Free Keene

Here’s your chance to sell me on the notion so make it good. Bare in mind, however, that I’m a critical thinker and I’m looking for logical arguments without the usual presumptions like “It’s always been done this way.” If we invented really efficient and clean-running hovercrafts, it would be silly to cling to the idea of wheels just because that’s how it’s been done for thousands of years. I’m also tired of arguments from need which are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter how much we need unicorns if they don’t exist or voodoo spells if they don’t work. There’s no point in having a discussion about the benefits of unicorns and their healing and purifying magical powers until someone convinces me they exist or they can create them.
(Read On…)

There has of late been a number of forum threads with sometimes heated discussion about whether liberty activists should engage in defensive violence against government people. I think violence against those men and women calling themselves “the state”, even defensive, is the worst possible path we could take. Not only does using violence lower you to their level, it also is exactly what they are trained for. It’s certain death for you and will be used as an excuse to expand the state’s intrusion into everyone else’s lives. To expound on these ideas, I’d like to share this article from Ogre in this month’s New Hampshire Free Press. I felt it did a great job of summing up how I feel about this issue. If we are to evolve to a voluntary society, it must be done peacefully. There is no way to peace; peace is the way:

I’ve been thinking more about pacifism and how to combat this government that is clearly no longer Constitutionally- or Freedom-based.

I have to admit, I used to be what Russell referred to as a “gun cleaner,” though I’d never heard the term. I am quite skilled with firearms, and I have more than one. I had always vowed that the government would get me only after I fought back with firearms. I was (and am) perfectly willing to be killed by the government (because I know where I’m going after that time). However, after reading and watching so much of the freedom activities in NH, and certainly I’ve got to give Russell a lot of credit here (and I would Sam, too, only I really figured this out before Sam was kidnapped), I’ve changed my views, and I would encourage others to, as well.

(Read on …)

The president of the Free State Project, Varrin Swearingen, has had his letter to the editor of the Keene Sentinel published, correcting the wild misinformation that has previously been found in the paper, particularly in Michael Schuman’s, “Will the Free Staters Please Sit Down” article. Here it is, since the Sentinel link will expire after a week:

“Freedom Lovers, Stand Up”

For those of you who don’t know me, allow me to introduce myself.

I moved to Keene in 2004 with my wife of 16 years and two children, now 7 and 8.

I have owned the same home in Keene since moving here. I attend Grace Evangelical Free Church in Spofford, am a DC-10 captain for an international charter airline, home-school our active children and play drums and other musical instruments.

I also serve as the president of the Free State Project.

Over the past several weeks, numerous news articles and opinion pieces have mentioned the Free State Project. I’d like to offer facts and opinions that I hope will shed light on the subject from an angle not yet covered.

(Read on …)

Ian, Mark, Keeniacs, Friends, and Family,

It’s the first Wednesday after my arrest. I’m writing this thanks to the kindness of the other prisoners here. I haven’t cooperated with the state up to this point. I was completely isolated and cut off from the world until yesterday. I’m sure there are questions, so I’ll do my best to explain.

I was at the court to get a copy of the sign on the wall restricting cameras in the lobby. Lance the court security person had previously claimed it’s an order. Only problem, orders are signed by the issuing judge. This order and the one obtained from the court clerk had no signature. This is clearly an attempt by Judge Burke (or whoever wrote it) to usurp power, in direct opposition to District Court Rule 1.3, which allows judges control over proceedings, and place very stringent guidelines explaining when freedom of the press and the public’s right to open courts may be restricted. What did you expect from a man appointed to a lifetime dictatorship by His Excellency the Governor - a nice little holdover from the days of King George, that remain in the New Hampshire constitution. Talk about isolated from market signals…this must change. Okay, the screaming.
(Read on …)

After writing several blog posts about how we live in a slave society, sometimes I wonder if I’d be personally better off if I could somehow return to that blissful ignorance of the inherent violence of statism. Maybe this struggle for freedom is a losing battle and we’d all be better off if we could just accept it and get on with our lives, just live the best slave lives possible. I was just chatting with the guy who inspired the Angry Josh character and he was expressing how he can’t believe most people aren’t as angry as he is. I think they are actually. They just don’t really understand what exactly they’re angry at.

I’ve watched my mom when she’s baby-sitting little children and they bump their noggin on something. My mom will smack the table and say “Bad table! Why’d you do that?” and then encourage the kid to do the same. The kid would slap the table angrily and quickly stop crying as if the pain has been relieved. Of course being the extremely rational type, I’m tempted to tell the kid “Watch where you’re going and you’ll have a lot less bumps on your head, dumbass,” but my mom realizes that toddlers aren’t ready for that level of logic. They’re just mad because they hurt.

(Read on…)

If you’ve seen the recent videos of courtroom oppression, you already know there’s a crackdown on the free press here in NH. Videographers are being refused entry into district courts across NH! A couple of years ago, begging (asking permission) to video in court was successful. However, when the violent monopoly (government) saw that the videos were helping showcase liberty activists’ successes in court, they started to crack down on cameras in court. In response to the restrictions, Dave Ridley notified the court he’d be disobeying their ban on panning a camera in court. Keene District Court’s judge Burke quickly reassessed his court rules and allowed Dave to pan and silently allowed several activists to bring recording devices in court to document Nick Ryder’s successful refusal to pay a speeding ticket. It seemed freedom was winning.

Then the real crackdown began. (Read on …)

Click to Enlarge

In August I did a comic called Passing the Buck. It showed how our Democratic Republic form of government absolves everyone involved of any sense of responsibility for the evil our governments do.

Nearly everyone I talk to about government has a sense that something has gone badly wrong. Most will blame some false dichotomy. “If we just get our guys in there and kick out the ‘bad guys’, government will finally be fixed.” Everyone seems to have the parts they are fine with and parts that are appallingly unacceptable. We’re floundering to find the fix but no one seems able to put his finger on it. We keep doing the same political games over and over, almost ritualistically, hoping to finally see real progress. Some will say that the elections are rigged or the process of campaign finance needs to be reformed. Some will go so far as to say certain people who held high office in our government have engaged in criminal acts worthy of prosecution. Those who disagree in one case usually have the same ill will toward past leaders. So are all these people admitting there are criminals in government? Is the government really this fallible? Is it not this paragon of moral authority as it’s depicted to be?

(Read on…)

The human body is said to be constructed of a few dollars worth of common chemicals, though I’m not sure what the point of saying this is. A blank DVD costs about a quarter in bulk these days, but you could pay thousands of dollars for one that has the bits on the surface rearranged in a preferred way. The software is what makes it valuable. Patterns are what matter.

In a universe equivalent to a blank DVD, the occasional emergence of a pattern more likely to persist dominated the chaos surrounding it and gradually led to the emergence of yet more complex patterns. It’s almost as if the universe itself is making choices, choices that sometimes seem correct and sometimes seem wrong, but it simply seems like a matter of time before it makes the right choices, the ones that move order forward. This is why I occasionally and reluctantly use the word “pantheist” to describe my views.

The human body was constructed over billions of years of natural selection, and of all the parts of the human body, the brain is the organ that stands out. The brain itself is a microcosm, a pattern which like the universe itself, makes choices and enhances the order of its own pattern through the process of learning and responding to the results of those choices, good or bad. Every other part of the human body seems to exist for the sole purpose of ensuring that this one organ can continue making choices, for preserving what we think of as consciousness. I’ve often discussed my predictions about the human race preserving what matters about us, our consciousness, in a superior and more persistent manner such as through some really advanced computer system. Such an advance would allow us to extend our personal lives dramatically; almost indefinitely.
(Read on…)

A popular point to make amongst the liberty crowd is to point out that if you are paying X percent of your income in taxes, then you are X percent a slave. In The Slave Test, assuming you didn’t pass, I promised to offer a method of determining what percent a slave you are. If my method were based on the percent of your productivity stolen then it could be quite a difficult number to calculate.

Taxes are pervasive, incorporated into almost every activity we engage in, and often evasive as well. There are the obvious ones that we see on our pay stubs and the fees we must pay to governments to partake of things we often presume to be the rights of free people, like traveling, or buying goods and services, or owning a home, but there are hidden ones like the fees that your employers must pay to hire you which comes straight out of the same employment budget they use to determine your salary. And that’s only the most obvious impact on your livelihood imposed by our masters.

(Read on…)

This Veteran’s Day, like all others, you and I will hear that statement repeated countless times to the so called “men and women in service to our country.” They are credited with “keeping our country free” and securing America from people who hate our way of life. But while security is important to a free society, the military that was established to defend the Constitution is currently undermining the bounds intended by the founding fathers by occupying over 150 countries with a US military presence.

There is no doubt that there are people in the world disgusted by American people, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide if they hate us for McDonalds and freedom, or for a government that can’t stay out of foreigner’s lives. Despite the foreign and domestic threats to personal freedom, who is really responsible for the privileged life most of us are lucky to live here? (Read on …)