A YOUNG man in a leather loincloth saunters past a woman dressed like Alice in Wonderland. The tang of pot wafts through the air, and a small remote-operated drone buzzes overhead (“Bought it in China,” says the proud owner; “I’d use it to follow chicks,” marvels one chap). Guns are everywhere; Bitcoin is the currency of choice. The Porcupine Freedom Festival, which ended on June 29th, saw more than 1,500 libertarians and anarchists descend on Lancaster, New Hampshire. The event’s mascot is a porcupine, which, though well-armed, only causes pain when attacked. New Hampshire is a natural stamping-ground for freedom-lovers. It has low taxes, lean bureaucracy and some of the loosest gun laws in America. Grown-ups can ride around without seat-belts or motorcycle helmets. The right to rebel when public liberty is “manifestly endangered” is enshrined in the state constitution.

This is why it was chosen as the site for the Free State Project (FSP), which aims to lure at least 20,000 like-minded people to this small state (population 1.3m) and make it even more “liberty-loving”. Since 2002 nearly 16,000 have pledged to come and help slash state and local budgets, limit government meddling and legalise choices that do not harm others, such as drugs, gay marriage and maybe prostitution. It will be a “Yankee Hong Kong”, says Carla Gericke, FSP’s president. “The one place in America that is economically free, like a beacon to the rest of the country—or even the world.”

More than 1,600 “Free Staters” have already made New Hampshire their home. They are beginning to have an effect. In 2012 the Granite State became the first to allow lawyers to tell juries they may acquit a defendant if they believe the law is unfair. In 2011 the state stripped away much of the red tape that kept home brewers from selling their wares, spawning a boom of “nanobreweries”. And in January the state House was the first legislative body in the country to vote to legalise marijuana for recreational use, although lawmakers backed down when Governor Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, proved reluctant.

Some locals feel that the anti-government agitators have gone too far. A group in the small town of Keene tops up parking meters that have run out to stop traffic officers from issuing penalty tickets. The traffic officers complain that activists sometimes harass them; a charge the activists deny. Other protesters are accused of provoking cops into arresting them so they can film the resulting altercation. An anti-libertarian group called “Stop Free Keene” grumbles about the public pot-smoking and rude street art that the newcomers bring.

In the jovial atmosphere of PorcFest, where idealists bond over their shared mistrust of rules and big institutions, the prospect of a future New Hampshire that can do without such things seems far-fetched. Tech geeks (who still dominate the Free State movement) enjoy home-made “bananarchy” ice cream while prattling on about the power of crypto-currencies. “Bitcoin can topple governments and end war,” gushes one fan.

Others are more realistic. “I’m an incrementalist,” explains Jason Sorens, the subdued intellectual who dreamed up the Free State Project while he was getting his PhD from Yale. Now a lecturer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, he is eager to use New Hampshire to test libertarian theories about enlightened self-interest and reciprocal altruism, small government and large networks of voluntary institutions. “We don’t have all the answers,” he says, “but it’s worth the experiment.”