Visit
Thinking about moving to Keene? Feel like you should visit first? Here are some suggestions.
- Join the Free Keene Forum, introduce yourself, and start to interact with your future neighbors. This allows everyone to be a little more familiar with you prior to your arrival. Prior to your trip, you should announce your plans on the forum. You may also be able to find a couch or guest bedroom to crash in via our Housing subforum and save yourself the exorbitant hotel prices in the area.
- Check the Calendar prior to your trip to see some of the activism and social activities that may be scheduled when you are here.
- Call Porc411 on your way up or when you arrive at 603-413-0411 and leave a message announcing who you are (maybe announce your forum name as well) and how we can get in touch with you. Presumably you’ll have already made a forum post by this point about your visit, but Porc411 will reach people who do not normally peruse the forum.
Enjoy your stay in Keene! (This is a new page and will be fleshed out some more shortly.)
City Aggressors Continue Attack Against Homeless
Basically, the people calling themselves the city of Keene are trying to get the property owners to do the city’s dirty work and evict the homeless men from the lean-to behind the Hannaford shopping center. They are fining the owners hundreds of dollars each day the homeless are allowed to inhabit the land, so it will be up to the owners to remove them. Despite the homeless men working to improve their shack, one of the head aggressors makes it clear what the real issue is:
“The bottom line is there’s been no permit for the structure itself,”
Medard K. Kopczynski, assistant city manager
It doesn’t matter that these men worked to improve the safety of the structure they built and have happily occupied for months, you see, they didn’t BEG the city people for permission to build it in the first place. It’s not about safety – it’s about OBEDIENCE.
Now the city is threatening the property owners. If they don’t pay the fines (which they will), the city people will steal their property, just like they will do to you if you don’t pay their arbitrary extractions. Does anyone really believe that government is protecting you or serving you?
The Keene Sentinel’s David Greisman reports on the city gang’s continued aggression against peaceful homeless people. Story below. See OTN’s interview with the homeless men here.
The owners of a property where homeless men have taken shelter are facing an ultimatum from Keene city officials: have the men move out of the makeshift shack they built, or potentially pay up every day until that happens.
The land, behind the West Street Shopping Center in Keene, belongs to Timothy N. Robertson, a Democratic state representative from Keene, and his sister, Dorothy Arwe, also of Keene.
“My sister’s given in,” Robertson said this morning. “She’s the majority person behind the property. It’s a 60-40 deal. She says we’re going to do whatever they say Read more
Social Sundays Moves to Fritz Starting 11/1, Now at 2pm!
Keene’s weekly all-ages social gathering of liberty-minded people is moving to Fritz, “The Place to Eat” at 45 Main St! It’s still happening on Sundays but is now starting at a new time of 2pm.
Why the change so soon? Social Sundays had been taking place 4pm at Vendetta for over a year and the event unfortunately had to be moved to Armadillo’s at 5pm because of Vendetta’s new 21+ policy. Armadillo’s is still a great place to eat and gather, and Social Sundays may expand out there again once the gathering gets too big for Fritz (we may have to just have a block party someday once we hit hundreds), but the reason the event is leaving Armadillo’s for Fritz is because Armadillo’s charged a cover for a band that was to play last Sunday. Mind you, there’s nothing wrong with them doing this, it’s just not conducive to our open-to-the-public Social Sundays event. Turns out that Armadillo’s has bands occasionally play on Sundays and additionally some had complained about the limited adult beverage selection. Considering we want an open event that people don’t have to pay to enter, it was time to move Social Sundays again. Read more
Free Keene now on Facebook!
Thanks to Jeremy Couch, here’s the brand new Free Keene Facebook page – be sure to click “become a fan”!
Boston Globe Covers Free State Project with Focus on Keene Activists in Front Page Article!
Many will nitpick things in here, like the headline calling us “antigovernment”, (I’d prefer pro-freedom) but you really can’t get better mainstream media coverage than this. The story lavishes attention on our movement and even links to FreeKeene.com. Thank you to the Boston Globe’s Sarah Schweitzer and photographer Cheryl Senter for this great article:
From a jail cell in this rural corner of New Hampshire, Sam A. Miller waged a philosophical battle, one milk carton at a time. The soft-spoken electrical engineer declined food for nearly a month, save for swigs of milk. To eat, he said, would be caving to the tyrannical government powers that placed him here for illegally filming in a courthouse and refusing to reveal his legal name to jail officials. (He says it’s private; jail officials obtained it from a fingerprint trace.)
His resistance has made him a folk hero among antigovernment types who have been making their way to New Hampshire from points across the country since their leaders put out a clarion call six years ago.
The Free Staters, as they are known, hope to lure thousands of like-minded souls to the state, with the goal of paring government to a bare minimum by eliminating things like taxes, speed limits, and zoning laws.
Thus far, just 427 Free Staters have relocated. Yet, here in Keene and in pockets across New Hampshire, Free Staters are making their case in increasingly provocative ways. Read more
Sam Update: Phone Call from Sam & Help Get Him on “Freedom Watch”
Filed under: News, Obscured Truth Network, Thuggery, Update
So far, Sam’s arrest and imprisonment indefinitely without trial have barely scratched the surface of the internet, let alone the mainstream media. This is similar to the lack of coverage my case received when I was locked up for “contempt of court” and my tenants’ couch in their yard. Arguably, Sam has gotten more coverage as the Keene Sentinel did publish two front page articles as a result of his arrest, but those articles never broke into other papers in NH and the AP did not pick them up. Thank you to the few bloggers on the internet who have picked up the story. To everyone who has contacted their favorite blog or news service and suggested they cover Sam’s story, thank you. If you haven’t please take a moment and do so.
Also, here’s an easy task to complete on Sam’s behalf. You can help get him on and his story covered by “Freedom Watch”, the popular online-only FOX News show. Just visit this list of potential guests, scroll to Sam Dodson and click Vote and select 3 you may then spend up to seven more votes on other guests (I recommend also voting for Free State Project founder Jason Sorens.). Then you can do the same on this list of topics. Vote 3 for “Right to Record, Reporters Getting Arrested Everywhere” (and you also may want to vote for “Discuss the Free State Project”).
I spoke with Sam this morning. He’s wondering if he should stay in jail as the writ of habeas corpus is taken to the NH supreme court. (The superior court judge denied it, saying he couldn’t let Sam out without having his “legal” name.) Sam also didn’t get mail yesterday, which he seemed bummed about. I suggested the guards have been holding his mail. I also suggested he start eating. The hunger strike hasn’t done anything to gain publicity for his case, and will only serve to weaken his composition and distract his mind. Two weeks is enough, especially for someone with Sam’s body type. So, to get out of jail, he can either wait there and see what happens, pay $10,000 cash bail (which you can bet will have whatever fines he’s ordered to pay taken out of it after a trial, so this is the worst option), or give up his “legal name”, which may lead to a bail hearing and release on recognizance.
What should Sam do? Leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments and I’ll print them out and send them to Sam via mail-to-jail.
Update: Please vote up the article about Sam at Nolanchart.com. Just click the thumbs up graphic at the top right of the page. Thank you!
Dozens Attend FSP Recruitment Award Ceremony for Judge Burke
During this week’s Social Sundays, (attended by a record 32 liberty activists) a couple dozen people set out across Central Sq. to the front of the city building for an award ceremony honoring Judge Edward Burke of the Keene District Court. Activists decided to give the first ever Free State Project Recruitment Award to Burke because according to videographer Lauren Canario, “[Burke] has recruited more liberty-loving people to the Free State Project in a shorter time than ever recorded. His public outburst of rage at Ian Freeman for taking too long to sit followed by a 93 day jail sentence for having a couch in his yard convinced at least 8 people to fight tyranny sooner rather than later.”
After a speech from inspired new mover Yadra Voat, the award was accepted by Free Keene Blogger AnarchoJesse in Burke’s absence. See both the speech and acceptance comments in this video:
Money vs. Obedience
Filed under: Issues, Personal Freedom, Thuggery, Update
As you know if you’ve been reading this website for a while, the men and women calling themselves the “City of Keene” attacked me and my family because my tenants had a couch in their yard. I offered to move the couch if the complaining party (who was later revealed to be a city bureaucrat) would just come and talk to me like an adult, she refused, the government people continued to prosecute, and I continued to refuse to obey to see how far they would push it. It all culminated in their courtroom with me being thrown in jail on a sentence of 93 days – three days for the couch and 90 days on three charges of “contempt of court”. After a weekend in jail, I asked “Justice” Burke for mercy and was released with the stipulation that even though I had spent three days in jail I still somehow owe the $120 fine, or alternatively 10 hours of “community service”. Neither option was particularly attractive to me in that I’m certainly not interested in giving my money to the “STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE” and also do not have time for volunteering at the moment, so I made them a final offer. This was my opportunity to test how greedy the government people truly are. Read more
Notice of Nonconsent and Affidavit of Truth
Filed under: Announcement, Economic Freedom, Personal Freedom, Response
The City of Keene actually put dollar signs on their property tax bill this time around! Since they never answered any of my questions I included with my check last property tax time, this time I drew my own conclusions and invited their rebuttal. I stapled the check to the following document indicating on both the document and the check that their depositing of the check would constitute their agreement with my assertions. Now, obviously I understand that they are just going to use violence on me anyway as was recently proven in the “freedom couch” situation. I don’t believe these are magic words that will save me from their violence or anything, it’s just fun to give these bureaucrats something to think about. I think my next step will be to contact the state attorney genital, record the phone call, and ask some questions about the “consent of the governed”. So, in case you’re interested in what I wrote to the violent monopoly called government, here are the contents of my “NOTICE OF NONCONSENT AND AFFIDAVIT OF TRUTH” (.PDF): Read more
Liberty Activists Call WKBK’s “Talkback” 2008-11-22
Filed under: Audio, Issues, Obscured Truth Network, Personal Freedom
Liberty activists called WKBK’s Talkback on Saturday to discuss consensual services, Free Keene’s Ian being jailed over a couch in his tenants’ yard, peaceful political prisoners, marijuana, “disorderly houses”, and changing the system.
Please join us in calling the program with a pro-liberty viewpoint. Get details and discuss on this Free Keene forum thread.
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