I understand the claims that you are not a group and have no coordinated leader. This simply is not true. There may be more than one leader, but they coordinate activity and command influence. You and I wouldn’t be having this conversation if that were not true. You claim victory as a collective when your people come out in numbers to support your activism or have some sort of perceived success and then claim individuality when others critizize it or there is some sort of percieved failure. It is indeed a convenient mechanism. Its that cowerdice that sepparates your movement from the civil rights movement in Leadership,accountability and eventualy in outcome.

KIng of KEeEn,

you are a prime example of why the “individual” flag is waved in the air. Who would want to share a tent with the genetic mutation of Max Headroom,Golom and Sally Struthers.
When you can talk like a grown up like Zeus or Paul and stop selling pencils in a cup on the street corner people will take you a little more seriously. UNderSTAND!!!!!??!!

Peers judge based on what you do, not how you feel, or how moral you think you are. I read this site because of my origional reaction to seening your members act in public for the first time and a need to understand why. Get rid the “who the fuck are these idiots” reaction in rational adults and you may just have something. Keep up the 3rd grade grandstanding, keep up the divisive alolescant behavior and expect to continue to be recieved as the train wreck novelty you have represented yourselves to be.

I don’t support every bit of activism done in the name of the Free State Project or Free Keene and have been quite vocal about the instances I have most disagreed with. I would rather just live out the principles I believe in while reaching out to Keene residents and others in a calm and peaceful manner. To use education, outreach, media, entertainment and other avenues to express what I believe to be true about what is wrong with this world and how best to fix it. To be a kind and decent neighbor, but to stand firmly against actions and behavior I find logically to be immoral and repugnant. Others prefer confrontational civil disobedience, politics and other forms of activism.

But keep this in mind: You are collectivizing individualists into a group just because they share a common belief in the Philosophy of Liberty and are assuming each activist is responsible for the actions of another. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Individualists are inherently stubborn. Attempting to force them to act as a coordinated group is like trying to herd cats. The entire point of being an individualist is to do your own thing, to decide for yourself what form of activism you believe is best to engage in. The most important thing to take away from this is that there is NO HIERARCHY and NO CONTROL over other activists. That’s the entire point. People who subscribe to the PoL and NAP believe people should be free to decide for themselves, not just go along to get along and blindly do what a majority tells them to do.

I can’t blame most noobs for thinking that the FSP or Free Keene acts as one big coordinated group like other groups they’re probably used to since the phrase “member” is used amongst us with wild abandon. You seem to be fairly well read on the FSP and the Philosophy of Liberty, however, so you must know by now there are no members. It’s a terrible misnomer. For there to be members would require a membership, perhaps consisting of dues and a card (and a retro cool decoder ring). There are, of course, only those who signed a statement of intent to move to NH for the purpose of liberty and to do whatever they personally believe is best in achieving “Liberty in our Lifetime”.

If you disagree with their choice of activism, feel free to express your opinion, just don’t expect that browbeating the rest of us and hurling anonymous insults randomly is going to do anything to make them shut up and go away. We are not your henchmen. We do not exert control over other activists. There is no centralized hierarchy or commanding structure. There is only individual liberty and self-responsibility.

Anything else would be counter to our principles.

My seeming contradiction, just means that if I believe a law is wrong then I personally fully accept the responsibility of my actions.

What precisely do you mean by this? It still seems to me that in 1b you were saying that immoral laws should be obeyed, and in 1c you were giving an example of an immoral law which you would not obey.

Would you say that some immoral laws should be obeyed, and others not? Are you saying that although immoral laws should be disobeyed, they should still be enforced?

I feel that through the processes I believe in that I can make change.

Ok, there’s nothing wrong with inside the system activism. If you tried to get elected to increase liberty, and roll back government abuse, I’d certainly support you.

Could you answer my question about majorities? Do you always believe in majority rule (even in the alley example), or just sometimes? In what circumstances do you support majority rule? Are there limits to what a majority has a right to do?

I meant ideolocigal enemies, lunch is over I will go back to work now

I guess that’s better . But, I still wonder why you advocate initiating violence against peaceful people, or using threats to extort money from them. You wouldn’t excuse such behavior in yourself personally, so I wonder why you’re willing to elect “representatives” to do it for you.

Goading me into your little maze of dillusional truisms isnt going to work. You construct the peramiters for the argument, they are loaded, overly simplistic and, as I said, draw to only one conclusion. The fact that this model gives you some sort of imaginary moral high ground is dishonest and speaks to the fragility of your philosoqhy. You are only right when you make the rules.

As I mentioned in my prior post, I was not requiring that you assume my scenario is morally equivalent to the current scenario. Rather, I was asking you to define your position and reasoning for that basic scenario, as a starting point.

For example, a valid response might be: “Yes, I believe it would be immoral, for xyz reason, for those two neighbors to steal from the other in the situation you describe. However, xyz reason does not apply in the current scenario.”

Could you please describe your moral position on the scenario I described, and your reasoning, so we can go from there?

If you think taxes are theft say so, if you believe the majority has no right to rule say so, tell me why.

Of course immoral things do not become moral just because a majority supports them. If two attackers going after a victim is not ok, simply because they outnumber them, why would this rule no longer apply as the numbers increase? Two attackers and one victim is wrong, but 200 million attackers and 100 million victims is a-ok?

We’ve been propagandized in this country into excusing immoral behavior, under the color of “law”. In the past, there have been other abuses which have occurred under the color of law, which have thankfully been ended. Reformers recognized (despite the fierce opposition of many) that no majority has a right to violate basic moral principles. Unfortunately, there are still areas in which we need such reform.

We need to eliminate the delusion that an act which would be completely immoral behavior for me, becomes magically moral when I get a bunch of my friends to do it with me.

the burden of explaining human nature and its historical implications realative to how your philosophy can logisticly play it self out is on you, certainly not me

I’m not a central planner, so I can’t tell you the best way for everything to work. No one is smart enough to make everyone’s decisions for them, or shape society in their image. However, I would be happy to answer any questions, and describe my ideas regarding how society might work, without the systematic use of aggressive violence.

In my perspective, taxation, the draft, etc, are immoral for the same reason slavery was immoral: they’re aggressive uses of force, and violations of personal rights, and liberty.

Imagine if you were to say to an abolitionist, “It is up to you to describe how society might work in the absence of slavery”. The abolitionist would probably be happy to oblige, and describe some of his ideas — but frankly, slavery should have been ended because it was an immoral institution. It wasn’t necessary to work out every detail of how society might work in the absence of slavery. I feel similarly about aggressive government.

Your two rapists one victim metephor you addressed towards EG speakes to the insensitive shallowness and desparation of your thought process . Is this the language we use to persuade the uninitiated?

You’re right, I’m sorry for using such a provocative metaphor. I thought I was hitting the thieves example a little hard, so I thought I’d mix it up . Let’s say two thuggish bullies and a geek. The particular example really is irrelevant, it’s the principle of “majority rules” that’s the issue.

Heres a little secret, your system only works if every one understands, respects and follows the NAP.

Not at all. There will always be criminals, who seek to harm others, and they should be brought to justice much in the same way they are now: people employed to protect innocents will apprehend them, and bring them to a court of arbitration. I do think “punishment” should be oriented more towards restitution to be made to the victim, rather than jail time, which really helps no one, least of all the victim (who has to pay for it), and which has extremely high recidivism rates.

It is the mirror image dillusion of Communism. Instead of the altruistic begnin hand of the state to protect us, the rationed self interest of the individual and the all powerful invisible hand of the market place will perserve the balance between human interaction, am I close?

There is no such thing as a Utopia. All we can do is recognize immorality and injustice where it exists, and oppose it. I am calling it out where I see it today.

Frankly, I think the more Utopian idea is that of government as we know it. If the problem is that some in society are inclined to use violence to seek power over their neighbors, why would the solution be the creation of an organization with a monopoly on such violence and power? Would not such power not only corrupt, but attract the most power hungry and corrupt among us, as we have seen? By contrast, the honest man, who simply wants to live at peace with his neighbors, rather than rule over them, would not be naturally inclined to seek government positions.

The solution to the problem of power hungry people is not to create an organization ready made for them to exert such power.

That is what makes this closer to a religion than a political movement. All we have to to is believe, Once your read the Market for freedom you will understand.

I’m not suggesting that you believe anything for anything other than rational reasons, if that’s what you’re intending to imply. Nor do I think understanding all these issues is trivial.

Reguardless of your myopic philosophy my origional problem with the Free Keene movement, isnt with what I see as a flawed thought proccess, It is with flawed behavior. If you had brought this movement to the White Mountain region and proved to the world your system works in and of itself on its own merits in a vaccume, shit I guess id have to pack up and move. You didn’t though did you? You came to one of the strongest tax bases in the state to planted the flag.

There would be and are taxes levied, and regulations enforced, in rural NH as well. Frankly, I don’t think ducking and hiding is going to work — certainly not in the long run. The ongoing and worsening destruction of liberty in this country needs to be confronted head on.

All of the creature comforts of home, 108 to be exact, but with none of the responsibility of actually being part of the community.

I don’t think “being part of the community” is equivalent to advocating the initiation of force against your neighbors. A community is, or should be, built upon good neighborliness, voluntary trade, willing cooperation, charity, etc.

If the tradgedy of the commons is such a philisophical lynch pin for for you, why the fuck are you on ours?

Because you’ll be taking my money to pay for your commons whether I like it or not. The most egregious examples are national: Wars, welfare, government schools, money for foreign dictators, money for farmers not to grow things, mountains of pork, etc. Then, there are the reams of victimless laws, stifling regulations, police brutality, etc. Examples of injustice and abuse arrive daily. For example, an elderly couple was recently imprisoned for the rest of their lives for the crime of importing orchids without begging permission from a bureaucrat.

Government is way out of control.

People, who would never personally attack someone because they bought orchids, or personally rob someone to pay for stuff they want, support these same actions in government, because they are deluded into exempting political activity from the rules for basic decency.

This fallacy at the core of the current government philosophy — the idea that moral principles do not apply to the actions of a majority — needs to be challenged head on.

The truth is none of you care what people in keene think of you.

I care. Actually, I’m a native of Keene (well, Surry).

If you cant convert the locals we just have to import some of our own. It has been made pretty clear. Can you see how adversarial language like that would harbor any resentment?

Yes, I don’t support such adversarial language.

Peers judge based on what you do, not how you feel, or how moral you think you are. I read this site because of my origional reaction to seening your members act in public for the first time and a need to understand why. Get rid the “who the fuck are these idiots” reaction in rational adults and you may just have something. Keep up the 3rd grade grandstanding, keep up the divisive alolescant behavior and expect to continue to be recieved as the train wreck novelty you have represented yourselves to be..

There are all different kinds of people. Unfortunately, some have been unnecessarily loud and confrontational in certain cases, and I hope they can come to understand that expressing anger is often unproductive. Civil disobedience should be done in unimpeachable manner.

I would at this point like to apologize for using free state and free keene interchangably. I don’t so much have a problem with folks who want to come to the state to be free. I live here and live that way. There is lots of space, beautiful land, pretty good pot, when you take into account our proximity to Vermont and really great people if you stay out of their face and give a shit what they think.

NH is definitely the greatest state in the union (although I’m not a pot smoker, so I can’t relate to that part). You’re right to make that distinction. Many free-staters, actually probably most, work inside the system. nhliberty.org is a good site to check out if you’re willing to stand up for liberty, but prefer a political approach.

If becoming part of the political landscape is what you desire, if you make a compelling argument and the people support you, good luck. This is not the path Ian and Co have taken, distancing yourselves would serve you well in the future.

I do support civil disobedience, and other outside the system activism. Do you think these approaches are wrong? They have been extremely successful at effecting very significant change in this country, historically — the examples are numerous.

I do think suggestions regarding how to do civil disobedience most effectively would be very welcome . Certainly I agree that there are cases where the actions of some participating in liberty activism have been less than ideal, as we mentioned (too loud, or angry), but I also think there have been great successes. What kind of civil disobedience, if any, do you think would be most effective in a positive way?

Thanks very much for being willing to have a real conversation by the way, and 30 lashes is certainly not needed . If it were to be required for such innocent mistakes, it would be very bad news for me.

There is nothing about the US court system that protects your liberties or property beyond some parchment. All the action taken by the people in the system is to press for more encroachment, for less binding of the system, for more “ease” in reaching convictions.

Because there is a monopoly on the law provision and law application in this society, neither the letter of the law nor the process of the law is going to serve justice.

Further, the distinction between substantive and procedural is messy and unclear. Even the system itself recognizes that this is a false dichotomy when needing to decide questions of choice of law or Constitutional Due Process claims.

Stop looking to the State to define your law – simply choose to live without using aggressive coercion and you’ll never run afoul of any just law – substantive or procedural.

My seeming contradiction, just means that if I believe a law is wrong then I personally fully accept the responsibility of my actions. I feel that through the processes I believe in that I can make change.

I meant ideolocigal enemies, lunch is over I will go back to work now

1a) Yes

1b) Yes

1c) No, I would not have knowing full well I would face consequences, I would fight to change the laws within the system the country operates.

EG, it appears to me that your answers 1b and 1c conflict. If immoral laws should be obeyed, how can you then say that you would disobey the particular immoral law given in 1c?

Would you say that some immoral laws should be obeyed, and others not? If so, what’s the key distinction?

Thanks, by the way, for actually honestly answering the questions

2)Survival of the fittest, I believe in Majority Rule, I you dont like start up somewhere else…. For the good of the collective pal.

Do you always believe in majority rule? What if two rapists and a victim are in an alley. Do you think that the fact that they hold a vote would make the rape moral, or do you think that the victim has inherent rights that would be violated, no matter how many supported the rape?

If you do not believe in majority rule in the case above, in what circumstances do you believe in it? What is the distinction?

Razor….I come to learn about my enemy…It is nice to be able to pick a freestater out in a crowd

I just want to let you be free to make your own choices about your life and finances, as long as you don’t harm me (or others), and I want you to extend the same courtesy to me.

Why should this make us enemies?