Not too long ago when leaving Fit Nation – the gym I patron here in Keene – I noticed that on the railing directly opposite the front counter was a new addition – a trifold Air Force recruitment flyer, which to me, was peppered with misinformation and the glorification of subjecting oneself to the collective [something the so-claimed “authorities” know is instrumental to the perpetuation of their war machine].
I inquired whether anyone could place outreach material on that space and was told that it’d first have to be approved by Pete, the manager of the facility. “No problem” I responded, “I respect property rights.”
Soon after I left a stack of trifolds at the front counter, which asked “Do you know enough to enlist?” I was told they’d be given to Pete who’d get in touch with me.
A couple of weeks passed and I didn’t hear anything on this front, so when I saw a guy working the front desk that I hadn’t ever seen before, I was hopeful that it was Pete. It was, and he and I had a short conversation.
Pete told that he hadn’t yet had a chance to look at the flyers but would, though he was candid in noting that his initial thought was that the literature I brought would not be displayed, since “A lot of the members here are pro-military” and that “anti-military material” likely wouldn’t go over well. I stated that I considered the literature I brought to not anti-anything, but pro-freedom, and that my intention was to share another perspective with those thinking about entering the military.
I also proactively stated that I don’t believe that Pete or Fit Nation had an obligation to display the literature, but that, if the flyers weren’t put out, or if the Air Force recruitment flyers weren’t withdrawn, I may choose to vote with my feet (and wallet) and take my business elsewhere. Mind you, this wasn’t communicated in a hostile, ‘or else’ tone, but in a genuine attempt to find some common ground.
A few days later I was pleasantly surprised to see the stack of flyers I’d brought on the railing right next to the recruitment flyers! Kudos to Pete and the Fit Nation crew for choosing to facilitate the free exchange of ideas at their property.
MORE: Antiwar.com
QUOTES FROM: LibertyOnTour.com/Resources
- War is the health of the State. – Randolph Bourne
- War is just one more big government program. – Joseph Sobran
- When the rich make war it’s the poor that die. – Jean-Paul Sartre
- War is peace; freedom is slavery; ignorance is strength. – George Orwell
- You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake. – Jeannette Rankin
- Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. – Guy de Maupassant
- War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means. – Carl von Clausewitz
- Not in government or force, not in slavery or war, but in the creative, and thereby spiritual, power of freedom, shall our inspiration be found. – F.A. Harper
- In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. – Leo Tolstoy
- The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects. The more constrained the power of governments, the more power is diffused, checked, and balanced, the less it will aggress on others and commit democide. – R. J. Rummel
- The war on “terror” will never be over, it will just change locations. Like the war on drugs, prostitution, pornography, and the many others that will follow, it is a war on humanity. These wars will never be won; the State will just keep creating new boogiemen to frighten us with. The sheep will anxiously anticipate the next fall guy the State offers up as a sacrifice for the war on whatever happens to be next. Be careful, the next pawn could be me or you. – Mike Wasdin
