Unlike the bloggers here whose names are attached to everything they write, the editors at the Sentinel are notorious for publishing unsigned editorials. Why not stand behind their words with their name(s)? (I suppose we’re to presume their editorials are the consensus of all their editorial staff? Perhaps it’s just head editor Jim Rousmaniere?) Anyway, below is the text of a recent critique against some of the liberty activism in Keene. In it they attempt to marginalize the record-setting 420 celebrations and act as though ending prohibition is an unimportant issue. They also back the puritanical view that women should keep their shirts on, cause, well, they may be equal, but they shouldn’t act like it – in the anonymous editor’s view. Of course, they also suggest that these are the only things that Free Keene activists have done and conveniently ignore the inside-the-system activists who have run campaigns like Free Keene blogger Nick Ryder and blogger-at-the-time Julia Miranda’s city council runs. Additionally, had they actually done some fact checking by actually interviewing one of us, they might have learned that neither the 420s or topless events were created by Free Keene’s bloggers.
Anyway, thanks to the Sentinel for the continued coverage, no matter how misinformed. Here’s their anonymous editorial:
“I remember Keene from when I was a child, when there was a Woolworth’s on Main Street,” writes a Sentinel reader in the feedback section of the newspaper’s website. “When I bought my first car, the first thing I did was pick up my best friend and head to Keene. I saw Keene flourish in areas of social growth for many years.” But now, he writes, “Keene has to realize that those days are gone.” Instead residents have to deal with the Free Keene movement. “These new people are activists,” the writer says, “and it’s the role of activists in our society to push limits. I don’t see any disadvantage to setting the limits back.”
We hadn’t thought of Woolworth’s as evidence of social advancement, but the staff was pleasant and it did have a decent lunch counter. The recent libertarian shenanigans downtown might make people nostalgic for just about anything.
It’s not clear whether the “free” in Free Keene is a verb or an adjective — that is to say, whether those who march under the banner are proposing to free the city from some unnamed scourge or simply to celebrate the liberty that’s already here. Either way, the exercise is becoming tedious.
The most recent incidents involved a dozen or so people standing outside Keene Middle School holding signs that read “School sucks project.”
One demonstrator told a Sentinel reporter: “Private education based on performance instead of tests would give students the best chance to learn.” To which a 7th-grader replied: “They haven’t been here and don’t know what they’re talking about.” Good point. If they had been there, they probably would have produced better caliber signs.
“They’re wasting their time,” said an 8th-grader. “No one’s going to listen to them. They’re not even explaining what they’re talking about.”
The sad thing is that they were trying.
The school protests coincide with demonstrations in which women go topless from time to time to make the point that if men can take off their shirts, they should be able to as well. They can in Keene, which has no law against such behavior. Nobody probably thought one was needed until several women provided an anatomy lesson to students on a bus from the aforementioned middle school. Private education based on performance?
There are physical and cultural differences between men and women that become evident when people take off their clothes. Those distinctions may not impress some advocates of gender liberty, but they’ve been around for much of human history. Surely, the Free Keene folks have heard of them. Respecting conventions could be considered a matter of common courtesy unless the demonstrators are trying to make some sort of significant point.
A few of the activists have been contending that women go topless in Europe, as if that explained everything. It is true that women go topless in Europe at some public beaches. But European women do wear shirts most of the time. So there may be a misunderstanding here.
When the libertarian activists announced their move to New Hampshire, and when they began arriving here, there was speculation — mostly from themselves — that they would teach the locals to better appreciate the rich heritage of our liberty. And maybe they will, eventually. For now, however, what we’ve seen is a series of sophomoric actions apparently designed solely to attract attention: people turning Keene District Court into a madhouse; people celebrating the hallucinogenic properties of marijuana in Central Square; people holding up semi-vulgar signs in front of a school; and people taking off their shirts in public.
If that’s the best the community can expect from this social movement, let’s bring back Woolworth’s.
