Kenneth Royce, who has written numerous books on guns, privacy and freedom under the pen name Boston T. Party, is retiring the name, if not the writing.

“I think I’ve said all I wanted to say, all I thought I could say as Boston T. Party,” Royce said at the 2010 New Hampshire Liberty Forum.

In a wide ranging speech Royce gave some of his thoughts on the future of freedom movements in the United States.

Government doesn’t merely grow and erode liberty naturally, as if it were a force of nature. “People are trying to pull us down as free people,” he said. “We’re up against an enemy that is designing things, plotting things, chessboard kind of moves.”

It’s important, then, that liberty lovers understand the nature of the beast. Among other things, Royce lamented the lack of intelligence or counterintelligence capabilities among libertarians (though these are just starting to develop now). “Every large, significant freedom oriented group has government operatives in it,” he said. “They’re going to put someone in there to keep tabs on the inside, at the minimum, the moles. Beyond that, they’re going to have troublemakers trying to steer things one way or the other. . . . We need to know who our enemies are and what they’re up to.”

Royce also covers and shatters a number of other delusions which libertarians often seem to hold.

The New Hampshire Liberty Forum is an annual conference held by the Free State Project, a movement to bring 20,000 activists to New Hampshire to work toward reducing the size, scope and power of government and increasing individual liberty and responsibility. The project has signed over 10,000 participants, and over 800 have already moved. The Liberty Forum, and the project’s summer camping event, PorcFest, allow people undecided about the project to see the state firsthand and observe and participate in local activism.

["Tax Revolt 2009 - Heads on a Stick" photo by Jean-Pierre LeClair; CC BY 2.0]