran as a Republican candidate for Cheshire County Sheriff and in 2022 for the New Hampshire House of Representatives for Cheshire County District 1. She will be joining us to speak about her experience as one of the “Cypto 6” sentenced last year and having finished her sentence this spring.

Aaron Day, former 2024 US Presidential Candidate, is a Brownstone Institute Fellow and the best-selling author of The Final Countdown: Crypto, Gold, Silver, and the People’s Last Stand Against CBDCs.

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Past Featured Speakers, from PorcFest XX, included: