Bloggers

Various Liberty-minded Keene personalities post here. Starting with NH natives and ending with the most recent movers, these are Free Keene’s bloggers. (Full names and forum “handles” included.) Click their names to see their blog posts:

Toby Iselin (”fmtvtoby”) -Toby is a New Hampshire native who has recently graduated college and is working on his masters. In addition to co-hosting “Free Minds TV” and Free Minds Radio, Toby is active in working towards a small Constitutional government.

Nick Ryder (”coconut”) – Raised in Keene since infancy, he attended the Keene government schools for thirteen years. Nick knows that people can graduate with better education than govt schools give with their lax policies on teacher quality and indoctrination to worship government. Nick is a former Keene State student, but has recently opted to spend his time on video production rather than institutionalized schooling. Some of his videos can be found on the blog here. He’s a Christian involved with his local church that understands the difference between doing what is moral, and forcing others to do the same.

Brad Jardis (”highline”) – Brad Jardis is a New Hampshire native and is well known for being one of the very first active rank-and-file law enforcement officers to join Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and come out publicly against the insane war on drugs. His work in LEAP resulted in him forming alliances and friendships with many people participating in the liberty movement. Brad admits that many things he did as a police officer he regrets. He hopes that by speaking out on liberty-related issues other law enforcement officers can understand that a society need not target peaceful people for prosecution who break victimless laws and that individual police officials should follow their conscience before blindly following orders handed down by politicians. Now having moved on from LEAP and the world of law enforcement, Brad has decided to blog here at FreeKeene.com!

Josh Kern (”Vesuvius”) – An avowed and proud egoist born and raised in New Hampshire, Josh is new to Keene and is studying architecture at Keene State College. He was fortunate to develop his mind and concepts of reality in a relatively free area of the world. Unfortunately, he was born to such people, been to such “schools” and subjected to such circumstances as to learn from first hand experience the nature of authority and the frustration of constant assault against individualism. With an artists mind and sensibility, Josh has always run against the grain, resisting any and all attempts at confinement and conformity. Rejecting the notion of God as nonsense by age six, he has always felt a compulsion to shatter the illusions of authority around him. The pseudonym Vesuvius describes perfectly the new fire of activism and awareness roaring from a once dormant peak, the activism of the Free State Project being that awakening rumble.

Chris Muskus (”COG_K” ) – Chris moved to Keene with his wife in the summer of 2000 from the Springfield, MA area. Although not a Free State Project Member, Chris got excited when he heard that New Hampshire was the chosen state of the FSP and then again when he heard that Free Talk Live moved into town. Chris tends to be a little quiet and on the shy side… until you get to know him!

Ian Freeman (”FTL_Ian”) – Voluntaryist, free marketeer, and host, affiliate relations, and webmaster of the internationally syndicated radio show, “Free Talk Live“. It’s his mission in life to effectively communicate, restore, and propagate liberty, to have fun doing it, and to profit. Ian uses profit to provide more opportunities to promote the evolution to a voluntary society.

David Krouse – Passionate about getting government to stop hurting people. Anti-war, because war always results in ‘colateral damage’, another word for murder. Anti-tax, because he doesn’t live for the purpose of funding other peoples choices. Happy to help when asked, or for a worthy cause. Keene is the smallest city David has ever lived in.

James B. Schlessinger Jr. (”JJ”) – James is the editor of, and a reporter for The Free Keene Press and an all-around cool dude. He works in the high-tech manufacturing field as a precision mechanic. He moved to Keene in December of 2007.

Dale Everett (”dalebert”) – Dale is an early mover originally from Georgia. Right after finishing his bachelors in Computer Science at Georgia Tech, he worked as a software engineer for eight years in California and completed his Masters at USC. He now does free lance programming and graphic design. Dale is also the author and artist for a liberty-themed comic strip called Anarchy In Your Head.

Meg McLain (”smeg”) – Meg moved to New Hampshire from her hometown of Portland, OR after discovering the true nature of government and its harmful effects. She came to Keene with a degree in film production, and the desire to be active in the shift from government violence to a peaceful and consensual society. As a filmmaker, she hopes to capture the passion and courage of those who will be the voices of change, so others will be inspired to take part.

Sam Dodson (”Samiam”) – Sam is a native Texan who embarked on a journey to discover himself and in the process, came across the message of liberty. Sam lived the American dream everyone said he should have, complete with: a high paying corporate job, a new car, a big house, 401k, frequent vacations around the world, and still something wasn’t right. Life had lost it’s luster, despite following everyone’s advice. A series of personal effectiveness trainings combined with the right people, events, and influences, began transforming his life from unhappy corporate lackey to activist, filmmaker, and entrepreneur. Today, Sam runs OTN Productions, The Obscured Truth Network, he’s a board member for CD Evolution, and he volunteers time to advance the liberty movement in various ways.

Mike Barskey – Mike first began solidifying his ideas and principles at the relatively late age of 27, when he first started reading Ayn Rand. Thinking he had finally learned “the answer” to the meaning of life, he researched more and more about liberty, discovered the Free State Project, and realized there were indeed like-minded people in the world! Prior to moving to New Hampshire form California in late 2008, Mike had never done any activism. He had never stood up for his rights, had never refused to cooperate with police or judges, had never tried to educate anyone about liberty. Things have changed. His most important change so far has been to learn that he was wrong: he did not know “the answer.” He is still learning, every day, from so many friends and other sources, that there are very many “the answers” – one for every individual person – and that voluntaryism is a peaceful philosophy in harmony with that idea.

Richard Onley (”Sam A. Robrin”) – Richard Onley adopted the libertarian viewpoint when he threw his copy of Steve Ditko’s comic book Avenging World across the room in disgust. The ideas wouldn’t leave him alone, however, and when customers in the Comics and Comix store where he worked observed that Ditko had “gotten hold of some Ayn Rand books,” Richard did the same. A speech by Roger McBride put him on the Party path, but campaigns, ballot drives, and policy-setting didn’t seem to be advancing liberty. Three years at Laissez-Faire Books was more productive, but the client base already agreed with the ideas sold. Disenchanted, he began living a “Bilbo Baggins existence.” Like Bilbo, though, Richard couldn’t ignore encroaching forces of evil forever, which brought him to Keene in December of 2008, where his wordplay and cynicism appear to be more of a contribution to liberty’s dissemination than anything else he’s yet tried..

Yadra H. Voat – Yadra moved to Keene in March 2009, in-time for the New Hampshire Liberty Forum. He prefers to work as an “I hope I’m right” kind of voluntarist in the same way that Mark Edge is an “I hope I’m wrong” kind of minarchist. When inquired of regarding his unusual name, Yadra likes to ask people “how often is Mark Twain remembered as Samuel Clemens?” He has observed that all moral actions among beings of equal moral nature are voluntary but not all voluntary actions are moral. Most people and Yadra already agree on most subjects, they just don’t realize it yet.

Brandon Durham (”Brandon”) – Brandon moved to Keene in June of 2009 from the Detroit, MI area. He had been a believer in small government philosophy before coming to the realization that only through a voluntary society can the rights and liberties of individuals be preserved. After learning of the Free State Project in 2004 Brandon felt that the FSP would provide the best opportunity to reclaim those liberties.

Sean Murphy (”Trifith”) – A long time constitutionalist, Sean came to the ideas of a voluntary society through the works of Ayn Rand and Stephan Molyneux. Moving from North Carolina to Keene, NH in December of 2009, Sean has been active in the local liberty movement, and can often be found doing outreach in the community, Robin Hooding in downtown Keene, and laughing at the state wherever he can. These days Sean finds the idea of a coercive state to be a childish anachronism of humanity’s youth, worthy of laughter, not fear.

More to come.