According to the Sentinel’s election rundown, turnout among the city’s 16,598 registered voters was 12 percent. Put another way, that’s 88% of people who are registered to vote that decided that the election wasn’t important enough to bother. Despite the claims of those who advocate for controlling their neighbors, the Keene election is hardly a mandate against liberty. It’s the same as always: a superminority of people are the ones who decide the winners and those people are usually those who support “the state”. Everyone else is too busy with important things like their lives.
Clearly, despite the excellent slate of liberty-oriented candidates, the average people of Keene did not fear freedom so much that they decided to come vote against us. Turnout this year was nothing unusual. Alternately, they did not desire freedom so much that they decided to come out and vote for us. Most people are in-the-dark as to what is happening here. Only the politically aware are likely to vote in municipal elections, and politically aware people tend to be those who wish to control others, hence, the easy wins for aggression-supporting candidates.
Surely the political class is resting easy with their victories, however, they should keep in mind that should the “sleeping giant” of average folks awaken, it would only take 2-3% of the population of Keene to come out and vote for liberty to completely flip the tables. For instance, I got 10th place out of 10 in the at-large race. However, I’d have needed only 700 votes to have made 5th place and won a seat on the council. 700 is about 3% of Keene’s 23,000 population. What could motivate those people to actually vote? Your guess is as good as mine.
P.S. Thanks to all those who voted for liberty-oriented candidates!
Keene held municipal elections on November 5, 2013. There were 10 candidates for At-Large City Council, with 4 of the 5 winners being current or former Councilors. Emily Hague is the only At-Large Councilor who is new to the Council. Kris Roberts received the most votes for At-Large City Council, and David Curran finished just 4 votes behind David Meader for the fifth At-Large spot. (more…)
Outside of the jurisdiction of the AKPF, Garret ventures about Chicago to meet the agents of the ACPF – Aqua Chicago Parking Force. In town as part of the 2013 Police Accountability Tour, Pete and Garret spent hours on the streets in search of authorities to film before stumbling upon a parking enforcer issuing citations just North of downtown. During the conversation about modern parking enforcement in the United State’s third largest metro, the concept of Robin Hooding is introduced. The reason for the city of Keene’s lawsuit against Robin Hooders did not have to be explained to Agent #734. “This city depends upon that revenue…That’s the reason why you’re getting sued, because this is revenue.” In fact, the recently retired uniform of Chicago’s parking enforcers included a reflective safety vest with large text reading REVENUE embroidered on the rear. It is refreshing to hear honesty up-front from the individuals tasked with revenue collection in the ACPF. Chi-Town officials were on the ball at preventing the Merry People from being able to perform saves in their streets, as they removed all coin-operated meters in favor of kiosks roughly two years ago. Despite the difficult one would face trying to comp the parking of others in the Windy City, Agent #734 parted Garret with, “Keep doing what you do, man!” Check out the special Aqua Chicago Parking Force feature embedded below to get a sampling of parking enforcement under the dominion of Rahm Emanuel.
Thanks to John Bush and Cat Bleish for their well-produced, entertaining series about living independently and sustainably. Episode one of Sovereign Living has premiered online and features plenty of footage from Bardo Farm, a project in Croydon, NH started by Free State Project participants. As an aside, John and Cat are both FSP participants currently living in Austin, TX.
The city of Keene has been introduced to a new verb called “robin-hooding.”
According to local activists and members of Free Keene, “Robin-Hooding” is their reference for “One who saves another from getting a parking ticket,” Ian Freeman said. Ian Freeman is a member of this activist group. He said that Free Keene isn’t really an organization or company, just some individuals coming together to help out their fellow motorists. (more…)
