Submitted to the Keene Sentinel:
There is so much misinformation in Michael Schuman’s recent opinion piece, “Will the Free Staters please sit down?”, I felt the record should be set straight. First, let’s actually define what a “Free Stater” is:
The Free State Project (FSP) is an organization that promotes the idea that liberty-minded people move to New Hampshire and get active. A “Free Stater” is nothing more than a liberty activist, and could even be from NH. Schuman, incidentally, is from Connecticut.
Schuman claims the NH Free Press is a “media outlet” of the FSP. The NH Free Press is a newspaper run by two liberty activists, but the FSP has no control over what activists do when they get here. No one ordered me to respond to Schuman’s ill-informed piece; I didn’t ask permission from, and nor do I speak for the FSP. Russell and Kat Kanning, the publishers of the NH Free Press, may consider themselves “9/11 truthers” but I don’t know many liberty activists in the Keene area who feel the same way. We are individuals with divergent beliefs but with the common thread of loving freedom so much that we’re willing to take action for it.
As for his suggestion that liberty activists are akin to the rude person who stood in front of him at a concert once, I certainly haven’t met them all, but those I know are friendly, respectful, and are good neighbors. They also range from small government minarchists to those who are voluntaryists and absolutely oppose the initiation of force against peaceful people.
Schuman writes that libertarians say, “me first, second and third and the hell with everyone else.”
I understand why Michael feels that way. The libertarian movement on a national scale has been infiltrated and taken over by conservatives, and that’s likely why he’s gotten that impression. That’s one reason why I quit the Libertarian Party last year and no longer label myself a “libertarian”. I’d invite you, reader, to acquaint yourself with voluntaryism. Most people already act on a consensual basis and don’t initiate force on their peaceful neighbors. Voluntaryists say that it’s time all people act peacefully toward one another, specifically those who call themselves the government.
As to Schuman’s assertion that smoking in a restaurant is a crime with a victim, I’d like to remind him that restaurants are private property. If he chose to enter their premises, he consented to inhaling that smoke. About guns, he is correct that shooting spree killers appeared law-abiding until they started killing people, but ignores the fact that it is so-called “gun-free zones”, where these killing sprees tend to happen. When people are free to defend themselves, violence is less likely. That’s a big reason we are so safe here in NH compared to MA and other areas with gun restrictions.
Schuman finally suggests that Sam Miller, the man locked in county jail since 4/13 for recording video in the district court lobby and then using his supposed right to remain silent, is wasting taxpayers’ money! To clarify, Sam is not stealing or spending taxpayers’ money, the government people are doing that! As I write this, activist Andrew Carroll is going to jail for nine days for displaying a bud of cannabis in public. That will cost taxpayers hundreds of dollars. Sam and Andrew would have preferred to have not been arrested, and just allowed to remain being free, peaceful people. It was the government people who aggressed against them, just as they will aggress against you if you refuse to pay for their violence.
I will not sit quietly as injustice abounds. I will stand for peace. I will stand for liberty. So will the other activists, more of whom are coming to NH each month. I invite you to visit FreeKeene.com or better yet, come out and actually meet some local liberty activists on Sunday afternoons at 4pm at Vendetta on Central Sq., and you’ll find out who we really are, rather than having to speculate or listen to hearsay. Just last week we had a food drive and collected well over a hundred food items to donate to the Community Kitchen, because, like Schuman says, we only think about ourselves.
Ian Freeman
Blogger, FreeKeene.com
39 Central Sq. #313
Keene
