Sentinel Publishes My Reply to Pam Martens’ Hit Piece

April 17, 2010 by Ian
Filed under: Essay, Issues, Response

Here’s the original confused, fear-ridden letter from Pam and my reply as published in today’s Keene Sentinel:

I see that Pam Martens has brought her misinformation to the pages of your fine newspaper and felt inspired to respond, as one of the much-maligned “free staters.”

Pam wrote:

“A majority of Free Staters currently in New Hampshire have indicated they want to replace public education with home schooling and private schools; they want to end all government regulation of businesses, from licensing manicurists, to getting drivers licenses, to elimination of planning and zoning boards. They don’t believe government should be able to mandate taxation to pay for schools, roads, Social Security or any social welfare programs like nursing homes.”

First, I highly doubt Pam has spoken with a majority of free staters, as there are more than 800 of them here in New Hampshire. Of course, the New Hampshire liberty movement is much larger than that. So-called “free staters” are merely the backup for the already existing liberty lovers here, many of whom are natives, unlike Pam.

What she doesn’t understand is that most liberty-oriented people I know are in favor of many of the things she talks about, minus the coercion. I’m fine with schools, roads and helping the poor. In fact, I contributed a significant amount to the United Way during last year’s funding drive, because I believe in charity.

However, government is not charity. It is force. I cannot support using the evil means of aggression to achieve good ends of helping people in need. We can help people in need without aggressing against our neighbors.

I support education, but not an education system funded by the threat of stealing peoples’ homes, which is how the government system is funded.

Who doesn’t support having roads? The idea that we can’t have roads without stealing from people is pretty absurd.

As far as regulation is concerned, I support responsible business, but I don’t believe the government is the organization to keep an eye on them, as I don’t support violent monopolies. It would make far more sense to have competing private certification companies and other market watchdogs, like local media and consumer groups rather than the one-size-fits-all government monopoly regulator/licensing bureaucracy.

Neighborhood associations are consensual ways to influence what your neighbor does with his property.

Planning and zoning departments of government are again, just more monopolization and violence. Houston proves there is no need for zoning. It’s one of the largest cities in America, and is unzoned.

Pam and others with a penchant for controlling people’s property should just move into deed restricted areas. Then they can argue over which paint color is appropriate. The rest of us who just want to be left alone should not be forced to have to deal with people with control issues.

The only part Pam got right is that free staters don’t tend to like taxation much. That’s because taxation is theft.

I don’t know who Russ Kotifla is. She claims he wants to stifle debate, but I and the other liberty-minded people in this area are more than happy to discuss these issues.

In fact, I have invited both Pam and her husband, Russ, onto my nationally syndicated radio program to have that discussion, and she hasn’t even bothered to return my call or e-mail.

I even invited her into the studio so she needn’t fear being hung up on.

It must be difficult to logically defend a system of institutionalized violence. No wonder she resorts to blasting out misinformation about those of us who support liberty.

IAN FREEMAN
39 Central Square, No. 313
Keene
Edited for length

Comments

10 Comments on Sentinel Publishes My Reply to Pam Martens’ Hit Piece

Lover on Sat, 17th Apr 2010 3:15 pm

tldr

AnarchoJesse on Sat, 17th Apr 2010 3:18 pm

Pam Martens is a dried out old crone in her twilight years. For fucks sake, she talked about Garden City (which I used to reside in) as if it were some small-everyone-knows-each-other-town, but its a part of the NYC suburban megalopolis.

She is delusional, by all accounts.

Paul on Sat, 17th Apr 2010 7:03 pm

Re: “Biggest Fan” There are lots of men in sudan interested in ruling over eachother by the threat of violence. If you haven’t noticed, that’s exactly what freedom supporters oppose. It doesn’t matter whether the gang calls itself a “government” or not — the effect is the same: aggressive violence.

srqjim on Sat, 17th Apr 2010 10:36 pm

Great response Ian and thankfully it was printed.

Jim Theriault

Paul on Sat, 17th Apr 2010 11:45 pm

Re: Wrong,

Yeah, just like the mugger doesn’t want to take your life, he wants your money, but if you refuse to pay, he’ll shoot you.

If you refuse to pay the mugger, you did not “force” him to shoot you. It’s still murder. If you don’t send the government cash, you did not “force” them to steal your home.

I wonder what you’d call it if I sent you letters, demanding thousands of dollars, and threatened to show up with guns to kick you out of your home, if you did not pay me. I imagine you’d have no confusion about who was in the wrong.

Nice attempt at rationalizing blatant theft, though.

Paul on Sun, 18th Apr 2010 12:05 am

Re: Citizen

Actually, the government, especially at the federal level, mainly abuses the weak, and helps the politically well connected, including financial billionaires, the military industrial complex, highly paid bureaucrats, etc.

The Fed prints up money, and hands it to the banks, at 0.25% interest, so they can lend it out to poor people at 6% or more. Could you make money this way? So could I.

The ever expanding money supply causes inflation — the dollar today is worth 3 cents in 1913, when the fed was created. This inflation hits the poorest, especially those on fixed incomes, the hardest.

Furthermore, poor people are disproportionately the victims of the war on drugs, and are trapped in government subsidized slums, with perennial welfare cycles causing idleness, illegitimacy, and crime, and their children are often trapped in truly horrendous schools. As always, the overwhelming bulk of the money goes not to the poor, but the middleman bureaucrat, and private entities who get sweetheart deals.

If you think the government is a net help to the poor or weak, you’re absolutely wrong. Go ask around a slum sometime, ask how they’re treated by police.

There is no such thing as utopia, but the initiation of aggressive violence against peaceful people, which you seem to be supporting, leads to corruption, waste, unaccountability, and further abuse (besides being inherently immoral). Why don’t you work to accomplish your goals through peaceful means?

I don’t support anarchy, and I don’t believe Ian does either. Rules against harming other people or their property should be enforced. But, the government is not some magical institution, whose members are exempt from rules for basic moral decency. Those in government should live by the same basic standards of decency we all do, in our interactions with each other.

Paul on Sun, 18th Apr 2010 12:16 am

Not to mention the number of jobs, and general prosperity, that is destroyed, by huge taxes, abusive regulations, licensing, as well as the wasted labor and destruction of war, etc — causing a great deal of poverty in the first place, and a reduction in genuine charity.

Michael Hampton on Mon, 19th Apr 2010 9:38 pm

I don’t support chaos, but anarchy is just fine.

Peacemaker on Tue, 20th Apr 2010 9:11 am

Great respose letter Ian, way to nail to it!

And let’s give Pam credit for being smart enough to realize she can’t HONESTLY defend her own philosophy.

Paul on Tue, 20th Apr 2010 12:12 pm

I don’t support chaos, but anarchy is just fine.

Yes, to an extent it’s a matter of semantics. I believe what you\’re thinking when you use the word “anarchy” is very different than what most people think. Most people consider “anarchy” a total lack of rules, or organized justice.

I find it’s more effective to just go along with the popular definition, and describe what I believe (and probably you do also), using other terms. The definition of words changes over time — semantics is not the battle I want to fight.

Post your comment below. Login in the far right column to get rid of CAPTCHA. If you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!