Klaus Nordby's Militantly Dull Homepage:

The One To Die For

And many do . . . while they think they don't

The unbelievably great slogan on the car plate below is New Hampshire's official state slogan: "Live free or die!" Yes, it's real. Yes, with the exclamation mark. No, it's not a joke. It's really used on most NH car plates. I have discovered that most Europeans just won't believe this — which is why I must stress it.

This slogan is a quote from one of the American Revolutionary War's heroes, General John Stark. Around 1812, decades after the war — and when America was the freeest nation in the world — he wrote: "Live free or die! Death is not the worst of evils." How true.

When the happy day comes that I am living in New Hampshire and driving my own car, this design will be my custom car plate — and custom car plates is another freedom-based idea which most Europeans find scarcely credible (and which they mask by regarding it as "vulgar"): "You are to blindly accept the Number ordained you by The State! Do your Duty and Obey!" "Yes, Mylord, thank you, Mylord, for letting me be your humble servant." That's the implicit state slogan of most Europeans (and of course Asians, Africans, etc.) And so, since they accept this sick duty down to their marrow, they willingly embrace enslavement in a thousand ways — which is a form of living death, thus proving that the alternative posed by NH's slogan is a real one.

My custom car plate name is to be pronounced "I see Klaus". (The "iC" prefix is the naming convention I use at my iCognition software company — which is incorporated in New Hampshire.)